ballos thing and youre good now

if someone asked you to beat the ballos level area sacred ground and fight ballos now
and you had your 50 health and everything and super missiles and whatever weapon you want (spur is the best though)

what do you think is the chance you would be able to beat it?
forget all time and trying to beat records, just simply your goal is to win

because i was thinking it would be weird if before like you had a really hard time beating it
and now it was super easy and the only thing hard is getting a good time

but is it really super easy for a lot of people?
i dont think i could to it every time but maybe if i had a ton of time i might be able to do it more than half now

but thats just me
did this make any sense?

 

Sacred Grounds and Ballos are huge spikes in difficulty. You will most likely die a bunch of times before even getting to Ballos. Then you'll die even more times trying to pass Sacred Grounds and kill Ballos.

Some people just don't have the finger dexterity or the appropriate reaction time to do it. They also probably won't figure out (at first) that you have to dodge the Heavy Press, or that you can abuse your invincibility to pass through boulders and death spiked corridors, or that you can get to Ballos (3rd Form)'s eyes and shoot your Super Missiles there. So, I would definitely say that it's very hard (though perhaps it's fitting for the secret last area).

Once you've beat Sacred Grounds, though, it'll be easier to beat it again. I've done that countless times with different setups, so I can do it again, anytime (though I'll still probably die once).

 

I used to be able to practically do Sacred Grounds and Ballos in my sleep, but since it's been so long since I last played Cave Story, I knew I'd be rusty. Just for fun, I decided to real quick load up the game and put your scenario to the test. Much to my shame, I tried twice, and died in the spikes in B1 both times. The first time, I made it past those initial death spikes, but fell into the spikes before the first set of power crystals. The second time, I made it past that, and went down that long and narrow drop-off where there's the series of power crystals, but had used up all my thrust and wasn't able to boost over to the side to save myself and get that life capsule.

15-year-old Hayden would be disgusted if he were here today.

 

Woohoo! Survived my first try (and first attempt this year?? Seems like it's been a while anyway...)... around 7 something mins... took my time... and didn't use the life pot!
Of course, this wasn't 60 FPS and I WAS using my controller with rapidfire... (Bubbler lvl 3 baby!)

*Well, back when I first started playing CS, I used to play platformers with the keyboard. The controller just saves my hand (and keyboard!)... but I think it makes it easier too. After all, rapid tapping is hard work! lol
I guess if I went back to prove it's not the controller, I'd use the Spur since you can just charge and time your shots instead of bubble spamming.

As for it being weird that it was really hard at first and now being easy. Well it's true, you gain experience and just learn how to survive. Compared to the beginning, when everything was still the fearsome unknown, dying countless times and talking like a pirate; Sacred Grounds and Ballos are now just a pleasantly dangerous stroll down memory lane...

 

Tbh, it gets easier for me every time. It feels like its mostly memory really.

It was hard like the first two times for me. Then it slowly became less of a challenge. Now I just do it for fun lmao.

 

Let’s see here:

Attempt 1: forgot to level up missiles. Died at heavy press.

Attempt 2: Complete success. Got a time of 6min. 2 sec. on 50 FPS

 

whats relevant about the fps?

 

whats relevant about the fps?

The NICALiS ports run at 60fps, which is a faster frame rate, so it makes the game run faster. The 290 counter still uses regular seconds so it makes the times lower.

 

I'm happy to know, that i'm not the only one who find sacred ground easy now.