Delicious FruitI wanna onlineedle3
Creators: sill, neurh, riri_riri, ナッツ, ねむら, ぷらむ, そらkaian, ジャック/, やまけん, Ralluku, ふぐ, みずあめ
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3 Reviews:
DerpyHoovesIWBTG
Rating based on 100% clear. Without the post-game content I'd rate it a 75.
Hard needle collab with a lot of variety when it comes to platforming and ideas. Every stage does something unique and no stage plays the same. Not every stage was perfect, but there was no stage that I actively hated playing. Before you read the rest, I will say that it is best to leave sill and neurh's stage for later, despite these stages appearing at the start of the maker list they are among the most precise or rough stages to play. I'd start with riri or ナッツ's stage to have a good overview of what's to come next. Lastly, despite the gimmick tag being present the game is not that gimmick heavy. Most stages just have regular platforming, and the most gimmick-based stages that can think of are そらkaian (yellow & purple lasers) and ジャック/'s (fruit cycles + timed wing gimmick) stages.
I'll write a brief overview of every stage in order how they appear in the stage menu.
sill:
A huge mixed bag for me. It's pretty weak compared to other stages and it kinda made me worried how every stage after this would play out, but I still appreciate what it sets out to do. The pathing is very clever, but some of the setups are pretty jank so some saves ended up taking longer for me than they should have.
4.5/10
neurh:
Another heavy hitter, this time the platforming is great however it gets very precise quick which overwhelmed me a lot. This stage is split into three substages. I'm not sure what the first one is based on, but it reminds me of I wanna be eaten and loved by you. The second stage is based on Ramirin's stage from I wanna zzz, and the last stage is based on I wanna say what's the world come to.
My favorite stage of the three was the second stage due to the unusual yet creative vine/water jumps which were nice to figure out. While the last stage has the best level design it kinda overstayed its welcome after a while due to how it tries to cram in as many saves as the maker could while keeping the same length as the original game, so I had to take small breaks often so my hands wouldn't hurt. Still I like what neurh came up with, and I can see this being rated higher for someone else than what I did.
7/10
riri_riri:
The most uninspiring stage out of them all since it just copies the platforming of the games used in Kamilia 2, but somehow it just works! I feel like this will be the stage which will pop into my head first if I think about this game in the future just because of how clever the execution is.
Even if I didn't really mind it as I took a short time on it, I kinda wished there was an extra save at the end of stage 2 because it takes a while to get there just to have another attempt at the backtrack. Stage 3 also had some jank coding issues where the game would lag for a short time if I shot the buttons which costed me a few deaths. Also I'm pretty sure the Skyclad path after shooting the left button is impossible, so you always want to activate it on the right side first. The very last jump of stage 6 is a diamond which was kinda stupid, although it doesn't take long to get there if you found a good route.
8/10
ナッツ:
One stage that's divided into two parts, where the first half plays out in normal gravity and the second half forces you to backtrack with reversed gravity. I really liked the first half, but the second half has some rough jumps here and there. The cycles were also obviously shoehorned in so that you spend slightly longer on some of the shorter saves. Decent effort for a debut maker, and I'm curious what they will make next.
6.5/10
ねむら:
This stage is split into two substages. The first half consists of corner setups mixed with catharsis water drops. The gameplay flows really well even if there are times where the game wants you to figure out the right spot for a setup at times. The second half consists of 16px block platforming with clever vine jump + jump refresher usage. This stage was my favorite part of the entire game, although I can perfectly understand why some people would not like it. For me the platforming was very well designed and the atmosphere of both stages were also great.
The only downsides for me is that the music quality is very poor, especially the first song which has very noticable audio crackling throughout the song. Besides that and how some of the vines in the second half were kinda awkward to jump off I really enjoyed this.
9/10
ぷらむ:
Heavy water usage. You don't really have to think about where you are going, you just go with the flow. I did find the first half to have more annoying saves than the second half though, particularly one save where it starts off with a squished diagonal and then it turns out its only one third of the save. There isn't a lot to talk about here, this is one of those stages where its better to play or watch it than describing it. Was it fun? Yes.
8.5/10
そらkaian:
One of the more gimmickier stages of the game. While the visuals are pretty bad, it makes up for it for being one of the more better designed stages. There are two lasers: a yellow laser which acts like water2, but if you shoot it from far away it will disable and give you an extra jump. The purple laser gives you low gravity. I found the tutorial to be a bit confusing, but I quickly figured out what to do as I was playing through the stage. The platforming was somewhat on the weaker side though, but like with ナッツ's stage I can respect if its this stage was the first thing they made. There's one screen later on where you are forced to backtrack with slow gravity, however the save at the start of the screen does not disappear so if you save there and reset you lose your low gravity which was a bit annoying.
7/10
ジャック/:
Out of all the makers this is the one maker that has definitely improved if you compare this stage to what he has made in the past. If you are a fan of cycles, this is the place to be. Thankfully the cycles are nowhere as complicated as they look, and you don't need to wait long to get a good cycle as you get it when resetting. This stage has one extra gimmick where there are feathers placed across the stage which temporarily give you wings/infinite jump for a short period of time. I wish some of the feathers were placed better, mainly the big feather at the bottom of the drop on the first screen which sometimes just eats your jump depending on where you touched it. Decent stage overall, just wished it was a little longer.
7/10
やまけん:
For me this stage has the best pathing of them all, but the balancing was very bad. The platforming is akin to games like Twist and Turn, and it even has the indicators when you got to a save point which you have touched before which was neat. It has a lot of choke jumps or jumps with very little reaction time which irritated me. Most of the stage is just hard platforming for the sake of being hard instead of being enjoyable. Had this been balanced better I would have placed it somewhere in my top 5.
5.5/10
Ralluku:
Starts off strong, but quickly falls off in fun value after the second screen. The second save of the third screen is just very precise for seemingly no reason, due to the drop at the top left of the screen. There's no good setup for it; you just have to hope you wing it and first try the rest. It took me almost 10 minutes before I finally did that jump once, and thankfully I did the rest first try. The last screen is just kinda there; its one of those trial screens that you will spend a short or long time on. Not bad, but I found it pretty boring as a last screen of the stage.
6/10
ふぐ:
And here is the divisive stage of the entire game. There's a language barrier moment that makes this stage very hard to complete if you don't speak Japanese. Instead of being linear you're meant to find the exit by playing through the entire stage until you somehow find out what to do. After getting to the end of the last green screen you get put back to the beginning, and you are presented with some random trivia question which I believe gives you a hint to where the exit is located if you guess it correctly. In the end I just resorted to watching the VOD of the race because I would have never have figured it out otherwise.
I'm not sure if you can get to the exit on the first loop, but incase you can here is the solution:
On II of the pink screens there is a row of fruit on the right side. You want to grab an align in the third save, from left to right then jump in the fourth gap which brings you to screen V of the green screens. You do NOT want to save on this screen, but instead go to the top right which brings you to screen VI. From here you want to jump in the middle left ceiling which brings you back to the pink screens, but there's a warp right above you.
After this there's a long drop with moving spikes and random trivia questions. Thankfully if you get the answer wrong you don't get send back to the beginning, but rather back to the question. Too bad this another language barrier moment, so here are the answers so you don't need to trial-and-error your way to the end:
right, middle, left, left
I really like the idea but this stage is a lost in translation moment if you don't speak the language. Atleast the needle is challenging but fun.
6/10
みずあめ:
Needle in the Comfort Needle style. Like with ぷらむ's stage this stage is better explained if you watch or play it yourself, but the premise of the stage is creative water maneuvers. This stage is divided into three substages: The first stage has a clean and consistent style with happy visuals. Then the second stage hits you with the depression arc, and the needle and visuals turn all moody. The spikes are placed in random spots and there are also some catharis water jumps here and there. Technically the last stage can be hardly called a stage, even though the visuals are different it's just one screen with a single drop where you climb back up to the warp.
Despite this being one of the more grindy stages with a few rough jumps I largely enjoyed my time with it, and I kinda wish there was more needle in this style. Nice stage to end the game with.
8/10
Beating all of the stages unlocks the credits. You can call this a clear unless you decide to go the extra mile and beat some extra screens which are hidden away, and you can access it by savejumping on the right side. These screens represent the difficulty screens used for every stage in the race. The majority of screens are nothing-tier, but there are a few outliers where you get to play some real needle.
The first hard screen you will encounter is やまけん's screen which looks innocent at first with the brown tiles and green background, but you'll quickly realize how fucked up the first save is. Shoutouts to the drop in the middle where the best way to do it is to treat the platform like a ledge jump, which is hard to hit. Thankfully the second save wasn't as bad as the first; you just need to know how to do the first jump before the drop. The other screens shouldn't take long, and the most challenging jump you will find is a 4.5 block jump on riri_riri's screen. This all ends on the final screen which was made by sill, and you get to do a double plane to get the item! Very idiotic game design indeed. It did feel like it was ever so slightly nerfed, but I could be wrong. Even if this part of the game is entirely optional it feels a little disappointing to end it off with a jump like this, since there is no other way to get the last item. It's not the worst thing in the world, and I almost want to say a double plane is not that challenging for those who only play hard needle. Ultimately I don't feel like handing out a rating for this part, but it was still somewhat enjoyable for me.
In conclusion I enjoyed my time with this. Like stated before there's a huge amount of variety and there are several makers that haven't really made anything prior to this with stages that surprised me that they ended up so well. Despite this there's still some rough spots or jank present in most stages, but the positives far outweigh the negatives for me. I kinda wish the stages were balanced a little better, despite there being 3 playtesters I believe the stages were entirely unchanged when they got ported over to a single executable.
Would recommend, especially if you are looking for hard needle collabs.
[1] Like
Hard needle collab with a lot of variety when it comes to platforming and ideas. Every stage does something unique and no stage plays the same. Not every stage was perfect, but there was no stage that I actively hated playing. Before you read the rest, I will say that it is best to leave sill and neurh's stage for later, despite these stages appearing at the start of the maker list they are among the most precise or rough stages to play. I'd start with riri or ナッツ's stage to have a good overview of what's to come next. Lastly, despite the gimmick tag being present the game is not that gimmick heavy. Most stages just have regular platforming, and the most gimmick-based stages that can think of are そらkaian (yellow & purple lasers) and ジャック/'s (fruit cycles + timed wing gimmick) stages.
I'll write a brief overview of every stage in order how they appear in the stage menu.
sill:
A huge mixed bag for me. It's pretty weak compared to other stages and it kinda made me worried how every stage after this would play out, but I still appreciate what it sets out to do. The pathing is very clever, but some of the setups are pretty jank so some saves ended up taking longer for me than they should have.
4.5/10
neurh:
Another heavy hitter, this time the platforming is great however it gets very precise quick which overwhelmed me a lot. This stage is split into three substages. I'm not sure what the first one is based on, but it reminds me of I wanna be eaten and loved by you. The second stage is based on Ramirin's stage from I wanna zzz, and the last stage is based on I wanna say what's the world come to.
My favorite stage of the three was the second stage due to the unusual yet creative vine/water jumps which were nice to figure out. While the last stage has the best level design it kinda overstayed its welcome after a while due to how it tries to cram in as many saves as the maker could while keeping the same length as the original game, so I had to take small breaks often so my hands wouldn't hurt. Still I like what neurh came up with, and I can see this being rated higher for someone else than what I did.
7/10
riri_riri:
The most uninspiring stage out of them all since it just copies the platforming of the games used in Kamilia 2, but somehow it just works! I feel like this will be the stage which will pop into my head first if I think about this game in the future just because of how clever the execution is.
Even if I didn't really mind it as I took a short time on it, I kinda wished there was an extra save at the end of stage 2 because it takes a while to get there just to have another attempt at the backtrack. Stage 3 also had some jank coding issues where the game would lag for a short time if I shot the buttons which costed me a few deaths. Also I'm pretty sure the Skyclad path after shooting the left button is impossible, so you always want to activate it on the right side first. The very last jump of stage 6 is a diamond which was kinda stupid, although it doesn't take long to get there if you found a good route.
8/10
ナッツ:
One stage that's divided into two parts, where the first half plays out in normal gravity and the second half forces you to backtrack with reversed gravity. I really liked the first half, but the second half has some rough jumps here and there. The cycles were also obviously shoehorned in so that you spend slightly longer on some of the shorter saves. Decent effort for a debut maker, and I'm curious what they will make next.
6.5/10
ねむら:
This stage is split into two substages. The first half consists of corner setups mixed with catharsis water drops. The gameplay flows really well even if there are times where the game wants you to figure out the right spot for a setup at times. The second half consists of 16px block platforming with clever vine jump + jump refresher usage. This stage was my favorite part of the entire game, although I can perfectly understand why some people would not like it. For me the platforming was very well designed and the atmosphere of both stages were also great.
The only downsides for me is that the music quality is very poor, especially the first song which has very noticable audio crackling throughout the song. Besides that and how some of the vines in the second half were kinda awkward to jump off I really enjoyed this.
9/10
ぷらむ:
Heavy water usage. You don't really have to think about where you are going, you just go with the flow. I did find the first half to have more annoying saves than the second half though, particularly one save where it starts off with a squished diagonal and then it turns out its only one third of the save. There isn't a lot to talk about here, this is one of those stages where its better to play or watch it than describing it. Was it fun? Yes.
8.5/10
そらkaian:
One of the more gimmickier stages of the game. While the visuals are pretty bad, it makes up for it for being one of the more better designed stages. There are two lasers: a yellow laser which acts like water2, but if you shoot it from far away it will disable and give you an extra jump. The purple laser gives you low gravity. I found the tutorial to be a bit confusing, but I quickly figured out what to do as I was playing through the stage. The platforming was somewhat on the weaker side though, but like with ナッツ's stage I can respect if its this stage was the first thing they made. There's one screen later on where you are forced to backtrack with slow gravity, however the save at the start of the screen does not disappear so if you save there and reset you lose your low gravity which was a bit annoying.
7/10
ジャック/:
Out of all the makers this is the one maker that has definitely improved if you compare this stage to what he has made in the past. If you are a fan of cycles, this is the place to be. Thankfully the cycles are nowhere as complicated as they look, and you don't need to wait long to get a good cycle as you get it when resetting. This stage has one extra gimmick where there are feathers placed across the stage which temporarily give you wings/infinite jump for a short period of time. I wish some of the feathers were placed better, mainly the big feather at the bottom of the drop on the first screen which sometimes just eats your jump depending on where you touched it. Decent stage overall, just wished it was a little longer.
7/10
やまけん:
For me this stage has the best pathing of them all, but the balancing was very bad. The platforming is akin to games like Twist and Turn, and it even has the indicators when you got to a save point which you have touched before which was neat. It has a lot of choke jumps or jumps with very little reaction time which irritated me. Most of the stage is just hard platforming for the sake of being hard instead of being enjoyable. Had this been balanced better I would have placed it somewhere in my top 5.
5.5/10
Ralluku:
Starts off strong, but quickly falls off in fun value after the second screen. The second save of the third screen is just very precise for seemingly no reason, due to the drop at the top left of the screen. There's no good setup for it; you just have to hope you wing it and first try the rest. It took me almost 10 minutes before I finally did that jump once, and thankfully I did the rest first try. The last screen is just kinda there; its one of those trial screens that you will spend a short or long time on. Not bad, but I found it pretty boring as a last screen of the stage.
6/10
ふぐ:
And here is the divisive stage of the entire game. There's a language barrier moment that makes this stage very hard to complete if you don't speak Japanese. Instead of being linear you're meant to find the exit by playing through the entire stage until you somehow find out what to do. After getting to the end of the last green screen you get put back to the beginning, and you are presented with some random trivia question which I believe gives you a hint to where the exit is located if you guess it correctly. In the end I just resorted to watching the VOD of the race because I would have never have figured it out otherwise.
I'm not sure if you can get to the exit on the first loop, but incase you can here is the solution:
On II of the pink screens there is a row of fruit on the right side. You want to grab an align in the third save, from left to right then jump in the fourth gap which brings you to screen V of the green screens. You do NOT want to save on this screen, but instead go to the top right which brings you to screen VI. From here you want to jump in the middle left ceiling which brings you back to the pink screens, but there's a warp right above you.
After this there's a long drop with moving spikes and random trivia questions. Thankfully if you get the answer wrong you don't get send back to the beginning, but rather back to the question. Too bad this another language barrier moment, so here are the answers so you don't need to trial-and-error your way to the end:
right, middle, left, left
I really like the idea but this stage is a lost in translation moment if you don't speak the language. Atleast the needle is challenging but fun.
6/10
みずあめ:
Needle in the Comfort Needle style. Like with ぷらむ's stage this stage is better explained if you watch or play it yourself, but the premise of the stage is creative water maneuvers. This stage is divided into three substages: The first stage has a clean and consistent style with happy visuals. Then the second stage hits you with the depression arc, and the needle and visuals turn all moody. The spikes are placed in random spots and there are also some catharis water jumps here and there. Technically the last stage can be hardly called a stage, even though the visuals are different it's just one screen with a single drop where you climb back up to the warp.
Despite this being one of the more grindy stages with a few rough jumps I largely enjoyed my time with it, and I kinda wish there was more needle in this style. Nice stage to end the game with.
8/10
Beating all of the stages unlocks the credits. You can call this a clear unless you decide to go the extra mile and beat some extra screens which are hidden away, and you can access it by savejumping on the right side. These screens represent the difficulty screens used for every stage in the race. The majority of screens are nothing-tier, but there are a few outliers where you get to play some real needle.
The first hard screen you will encounter is やまけん's screen which looks innocent at first with the brown tiles and green background, but you'll quickly realize how fucked up the first save is. Shoutouts to the drop in the middle where the best way to do it is to treat the platform like a ledge jump, which is hard to hit. Thankfully the second save wasn't as bad as the first; you just need to know how to do the first jump before the drop. The other screens shouldn't take long, and the most challenging jump you will find is a 4.5 block jump on riri_riri's screen. This all ends on the final screen which was made by sill, and you get to do a double plane to get the item! Very idiotic game design indeed. It did feel like it was ever so slightly nerfed, but I could be wrong. Even if this part of the game is entirely optional it feels a little disappointing to end it off with a jump like this, since there is no other way to get the last item. It's not the worst thing in the world, and I almost want to say a double plane is not that challenging for those who only play hard needle. Ultimately I don't feel like handing out a rating for this part, but it was still somewhat enjoyable for me.
In conclusion I enjoyed my time with this. Like stated before there's a huge amount of variety and there are several makers that haven't really made anything prior to this with stages that surprised me that they ended up so well. Despite this there's still some rough spots or jank present in most stages, but the positives far outweigh the negatives for me. I kinda wish the stages were balanced a little better, despite there being 3 playtesters I believe the stages were entirely unchanged when they got ported over to a single executable.
Would recommend, especially if you are looking for hard needle collabs.
Rating: 8.4 84
Difficulty: 78 78
Jul 5, 2024
mushcat
Only Kaian, Sill and Nemura's stages are worth playing. Other stages are awful.
[0] Likes
Rating: 3.0 30
Difficulty: N/A
May 28, 2024