Haven't been able to finish this one yet, mostly due to how long it was. Like, I finally managed to beat the third boss... and then I realized I had been here for like half an hour or so, certainly more than I expected, and looking at the achievements, I wasn't even halfway through. That's what stopped me from playing more, it was late and I was tired of the game. But maybe some other day I'll finish it?
Edit (23/10/2024): rediscovered this one, I'll try to finish it this time. Maybe switching the jump and attack buttons will help, I was always more used to Z as a jump and X as an attack. The current setup is like having an NES controller with the buttons B and A switched with each other.
Ok, so playing with the Z and X swapped feels quite a bit better, it's easier to pull some stuff off! I also found out just how lenient our hitbox can be, which helps. The Gnashing Teeth room is probably impossible without this knowledge. Kinda bs, but sure, I'll take it.
And I just found this out - the game saves your progress down to the room you left the game at if you close it off for a while! That's so damn helpful! Nevermind that other complaint, I can always leave this for a bit once I've had my fill and resume a few hours later! That made this whole game feel a lot more enjoyable, even on some of the more bs rooms. Yeah, these rooms do exist, but with enough timing, tenacity, and maybe a bit of ibuprofen at times, things will eventually click.
I will say, sometimes there are problems with the button presses not being registered, like with Limit Break. That room relies on the sprite limit on the screen to prevent the skulls from shooting their projectiles. So, you need to phase through enemies as you damage them, without killing them. The problem is that the dagger's delay after you hit an enemy, and especially after you hit many enemies at once, doesn't register the following button presses, and if one of the button presses after the delay ends isn't on the exact same moment right afterwards, you're already dead since there's enemies on top of you still.
Ok, in hindsight, there is a timing, it's just very specific. Always make sure that, with these running devils, you stop exactly in-between the first two after your first hit to stun them. On that position, your hitbox isn't colliding with theirs, so your second hit will kill up to three of them, ideally letting the last one running behind you.
I don't even know what tips I could give for Breakdown other than this: the path you have to follow is extremely specific. There's only one walkthrough out there of this game, use it if you want, I found a working path on my own, but it's impossible to describe in comprehensive detail without succumbing to madness. Somehow, Balancing on a Ledge was piss easy, or at the very least, I was lucky enough to have completed it first try. Coupled with Wall of Meat, which was also quick and painless to beat, the last two rooms I ended up doing at Death's Door were rather anticlimatic, but also a breath of fresh air.
Ok, about these bosses... None of them are easy, but I was never stuck at any particular boss for too long to the point I wanted to rip out my hair... with exception of course of the boss based on the most annoying enemy in the game, the skull spider. You pretty much have to dispatch all the spawning skull spiders before hitting the big one, making that fight last for a really long time, making you really prone to mistakes and missteps where a skull will hit you from below, above, front, back, and any other directions you can think of.
But alas, I finally finished this game. Fun and challenging for the most part, an exercise in sadomasochism for the remaining time, mostly from the halfway point towards the end. Oh and uh, heh, I got the secret ending, and I'm not bothering to play through the entire thing again just to get the normal one. At least, not this year.
