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Nick24
For: Crimson Needle 2.5
For: Crimson Needle 2.5
The difficulty rating is final and is based on third ending. As someone who scales using average segment difficulty and game length, CN2.5 combo confidently hits the spot for my hardest clear. It's really funny how that happens, since there's not a single save in the game harder than CN3 floor 100, but it's long and consistently hard, with the difficulty curve getting close to that point every so often. Yeah I guess I'm that kind of guy who thinks 20 85 difficulty saves are harder than 1 90 difficulty one. Hard games are all about how dedicated you are anyways.
While being close to being done with the game, I got into heated discussion about me slandering the game for being too difficult. I agree that my opponent made some valid points, so check this out: I'm locking the quality rating to 9/10! While I'm going to steal only 1 tiny point for difficulty reasons (there in fact exists a fangame which only benefitted from accessibilty imo), I have to agree that the amount of content and effort put into this game is phenomenal. It's also creative enough to test basically every skill imagineable. I think works like these have to be admired, it's common sense. I hope the number isn't offensive and is high enough to make sense now. The game definitely won the sisyphus award for me. And it's not like the rating is set in stone, maybe it can get much higher once the difficulty starts to settle in for me. It's a long process though. Also the feeling of being done and having nothing left is incredible, the endgame somehow culminated into amazing feelings, I'll give half a point for that.
The review parts below contain my unfiltered thoughts however, so proceed with caution.
As far as main game goes, it tries to remove all the bad moments from the original, like some random generic jumps, some awful ending jumps, replace the floor entirely, remove intermissions, etc. I think the creator did a good job with the changes. That said, the difficulty skyrockets once you reach floor 85, and keeps on being harder than the original for a decent amount of the remaining floors. The game feels more like CN2 WARPED rather than 2.5 at this point. Though I guess it's fine because floor 100 literally allows you to take a hit halfway in, which makes this floor the one I had the least problems with in the series (not including cn1 ofcourse), especially because all the jumps on this floor felt somewhat consistent (sometimes even nerfed compared to original segment for that goal) compared to other floor 100s: original cn2 had some really uncomfortable jumps near the end, and for cn3 mentioning the 16px-into-diagonal drop near the end alone is enough.
Any% is solid 8/10.
That said, beating all 100 floors is like 10% of content the game has to offer. There's A LOT of extra stuff to do, but despite there being a lot of cool extra areas, there are some which were a complete miss for me. That's granted to happen when you have a lot of content in a game, and it had a bit of impact on my rating. As far as secret bosses go, they were proven to be a lot more controversial than original CN2 crimson. Being just a needle player isn't enough anymore, sadly, despite it being a game about needle.
After secret hunting, I feel like I should review all secret areas in a tier list fashion, maybe it will make your choice easier.
Kale (F3)
It had a really cool fast-paced gimmick. All saves were fun till the rng skulls one... B.
Cutemia (F6)
Easy platforming with a gimmick, a lot of fun and chill to execute, that's an A.
LAWatson (F8)
Yet again with the patience-requiring shooting boss. Though it feels like he held back with the difficulty on this one, so it's not that bad, B.
Gwiz609 (F11)
4 different cycle-based screens, followed by an eclipse gimmick. Short and fun - A.
Thenadertwo (F14)
Fun needle, goes in A.
Ubersawmedic (F18)
Fully optional, so I'm not ranking this one. Personally I'm not a fan of golden room.
Wonderful (F19)
Surprisingly nothing special or memorable, but it's short so okay, B.
Lss (F24)
Literally the best secret in the game, the only one which will go in the S class.
Lemongh (F25)
Short area with various gimmicks, nothing special, B.
Wolfiexe (F30)
Fun needle. The 4 towers idea is interesting, A.
Anxkha (F32)
Reminds me of RO a lot, a rukito-like. Cool, A.
pieceofcheese87 (F36)
Well, it finally happened: a miss. The restrictions which come from gimmicks are rough, mobs take ages to kill, and the traps are really damn cruel. I glitched the freaking golem's head out of bounds, and the bee screen is just awful. This area really sucked, but it's far from being the worst, D.
cherry treehouse (F39)
I have beaten this one, and I really felt the need to vent out my feelings. Damn it sucks massively. As always, The Team just throws in AAA games-tier production value, only to throw it off the rails with really awful gameplay. If you want to make sure that you can beat CN2.5 100%, playing this one will tell if you have what it takes. However if you want to have fun or reasonable-length area, ignore this one at all costs. On top of that, this area just feels harder than ANY other stage in the game I've seen, 100 is a joke compared to how messed up this is. I was one of the people who really struggled with final boss, what makes me ask the question: why the hell would you make a balls hard BOSS in a game about NEEDLE??? Truly nasrano-worthy. Unrelated, but the area is probably fun if you're celeste grandmaster, and I haven't even played that. So let's sum this area up:
1. The stage lasts an eternity.
2. Platforming feels like I'm playing celeste rather than a fangame, it forces you to keep being airborne way too many times. There's literally no landing breaks, only wallhugs in the best case. The amount of learning coming out of that is enormous, especially with all the timing-based obstacles in mind. I have beaten freaking wooden king, and I'm still talking about airborne, let that sink in.
3. Except for boss 2, the other 2 feel like "survive this 1 attack for the entire duration of a boss". The entire "you can only use sword" idea also makes me feel like I'm handicapped and can't reach anything.
4. Final boss is stupidly hard. I've heard CN2 last boss comparison, and I think it's probably right. Also the amount of combinations you can roll make it feel like I'm playing Z3 final boss all over again, topping it of with surviving the death attack of every boss at the same time, just like PDplayer! Then there's a second phase with a different boss, which just feels like mindless luck grind to me, no skill involved.
It's only up from here, F.
RandomErik (F41)
After the depths of hell (F39), I forgot how great it feels to play a sane needle stage... Thank god I get to experience only sane stuff from now on, A.
Chapel (F45)
Technically not a stage, so no rating.
Kady (F46)
It feels really easy to miss a bunnyhop, but other than that, a solid B.
Thejpegdemon (F51)
Not a fan of platform jump spam, C.
Vormanax (F53)
Reminds me of cubism a lot. A while back I used to joke about avoidance scaling with your skill, now it's not a joke anymore. Ahof players will still clear in 5 minutes probably, B.
Synthasmagoria (F55)
Big, weird and somewhat of sudoku area. A lot of timings, but the saves are short so it's fine. Getting the wrench was a bruh moment though, B.
Anuj071 (F60)
Interesting stuff, but cycles don't sync well, B.
Verve (F61)
Had 1 save which is way too long, but apparently that was me missing a save somehow? Still B though.
Zephyr (F65)
Fine needle with wrap gimmick, B.
Artimax (F68)
You might've already guessed it but I'm not a fan of movement-restricting gimmicks, C.
Marc Antony (F70)
This is what I expected wonderful area to be like, A.
Plasmanapkin (F74)
It's very hard, but you know what? It's only you and platforming, no bosses or any other nonsense. Each save feels like half of wooden king, but gets very consistent. Though, as I said before, bunnyhoping is hard, B.
Egg (F77)
Bouncing rng platforms were a pain in the ass, B.
Qwylryght (F80)
Imaging having to learn how to play tetris because of a secret in a game. I did fine, but I can see how it can be a big problem for others, C.
Skulldude (F83)
Fun gimmick needle for 5 screens. Short and consistent, also based for having no platform jumps, A.
Echomask (F87)
Basically Crimson Needle 3 WARPED. The saves are really damn long, B.
Lone (F89)
When your area is just 1 really long needle screen, all I can say is - why? Why would you do that? Not to mention, no matter where you start the save, some jumps are just a chokefest. The costs are also ridiculous, literally a screen made by EA. If you thought this review only slandered bad adventures, here comes pure needle, D.
Dress (F92)
First stage was cool, and the rest was nothing special, B.
Chatran (F95)
A lot of cool key gimmicks, relatively long, but nothing scary, A.
Patrick (F99)
I heard this one was good, so I went here after a rough secret, and had a blast playing it. The author really just came up with 16 gimmicks, then told the player to break cn2.5 main game. I already have Lss as the best secret, but this one follow it right behind as a favorite, so check this out: A+ !
Aaaaaand... it was all of them! Definitely a giant mixed bag, with extremes on both spectrums of enjoyment, which is why I think it's the weakest part when it comes to average rating, only a 7/10. Please note that these secret area ratings are based on my first impressions, so they are very picky, especially with not needle stuff involved. It may be hard to impress me, but I might find a lot of these areas more fun if I replayed them now that I know how everything works. Maybe I'll do that later, but don't count on it.
But before finishing the rating for this part, we have to talk about final boss. I thought about dividing ratings for it and secrets, but now I think I'll just rate the full part, just like game intended. Final boss is divided into 2 phases. First phase is absolutely trivialized once you come up with a strat. Second phase on the other hand... is really damn scary... but... it has to be this way? I guess? Beating the phase in 15 minutes on one of the sessions definitely means it gets consistent, kind of? The dodges sure don't look like it though.
With THAT included in the rating for this part, I think it actually gives more spice to it, I'll give a point. 7+1/10. The overall rating is back at 8/10. And I think it's only going to get higher from here.
Welcome to part 3, John.
I enjoyed most of this area. Sadly, the author went above and beyond with difficulty for some saves, it literally feels like there's 10 floor 100s in there. Moments like these is the main reason I don't want to give a higher rating. However, I was having fun with the rest of the saves, which is an overwhelming majority in this case. That's why I'll give this part a 9/10. I have finished this part, and I can confidently say it doesn't get harder than those few hard moments, except for final save culmination ofcourse, which is totally fine.
That said, I really wish the author could've held back with difficulty just a little bit. Yeah I get it, I'm still taking less time than it took creator to make the save, appreciate the effort etc. But would it really hurt that much to split like 5% of the saves into 2? In the long run, I'd rather not be stuck for an hour an a save when having a save inbetween could've made it 15 minutes. I wouldn't be surprised if these saves combined took me more than the rest. I guess I just got demoralized seeing all those robot 80 hour cleartimes, while I realized that this part of the game is gonna take me half of their playtime by itself. Gatekeeping the difficulty to appreciate the effort is the main reason I refuse to raise the rating of this part to 10. It's just a bad excuse, considering how robots already just destroyed whatever content was there with their inhuman pace anyways. And it will only continue to be this way... It's still all needle though, so I'm definitely not lowering my rating for this part, on the good side. You can't be mad when you get what you asked for. An alternate ending to this part was found which requires some leehe puzzle shenanigans, but both endings culminate with the same final save and a softlock, so kinda whatever.
The talk about robots leads me to the next part of this review. Rest assured, I'm NEVER beating this one and it won't affect my rating, so it's just me ranting. Yep, I'm talking about ng+.
This part perfectly portrays everything wrong with modern difficulty standarts. Starting with uncreative stat challenges for some guest areas, and ending with goldens... This is literally K3 akbar, but as long as it doesn't unlock anything siginificant, ignoring is the best choice either way, unless you're the best player the world has ever seen, which is the worst kind of gatekeep. Having true 100% being unbeatable for mortals is awful, I hope dotkid savefile will happen after it so we can all enjoy the entire game. I came here for Lss stage challenge anyways, since I liked that area, and it got an actual rework, wish that was true for all the stuff.
I really wish there was a more accessible difficulty mod for this game, but I understand perfectly well that modding 1.8gb game is an unreasonable task, and maybe a savefile with dotkid will be enough. I think it's gonna take me like 5 years for the difficulty of this game to sink in and not criticize it, kinda like what happened with cn3 to me.
[16] Likes
While being close to being done with the game, I got into heated discussion about me slandering the game for being too difficult. I agree that my opponent made some valid points, so check this out: I'm locking the quality rating to 9/10! While I'm going to steal only 1 tiny point for difficulty reasons (there in fact exists a fangame which only benefitted from accessibilty imo), I have to agree that the amount of content and effort put into this game is phenomenal. It's also creative enough to test basically every skill imagineable. I think works like these have to be admired, it's common sense. I hope the number isn't offensive and is high enough to make sense now. The game definitely won the sisyphus award for me. And it's not like the rating is set in stone, maybe it can get much higher once the difficulty starts to settle in for me. It's a long process though. Also the feeling of being done and having nothing left is incredible, the endgame somehow culminated into amazing feelings, I'll give half a point for that.
The review parts below contain my unfiltered thoughts however, so proceed with caution.
As far as main game goes, it tries to remove all the bad moments from the original, like some random generic jumps, some awful ending jumps, replace the floor entirely, remove intermissions, etc. I think the creator did a good job with the changes. That said, the difficulty skyrockets once you reach floor 85, and keeps on being harder than the original for a decent amount of the remaining floors. The game feels more like CN2 WARPED rather than 2.5 at this point. Though I guess it's fine because floor 100 literally allows you to take a hit halfway in, which makes this floor the one I had the least problems with in the series (not including cn1 ofcourse), especially because all the jumps on this floor felt somewhat consistent (sometimes even nerfed compared to original segment for that goal) compared to other floor 100s: original cn2 had some really uncomfortable jumps near the end, and for cn3 mentioning the 16px-into-diagonal drop near the end alone is enough.
Any% is solid 8/10.
That said, beating all 100 floors is like 10% of content the game has to offer. There's A LOT of extra stuff to do, but despite there being a lot of cool extra areas, there are some which were a complete miss for me. That's granted to happen when you have a lot of content in a game, and it had a bit of impact on my rating. As far as secret bosses go, they were proven to be a lot more controversial than original CN2 crimson. Being just a needle player isn't enough anymore, sadly, despite it being a game about needle.
After secret hunting, I feel like I should review all secret areas in a tier list fashion, maybe it will make your choice easier.
Kale (F3)
It had a really cool fast-paced gimmick. All saves were fun till the rng skulls one... B.
Cutemia (F6)
Easy platforming with a gimmick, a lot of fun and chill to execute, that's an A.
LAWatson (F8)
Yet again with the patience-requiring shooting boss. Though it feels like he held back with the difficulty on this one, so it's not that bad, B.
Gwiz609 (F11)
4 different cycle-based screens, followed by an eclipse gimmick. Short and fun - A.
Thenadertwo (F14)
Fun needle, goes in A.
Ubersawmedic (F18)
Fully optional, so I'm not ranking this one. Personally I'm not a fan of golden room.
Wonderful (F19)
Surprisingly nothing special or memorable, but it's short so okay, B.
Lss (F24)
Literally the best secret in the game, the only one which will go in the S class.
Lemongh (F25)
Short area with various gimmicks, nothing special, B.
Wolfiexe (F30)
Fun needle. The 4 towers idea is interesting, A.
Anxkha (F32)
Reminds me of RO a lot, a rukito-like. Cool, A.
pieceofcheese87 (F36)
Well, it finally happened: a miss. The restrictions which come from gimmicks are rough, mobs take ages to kill, and the traps are really damn cruel. I glitched the freaking golem's head out of bounds, and the bee screen is just awful. This area really sucked, but it's far from being the worst, D.
cherry treehouse (F39)
I have beaten this one, and I really felt the need to vent out my feelings. Damn it sucks massively. As always, The Team just throws in AAA games-tier production value, only to throw it off the rails with really awful gameplay. If you want to make sure that you can beat CN2.5 100%, playing this one will tell if you have what it takes. However if you want to have fun or reasonable-length area, ignore this one at all costs. On top of that, this area just feels harder than ANY other stage in the game I've seen, 100 is a joke compared to how messed up this is. I was one of the people who really struggled with final boss, what makes me ask the question: why the hell would you make a balls hard BOSS in a game about NEEDLE??? Truly nasrano-worthy. Unrelated, but the area is probably fun if you're celeste grandmaster, and I haven't even played that. So let's sum this area up:
1. The stage lasts an eternity.
2. Platforming feels like I'm playing celeste rather than a fangame, it forces you to keep being airborne way too many times. There's literally no landing breaks, only wallhugs in the best case. The amount of learning coming out of that is enormous, especially with all the timing-based obstacles in mind. I have beaten freaking wooden king, and I'm still talking about airborne, let that sink in.
3. Except for boss 2, the other 2 feel like "survive this 1 attack for the entire duration of a boss". The entire "you can only use sword" idea also makes me feel like I'm handicapped and can't reach anything.
4. Final boss is stupidly hard. I've heard CN2 last boss comparison, and I think it's probably right. Also the amount of combinations you can roll make it feel like I'm playing Z3 final boss all over again, topping it of with surviving the death attack of every boss at the same time, just like PDplayer! Then there's a second phase with a different boss, which just feels like mindless luck grind to me, no skill involved.
It's only up from here, F.
RandomErik (F41)
After the depths of hell (F39), I forgot how great it feels to play a sane needle stage... Thank god I get to experience only sane stuff from now on, A.
Chapel (F45)
Technically not a stage, so no rating.
Kady (F46)
It feels really easy to miss a bunnyhop, but other than that, a solid B.
Thejpegdemon (F51)
Not a fan of platform jump spam, C.
Vormanax (F53)
Reminds me of cubism a lot. A while back I used to joke about avoidance scaling with your skill, now it's not a joke anymore. Ahof players will still clear in 5 minutes probably, B.
Synthasmagoria (F55)
Big, weird and somewhat of sudoku area. A lot of timings, but the saves are short so it's fine. Getting the wrench was a bruh moment though, B.
Anuj071 (F60)
Interesting stuff, but cycles don't sync well, B.
Verve (F61)
Had 1 save which is way too long, but apparently that was me missing a save somehow? Still B though.
Zephyr (F65)
Fine needle with wrap gimmick, B.
Artimax (F68)
You might've already guessed it but I'm not a fan of movement-restricting gimmicks, C.
Marc Antony (F70)
This is what I expected wonderful area to be like, A.
Plasmanapkin (F74)
It's very hard, but you know what? It's only you and platforming, no bosses or any other nonsense. Each save feels like half of wooden king, but gets very consistent. Though, as I said before, bunnyhoping is hard, B.
Egg (F77)
Bouncing rng platforms were a pain in the ass, B.
Qwylryght (F80)
Imaging having to learn how to play tetris because of a secret in a game. I did fine, but I can see how it can be a big problem for others, C.
Skulldude (F83)
Fun gimmick needle for 5 screens. Short and consistent, also based for having no platform jumps, A.
Echomask (F87)
Basically Crimson Needle 3 WARPED. The saves are really damn long, B.
Lone (F89)
When your area is just 1 really long needle screen, all I can say is - why? Why would you do that? Not to mention, no matter where you start the save, some jumps are just a chokefest. The costs are also ridiculous, literally a screen made by EA. If you thought this review only slandered bad adventures, here comes pure needle, D.
Dress (F92)
First stage was cool, and the rest was nothing special, B.
Chatran (F95)
A lot of cool key gimmicks, relatively long, but nothing scary, A.
Patrick (F99)
I heard this one was good, so I went here after a rough secret, and had a blast playing it. The author really just came up with 16 gimmicks, then told the player to break cn2.5 main game. I already have Lss as the best secret, but this one follow it right behind as a favorite, so check this out: A+ !
Aaaaaand... it was all of them! Definitely a giant mixed bag, with extremes on both spectrums of enjoyment, which is why I think it's the weakest part when it comes to average rating, only a 7/10. Please note that these secret area ratings are based on my first impressions, so they are very picky, especially with not needle stuff involved. It may be hard to impress me, but I might find a lot of these areas more fun if I replayed them now that I know how everything works. Maybe I'll do that later, but don't count on it.
But before finishing the rating for this part, we have to talk about final boss. I thought about dividing ratings for it and secrets, but now I think I'll just rate the full part, just like game intended. Final boss is divided into 2 phases. First phase is absolutely trivialized once you come up with a strat. Second phase on the other hand... is really damn scary... but... it has to be this way? I guess? Beating the phase in 15 minutes on one of the sessions definitely means it gets consistent, kind of? The dodges sure don't look like it though.
With THAT included in the rating for this part, I think it actually gives more spice to it, I'll give a point. 7+1/10. The overall rating is back at 8/10. And I think it's only going to get higher from here.
Welcome to part 3, John.
I enjoyed most of this area. Sadly, the author went above and beyond with difficulty for some saves, it literally feels like there's 10 floor 100s in there. Moments like these is the main reason I don't want to give a higher rating. However, I was having fun with the rest of the saves, which is an overwhelming majority in this case. That's why I'll give this part a 9/10. I have finished this part, and I can confidently say it doesn't get harder than those few hard moments, except for final save culmination ofcourse, which is totally fine.
That said, I really wish the author could've held back with difficulty just a little bit. Yeah I get it, I'm still taking less time than it took creator to make the save, appreciate the effort etc. But would it really hurt that much to split like 5% of the saves into 2? In the long run, I'd rather not be stuck for an hour an a save when having a save inbetween could've made it 15 minutes. I wouldn't be surprised if these saves combined took me more than the rest. I guess I just got demoralized seeing all those robot 80 hour cleartimes, while I realized that this part of the game is gonna take me half of their playtime by itself. Gatekeeping the difficulty to appreciate the effort is the main reason I refuse to raise the rating of this part to 10. It's just a bad excuse, considering how robots already just destroyed whatever content was there with their inhuman pace anyways. And it will only continue to be this way... It's still all needle though, so I'm definitely not lowering my rating for this part, on the good side. You can't be mad when you get what you asked for. An alternate ending to this part was found which requires some leehe puzzle shenanigans, but both endings culminate with the same final save and a softlock, so kinda whatever.
The talk about robots leads me to the next part of this review. Rest assured, I'm NEVER beating this one and it won't affect my rating, so it's just me ranting. Yep, I'm talking about ng+.
This part perfectly portrays everything wrong with modern difficulty standarts. Starting with uncreative stat challenges for some guest areas, and ending with goldens... This is literally K3 akbar, but as long as it doesn't unlock anything siginificant, ignoring is the best choice either way, unless you're the best player the world has ever seen, which is the worst kind of gatekeep. Having true 100% being unbeatable for mortals is awful, I hope dotkid savefile will happen after it so we can all enjoy the entire game. I came here for Lss stage challenge anyways, since I liked that area, and it got an actual rework, wish that was true for all the stuff.
I really wish there was a more accessible difficulty mod for this game, but I understand perfectly well that modding 1.8gb game is an unreasonable task, and maybe a savefile with dotkid will be enough. I think it's gonna take me like 5 years for the difficulty of this game to sink in and not criticize it, kinda like what happened with cn3 to me.
Rating: 9.5 95
Difficulty: 96 96
Jul 30, 2024
TheChiekurs
For: I wanna Hazy moon
For: I wanna Hazy moon
Tagged as: Avoidance
[0] Likes
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: N/A
Jul 30, 2024
TheChiekurs
For: Crimson Needle 2.5
For: Crimson Needle 2.5
Tagged as: Avoidance
[0] Likes
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: N/A
Jul 30, 2024