Shadow of the Beast

[Sardonic]

Holy cow, this level. I feel like I only got through it by accident. That segment where you have to go floor to left, to right, to left, to up in quick succession was all but impossible, I'd love to see somebody post a youtube of how that was meant to be done, I could just never get the angle right and land with enough time to make the final jump to top, if I ever hit the left.

ow my hands

[HeliGungir]

.....https://youtu.be/_M6WZPPbKS8?t=389

Steam tries to embed youtube links, but they don't start at the timestamp in the link. So copy the link above and remove the starting periods

Also you can just go into arcade mode and watch replays from the leaderboards

[Paullo]

I'm so glad it wasn't just me. That section in particular very nearly had me quitting the game for good. I didn't keep a count, but some quick maths suggests it took me well over 100 attempts, probably closer to 200. No other section of the game has taken me even a quarter as many.

Even the fact that straight after the difficult jumps they make you do a couple more stunts before giving you a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ checkpoint... it's sadistic. Just an unpleasant difficulty spike that doesn't feel like it belongs.

I didn't even feel good when I finally beat it.

[Valtrez]

I had to take a break at this part. The precision required is ridiculous. I like a good challenge, but I don't want to be worn out after a single level.

I hate to sound negative, but if these levels had been part of the game when I played in early access, I probably wouldn't have gone to look through workshop maps because I would have believed I wasn't good enough for the online content. This is a hell of a skill jump from the original adventure mode.

[RoRo™]

If it's any consolation, Shadow of the Beast is as bad as it gets in the Lost to Echoes campaign. The levels following are a cakewalk in comparison (at least if you ask me). But yeah, that wall jumping part is brutal. I can usually get it now, but I still mess up fairly frequently when attempting it.

... But if you think that's bad, wait until you try Inferno in Sprint. It's in the "Nightmare Fuel" category for good reason.

*only level I haven't beaten* >_>;;

[CR48]

yup, i pretty much made my mind that in 90% of the tracks, i won't get near close to get Plat medals, just gold for basically completing the track and not crashing, the freedom of reaching the end by one's means got reduced to sprinting while exploiting gaps, basically MK64's Rainbow Road shortcut tier of "skill"

[Californ1a]

Originally posted by Boi Hek:

yup, i pretty much made my mind that in 90% of the tracks, i won't get near close to get Plat medals, just gold for basically completing the track and not crashing, the freedom of reaching the end by one's means got reduced to sprinting while exploiting gaps, basically MK64's Rainbow Road shortcut tier of "skill"

I'd suggest you try some of them before dismissing it - the routes required to get diamond medals are generally more difficult to execute than following the road (at least on the official maps, can't speak for every workshop map), not just a simple hop across to another section a lot of the time.

[RoRo™]

Originally posted by Boi Hek:

yup, i pretty much made my mind that in 90% of the tracks, i won't get near close to get Plat medals, just gold for basically completing the track and not crashing, the freedom of reaching the end by one's means got reduced to sprinting while exploiting gaps, basically MK64's Rainbow Road shortcut tier of "skill"

Oh dear god no. Watch some of the replays done by the top times on each track. There's some crazy, crazy stuff.

[Mumrah]

I wanted to throw in my opinion on this track.

It took me 30 minutes to complete, I lost track on how many times I had to reset that one section. I was almost going to record the footage, after the time spent trying to figure out the very specific maneuvers.

I did not get the feeling of accomplishment after getting past that part. I chalked it up to luck, with a passive look on my face. I kept performing what I knew what the Dev intended us to do, until the game decided it would work.

[Host]

That section took me 20 seconds at most to figure out at first. The only remotely difficult thing about it is that the lateral gap of the first left-to-right transfer is so narrow that if you haven't learned to rotate as you jump (not after), you impact the edge. This is a typical beginner move, as is not lining your car up properly (I guarantee you were driving parallel with the road or even slightly downwards, as I've seen this many times before). The real problem is that most of the other levels are so easy and forgiving that you can get through them without actually learning anything beyond the basics. I see that the people complaining have <10 hours in the game, which sounds about right for someone getting past all the official levels with sloppy skills. So I guess my point is, the level isn't hard, it's you who's bad at the game, and maybe Lost to Echoes should be locked behind more achievements to avoid this difficulty shock.

[Sardonic]

We're all very proud of you for your skill at synth car game, honey. Thank you for once again proving there is no regularly played game on steam that people won't throw up elitist gatekeeping junk about. Now for the rest of us mere mortals, yeah, it's a difficulty spike, and maybe they should have added a tooltip or something if this required a move that had never been required before.

[Host]

I'm not that good actually, but with hundreds of hours more experience and having played many more levels and seen what's possible in terms of difficulty, I think my opinion has as much merit as yours. And it is just that, my opinion, and I didn't want to sugar coat it. If someone calling you bad at a game is 'elitist gate keeping junk', then you're too sensitive. I mean, how would you personally rate your skill? Be honest.

[Sabaithal]

That section was more like a difficulty wall that a curve. I've tried 40 times and still haven't gotten past it yet. Jumping is the only thing you can do to not die, and half the time the jumps kill you in a different way.

EDIT: Got past it, somehow. Again, it felt like pure luck, not anything skill related. Like the physics just decided not to slam me into the side of the next EVERY platform that particular run. Never playing that level again though.

[default_loser]

I just thought I'd let the developers know that after playing this one section for 40 minutes and then just missing the gap to finish the checkpoint and having to restart it, I realized this just wasn't fun. I really wanted to finish the campaign, but I felt like after 40 minutes of trying to do those wall jumps over and over, only getting through it 3 times, and having to restart it due to crashing later on and unforgiving checkpoints, I just wasn't making any progress or felt like I was getting better.

This section is why I won't recommend this game to friends, sorry.

[Californ1a]

Originally posted by default_loser:

I just thought I'd let the developers know that after playing this one section for 40 minutes and then just missing the gap to finish the checkpoint and having to restart it, I realized this just wasn't fun. I really wanted to finish the campaign, but I felt like after 40 minutes of trying to do those wall jumps over and over, only getting through it 3 times, and having to restart it due to crashing later on and unforgiving checkpoints, I just wasn't making any progress or felt like I was getting better.

This section is why I won't recommend this game to friends, sorry.

It's meant to be more challenging. I don't expect everyone to be able to play LtE right after playing Adventure for the first time; I'd recommend trying some of the easier maps in the Arcade sets first before trying to dive straight into LtE. Get a better handle on the controls by practicing on other maps first and then this section isn't really that difficult once you're used to the maneuvers from other easier maps. Also, personally, not recommending a game just because of one section in one map seems a bit ridiculous if you enjoy everything else about the game - it's just a matter of practice before you're able to do that section, and even if you never do LtE again, there's nearly 3k maps on the workshop you can play, and about 100 other official maps.

[default_loser]

Originally posted by Californ1a:

Originally posted by default_loser:

I just thought I'd let the developers know that after playing this one section for 40 minutes and then just missing the gap to finish the checkpoint and having to restart it, I realized this just wasn't fun. I really wanted to finish the campaign, but I felt like after 40 minutes of trying to do those wall jumps over and over, only getting through it 3 times, and having to restart it due to crashing later on and unforgiving checkpoints, I just wasn't making any progress or felt like I was getting better.

This section is why I won't recommend this game to friends, sorry.

It's meant to be more challenging. I don't expect everyone to be able to play LtE right after playing Adventure for the first time; I'd recommend trying some of the easier maps in the Arcade sets first before trying to dive straight into LtE. Get a better handle on the controls by practicing on other maps first and then this section isn't really that difficult once you're used to the maneuvers from other easier maps. Also, personally, not recommending a game just because of one section in one map seems a bit ridiculous if you enjoy everything else about the game - it's just a matter of practice before you're able to do that section, and even if you never do LtE again, there's nearly 3k maps on the workshop you can play, and about 100 other official maps.

I guess it's the fact that I didn't have any real trouble with anything else in the game until this point. It didn't feel like a natural rise in difficulty, it felt like suddenly I was playing an expert map out of nowhere.

I don't think not recommending it is ridiculous though. When someone asks you about a game, usually you make a comment about the first thing that pops into your head about it, right? At this point, this is the game that "was really fun until I hit a difficulty spike that made me want to stop playing the game." Even if I go back to it and beat it, it's going to be the game "that I spent over an hour on one section in the middle of a campaign so I could continue." It's personally not something I'd recommend to a friend.

I'll likely give it a shot later, because the campaigns were a big draw for me and I'd like to get through them and feel like I got my money's worth - but that's not how I want to feel about a game, you know?