I don't want them to scale the difficulty back much if they get the chance to do another, I'd just like a little more diversity in the level lengths and styles (more forward paths only, some chase levels only, some sidescrollers only, mount levels only) interspersed with the lengthy, all perspectives included levels this game features primarily.
And thinking about it a little more, a lot of the game's frustration comes from trying to 100% long levels with most having at least one sequence where there's no backtracking/forced forward movement (railgrinds or vehicle/animal mounts). And in basically all of the forced forward movement sequences in the game, it's extremely easy to miss a single crate or two and have to restart the lengthy levels just to get back to the location you flubbed. It's an extreme pace and motivation killer, honestly.
Too much of the more annoying sequences in this game is reliant on trial and error and/or hard memorization. And this is exemplified by the game's Bonus Rooms, which has been mentioned often. Instead of a respite from the challenges in a level, this game's bonuses cranks the challenge up. I get it in some ways cause without costing lives/deaths, they can get more wild with it. But it's not exactly the most fun thing to be progressing well through a level, only to get to the bonus and have to retry it 30+ times initially.
And yeah, it'd be nice if more of the hidden crates were more intuitive to find, and that more of the game's crate challenge was more about platforming execution (like the Flashback Tapes).
Still I'd rather have harder than easier, and I'm glad they were more bold with this game's challenge.
Now time for me to try and mop up the gems/flashback tapes I didn't get and do. I'll save the time trials relics for very last I think, even after the N. Sane ones.
For those who have played both how would you compare the hidden crates in this to the hidden puzzle pieces/kong letters in Tropical Freeze.
The KONG letters and the puzzle pieces are both more intuitive than the crates in this game, simply because you can kind of better intuit where they might be. KONG letters are almost always obvious, but tied to a platforming challenge, while the puzzle pieces are often obscured/more cleverly hidden like the crates are in this game. But the thing is, the puzzle pieces are always divided out pretty much equally so you can kind of zero in on them based on the location of other pieces you've found. If there's 5 pieces, you can divide the level up into 5 equal segments
You can't really do that with the hidden crates in this; you just have to be thorough and hope you've stumbled onto all of them.
Not to mention there's Squawks to help mop up if you desire.
I think people's suggestion of there being crate counters for each sequence segemented by Checkpoints could be good, that way you can better know where at in a level you're missing crates and zero in your search. Maybe it's something they could limit to post game too.
