It occurs to me that I kinda stopped using this blog after I gave up on 1cc-ing Space Harrier. Granted, it was starting to turn into a chore, and I was running out of ways to say “I’m still dying to the same shit every time” day after day. I took to Twitter to talk about the games I was playing instead, feeling like I’d set a standard for this blog that was too high for casual rambling.
But you know what? Fuck that. My blog, my rules. I’ll talk about whatever I want to, going into as much or as little detail as I want to. I won’t necessarily introduce the games any more than necessary, either, nor will I litter each blog post with screenshots if it’s too much of a hassle to do so. This is primarily meant to be for me to look back on, anyway, so from here on out, raw, unfiltered thoughts galore.
And we’re starting this new era of the blog with a game I’ve been biting my teeth out on all morning and afternoon: see title.
Normal is a simple enough difficulty, and one I can get through casually no problem with only a few lives (or tries, as the game insists on calling them) lost. Hard, on the other hand… is stupidly difficult. Here’s a list of differences (although I probably missed some):
- You start with only two units of life (although you can still fill it up to a maximum of five).
- Much less items scattered throughout the levels, specifically 1-ups and throwing items.
- If you lose a life, you lose all your throwing items.
- No continues.
- There are a lot more enemies, especially flying enemies.
- Bosses are faster, trickier, and take more hits to defeat.
- Changes to the level layout, such as additional moving platforms or collapsing floors.
This actually completely changes the way you increase your score. On Normal, most of your score really comes from defeating bosses (10,000 points) and level clear bonuses: a flat bonus of at least 10,000 points, 1,000 points per unit of life remaining (or 10,000 if you’re at full health), and 1,000 points per throwing item you have left (up to 30,000). Given that you earn your first extra life at 40,000 points and subsequent ones every 50,000 thereafter, as well as the fact that Normal is very generous with the amount of throwing items it gives you, and it’s quite easy to rack up lives this way.
On Hard, however, things are a lot different. Because throwing items are so rare, the only time you can even get a full stock (30) is in level 2. Other than that, you’re not getting much out of the level clear bonuses. On the other hand, enemies yield double the points when defeated, and since there are so many of them, they add up and very quickly pick up the slack. I wouldn’t be surprised if the scoring potential on Hard is considerably higher than on Normal, but I can’t yet play good enough to confirm that.
Level 1 is still simple enough, aside from section 3 (spider webs and leaves). The addition of moving platforms makes things extremely tricky, and there’s one section where a moving platform actually intersects with a static platform, which confuses the game engine and has actually gotten me killed once. The other issue is a nearly unavoidable leaf butterfly that comes at you from below right as you land on a platform that will start moving as soon as you land on it. The boss messed me up a bit, too, but you’re safe on the left edge of the screen, and even if you wait for the acorns to drop, you’ll still have just enough time to get a hit in.
Level 2 is absolutely swarming with enemies, but the only ones that are an issue are the clowns on unicycles. The boss can probably be cheesed by just sitting at the left edge of the screen.
Level 3 is the first major difficulty spike. Bats everywhere, especially around where you need to bounce off some mushrooms for two much-needed life pickups. Section 2 has some tricky platforming, but is tolerable. Section 3, on the other hand, is a nightmare: you’re moving through a corridor which gets flooded periodically, at which point you need to retreat to higher ground until the flood subsides. If you get caught in it, you take some damage and — worse — get flushed back a significant distance (the current moves much slower on Normal). There’s one section in particular that requires cruelly tight timing to get through, and you pretty much have to abuse the fact that you move faster by jumping, otherwise you simply won’t make it to the next platform in time. At least the boss is fairly simple.
Level 4 is as far as I got in all my attempts. Your worst nightmare are the “A”s that jump at you at just the right time that you would jump on them. Sure, you could just let them sail over you, but they’d still come at you from behind, and with how small and agile they are, they’re really difficult to actually jump on. And then there’s the boss, which is the first one that’s genuinely difficult not just for the fact that you probably only get two hits before you die. It’s difficult to predict, so unless it has a pattern that it follows every time, I don’t see myself getting past it anytime soon.
May provide an update if I get past this point.
Cheesecake’s Gaming Journal 