Hello
I only played in hard and am a breathtaking treasure hunter after 4h30. 8)
I think hard mode made the game more tedious than hard though. :(
The game experience is probably a bit different if one plays in easy/normal.
I'll put my gripes in spoilers because it's spoilery.No base ennemy die in 1 hit, you often hit an enemy then wait for it to come back to hit it a second time and kill it. It breaks the flow of the game. Once I found the amulet it was A LOT more pleasant to play, but I was already 6/7 essences in.
The trip between savepoints and bosses can get very tedious. And dying on your way back is even worse. I don't know when the warp option in the menu unlocked but I noticed it very late into the game when I was only missing the water essence. So maybe it's my fault for not noticing it earlier.
There's only one jump height: very high. You'll often get your head into deadly spikes or deadly snakes that are on the platform above.
HP/defense improving items are useless in hard mode so it's a bit disappointing to find them. :(
I'm not one to complain about hitboxes, but they really could get more lenient. There are tons of time where I died and it felt unfair.
Here's the worst offender lol: https://youtu.be/hudj2gDcbXQ (https://youtu.be/hudj2gDcbXQ)
I have a mixed opinion on secrets like the meat secret items. Breakable walls are kinda OK when there are several of them so that you know you'll have to look for them, but when there's only one in the whole game you either spend an hour hitting every wall in vain and assume there's no secret and miss it, or you find it and assume there are more and spend the rest of the game hitting every wall for nothing.
They are unimportant Castlevania and Mario easter eggs so I guess that's OK :p
The fire dragon boss sometimes spawns right under your feet when you enter the room to do its fire breathing attack. Go directly to savepoint, do not pass go, do not collect $200, not cool.
I was a bit surprised that I had to configure my XBOX 360 controller the first time I launched the game.
The map is pretty bad.
You don't know what color corresponds to what. For example I wanted to go back to underground village but didn't really remember where it was, the map wasn't really useful for that. (especially since the UNDERGROUND village was the highest zone on the map lol)
When you find a new key, there's no way to know what door it opens if you don't remember where that particular door is. Sure you may have highlighted it on the map, but if you highlight every closed door it doesn't help.
The map doesn't show the paths between rooms. When you're watching the map you can't know if a room is a dead-end or if it has an exit you didn't take. (because you were missing an upgrade at the time) And similarly to closed door, highlighting doesn't help.
A dedicated controller button to open the map would be fine, but then again since the map is a bit useless...
I regret not drawing my own map.