Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Each boss is a fixed piece of choreography that you learn by dying to its second phase forty consecutive times.

One hit kills, restarts land in under a second, and momentum is mandatory — stopping to think is usually the thing that kills you.

Frame-perfect demands wrapped in the kindest failure state in games — you will die two thousand times and each one costs you half a second.

You can save anywhere for a resource cost, which turns the escape sequences into a planning problem: no soul links means no checkpoints, and the game does not hand them back.

Momentum platforming with hitboxes that reward commitment and punish hesitation. Funky Mode exists because the late levels ask for a great deal.

NES difficulty with modern checkpoints — and you can smash the checkpoints for gold, which is the game’s whole attitude in one mechanic.

Beautiful and forgiving right up to the escape sequences, which convert a gentle metroidvania into a memorisation test with no warning at all.

One hit kills you and one hit kills them, and the retry is instant. Each room is a plan you rehearse at speed, not an endurance test.

Modern checkpoint generosity on the surface, with a completion layer underneath that wants every box and no deaths across a level built to cause both.

One input, no health, and no checkpoints outside practice — a level is a single unbroken performance, so failing at ninety-eight percent costs exactly as much as failing at two.