Delicious Fruit
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by AthgieninOr98a
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by P2shka
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by spawneable
Creator's Comments:
ActualKale [Creator]
The most influential needle game
[20] Likes
Rating: 10.0 100
Difficulty: 85 85
Nov 12, 2018
98 Reviews:
YaBoiMarcAntony
Rating based on non-speedrun version. After around the 60s you basically say goodbye to fun saves - some time in the 80s, you say goodbye to fun jumps for the most part. There are exceptions, but not enough. I can't speak to it, but I recall Kale commenting on how Hiddow felt frustrated by Crimson Needle due to it seeming to him to have a focus entirely on difficulty and not on being any fun to play. As far as I'm concerned, that is pretty much the best assessment of this game I've heard.
Funny thing is, I think you absolutely can put some focus on difficulty while also keeping some fun in the mix. In my eyes, Magnificent Stumble is a wondrous game that executes high level platforming on a consistently excellent level, to compare to Hiddow's work. Why does Crimson Needle fail? Because part of its difficulty relies specifically on using maneuvers that are uncomfortable or dissatisfying to execute as one of its core methods of heightening difficulty. While this may stand out as a watershed occurrence (a stolen phrase, but simply the best one for this game), it is one that also comes across to me as a collection of needle's worst qualities in the distant past.
Nevertheless, it's not all bad. As said, the problems begin with about the 60s, and after that they become downright untenable, but there are the bits and pieces of quality here and there. CN2 amazingly chooses ALL of the best screens from this back half for its needle rush, though it leaves behind floor 100 which is a fairly enjoyable save on the tougher side that utilizes well the older design philosophies which ran rampant in needle. All the same, it's a bit simple compared to some contemporaries, but that is no real negative mark on the test for me. And hell, a lot of what you play up to the 50s is itself fairly good too. Kale at this time did have something of an eye for needle design, he just became far too preoccupied with making the game more difficult and did not quite understand how to do this in a satisfying way.
My recommendation? Leave the game behind right about the time you get to the 60s, but that is just my experience.
Funny thing is, I think you absolutely can put some focus on difficulty while also keeping some fun in the mix. In my eyes, Magnificent Stumble is a wondrous game that executes high level platforming on a consistently excellent level, to compare to Hiddow's work. Why does Crimson Needle fail? Because part of its difficulty relies specifically on using maneuvers that are uncomfortable or dissatisfying to execute as one of its core methods of heightening difficulty. While this may stand out as a watershed occurrence (a stolen phrase, but simply the best one for this game), it is one that also comes across to me as a collection of needle's worst qualities in the distant past.
Nevertheless, it's not all bad. As said, the problems begin with about the 60s, and after that they become downright untenable, but there are the bits and pieces of quality here and there. CN2 amazingly chooses ALL of the best screens from this back half for its needle rush, though it leaves behind floor 100 which is a fairly enjoyable save on the tougher side that utilizes well the older design philosophies which ran rampant in needle. All the same, it's a bit simple compared to some contemporaries, but that is no real negative mark on the test for me. And hell, a lot of what you play up to the 50s is itself fairly good too. Kale at this time did have something of an eye for needle design, he just became far too preoccupied with making the game more difficult and did not quite understand how to do this in a satisfying way.
My recommendation? Leave the game behind right about the time you get to the 60s, but that is just my experience.
Tagged as: Needle
[2] Likes
Rating: 4.5 45
Difficulty: 85 85
Jan 21, 2024
cLOUDDEAD
the reason your favourite needle game exists
[2] Likes
Rating: 9.7 97
Difficulty: 75 75
Jul 12, 2022
popop614
went from based to cringe to based to cringe to based again
then to 100f
[2] Likes
then to 100f
Rating: 7.0 70
Difficulty: 84 84
May 29, 2021
Winaared
Rating based on the original version.
What is I wanna be the Crimson Needle? Some say it's an old IWBTG fangame in Needle genre, others say it's The most influential needle game, and someone may say it's an unfun unbalanced steaming pile of shit that should be banned in all countries. All of these opinions got a point. For me though it is a game that pushed me to the limits, gave me a goal and determination to beat it.
First time I heard about this game was around 2016-2017. The only fangames I beaten so far were some of the most popular titles (such as Guy, Fangame, Boshy ez mode, KTG, Kamilia, NANG) mixed with some random really bad titles like Ronald, Daily Dose and End. I couldn't understand what's the difference between needle and adventure, I mean both genres mostly contain spike jumps, they're identical.
And then at some point I discovered I wanna be the Crimson Needle. To me it looked exactly like any other fangame. It had many reviews, a decent rating and a pretty high difficulty that I didn't even pay attention to lol. "Why not give it a try?",- I thought.
If only I knew what's coming...
I downloaded the game and immediately jumped into it. Selected the Bow mode because No Bow was obviously a hard mode, and in a fangame you always want to pick the lowest available difficulty.
The first screens in the game meet the player with eyes-destroying red simple needle screens. As a novice player I didn't bother thinking about HOW to play the game. The positioning I picked was random, the jumps were all similar, and the aligns were nothing but a stupid obscure deep concept used in NANG for some unknown reason. So the only option left for me was to bruteforce the game, and I genuinely thought that's how you're supposed to play these games.
So I started to bruteforce through the saves, learning almost nothing and just praying that I'd hit the jump this time. Funnily enough, it worked.
Floors 1-9 didn't stand out much. Floor 5 is a one-save screen that requires some consistency. Floor 6 has a save with two corner jumps in a row, which already scared me at that point. Floor 8 seemed funny to me since there were many shorter but significantly harder saves. I remember liking this style at that point since bruteforcing short saves is easier than keeping up the consistency.
Floor 10 was the first major diffuculty spike I remember. One-save screen with a water maze. The inability to perform low jumps (and by low I mean at most 4f) already started bothering me, though I didn't realize it back then.
Floor 13 had so many minispikes. It already required lower jumps which got me frustrated at some point. 15 was no better. Here I already started watching the speedrunners beating it, since I knew they'd pick the easiest and the best strats and I just need to repeat. I became a big fan of TheNaderTwo (and I still am to this day), I dreamt about playing as good as him (and I still do to this day), but the reality was disappointing.
Each save started to take much more time. If floors 1-10 took 10-20 minutes per save, now there could be saves I'd be stuck on for half an hour straight. I knew I'd never beat this game, because if that's what happens on 10s, how tf am I supposed to perform at least one jump at 50s or higher? But I decided to try and get as far as I can, even if it's gonna take a lot of time.
Floors 16-18 are Catharsis-themed. It was the first time I saw the needle looking like this: without distinct sprites of spikes and blocks. I remember thinking that I must be really good at this since I can tell where the spike is and where it isn't.
Floors 19-21 seemed fun to me, all colorful and misaligned. 20 was horrible though, fruit needle is something I wasn't prepared for and as a result I was stuck here for a bit longer than usual.
Floors 22-24 were very cool, I liked how minimalistic and pretty it looked. I also felt like I'm getting better since there was only 1-2 problematic jumps per save.
Floors 25-27 is a point at which I realized something's wrong. Nader's game looked different. It was the exact same game, but the bg was different. I thought his game was just outdated or whatever, didn't care much.
The saves here felt much more precise that before. I could feel the difficulty rising as the skill issue continued to kick in.
Floor 26 is where I dropped the game. It was just too much for me, I couldn't handle the difficulty and decided to leave where I am and focus on other fangames. I didn't feel any improvements, but they definitely happened.
I still came back to the game to see if the impossible save would have mercy on me, spent like a 5 minutes and left. One day I got myself a new PC and didn't backup my game. All the progress was lost, and I genuinely thought that's where the story of this game ends for me.
So I got into FSR Adventure and FSR Needle, improving slowely but surely. I could even pass some Gold tier games already.
And that's how the next few years went by.
October 26, 2019
I became a slightly better needle player now, knowing what I'm doing instead of just jumping and praying.
So one day I decided to give this game a shot one more time. I finally got to F26 again and after some struggle finally managed to beat it. The determination kicked in as I felt there are so many screens lying ahead. I knew that I AM ready this time. Obviously, I wasn't.
So the grind continued. The rest of 26-27 were hard as hell, but thanks to Nader I knew which walls to touch and where to jump.
Floors 28-30 were even harder and I felt that I won't get far from here. 29 consisted of L-needle which I liked again.
Floors 31-33 traumatized me. They sprites made my eyes hurt, and 31 had some of the hardest vine jumps I've ever had to pull out so far. And 33 save 1 was the same but MUCH worse. The jumps were already super-precise and the last jump was a literal choke generator. I remember spending several hours on this one.
Floors 34-36 felt like a nice change of pace. No more stupid vines, just some pure needle with some fruits and platforms here and there. While these were still hard as hell, this section was much easier to bruteforce than the previous one.
I remember loving 37-39 for Uhuhu tileset which felt more forgiving for some reason. I also hated this section for the amount of vertical spike corridors that you needed to weave in. It just felt weird and unintuitive to pull off. 39 took me several hours to beat.
At 40-42 I hated the bg selection, it just distracted me from the gameplay so much. And guess what, it got even harder here. 42 was a funny screen that I liked, but also spent an hour or so to beat.
Floors 43-45 broken me in so many ways. Another section filled with water jumps, harder than before. Fruit maze at the end of 44 took A LOT of attempts and I didn't feel I'm getting anywhere there. 45 was what really broken me. I spent several days beating it, rewatching the speedrun strats at 0.25, trying everything. And eventually that monster of a floor was beaten.
Can't say anything about 46-48, don't remember these at all.
Floors 49-51 are Sunspike-themed, I loved how it looked. Hollow spikes always felt more forgiving to me, which worked as a reverse mindblock. No major problems here.
Floors 52-54 is the point where I found out about JTool. It was such a huge discovery that it gave me a second breath. I could practice the tricky jumps without needing to redo the whole save and without fear of choking. And even so, the saves felt just random at times. I used to pass the easy section of the save, and simply pray that this time I'll make it through the hard part.
54 save2 was the save I spent the most time on so far. Almost 30 different minispike jumps, each requiring low jumps, with the worst ones near the end. JTooling didn't seem to help much since I was heavily lacking consistency. I thought "Even if I somehow beat it now, what's coming next is sure going to destroy me, so what's the point?".
Beating it was the biggest relief I've experienced in this game.
Floors 55-57 were a nice change of pace once again. No water, little to no minispikes, just needle. I realized that Nader definitely had a different version of the game since the save2 positon in 57 was different. I found out that this was a Speedrun version that was slightly nerfed in several ways. I even though switching to it, but the speedrun version allowed you to select any floor freely, which I considered as an act of cheating. I thought I'd never be able to prove I beaten the game for real. So I got my shit together and continued grinding. I was stuck at 57 for very long, and finally got past it.
Floors 58-60 surprised me. These were... easy? I've been sweating over last 40 or so floors just to find out there are EASIER floors further? Alright then, I'll take it. I understood that this game's difficulty curve is a joke and that I might've already beaten the hardest floors (though I knew that 92 will come eventually)
I got to 61 full of enthusiasm just to get hit with a wall in the face. I could pass the first jump around 1 in 50 times, and everything further was even worse. The cherries required extremely precise low jumps, and the jump after was a hell even in JTool. And that's where I really dropped the game for good. I knew it was over for me, so I just switched to playing something I like instead.
And so went the next 3 or so years.
I got into CN3 and even managed to get past F31. I got myself a fancy Ducky One 2 Pro that I've dreamt about for so long, and it surely made a difference. My skill was growing, I finally could do 2fs consistently. I got to understand aligns and jump cancels. I got into FSR and beaten some of the games that were so hard I never even thought I'd start playing them.
Put out a cigarette, Reach Midnight, Morning Dew, DM CN, Cry - these were such monumental achievements for me. I felt unstoppable at this point, even though I knew there's still so much to learn.
While finishing last FSR Needle Diamond tier games, I knew what must be done next.
So I got my shit together one last time and returned to F61. I JTooled every jump, I knew exactly when and where to go. And I beaten it.
Floors 62-63 turned out to be easy again. I was both happy that 61 is over and mad that it blocked me from actual needle I'm capable of playing. I literally ran through Floors 62-69 in one sitting in half an hour or so. I remembered how just a few years ago it took several hours for me to beat a single save in this game, and here we are now.
These were still hard, but with all the experience and confidence I got now, there was no way for me to stop.
Also shoutout to PerliousFalcon for sharing the forbidden knowlwedge of disabling the Numpad lock. It made my life much easier at times, and I felt like we're finally even with the game.
Floors 70-72 were nice, I felt these were exactly slightly below my skill level. Not too hard, not too easy, you just focus on needle and eventually get past it.
I hated that one jump on F73, you know which one I mean. Everyone hates it, why is it even there? Would be an amazing save without this jump.
Not much to say about floors 74-75, just some regular tight needle.
Floor 76 is where I felt the difficulty curve finally rising once again. Starting with some fruit needle with lots of wacky jumps, continuing with super long and chokey save2 in 77, and... 78.
Floor 78 is what I consider the hardest floor in this game. I spent several days to beat it, truly raging for the first time playing this game, cursing the game, the creator and his artistic vision.
Every single jump in this save is something you can easily choke on. It takes a lot of practice to beat most of these consistently. But the star of the show if of course the carat jump. A cute little jump that requires a perfect fucking 2 frame jump with an almost-perfect fucking stutter in the middle. I choked on this jump around 20 times. I thought this is where it ends. I was ready to switch to speedrun version and just walk past through the fucking carat which is nerfed in this version. Luckily for me, I got through this hell of a screen once again.
Floors 79-81 have some interesting water jumps. Floor 80 is a legend. I choked the final jump two times and I understand the hate towards this screen, but I found it quite fun.
Floors 82-84: the infamous Archfoe section. All the cancerous generic jumps you can think of are here, like a fucking cursed reincarnation of The Harbingers. The star of the show is 82 save 2. An invert, a gate into a corner, Sunspike's double corner drop, another fucking invert really?, a diamond (IMO it should've been a double diamond to fit the save), a plane and a fucking choke jump I believe is not even named. I hated this save, but I'm thankful for letting me improve on generic needle. If you got past 78, you're definitely able to do this.
The rest of 82-84 was not a big deal for me tbh.
Floors 85-87: the Needle Satan screens. Why are these easy again? Difficulty curve is all over this place in this game. 87 was definitely harder than the rest though, but not as nearly hard as some of the floors mentioned before.
Floors 88-90 feel like you're nearing the home stretch, and the music only amplifies this feeling. Fairly hard, not too annoying. Also why the hell is 90 literally free?
I don't remember much about 91 because all I could think of is that 92 is around the corner. I was horrified of it, like a kid in a haunted house. I already beaten CN3's 92 at this point which gave me extra confidence, but I knew it won't be easy either way.
So here we are: Floor 92. The myth, the legend, the asshole, the peak needle design, the cancer. So many words and stories were told about this floor, even though it's no more than 92 regular gate jumps with a little twist from time to time.
If someone's struggling with it, I can give a piece of advice:
The first two rows are diamonds. You can treat them as gates ONLY if you wish to get better at hitting the 16px gap, but otherwise these are diamonds. You don't want to spend so much time at each individual gate just to die to a dropgate, so just learn to pass diamonds.
After the dropgate, use a regular pattern: jump, double jump in between the gates to assess your position, fall into the 16px gap, jump out, repeat. This is the most consistent way of beating this screen for me.
The row between two screens is the hardest section. My tip is DO NOT rely on your eyesight. Your hands know how to do a 4f/5f, so just let them do the job and do not watch how high you jump. I only paid attention to my position while on the ground OR when assessing the position above 16px.
You may choke on the diamond several times, and it's fine. If you got this far, it's about time you beat the screen. Just don't hurry and you'll be fine.
Floor 93 s2 is weird. I JTooled the whole last section and that was the only right choice to make.
Floor 94 is literally free once again.
Floor 95 seems like a nice screen cause it gives you a choice on which path to take. But imo all paths were unfun shit, picking the shortest one would be the right choice I guess.
Floor 96 gives you two separate screens to pick one, both were meh. Second one seemed slightly better/easier to me.
Floor 97 wtf? You can choose to beat the floor or skip it? I don't understand the concept behind this, guess there's a secret of some sort if you choose to beat the whole screen.
Floor 98 is easy compared to all the bullshit with water levels we've been through before.
Floor 99 is also kinda easy, especially if you've beaten the original Crimson screen.
And here we are: Floor 100. The culmination. It's not harder than most of the floors in the game, it doesn't feel like a final boss of some sort (while 92 did feel like this). It's just there, waiting for you to jump into the warp and fall to the clear screen.
This is the Catharsis.
I wanna be the Crimson Needle was more than a ten-ish years long journey to me. It was a story of falling and rising, discovering and learning, giving up and returning. It was a story of overcoming, staying focused, calm, determined, and grinding as hard as possible no matter what.
By the time of writing this review, the game was beaten by me a few hours ago. What was once an impossible challenge, is now finally over. The game aged very poorly: the engine feels clunky, the needle style is mostly outdated, the difficulty curve pretty much doesn't fucking exist, and the game can't even run in fullscreen.
I cannot recommend this game unless you want yourself a really tough (but not really rewarding) challenge.
However I do recommend the speedrun version if you're into needle and want to experience the classic, it's significantly less cancerous than OG version.
Stay determined.
[1] Like
What is I wanna be the Crimson Needle? Some say it's an old IWBTG fangame in Needle genre, others say it's The most influential needle game, and someone may say it's an unfun unbalanced steaming pile of shit that should be banned in all countries. All of these opinions got a point. For me though it is a game that pushed me to the limits, gave me a goal and determination to beat it.
First time I heard about this game was around 2016-2017. The only fangames I beaten so far were some of the most popular titles (such as Guy, Fangame, Boshy ez mode, KTG, Kamilia, NANG) mixed with some random really bad titles like Ronald, Daily Dose and End. I couldn't understand what's the difference between needle and adventure, I mean both genres mostly contain spike jumps, they're identical.
And then at some point I discovered I wanna be the Crimson Needle. To me it looked exactly like any other fangame. It had many reviews, a decent rating and a pretty high difficulty that I didn't even pay attention to lol. "Why not give it a try?",- I thought.
If only I knew what's coming...
I downloaded the game and immediately jumped into it. Selected the Bow mode because No Bow was obviously a hard mode, and in a fangame you always want to pick the lowest available difficulty.
The first screens in the game meet the player with eyes-destroying red simple needle screens. As a novice player I didn't bother thinking about HOW to play the game. The positioning I picked was random, the jumps were all similar, and the aligns were nothing but a stupid obscure deep concept used in NANG for some unknown reason. So the only option left for me was to bruteforce the game, and I genuinely thought that's how you're supposed to play these games.
So I started to bruteforce through the saves, learning almost nothing and just praying that I'd hit the jump this time. Funnily enough, it worked.
Floors 1-9 didn't stand out much. Floor 5 is a one-save screen that requires some consistency. Floor 6 has a save with two corner jumps in a row, which already scared me at that point. Floor 8 seemed funny to me since there were many shorter but significantly harder saves. I remember liking this style at that point since bruteforcing short saves is easier than keeping up the consistency.
Floor 10 was the first major diffuculty spike I remember. One-save screen with a water maze. The inability to perform low jumps (and by low I mean at most 4f) already started bothering me, though I didn't realize it back then.
Floor 13 had so many minispikes. It already required lower jumps which got me frustrated at some point. 15 was no better. Here I already started watching the speedrunners beating it, since I knew they'd pick the easiest and the best strats and I just need to repeat. I became a big fan of TheNaderTwo (and I still am to this day), I dreamt about playing as good as him (and I still do to this day), but the reality was disappointing.
Each save started to take much more time. If floors 1-10 took 10-20 minutes per save, now there could be saves I'd be stuck on for half an hour straight. I knew I'd never beat this game, because if that's what happens on 10s, how tf am I supposed to perform at least one jump at 50s or higher? But I decided to try and get as far as I can, even if it's gonna take a lot of time.
Floors 16-18 are Catharsis-themed. It was the first time I saw the needle looking like this: without distinct sprites of spikes and blocks. I remember thinking that I must be really good at this since I can tell where the spike is and where it isn't.
Floors 19-21 seemed fun to me, all colorful and misaligned. 20 was horrible though, fruit needle is something I wasn't prepared for and as a result I was stuck here for a bit longer than usual.
Floors 22-24 were very cool, I liked how minimalistic and pretty it looked. I also felt like I'm getting better since there was only 1-2 problematic jumps per save.
Floors 25-27 is a point at which I realized something's wrong. Nader's game looked different. It was the exact same game, but the bg was different. I thought his game was just outdated or whatever, didn't care much.
The saves here felt much more precise that before. I could feel the difficulty rising as the skill issue continued to kick in.
Floor 26 is where I dropped the game. It was just too much for me, I couldn't handle the difficulty and decided to leave where I am and focus on other fangames. I didn't feel any improvements, but they definitely happened.
I still came back to the game to see if the impossible save would have mercy on me, spent like a 5 minutes and left. One day I got myself a new PC and didn't backup my game. All the progress was lost, and I genuinely thought that's where the story of this game ends for me.
So I got into FSR Adventure and FSR Needle, improving slowely but surely. I could even pass some Gold tier games already.
And that's how the next few years went by.
October 26, 2019
I became a slightly better needle player now, knowing what I'm doing instead of just jumping and praying.
So one day I decided to give this game a shot one more time. I finally got to F26 again and after some struggle finally managed to beat it. The determination kicked in as I felt there are so many screens lying ahead. I knew that I AM ready this time. Obviously, I wasn't.
So the grind continued. The rest of 26-27 were hard as hell, but thanks to Nader I knew which walls to touch and where to jump.
Floors 28-30 were even harder and I felt that I won't get far from here. 29 consisted of L-needle which I liked again.
Floors 31-33 traumatized me. They sprites made my eyes hurt, and 31 had some of the hardest vine jumps I've ever had to pull out so far. And 33 save 1 was the same but MUCH worse. The jumps were already super-precise and the last jump was a literal choke generator. I remember spending several hours on this one.
Floors 34-36 felt like a nice change of pace. No more stupid vines, just some pure needle with some fruits and platforms here and there. While these were still hard as hell, this section was much easier to bruteforce than the previous one.
I remember loving 37-39 for Uhuhu tileset which felt more forgiving for some reason. I also hated this section for the amount of vertical spike corridors that you needed to weave in. It just felt weird and unintuitive to pull off. 39 took me several hours to beat.
At 40-42 I hated the bg selection, it just distracted me from the gameplay so much. And guess what, it got even harder here. 42 was a funny screen that I liked, but also spent an hour or so to beat.
Floors 43-45 broken me in so many ways. Another section filled with water jumps, harder than before. Fruit maze at the end of 44 took A LOT of attempts and I didn't feel I'm getting anywhere there. 45 was what really broken me. I spent several days beating it, rewatching the speedrun strats at 0.25, trying everything. And eventually that monster of a floor was beaten.
Can't say anything about 46-48, don't remember these at all.
Floors 49-51 are Sunspike-themed, I loved how it looked. Hollow spikes always felt more forgiving to me, which worked as a reverse mindblock. No major problems here.
Floors 52-54 is the point where I found out about JTool. It was such a huge discovery that it gave me a second breath. I could practice the tricky jumps without needing to redo the whole save and without fear of choking. And even so, the saves felt just random at times. I used to pass the easy section of the save, and simply pray that this time I'll make it through the hard part.
54 save2 was the save I spent the most time on so far. Almost 30 different minispike jumps, each requiring low jumps, with the worst ones near the end. JTooling didn't seem to help much since I was heavily lacking consistency. I thought "Even if I somehow beat it now, what's coming next is sure going to destroy me, so what's the point?".
Beating it was the biggest relief I've experienced in this game.
Floors 55-57 were a nice change of pace once again. No water, little to no minispikes, just needle. I realized that Nader definitely had a different version of the game since the save2 positon in 57 was different. I found out that this was a Speedrun version that was slightly nerfed in several ways. I even though switching to it, but the speedrun version allowed you to select any floor freely, which I considered as an act of cheating. I thought I'd never be able to prove I beaten the game for real. So I got my shit together and continued grinding. I was stuck at 57 for very long, and finally got past it.
Floors 58-60 surprised me. These were... easy? I've been sweating over last 40 or so floors just to find out there are EASIER floors further? Alright then, I'll take it. I understood that this game's difficulty curve is a joke and that I might've already beaten the hardest floors (though I knew that 92 will come eventually)
I got to 61 full of enthusiasm just to get hit with a wall in the face. I could pass the first jump around 1 in 50 times, and everything further was even worse. The cherries required extremely precise low jumps, and the jump after was a hell even in JTool. And that's where I really dropped the game for good. I knew it was over for me, so I just switched to playing something I like instead.
And so went the next 3 or so years.
I got into CN3 and even managed to get past F31. I got myself a fancy Ducky One 2 Pro that I've dreamt about for so long, and it surely made a difference. My skill was growing, I finally could do 2fs consistently. I got to understand aligns and jump cancels. I got into FSR and beaten some of the games that were so hard I never even thought I'd start playing them.
Put out a cigarette, Reach Midnight, Morning Dew, DM CN, Cry - these were such monumental achievements for me. I felt unstoppable at this point, even though I knew there's still so much to learn.
While finishing last FSR Needle Diamond tier games, I knew what must be done next.
So I got my shit together one last time and returned to F61. I JTooled every jump, I knew exactly when and where to go. And I beaten it.
Floors 62-63 turned out to be easy again. I was both happy that 61 is over and mad that it blocked me from actual needle I'm capable of playing. I literally ran through Floors 62-69 in one sitting in half an hour or so. I remembered how just a few years ago it took several hours for me to beat a single save in this game, and here we are now.
These were still hard, but with all the experience and confidence I got now, there was no way for me to stop.
Also shoutout to PerliousFalcon for sharing the forbidden knowlwedge of disabling the Numpad lock. It made my life much easier at times, and I felt like we're finally even with the game.
Floors 70-72 were nice, I felt these were exactly slightly below my skill level. Not too hard, not too easy, you just focus on needle and eventually get past it.
I hated that one jump on F73, you know which one I mean. Everyone hates it, why is it even there? Would be an amazing save without this jump.
Not much to say about floors 74-75, just some regular tight needle.
Floor 76 is where I felt the difficulty curve finally rising once again. Starting with some fruit needle with lots of wacky jumps, continuing with super long and chokey save2 in 77, and... 78.
Floor 78 is what I consider the hardest floor in this game. I spent several days to beat it, truly raging for the first time playing this game, cursing the game, the creator and his artistic vision.
Every single jump in this save is something you can easily choke on. It takes a lot of practice to beat most of these consistently. But the star of the show if of course the carat jump. A cute little jump that requires a perfect fucking 2 frame jump with an almost-perfect fucking stutter in the middle. I choked on this jump around 20 times. I thought this is where it ends. I was ready to switch to speedrun version and just walk past through the fucking carat which is nerfed in this version. Luckily for me, I got through this hell of a screen once again.
Floors 79-81 have some interesting water jumps. Floor 80 is a legend. I choked the final jump two times and I understand the hate towards this screen, but I found it quite fun.
Floors 82-84: the infamous Archfoe section. All the cancerous generic jumps you can think of are here, like a fucking cursed reincarnation of The Harbingers. The star of the show is 82 save 2. An invert, a gate into a corner, Sunspike's double corner drop, another fucking invert really?, a diamond (IMO it should've been a double diamond to fit the save), a plane and a fucking choke jump I believe is not even named. I hated this save, but I'm thankful for letting me improve on generic needle. If you got past 78, you're definitely able to do this.
The rest of 82-84 was not a big deal for me tbh.
Floors 85-87: the Needle Satan screens. Why are these easy again? Difficulty curve is all over this place in this game. 87 was definitely harder than the rest though, but not as nearly hard as some of the floors mentioned before.
Floors 88-90 feel like you're nearing the home stretch, and the music only amplifies this feeling. Fairly hard, not too annoying. Also why the hell is 90 literally free?
I don't remember much about 91 because all I could think of is that 92 is around the corner. I was horrified of it, like a kid in a haunted house. I already beaten CN3's 92 at this point which gave me extra confidence, but I knew it won't be easy either way.
So here we are: Floor 92. The myth, the legend, the asshole, the peak needle design, the cancer. So many words and stories were told about this floor, even though it's no more than 92 regular gate jumps with a little twist from time to time.
If someone's struggling with it, I can give a piece of advice:
The first two rows are diamonds. You can treat them as gates ONLY if you wish to get better at hitting the 16px gap, but otherwise these are diamonds. You don't want to spend so much time at each individual gate just to die to a dropgate, so just learn to pass diamonds.
After the dropgate, use a regular pattern: jump, double jump in between the gates to assess your position, fall into the 16px gap, jump out, repeat. This is the most consistent way of beating this screen for me.
The row between two screens is the hardest section. My tip is DO NOT rely on your eyesight. Your hands know how to do a 4f/5f, so just let them do the job and do not watch how high you jump. I only paid attention to my position while on the ground OR when assessing the position above 16px.
You may choke on the diamond several times, and it's fine. If you got this far, it's about time you beat the screen. Just don't hurry and you'll be fine.
Floor 93 s2 is weird. I JTooled the whole last section and that was the only right choice to make.
Floor 94 is literally free once again.
Floor 95 seems like a nice screen cause it gives you a choice on which path to take. But imo all paths were unfun shit, picking the shortest one would be the right choice I guess.
Floor 96 gives you two separate screens to pick one, both were meh. Second one seemed slightly better/easier to me.
Floor 97 wtf? You can choose to beat the floor or skip it? I don't understand the concept behind this, guess there's a secret of some sort if you choose to beat the whole screen.
Floor 98 is easy compared to all the bullshit with water levels we've been through before.
Floor 99 is also kinda easy, especially if you've beaten the original Crimson screen.
And here we are: Floor 100. The culmination. It's not harder than most of the floors in the game, it doesn't feel like a final boss of some sort (while 92 did feel like this). It's just there, waiting for you to jump into the warp and fall to the clear screen.
This is the Catharsis.
I wanna be the Crimson Needle was more than a ten-ish years long journey to me. It was a story of falling and rising, discovering and learning, giving up and returning. It was a story of overcoming, staying focused, calm, determined, and grinding as hard as possible no matter what.
By the time of writing this review, the game was beaten by me a few hours ago. What was once an impossible challenge, is now finally over. The game aged very poorly: the engine feels clunky, the needle style is mostly outdated, the difficulty curve pretty much doesn't fucking exist, and the game can't even run in fullscreen.
I cannot recommend this game unless you want yourself a really tough (but not really rewarding) challenge.
However I do recommend the speedrun version if you're into needle and want to experience the classic, it's significantly less cancerous than OG version.
Stay determined.
Rating: 4.0 40
Difficulty: 83 83
Jun 26, 2025