The last set of bosses feels extremely unfair (Spoilers)

[Zelinar]

Starting from the fight against Milla, the bosses just take a huge hit in quality. Regardless of what character I'm using, I just feel like I'm not even supposed to avoid the attacks, just gotta abuse invincibility frames and pray to outdamage the boss.

A lot of people have already commented on the fight against Milla, so I might as well express my opinions on the final boss rush:

Second encounter against the battle ship:
- Right from the start you get prompted with several warning signals, this first attack isn't bad if you are playing as Lilac, but with Carol you just can't dodge it without using your kicks and take the hit. I honestly don't understand why there are no springs for this fight.
- The stage is way too small compared to the one in which you first fought against the ship, limiting your mobility and making the lasers more annoying and hard to dodge
- The machine gun/missile barrage, DEAR LORD I just don't even.

Regarding the second fight, the orange mech suit:
- Unpredictable, without any semblance of a pattern.
- Way too many attacks that make the boss stay out of your attack range, more than difficult, it's just makes the fight tedius and too reliant in waiting.
- Its dashing attacks comes up almost instantly, not terrible for Lilac, extremely hard to avoid as Carol
- The laser shots feel...wonky. It's hard for me to explain but they just don't feel like they track you properly.

Final Boss:
- His knife attack comes up extremely fast, the first time you fight him you are guaranteed to take the extremely painful hit.
- Enjoyes staying out of the screen in order to surprise you
- Laser shoots have odd tracking (again, this might just be my imagination at this point though)
- His knife grab attack is...really really weird. Sometimes it just comes up without any animation, sometimes if doesn't even do damage.

All things considered, I think most of the attacks could be fixed if they had an additional tell that shows the upcoming attack while giving the player a bit more time to react. The last fight against Serpentine feels like a properly done fight, challenging but with a clear pattern that allows you to understand the enemy.

My God I just noticed how big my post is, apologies

[Emong]

With Carol, at least, you can avoid pretty much all of Milla's attacks just by climbing up to one of the top corners.

It's pretty easy to avoid the battleship's dashes as Carol just by walking/climbing up a wall. The missiles are a bit trickier, but generally the same thing will work.

Mech suit's kind of a weird fight, yeah, but he generally goes laser-laser-dash (if you're far away)-buzzsaw-dash (again, if you're far away)-laser barrage. Like with most bosses Carol can avoid the dash just by climbing up the wall.

For the final battle he gives like a little "hi-ARGH" kind of noise before he goes to knife you, but it doesn't give you enough warning if you're right next to him. The grab isn't supposed to deal damage at all, but is currently bugged to kill you if you're at low enough health.

[Gackt the Immortal]

I thought the snake was harder than Milla. Milla you can kind of just cheese by hanging on the far left or right and dragon dashing in.

I'm stuck on the mech suit on hard. Hitting him is a problem, and so are the blue bullets, which you can't really outrun away from. Running towards him seems to be better.

[Shelanoir]

I think the game also needs some tweaks in other fights.

This is all for Lilac:

The dragon boss, I believe the laser attack needs to be changed, since it is impossible to pick up the rings without using cyclone, unless you are at the edge of the stage, which most of the time you will not be since the homing shots that precede the laser attack are guaranteed to hit you if you go up the wall.

Using cyclone locks you out of using dragon charge for a bit. This is problematic for the laser attack: if you don't have already picked up a ring, it becomes freaking hard to avoid this attack due to its duration.

Also for the love of everything that is good please lower the dragon boss's charge, you cannot reliably hit him multiple times unless you run up the walls (which is actively discouraged by two of the boss's attacks). This makes the fight go on for way too long.

Moving on, the giant beetle boss is what made me change the difficulty for casual, I really didn't want to activate god mode but please:

Extend the invincibility frames given by certain attack's hits, this boss is the most guilty of this problem since both his charge and laser attacks, if they hit you, can stunlock you into several additional hits. I noticed on normal that his charge can sometimes remove 3 petals of health on multiple hits. His laser attack is quite frankly broken, since the lasers follow the ground, if the first or second laser hit you, then can stunlock you into being hit by all the following lasers (even in the air).

But my rant is not over: those lasers can hit you twice each, each hit for half a petal damage. That leaves a player with bad luck with half their health removed. But! If by the worst of luck you were hit by two overlapping laser sprites, the game registers twice the damage per hit! I was one time left with only 1 petal of health after one attack, the one attack that the boss spams! This seriously cannot be right.

My rant ends with the conclusion that the game needs some rebalancing, some of the bosses moves need to give the player extended invincibility time after the hit to avoid being punished into multiple hits. This would of course mean that these attacks that get changed maybe need to get a buff in damage, this would ensure that if a player makes a mistake they are punished in a consistent way, because frankly, if the same mistake for the same attack can hit you for either half a petal or your whole life bar, then the game's difficulty is mostly left out to luck.

For subsequent bosses the author of the thread has mostly covered my thoughts.

[Gackt the Immortal]

Mech fight is kind of hard but the last fight is super easy if you just spin on the ground at him.

[Tiller]

There is a pattern for every fight.

Originally posted by SSVAV:

I think the game also needs some tweaks in other fights.

This is all for Lilac:

The dragon boss, I believe the laser attack needs to be changed, since it is impossible to pick up the rings without using cyclone, unless you are at the edge of the stage, which most of the time you will not be since the homing shots that precede the laser attack are guaranteed to hit you if you go up the wall.

Using cyclone locks you out of using dragon charge for a bit. This is problematic for the laser attack: if you don't have already picked up a ring, it becomes freaking hard to avoid this attack due to its duration.

Also for the love of everything that is good please lower the dragon boss's charge, you cannot reliably hit him multiple times unless you run up the walls (which is actively discouraged by two of the boss's attacks). This makes the fight go on for way too long.

The Dragon Boss has three attacks. Two of which will miss you if you are running and the laser which will miss if you Dragon Boost out of the way. You can cancel the cyclone with a roundhouse kick to cut it short and save energy. There are the super dragon boost rings all over, and all you need to do it touch it to get two dashes. Keep a charge handy for when the boss moves since you shoot a projectile when attacking so long as you have the charge.

Originally posted by SSVAV:

Moving on, the giant beetle boss is what made me change the difficulty for casual, I really didn't want to activate god mode but please:

Extend the invincibility frames given by certain attack's hits, this boss is the most guilty of this problem since both his charge and laser attacks, if they hit you, can stunlock you into several additional hits. I noticed on normal that his charge can sometimes remove 3 petals of health on multiple hits. His laser attack is quite frankly broken, since the lasers follow the ground, if the first or second laser hit you, then can stunlock you into being hit by all the following lasers (even in the air).

But my rant is not over: those lasers can hit you twice each, each hit for half a petal damage. That leaves a player with bad luck with half their health removed. But! If by the worst of luck you were hit by two overlapping laser sprites, the game registers twice the damage per hit! I was one time left with only 1 petal of health after one attack, the one attack that the boss spams! This seriously cannot be right.

That's very intentional. Getting caught at the start of the attack punishes you and locks you in for additional damage. Maybe you shouldn't get hit by the first laser stun lock? It is telegraphed and you have a double jump and springs to move over it. In the case of the final boss you have the entire roof to run on and avoid the attacks. If you have a dragon boost readied you can break out of the stun with the I-frames. And if fear you're going to get hit you can move backwards and wait out the lasers hitting the ground, or just Dragon boost over it.

[Shelanoir]

Originally posted by Mean Green Tiller Machine:

That's very intentional. Getting caught at the start of the attack punishes you and locks you in for additional damage. Maybe you shouldn't get hit by the first laser stun lock? It is telegraphed and you have a double jump and springs to move over it. In the case of the final boss you have the entire roof to run on and avoid the attacks. If you have a dragon boost readied you can break out of the stun with the I-frames. And if fear you're going to get hit you can move backwards and wait out the lasers hitting the ground, or just Dragon boost over it.

Look, I'm not complaining about the difficulty of avoiding the attacks. I know how I can avoid those attacks, I've fought those bosses for quite some time each.

But as I said before, the game is really inconsistent damage wise. If you find it natural to be hit for like 90% of your health from one attack on the difficulty denoted as "normal", with absolutely no way to break out of it, then this ceases to be a platformer and ventures into 2D Dark Souls territory.

The "you can avoid the attack" argument is one that does not convince me. All other platformers I know of, even uber hard ones like DK Country, give the player on hit extended invulnerability in order to allow them to relocate themselves. In Freedom Planet, not even mashing my controller would make Lilac move out of those attacks.

In comparison, Sky Fortress's boss has a super move that hits hard. The thing about that attack is that it lasts short enough, so even if you get hit, it's not a guaranteed death.

I bought this game on the premise of Sonic-style platforming and the demo, which had an enjoyable level and boss. Never did I expect to be stuck for half an hour on a dragon boss who refuses to die and a miniboss! who hits harder than the boss of that stage.

The game right now is frustrating for me, and I assume for other people as well. If this game does get some exposure, the biggest fault reviewers will find in it will be its difficulty spikes, and that's unfortunate.

[Val]

Originally posted by SSVAV:

But as I said before, the game is really inconsistent damage wise. If you find it natural to be hit for like 90% of your health from one attack on the difficulty denoted as "normal", with absolutely no way to break out of it, then this ceases to be a platformer and ventures into 2D Dark Souls territory.

The "you can avoid the attack" argument is one that does not convince me. All other platformers I know of, even uber hard ones like DK Country, give the player on hit extended invulnerability in order to allow them to relocate themselves. In Freedom Planet, not even mashing my controller would make Lilac move out of those attacks.

It really sucks when that happens as Milla, but Lilac and Carol have invincibility when they use their power bar attacks which could be utilized to dodge enemy attacks instead.I tend to use Lilac and Carol's power bar attacks defensively on bosses.

[Keaton Fox]

My main problem with boss fights is stunlocking. It feels like cheap artificial difficulty.

[NBlast]

That stunlocking maybe is pretty damaging, but it looks kinda cool. Everything can be balanced out in patches, so maybe there will be correction to damage levels here and there?

[ShadouFireborn]

I'm actually rather satisfied with the difficulty of the various bosses, save for maybe the earlier ones that I feel could use a boost.

I will put this out there right now, I am not even close to being skilled at this kind of game. Sure, I've played Sonic the Hedgehog, and the gameplay as Lilac is deeply reminiscent of Sonic. In Sonic, I never beat the game; I never even made it past a certain point, I simply ran out of lives before I could progress any further. I have no shame in saying that I would have never beat this game if the game punished you for using a continue by taking you back to the beginning of the stage (which, actually when you think about it, it probably should be doing).

That being said, I actually managed to beat this game on normal difficulty, which says to me that the game is actually easier than most action platformers I've played. I do feel that earlier bosses could be buffed a bit; any boss that I can beat the first time, going in blind and unprepared, needs to be worked on.

You can say what you want about artificial difficulty or whatever. I will say that if you think this game is too hard then you've never played any of this game's spiritual predecessors, and if someone like me can actually beat the game without ever even touching the difficulty slider then a lot of you more skilled players should have no problem. You say "too difficult". I say "challenge accepted".

[Emong]

Originally posted by The_Idiot:

I will say that if you think this game is too hard, you've never played any of this game's spiritual predecessors,

Counterpoint: The only difficult Sonic bosses are the ones you don't get rings for.

[ShadouFireborn]

Originally posted by Emong:

Originally posted by The_Idiot:

I will say that if you think this game is too hard, you've never played any of this game's spiritual predecessors,

Counterpoint: The only difficult Sonic bosses are the ones you don't get rings for.

Counter-counterpoint: I was still beaten by Sonic bosses you do get rings for.

[Saladpants]

Sonic 2 GG's bosses were pretty difficult, but I don't remember ANY of the Genesis Sonic bosses being hard. I think the hardest Genesis Sonic bosses were from Spinball, and that's mostly the fact that it was a pinball game and not a traditional sanic.

[Shelanoir]

Originally posted by The_Idiot:

You can say what you want about artificial difficulty or whatever. I will say that if you think this game is too hard then you've never played any of this game's spiritual predecessors, and if someone like me can actually beat the game without ever even touching the difficulty slider then a lot of you more skilled players should have no problem. You say "too difficult". I say "challenge accepted".

Look, I have always enjoyed challenging games, and in my previous posts I didn't complain about the challenge of avoiding attacks, etc. I complained about problems that limited my enjoyment of the game down the line, and I feel I should point them out.

Now, if bosses are to be challenging, and considering this is a platformer, then

• Iteration time needs to be kept to a strict minimum, meaning there should be a checkpoint right before every miniboss/boss (and I do mean right before, one screen/switch away is one too much), and pre-fight cutscenes need to be sped up the second and beyond way through, this makes up for faster learning time for new players.
  
  
• Being hit should always give the player a way to break out, and this for all characters (if I understand right Milla has no invincibility move), being hit should also refill super meter so that players are never left out of options.
  
  
• Following the previous point, Lilac's dragon boost can be extremely dangerous to use in certain fights, a way to cancel out of it should also be considered,
  
  
• Visual and sound cues for bosses who do not have a set pattern need to be either extended, made more obvious, or louder, to allow players to prepare themselves, and bosses who do have a set pattern also need louder tells but these can be shortened (as once a player learns the pattern they can anticipate hits).
  
  
• Hp bars for all bosses, I do not understand why the final boss has one but not every boss preceding it, and since most bosses do not follow the rule of three this allows for players to quickly grasp the amount of damage each attack does, phases, etc.

And then fixes to some bosses, for example I would enjoy the dragon boss more if the stage was infinite, I don't know if this is possible but eh.

These changes I feel will help to remove most of the game's frustrating and random factors while keeping challenge mostly intact.

Also if I may, I find your posts rather dismissive, like your "I win button" post. You refuse to acknowledge the opinions other people have about this game, don't know if you were a backer or beta tester but your attitude is not really helping with the discussion if your only argument can be condensed to "go play another game". It is is okay if you disagree but you have to do so without telling people "gtfo", after all they paid for the game and you saying that only makes you a giant a-hole.

[ShadouFireborn]

Again, if I of all people can beat these bosses that you say are too tough, then they're not too tough. You can say I'm being dismissive if you want. That's just my opinion, as someone who isn't particularly skilled. I could get to the bosses. I could learn their patterns. I could beat them. I'm not particularly good. There isn't a problem here. Sure, I might have had to try a few more times than I would have if all your points were implemented into the game. The point is? I STILL BEAT IT WITHOUT THEM!

If you want easymode, try casual difficulty. There's no problem with the bosses as is, in fact, it could be made more difficult. After all, someone like me beat them.