Sacred Stones

I'm actually sort of on the fence here, but I'm leaning towards not recommend. Sacred Stones is a boss rush game, like Furi or Titan Souls. It's very pretty, but the bosses aren't well designed IMO. It's hard to explain exactly what's wrong with it, but basically it's a bunch of small issues that compound on each other and suck the fun out of it. Some examples: * Bosses often don't telegraph their attacks. Some do, but a lot of others will just suddenly attack with no wind-up animation, making it impossible to react in time. Sure, there's an argument to be made for memorizing timings and patterns, but there's also a counterargument for keeping it fair and balanced such that an attentive player could realistically dodge it the first time they see it, instead of getting a surprise cheap shot. The player should be rewarded for skillful execution, not get blindsided by something they couldn't have possibly seen coming and have to rely on dumb luck. Plus, the timing-based attacks are often weirdly synchronized and feel completely off. The penguin boss is a great example of that, when it shoots penguins and rocks at you, and you're expected to juggle them when their rhythm is completely out of sync with the jumping and falling speed. It feels horribly awkward and broken. * Projectile patterns rely too heavily on RNG, which is another source of cheap shots. Even when I gamed out strategies for dealing with patterns, I would still get hit with cheap-shot just because a couple projectiles went rogue, or an impossible situation is created because the RNG wasn't restricted enough. The penguin, dog and dragon bosses are good examples. The penguin shoots out ice crystals every time it stomps, and they fly all over the place, which sounds fine, except with the way that pattern goes, you can just get hit by a stray crystal because there is no safe place to be, because the penguin is here and the crystal is there, and you get hit no matter what. With the dog, I had to cheese him because the projectiles were too large and it kept on strangling me with patterns that cover too much of the arena to be realistically dodgeable, especially toward the end. The dragon (second to last boss) is actually fine for the most part, but again, he does not telegraph when he shoots his teleport disc, so it can just abruptly fly out and hit you, and there is no time to react. You have to anticipate it, but there is no timing cue, so you have to just play chicken with it until you hear the sound. It's easy to dodge if you're far away, but up close, it's ridiculous. And you start right next to him. Another problem with this boss is that he is allowed to use the sweep attack anywhere in the arena. It really should be disabled if he's too close to the edge, because if he uses that attack while in a bottom corner, the attack is basically undodgeable. You definitely don't want him on the low platforms, but sometimes it's unavoidable. * Most bosses are absolute bullet sponges, it takes way too long to kill them, which on one hand forces you to learn the patterns, but on the other hand makes it pretty boring and tedious. I can think of no better example than the first phase of the final boss. My god, it takes what feels like 5 minutes just to have him chase you in a circle and run into mines. It takes too long, but this is the only viable no-hit strategy, as he is constantly chasing you. And because it takes so long, when he shoots the bullet spray at you, you might just get unlucky and get snagged by the edge of a stray bullet. Overall, I'm not a fan. I 100%'d the achievements, but I feel like this is a game you'd play once and then never touch again. To be fair, I [i]did[/i] beat it on hard mode. Maybe the game is better on the lower difficulty(ies?). If that's the case, then it's probably a balance issue that ruined the game for me. Max difficulty has a funny way of betraying poor balance.