I occasionally use it, I imagine it's key to getting through the tougher difficulties because it does so much damage. A parry section usually earns you a yellow sword too.
I have just started it again at my dad's for something to do. Looks incredible on his TV. Got to boss 5 with only 1KO.
Just can't do the final phase, and I've failed on it about four times now. Too many dodges to time right in too little space, and even though I've lasted quite a while it goes on far too long.
Would probably get there eventually but again it's that problem of having to do the whole thing all over once you fuck it up 3 times and all the other phases are nothing but a chore now.
I seem to have moaned my way to victory on this, or at least as far as seeing the credits.
Had no intention of going back, but felt I had to have one... more... go... Beat no. 7 in a couple of tries (just) and then eventually managed no. 8. Thought he was a bit cheap TBH, but mercifully short (got the under 5 mins trophy on him). After that, well, I'll say no more, but I got to an ending of sorts after a while longer.
It's not the end end though. Remains to be seen whether I can be arsed to finish it properly.
Not quite sure what to make of it overall - there's some great mechanics and enemy design, as well as the music and visuals, but it's annoying as fuck a lot of the time and I'm not sure how it would sustain the challenge if it wasn't.
So yeah I'm finally playing this now, with 4.0 Folders revealing to me bits of my library that had long scrolled off too far.
My thoughts echo much of what's been written before here. Didn't know about X to walk in the cut-scenes, they've been my main gripe (particularly when the camera changes angle). Does triangle for armour make any difference to how much damage you take? And occassional frustration at having to redo bits, but I'm up to boss five having died no more than a couple of times on each so far (but got the 20 KO total token already!).
Boss five seems solid though, got half way on my second attempt but he's got some moves. And it sounds like shit gets real after this one... Gulp.
Sixth down pretty comfortably in the end (the last phase in fact piss easy once you know what you need to do!). Not tried the seventh for long, but mixed feelings about it - as with all the ones that have gone before, so it'll probably end up good too
Gah got to the final phase with all three lives, but fuck me it's hard. Insta-death if you don't move, lots of shit flying about, and hard work getting back there.
Spoiler:
Is it another one where I just basically need to survive her routine, then we're done? Sniper woman, this is...
Yes. I nearly gave up on that bit (see above). Got sick of doing the whole thing and not quite surviving long enough on the last phase. Just about scraped through in the end.
It's not bad. The mechanics are sound, but it's irritating having to repeat early phases of a level you've done to get back to where you died. In the end, while it's a nice idea to have just bosses, it might work better if there was something in between to break it up a bit.
I gave up on boss 4. I think that’s the one where once I died I had to go through some tedious long and easy bit to get to the challenging but where I died. Got bored before I could git gud.