Senteria: Managed to beat the final boss now as well. He was a tough cookie. At the 2nd to last boss I had to take a different approach and go with destructive force.
ECSGuy: Hey guys, we're looking into him freezing (he should NOT do that... he should continue to move).
On the difficulty part... well, he IS the last demon :). Most people are complaining about the 4th boss...
But I'll see if we can tone him down a bit.
Matt
My main problem with it is that difficulty does not grow gradually. It's like, 'hey, here are 14 easy bosses and one last that infinitely harder than all previous ones taken together!' Also, if there is a skill involved, it is generally a good idea to use previous bosses to prepare people to more challenging following bosses, especially if the are similar in some way, just like in your game.
The problem is that while the first and the second incarnations of 5th boss have some pattern I can follow, the last one does not. And it is really, really frustrating. If there is no specific pattern, how can you expect people to beat it in 2 and a half minutes? Let's say it straight: beating this last boss is a matter of pure luck. I've finally managed to beat it too while having 10 seconds left, but man I was lucky that day!
And when people talk about a game being difficult / unfair, I remind them of Jamestown. A perfect example of an extremely difficult game that IS NOT unfair. There is pattern to everything, there are a lot of bullets to dodge and a skill of dodging to master, but it has nothing to do with some random stuff that feels just unfair. That's what I mean.
If not for third incarnations of 4th and 5th bosses, Symphony is extremely well-balanced and I really, really like that. Now that I've beaten the game I think that it is even greater despite a couple of bosses that feel unfair, and for that, ECS, I thank you very much. :)