To this day I've never finished the 1st one, either on PS1 or PS4. They made 2 easier, and 3 I originally completed without too much difficulty, but the challenge was there if you sought it using the time trial mode and extra gems.
They've got adaptive difficulty for this new one though:
The game has a retro mode. What does this mean for the gameplay and what’s the difference from the standard mode?
Paul Yan: We offer both a retro and a modern, both are which related to how lives are managed. Retro mode is exactly like how the N.Sane Trilogy approached it. There’s a limited number of lives, as you earn 100 Wumpa, you pick up a one up and you increment that life and if you all your lives expire, you get presented with a game over screen. If you choose to continue, you get a hard reset at the very beginning of that level. There’s a good population of players who want to experience that game in that same nostalgic way and we offer that, but we also want to recognize that that type of friction feels a little bit foreign for some modern players or maybe some new players and so we’re also offering what we call a modern mode, which doesn’t really count lives. Instead, you’ve got an unlimited amount of attempts to complete a level, but what we are counting in the modern mode is the number of deaths that you have achieved in completing the game. So you can complete a level in 100 deaths and you still complete it, you can complete it with zero deaths and still complete it.
But we’re also adding in modern mode, a new type of clear gem reward, so if you complete the level in four deaths or under, let’s say, for that particular level, you will get this clear gem reward. So that sense of mastery is still important, but we think that this is the right balance of encouraging people to perfect their runs, but at the same time, not having such a hard friction against that challenge and of course, players can choose between these at any point in time. It’s not like they’re locked into it from the very beginning.
In terms of structure of the game. Is it still broken down into set levels and worlds?
Paul Yan: So the game has taking a cue from the very first game and we’re actually introducing something called the Dimensional Map. So in between levels, you will be visiting with a hub. The Dimensional Map will be where the player navigates between the different dimensions and the different time periods of the adventure. The levels will be structured in a fairly linear manner, which gives us two advantages. One is we get to tell the story in a more focused and chronological way and the second is that, in the challenges, we can ramp challenges in a more reliable way. So the types of mechanics and enemies that we introduce in one level, once you complete that level, we can reliably ramp them in and twist them and layer them in more convoluted ways in the subsequent levels. So we have a smoother approach, we preserve that same challenge of the original game, but it makes it more approachable too.
https://press-start.com.au/features/202 ... tum-masks/