I'm only 80% done with this one, but it hasn't had much commentary yet and I suspect a lot of folks may be avoiding it due to the (current) 8 brain difficulty rating. This is definitely a tough hold, and can even be frustrating at times, but it's also probably worth checking out even if you don't typically go for holds that are super difficult.
The care that went into crafting this hold is evident from the first room. The room design is terrific and the aesthetics project a very consistent haunted mood throughout the hold. The dialog makes for a nice counterpoint to this though and had me laughing frequently. The artwork for the custom ghost elements fits the mood perfectly. All in all this hold is beautifully designed.
The concept is also pretty terrific here. The main idea behind the puzzles is that Beethro maintains his orientation and the ghost elements maintain their position as you go from "
floor"
to "
floor"
in the different levels. That means that many puzzles will require you to plan things out across several floors so that you can get the monsters and Beethro into proper position. There's an initial cut scene that shows you what each room looks like so that you can plan out multi room sequences using the minimap (it also makes for a spooky level intro.) This kind of puzzle is super interesting and quite different from a typical DROD experience. And once you get the hang of clicking through rooms on the minimap to plan out your attack it's actually quite fun.
The only real drawback to this hold (and probably the reason for that current 8 brain rating) is that the scripted elements and some of the puzzles involving them are somewhat fiddly. The ghost elements are un-killable and pretty aggressive, which means you'll have to dance and fiddle around with them quite a bit. And probably die. A lot. It gets frustrating.
This gets better as you progress through the hold though and the second and third levels don't depend on manipulating the ghosts nearly as much as the first one does. The third level was probably my favorite as you could get the ghosts in a completely separate part of the room for the most part and not have to worry so much about dancing them around. These last two levels are where the hold really starts to shine. Planning out how to get things in just the right spot becomes a lot less frustrating and I ended up quite enjoying myself.
So if you've been avoiding this one because of that 8 brain rating, give it a go if only to experience the story and atmosphere. If you're currently stuck without having solved a single room, you may want to push through that first level (H&S board has some good hints for it) so that you can see the more enjoyable later levels.
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