2011-08-05, 09:53 PM
I can't pass up an opportunity to promote one of my favorite games, so I'll make an exception for this thread; as a person who has played through it over 30 times across 3 characters, one of which I reached NG+^14 on before the game got too hard to continue on, I'd say if you like games that require a huge amount of learning you will get at least 500 hours out of it. At least. Death is the main learning experience, so if you shy away from losing progress I wouldn't pick it up, otherwise it's great. On your first playthrough and your first NG+ playthrough expect the biggest difficulty curves; first, the process of learning the enemy patterns, then the process of adjusting to NG+s 150% increase in difficulty over the top of the already incredibly difficult first playthrough for a beginner. It will also be good practice for Dark Souls, which many of the insiders are claiming is even more difficult.
If you want to get the absolute most from the game, do NOT look up any guides at all until you beat the game the first time. Not even on character builds. Then read a build guide after you win and laugh at how badly you made your first character, I know I did. Also, you can play the levels in any order, but I strongly suggest saving world 5 for last just because of 5-2, as 5-2 is hard for me no matter how many times I clear the game, and I can see how many would ragequit over it as I almost did when I was trying to clear it before clearing everything else; you need all the stat boosts and advantages you can get with it. Any other advice and I would be ruining the game's main selling point, so I'll just leave it at that. Highly enjoyable/frustrating puzzling and strategies needed for bosses and every last enemy as well, a handful of awesome NPCs in a torrent of total pimento NPCs, which again is a learning process to figure out which are on what side.
Basically, again, if you enjoy learning from mistakes in order to progress, this an incredibly good game, but it's certainly not for people with out at least a little bit of self-masochism ingrained in them at some parts.
If you want to get the absolute most from the game, do NOT look up any guides at all until you beat the game the first time. Not even on character builds. Then read a build guide after you win and laugh at how badly you made your first character, I know I did. Also, you can play the levels in any order, but I strongly suggest saving world 5 for last just because of 5-2, as 5-2 is hard for me no matter how many times I clear the game, and I can see how many would ragequit over it as I almost did when I was trying to clear it before clearing everything else; you need all the stat boosts and advantages you can get with it. Any other advice and I would be ruining the game's main selling point, so I'll just leave it at that. Highly enjoyable/frustrating puzzling and strategies needed for bosses and every last enemy as well, a handful of awesome NPCs in a torrent of total pimento NPCs, which again is a learning process to figure out which are on what side.
Basically, again, if you enjoy learning from mistakes in order to progress, this an incredibly good game, but it's certainly not for people with out at least a little bit of self-masochism ingrained in them at some parts.