this really rides that fine line between "hard but fair" and completely bullshit a bit TOO closely.

I went back and got the good ending. idk if it was worth it or not, but i did it

This game really isn't awful, but its not good either.
I played a modded version, which made more sense (and added a fUCKING MAP), but still needed to use a wiki just to know where i was supposed to go and what an item did.
gameplay wise, it's castlevania. you jump, and you whip.
hearts no longer are used for your subweapons (most of them at least...), and instead are a currency. You can also level up, which increases your health (but only on some levels?).
When you die, you get put back right where you died, but when you game over, you lose all of both.
This makes grinding almost necessary to get enough hearts to buy shit, and actually necessary if you want to level up.
The max level is 6 (and you start at 0), I beat the game at level 2.

The game's ending is also based on how many days you've taken, with 15+ being the bad end, 8-14 being neutral, and anything below 8 is the good/canon ending.
I might go back for the good end, idk.
Once you know what to do, the game probably takes like no time at all.
The problem is that you DONT know what to do EVER.
arguably the game is harder on the english translation, because of mistranslations and the fact that the manual doesn't have a map... WHY WOULD YOU REMOVE A MAP FROM THE MANUAL OF YOUR MAZE GAME.

overall, the game is ok. not good, not bad, just ok.

I had so much fun with the pyromancer run that i decided to go for another playthrough!

I forgot the key to fighting any boss in this game:
stay calm
don't get greedy
be mindful of everything (surroundings, your stamina and health, the enemy, etc.)
And due to that, Gwyn only took one try today.

Went back to kalameet anyway to grab a titanite slab, and decided to fight him anyway. It went quite well, and only had my ears blown out 3 times.
also beat 4 kings and am now at gwyn, who is much harder than i remember like jesus fuck.

decided i'm not gonna fight kalameet, cause fuck that i'm not getting more migraines rn.
I did do demon ruins/lost izalith tho, and finished the siegmeyer questline.

DLC is 99% finished, all thats left is kalameet, who i fought once, and then got a headache and decided that i'd leave getting migraines for another day.

I know that these games were rushed... but did literally no one at from software or at bamco QA get headaches? like? kalameet is one of the hardest bosses, so you're almost GUARANTEED to get your ears blown out by his telekinesis.
at the very least they could've like... reused a sound from somewhere else instead??

fought sif :(
also did painted world and started oolacile

idk what i even did this day aside from go to darkroot and die

did most of duke's and then a bit of grinding... cause i needed titanite chunks...

mostly a lot of fucking about, doing various errands, but i did kill nito.
neato!

oops i forgot to make logs of the past couple days, so this first log is uh... after i've gotten the lordvessel.
playing a pyromancer cause i've never done pyromancy before! its very interesting because pyromancy damage doesn't scale with the player's stats, its all flat.

oops i forgot to make logs of the past couple days, so this first log is uh... after i've gotten the lordvessel.
playing a pyromancer cause i've never done pyromancy before! its very interesting because pyromancy damage doesn't scale with the player's stats, its all flat.

oops i forgot to make logs of the past couple days, so this first log is uh... after i've gotten the lordvessel.
playing a pyromancer cause i've never done pyromancy before! its very interesting because pyromancy damage doesn't scale with the player's stats, its all flat.

went in for round 2!
...and finished it in one sitting.
Still got a lot of completion despite not backtracking or anything like that.
missing 2 e-tanks, had 203 missiles. the game's secrets are a bit easy... for the most part...

AND YET, I only have half of the ending gallery images... how.

100% beaten. well, at least, as much as can be done in one playthrough. there's still hard mode and beating the game in a reasonable amount of time... if i ever get to that.
overall, the game was pretty damn good. it's not the best or anything, and still has some pretty glaring issues in some places, but its nigh impossible to be perfect, and even super metroid isn't.

playing this game hurts. not due to the gameplay or anything (well, most of the time), but because of the story.
it huuuuuurts.

Not very much progression, mostly holo-missions and challenges.
Although the progression i DID do is sad. god damn it.
anyway i fought a heartless truck and now xion is in a coma. man, these guys just can't catch a break.

Beat the game as knucks, got all the gold medals because apparently my save data got mostly deleted? no clue why tf that would've happened

Really felt like playing this again, so i'm playing as knuckles this time around!

fuck man this game is sad, why is nomura a good writer like 1% of the time, why can't it be 99% of the time.
fuck.

reunited with Xion, now the gang's all together. the much better group than sora, dobgon, and grunty.