Delicious FruitCrimson Needle 2.5
Creators: Kale, Thenadertwo, Anuj071, kadykunde, egg, Patrickgh3, Thenewgeezer, Zero-G, Gwiz609
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by NightShark115
35 Reviews:
mushcat
Rating based on ending 2. Maybe I’ll update this after clearing ending 3.
1. The main 100 floors
This is the most needle-y part of the game. Vanilla needle has evolved for so many years and many excellent needle makers have emerged, so Kale isn’t as dominative in this field as years before. But that doesn’t mean Kale has fallen behind the era, the main 100 floors are still mostly enjoyable and can be a good representation of modern vanilla needle imo. Needle players will probably enjoy most of this chapter.
My only complaint on this chapter is the 100f. It’s a super long save and some of the jumps are really inconsistent in this context. It does have something to mitigate this problem (the holy mantle) but the problem is still there. Putting fast moving cherries and water in the latter parts of long saves (floor 85~87) is a bit questionable but I personally think it’s designed well so it’s not a problem.
2. Guest stages
There is a guest stage hidden in every 3 floors in the main 100 floors. First of all I think the entrances are mostly designed well. There isn’t any trival wall-hugging entrance. Most of the entrances requires you to observe or think carefully, and hints are sprinkled everywhere. It might be too hard for someone to collect them all without any help, but I think it’s originally designed for community collaboration. It’s really fun to watch the community working together looking for these entrances, tho I personally isn’t into this but I can see many people enjoying it.
Despite the high quality of the entrances, the guest stages themselves are a very huge mixbag that fluctuate heavily both in terms of quality and difficulty. tbf I think it’s completely normal for them to be unbalanced in difficulty. There are just too many makers so it’s impossible to balance the stages. However, this game doesn’t allow you to flee from any area after the first save. So if you accidentally entered a secret that’s initially easy but gradually grow beyond your skill level (and maybe last an eternity), then you are trapped there and deprived of the opportunity to try other secret areas. This makes the unbalanced difficulties a problem.
So, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT if you don’t plan to clear all secrets, you should make a save file backup or watch the spoilers on difficulty before entering any secret.
I’m too lazy to write a detailed review on every single secret, but I’ll list the difficult (not necessarily bad) areas and their genres here in case it’s needed (might be inaccurate because I rated them by myself):
75~80 areas:
f3(gimmick/rng), f36(adventure/sudoku?), f51(needle/trigger), f55(gimmick/path-finding), f60(adventure), f77(gimmick), f86(needle), f89(needle)
80+ areas:
f39(adventure), f68(gimmick), f74(gimmick/path-finding)
On the quality side, I PERSONALLY dislike brainless learny things where it forces you to die a lot to learn something instead of figuring out the solution with brain. Unfortunately, such designs are very commonly seen in many secret areas. Some areas are so confusing that you can’t even know your strat is wrong before a long grind. It’s so frustrating to know that you’ve wasted so much time into a wrong strat, especially when this is evitable if the area could have been designed better just with a minor change. Also, in some areas you may have no idea what you are supposed to do because there are many possible paths with almost no meaningful guides.
I don’t mean to represent everyone’s taste. But if you agree that these designs are bad, then you may find about 1/4 time of your grind is unenjoyable especially if your skill isn’t high enough, because areas with such designs tend to be more difficult and last longer.
Now let’s look at the good sides. Some of the makers really did a great job and made something wonderful, or even good enough to be scored high as a standalone fangame. I’ll list the excellent areas and their genres here (still rated by myself):
My favourite areas:
f8(special), f11(needle), f24(adventure/rpg?), f41(gimmick), f70(needle), f99(special/gimmick)
Another excellent areas:
f3(gimmick/rng), f14(gimmick), f30(gimmick), f32(gimmick), f61(needle), f92(gimmick/visual challenge?)
[2] Likes
1. The main 100 floors
This is the most needle-y part of the game. Vanilla needle has evolved for so many years and many excellent needle makers have emerged, so Kale isn’t as dominative in this field as years before. But that doesn’t mean Kale has fallen behind the era, the main 100 floors are still mostly enjoyable and can be a good representation of modern vanilla needle imo. Needle players will probably enjoy most of this chapter.
My only complaint on this chapter is the 100f. It’s a super long save and some of the jumps are really inconsistent in this context. It does have something to mitigate this problem (the holy mantle) but the problem is still there. Putting fast moving cherries and water in the latter parts of long saves (floor 85~87) is a bit questionable but I personally think it’s designed well so it’s not a problem.
2. Guest stages
There is a guest stage hidden in every 3 floors in the main 100 floors. First of all I think the entrances are mostly designed well. There isn’t any trival wall-hugging entrance. Most of the entrances requires you to observe or think carefully, and hints are sprinkled everywhere. It might be too hard for someone to collect them all without any help, but I think it’s originally designed for community collaboration. It’s really fun to watch the community working together looking for these entrances, tho I personally isn’t into this but I can see many people enjoying it.
Despite the high quality of the entrances, the guest stages themselves are a very huge mixbag that fluctuate heavily both in terms of quality and difficulty. tbf I think it’s completely normal for them to be unbalanced in difficulty. There are just too many makers so it’s impossible to balance the stages. However, this game doesn’t allow you to flee from any area after the first save. So if you accidentally entered a secret that’s initially easy but gradually grow beyond your skill level (and maybe last an eternity), then you are trapped there and deprived of the opportunity to try other secret areas. This makes the unbalanced difficulties a problem.
So, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT if you don’t plan to clear all secrets, you should make a save file backup or watch the spoilers on difficulty before entering any secret.
I’m too lazy to write a detailed review on every single secret, but I’ll list the difficult (not necessarily bad) areas and their genres here in case it’s needed (might be inaccurate because I rated them by myself):
75~80 areas:
f3(gimmick/rng), f36(adventure/sudoku?), f51(needle/trigger), f55(gimmick/path-finding), f60(adventure), f77(gimmick), f86(needle), f89(needle)
80+ areas:
f39(adventure), f68(gimmick), f74(gimmick/path-finding)
On the quality side, I PERSONALLY dislike brainless learny things where it forces you to die a lot to learn something instead of figuring out the solution with brain. Unfortunately, such designs are very commonly seen in many secret areas. Some areas are so confusing that you can’t even know your strat is wrong before a long grind. It’s so frustrating to know that you’ve wasted so much time into a wrong strat, especially when this is evitable if the area could have been designed better just with a minor change. Also, in some areas you may have no idea what you are supposed to do because there are many possible paths with almost no meaningful guides.
I don’t mean to represent everyone’s taste. But if you agree that these designs are bad, then you may find about 1/4 time of your grind is unenjoyable especially if your skill isn’t high enough, because areas with such designs tend to be more difficult and last longer.
Now let’s look at the good sides. Some of the makers really did a great job and made something wonderful, or even good enough to be scored high as a standalone fangame. I’ll list the excellent areas and their genres here (still rated by myself):
My favourite areas:
f8(special), f11(needle), f24(adventure/rpg?), f41(gimmick), f70(needle), f99(special/gimmick)
Another excellent areas:
f3(gimmick/rng), f14(gimmick), f30(gimmick), f32(gimmick), f61(needle), f92(gimmick/visual challenge?)
Rating: 8.2 82
Difficulty: 86 86
Aug 8, 2024
Lishu
I love it bug some jumps are so bad,it made me very mad,and so boring.
[2] Likes
Rating: 7.0 70
Difficulty: 90 90
Jul 30, 2024
purify
Crimson Needle's sequel, and the quality is certainly worth recognizing.
Compared to CN2 and CN3, CN2.5 is like its name, like a combined version of the two games, with CN2's Jumping Stinger and CN3's Gimmick, in which the Jumping Stinger mainly accounts for more of the game.
The game has a lot (really a lot) of weird hidden extras, but I didn't bother looking for them. I can't say whether it's good or bad to cram so much puzzle game content into a jumping jab game.
The main review of Jump Spike is that most of the jump spikes (up to 71F) are great, however from 71 onwards it just doesn't turn out quite right, both in terms of difficulty and fun, and yes I'm going to start criticizing - the whole game is finished in terms of difficulty! Entirely! NOT! Balanced! Balanced! Especially 85-87, where you have to die once without an archive to find out what to jump next, and I spent a full hour more on those three levels than I did on 97-99!
Then there's 100, which is honestly the most disappointing and annoying layer for me, as well as the last layer of the game; the entire 100th layer is just a copy and paste of a portion of all the previous layers, with little to no modification other than that.
I died 3 whole times in the last STAGE of 100, and the resurrection even had a bug where you could get stuck upside down in a wall (see https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1y3YPeoEPj/?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0&vd_source= for details) fdf6a43dcb16de99d370e24ef0c0fe2d), and it really hit the mind hard. And 100 really has too many, too many unfriendly jumps, meaning not difficulty, but simply not fun.
But the overall quality is still there, and with the fact that this is the sequel to the Crimson Needle series, I'd still rate it a perfect 10. As for the difficulty, it's not as hard as Crimson Needle 3 if you don't count all those hidden extras.
(Machine translation)
(At the time I'm writing this review, the game is passed, with 10987 deaths and 17:49:44 elapsed time)
[1] Like
Compared to CN2 and CN3, CN2.5 is like its name, like a combined version of the two games, with CN2's Jumping Stinger and CN3's Gimmick, in which the Jumping Stinger mainly accounts for more of the game.
The game has a lot (really a lot) of weird hidden extras, but I didn't bother looking for them. I can't say whether it's good or bad to cram so much puzzle game content into a jumping jab game.
The main review of Jump Spike is that most of the jump spikes (up to 71F) are great, however from 71 onwards it just doesn't turn out quite right, both in terms of difficulty and fun, and yes I'm going to start criticizing - the whole game is finished in terms of difficulty! Entirely! NOT! Balanced! Balanced! Especially 85-87, where you have to die once without an archive to find out what to jump next, and I spent a full hour more on those three levels than I did on 97-99!
Then there's 100, which is honestly the most disappointing and annoying layer for me, as well as the last layer of the game; the entire 100th layer is just a copy and paste of a portion of all the previous layers, with little to no modification other than that.
I died 3 whole times in the last STAGE of 100, and the resurrection even had a bug where you could get stuck upside down in a wall (see https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1y3YPeoEPj/?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0&vd_source= for details) fdf6a43dcb16de99d370e24ef0c0fe2d), and it really hit the mind hard. And 100 really has too many, too many unfriendly jumps, meaning not difficulty, but simply not fun.
But the overall quality is still there, and with the fact that this is the sequel to the Crimson Needle series, I'd still rate it a perfect 10. As for the difficulty, it's not as hard as Crimson Needle 3 if you don't count all those hidden extras.
(Machine translation)
(At the time I'm writing this review, the game is passed, with 10987 deaths and 17:49:44 elapsed time)
Rating: 10.0 100
Difficulty: 85 85
Aug 6, 2024