If you don't hate Ed McMillen already, you will after playing this game.
The End Is Nigh is a short and sweet balls-to-the-wall difficult platformer that will make you scream, cry, and probably bleed out of several orifices. Some of the shit this game has you do looks straight out of I Wanna Be The Guy or Kaizo Mario. Thankfully, the jumping and movement controls are super tight for the most part, making the platforming fun despite the frustration. However, the cartridge levels bring the experience down a lot in my opinion due to how they needlessly shoehorn a lives system into a game that specifically benefits from NOT having one, and I find the ledgegrab mechanic to be rather finicky at times and it's something that other platformers like Celeste definitely handle a lot better. Other than that, the metal covers of various classical tunes by Ridiculon fit the game's atmosphere super well, and the overtly pessimistic tone the game takes to frankly everything serves as the perfect backdrop for this gruelingly punishing experience. If you're a fan of Edmund's work, but decide you haven't suffered enough, The End Is Nigh is worth giving a shot. (Just don't go for 100% if you value any amount of your sanity.)