Crystal Caves HD level review: "The Berry Pits" by Flagrant Flaaffy
Channel: timixretroplays
Date: 2022-08-24

Click "show more" to see the level review.
0:00 - first scouting run
1:27 - early reset after a swim
6:45 - the final run

I'm trying something a bit different with this series: This is my first playthrough of this level, followed by enough attempts to finish with perfect health at least once. It's not a flawless playthrough, but that's the point - you can practically see my brain grinding to a halt as I'm confronted with puzzle after puzzle. Hopefully it's of interest not just to the original author, but also anyone looking for insight into how another player goes about learning a new level.

Review: The Berry Pits. Alternate title: Trust Fall. It's not a super difficult level if you're a careful player - I only took one hit of damage in the first scouting run, and made a stupid mistake or two later on - but good grief, is it ever unnerving. There's several moments where you just have to take a leap of faith, keep holding jump, and trust the level not to punish you with death as a result. Fortunately, it's so well-designed that the only way you'll hurt yourself is by taking unnecessary risks or making careless moves, and you'll swiftly learn to trust stepping out into the unknown.

The first 30-odd seconds of my first playthrough will look super confident, but that's because I restarted this a few times trying to fix some controller issues and got pretty familiar with it. Everything after killing the dinosaur was first-take goodness. You'll quickly see me getting very, very lost, and trying switches over and over to figure out what I'm doing.

This is a pretty cramped level to try and navigate. You'll want to be super confident with moving around in the game to play this one. This is the first level I've played that was adapted from a random generation - a particularly close and gritty one - and I think I like it. It certainly feels like a crystal cave - tight crawlspaces, intimidating hazards, and a circuitous route that might actually send you loopy. The fruit placement is pretty classic (I think I found all three, but not in one single playthrough) - they pop up on your screen quite visibly, and it's up to you to figure out how to get to them in a safe and speedy manner.

If I had one major criticism, it'd be that the level is a bit too monotone - the terrain is green, the slime, plants and pipes are green, the biggest enemy is green, all the platforms are green, half the crystals are green... I don't know how it would have looked with other colours of terrain, but I think it'd help to differentiate the level's outline from the decoration a little more to have been a different colour.

I would also have liked to have seen more pickups that weren't crystals or the bonus eggs - this level was clearly balanced more heavily on the side of the puzzle and design to sustain you rather than rewarding you with shiny items. Speaking of the design, though, it's fairly intuitive as to what switch affects what, and the green mushroom in its own little hidey-hole with some pipework running past it was a super nice touch.

I was pretty confident about jumping through the fans because when they were added as a feature of the game, I made a concept level that featured them pretty heavily, and I have a pretty good idea about how they act (and how to build puzzles with them). It'd be interesting to hear from other plays how they fared through that bit. I also wonder how many people will be surprised by one shot at the dinosaur being eaten by a spider instead. Overall I'm pretty pleased with how my playthrough of this level went.

I like this one. It's heavy on the puzzle and cave elements, so keep your wits about you - and look before you leap!

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Come chat about Crystal Caves HD and Secret Agent HD on the Emberheart Games discord: https://discord.gg/pCdc9Wh5kv