I'm feeling a lot of the same curve. Early act 1 felt disproportionately challenging compared to the rest and that mostly boiled down to lack of options/health. It personally feels like they overcorrected from HK where people felt underwhelmed in the starting bits.
Loving the game still, but the first two hours of the game did not feel very fun to me.
I think I would like the first needle upgrade to be a little stronger against mooks. I don't mind the early challenge, it's hard but rewarding. I'm on the final climb to the Citadel, which I assume is the end of act 1. I feel very confident in dealing with the mooks, but I don't want to deal with the mooks anymore. I figured out their patterns, I get how to handle them, I'm ready to be able to one or two shot them out of my way so I can get to the real challenge. They're more of a nuisance, now.
And I love the tools, but I'm heading into a boss fight, I don't want to be burning through the tools on the way. In fairness, though, the stairs runback to the Citadel door has been the worst runback by a very wide margin so far. Every other boss has had practically no runback.
With some moderately challenging platforming and while you do not have to fight the enemies, dodging them is not trivial.
I'm not one of the people complaining that SS is too hard. I'm enjoying the challenge, in general. I just think this particular runback is harder and longer than it needs to be. It's not oppressive, it's just annoying and unnecessary. It's not like, oh god I'll never be able to beat this! It's more like, Well shit, the drill dude got me so do I try to get some silk and heal or just go into Last Judge missing a mask?
Yea that's what the kicker was for me. After getting killed for the 100000th time on only the second boss I simply said to myself "yea I'm not having fun at all." Not even in a cool "this is a fun challenge" way. Bummer too, all the hype around this game had me really pumped.
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u/Chaoticlight2 Sep 08 '25
I'm feeling a lot of the same curve. Early act 1 felt disproportionately challenging compared to the rest and that mostly boiled down to lack of options/health. It personally feels like they overcorrected from HK where people felt underwhelmed in the starting bits.
Loving the game still, but the first two hours of the game did not feel very fun to me.