It took me a few tries to beat Hardcore mode. It's not forgiving, and you need to pull all the tricks out of your bag to win. It's fun to figure out, and it takes less than an hour to go through everything. I think you can optimally reach the top of the tower with this much life left:
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×3 hearts
Possibly 1/2 or 1 heart more than that if I missed one or two subtle routing optimizations in the third section.
I completed the game at 100% with this many steps, which doesn't necessarily mean anything, and I wasn't trying to optimize this:
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×8690
Here's the hardcore ending screen (attached):
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×
A nice little game for those who like TotS, DROD RPG, etc!
____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
[Last edited by mrimer at 07-23-2019 01:14 AM]