There are parents who are sometimes harsh and make their children cry because they despise them, and there are parents who are sometimes harsh and make their children cry because they love them.
This game is like the latter.
"Impossible" was a term that came constantly in my mind, and yet there I was succeeding at doing the impossible, then later succeeding at doing the harder version of what I had called "impossible".
The game is... long. Both in the sense that some stages drag for quite a bit (e.g. Stage 4) and with how many times you have to beat it to fully experience it.
And I'm not saying like CotM1 distinction-without-a-difference achievements like "Kill a companion, spare another and-", here things really change and you have to beat it in order to unlock all the modes:
Beat the game, now do it again with one less character and harder bosses, now do that again with base Zangetsu, now do that again with the cast from the first game (Essentially killing your previous strategies).
When I finally go into Final Episode I thought "DAMN, THIS GAME IS OVERSTAYING IT'S WELCOME", but it actually wasn't so bad (Ah, and after it you'll need to do it again with solo ultimate Zangetsu... Turns out that you can still get power ups like that, but I didn't know that and went to Luna Secare with just a WP Up).
I mean, it's Bloodstained. Ultimately, despite everything, it IS entertaining to play, but I do have some complaints about it:
The "spirit of the game" feels a bit contradictory: I'm supposed to be constantly switching between characters in a fight, but the end result of tat is hat if one of mine dies during a boss fight, then all my other ones are also resource-exhausted and I might as well just hit "retry".
"Battles of attrition" are so against you that often the game seems to make the better tactic simply to spam damage while you "iframe/tank specific attacks".
While I did give the game more clarity by distinguishing lanterns that drop HP from those who drop WP, "which enemy attacks can be broken with hits and which can't" is still a mystery.
It also failed a bit on the ludonarrative by trying to copy "Nightmare" from CotM 1: A mode without Zangetsu made sense because it's the character you start with and one you'll use a lot, one with even modes exclusive to him.
Excluding Dominique, by comparison, means a lot less, especially because you'll rather NOT use her because of her squishyness, and rather just keep her on the back for her heals or revival skill. If losing her was supposed to be the "all right, no more training wheels" moment, then not having Hachi on episode EX does a way better job on that.
