Excuse me? Impossible mods are a staple of gaming as a whole, not just I Wanna Be the Guy. Cave Story's physics engine is a beautiful thing and when done right can create some awesome impossible levels. Just because you might be bad at avoiding some spikes doesn't mean people who aren't shouldn't make and play these mods. Also, are you really going to call True Hell and P.I. infamous? No one in the community is so immature that they shun a mod because it's too difficult when it literally says it's designed to be impossibly hard. If the mod is designed to make you want to rip your hair out, and you aren't into that, go play something easier like HeadMan or I Wanna Be the Guy Story. Leave the occasional Impossible Mods alone, because there are people who do enjoy them.Firstly, I'll just ask: What is the meaning behind these "Spike Hell" mods?
Yes, sure, difficulty; it's supposedly made to make people suffer, yada yada yada... Well, crud. It's doing exactly what it says. Is that what you want to see? Personally, if I wanted to play a rage-inducing super-difficult platformer game, I'd go to the I Wanna Be the Guy fanbase and play some "I Wanna Be the Boshi". Or, heck, "I Wanna Kill the Kamilia 2". These games, fully intended to be (almost) unbeatable, are directed to the community that is ready to play them.
Cave Story? No, no, definitely not. Didn't Project Insanity and True Hell gain infamy because of their outrageous difficulty? And no, you can't say that you included more savepoints than before, it doesn't change the fact that it's all about avoiding spikes. Granted, I can see where it has improved. The death duration is shortened. More savepoints. No enemies. Not as punishing level design as the previous mods. Yet I am still avoiding instadeath at almost every corner. That's all I'm doing. Here are some highlights:
To be fair, I never said these mods shouldn't exist.If this is exactly what you're trying to pursue here, then more power to you.
oh jeez yeah i think now rereading my post it was a bit harsh yeahThis was unjustly harsh, wasn't it.
This "review" was written somewhere at 6 AM by my time, after I just spent around 2 hours completing this mod. Perhaps the anger got into me? I take all responsibility for any misunderstandings caused. Also, I take back everything I said about True Hell and Project Insanity; these were complete lies I somehow fabricated.
Also, to CyberSoup:
To be fair, I never said these mods shouldn't exist.
NOW, I'll try to judge this mod by what it's actually supposed to do, instead of asking why a whole "Spike Hell" genre exists. That was highly unnecessary, I apologise for doing that.
True Hell 2 has actually improved by a lot since the other mods. Let me say that again: there are definitely more savepoints; there are no chaotic factors (well, almost, I'll get to that one later), the level design is generally less punishing (though I don't know if this is a good thing or not), there's nothing unexpected, and the duration of respawning has shortened to a mere two seconds. Mechanically, this is what a good "Spike Hell" mod is, and True Hell 2 is a lot more fair than the mods before. I don't know how I failed to appreciate that at the time when I wrote the first post, but I do now.
There are some weak points in this mod, though:
1) Referring to my second .gif, Hell B2 section still exists, and it's still full of falling blocks. This is a huge random factor in an otherwise fair mod, i.e. the player can get sniped at any point in this section. To be fair, I don't know how to "fix" B2 so that the blocks always fall in some specific arrangement, but still.
2) There's some disbalance in difficulty between the beginning and the later sections. I fully expected there to be even harder sections after I went through, well, what I just showed in the screenshots, but it turned out to be a couple of calculated jumps and fan sections. Though, perhaps it's just me and I'm good at those kind of jumps, or something. Maybe it's intentional?
Whew. This post is completely different from the previous. Just... ignore that one, I wrote nothing constructive in it.
I expect that there'll be original level design in the next updates? So far, it's going in the right direction, so keep up the good work.
Thank you for the feedback! I'll probably change Room 2 in Version 4. I was just being lazy when I designed it. After all, most of it is just the same gimmick over and over, jumping over spikes and avoiding the blocks.Cool mod.So this is probably my favorite "Spike Hell" mod I've played. Then again, I've only played the first True Hell (where I couldn't get past the first room) and this, but still. Most of the platforming challenges were well done, though as metallicLurker said it actually gets easier as it goes along. But I'm fine with how it is now (for the most part). The lack of the Booster 2.0 is was a bit weird at first, but I get that you wanted to make a mod just about running and jumping. The Booster does break platforming challenges that aren't based around it.
metallicLurker also pointed out the only part I actually dislike. The second room, with all the falling blocks. This part was already terrible in the original, but giving the player 3 health made it 10 times worse. I played version 1 when it was released, and the extra save point in version 3 doesn't help much either. I swear, if I make a mod with lots of ASM, I am going to delete the code for those blocks from existence and replace it with something less asinine.
Version 3 is a bit better than version 1. The replacement for the "touch the spike but not really" section in the third room is really clever, and almost as difficult. But that's the only change that I remember and haven't mentioned already, and the one big problem is still there, and really big.
It took a few playthroughs, most of them ending on the second room, but... I'd say you should take out the falling block room and probably replace it with a room that has another, more fair gimmick. You should probably either make the first room easier, make the final few rooms harder, or swap the "falling spike-dodging" sections in the first and last rooms. I'd do the second option, but it's up to you.
Thanks for playing! LOVED THE TAS. Although, I agree, could use some touching up.I just played this mod. And well...
I noticed you said not to use Doukutsu Trainer. However, on the other hand, you didn't say anything about not using Hourglass
so...
[TAS] Cave Story "True Hell 2" mod (v3) in 1:28 in-game time
This is probably one of the few games where TASing is less trouble than playing normally
Though honestly this probably isn't very optimized by TAS standards. But at least, I'm a little proud of how I handled the falling block sequence. A bit of luck manipulation was used there.
input file (Hourglass Movie) is attached, for anyone who's interested