What is the hardest place/level for you in Keen 4?

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Hisymak
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What is the hardest place/level for you in Keen 4?

Post by Hisymak »

For me, the hardest place in Keen 4 which I was always the most afraid of, was the last section of Well of Wishes, which leads to a room with council member and which is guarded by a dopefish or two (dep. on difficulty). As a small kid, and even still today, I had always problems figuring out how to deal with Dopefish. It was always so easy to die by being eaten by one, and the fact that this kind of death felt the absolutely most uncomfortable means of death in Keen (can't see the death animation) added that I always tried to avoid this level and a contact with Dopefish as most as possible. I always felt reaching the safe room with council member was a matter of good luck after several tries, and I always felt so much relieved when I finally managed that.
The other hardest place in Keen 4 is obviously Pyramid of the Forbidden. But that is objectively the hardest level in Keen4, so I would rather exclude this one from this discussion, as this would probably be the common choice for many. The Isle of Fire is probably the second hardest level (ties with Well of Wishes).
There are also several more non-mandatory places and points which were pretty hard to reach and which I usually avoided, even if I was a completionist and always wanted to collect all stuff and visit all places in every level. Here's the list, sorted from the most significant:
- Cave of the Descendents, the top-left corner in a big secret area. There are several drops and one ice cream cone, hidden after a pit with spikes and three falling platforms. That room was so hard to reach, but impossible to return back. The gap between the room and falling platform is so long I was probably never able to manage it.
- Isle of Tar, the secret with a 1UP and lot of skypests. You certainly know what I'm talking about. Probably once as a small kid I had enough patience and waited for all skypests to land down on visible ground and killed them, and then safely picked up the 1UP. But I just skip this area as a single 1UP is not worth the nerves.
- Hillville, the two doughnuts floating over a fire
- Miragia, a single Neural Stunner floating just above a spike in the small pit with two spikes
- Cave of the Descendents, the two ice cream cones floating just above spikes in a pit with two poles behind the red keygem
- Pyramid of the Moons, the single Doughnut guarded by 4 dart guns is probably not worth such a challenge
- Pyramid of the Moons, the secret area above the bottom-left corner, guarded by several dard gun (a dart gun just above a climbing pole, uhh)
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StupidBunny
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Re: What is the hardest place/level for you in Keen 4?

Post by StupidBunny »

I’ve always been terrified of the dopefish. They’re so…well, dopey looking but death by them feels so inevitable and total…

While probably not objectively the hardest maneuver in the game, I’d give top billing for personal notoriety to that single drop directly beneath one of those ceiling thruster thingies in Miragia. I always feel so tempted to get it, even though it’s one lousy drop and I know it’s nearly impossible to do the jump right, and I’m sure the level designer, whichever he was, knew how strong the impulse is to leap at every stupid item in the game. I don’t think I’ve ever nabbed it successfully. I hate that drop.
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XkyRauh
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Re: What is the hardest place/level for you in Keen 4?

Post by XkyRauh »

The Well of Wishes was one of the first contributions to my fear of being underwater in games.
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Nisaba
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Re: What is the hardest place/level for you in Keen 4?

Post by Nisaba »

I avoided donuts for quite some time as a kid, as I had no idea whether or not this strange looking ring kinda thing was suppose to be a hazard of some sort. Wait, what? I avoided sweet and freshly fried dough?
:O Damn, I was so young and dump... but that's just the way it was. Somehow I stuck to this misconception for a number of months, if not years and left out the flavour of sweet icing.
mmm, now I'm definitely hungry. :drool

other than that Arachnuts gave me the creeps. They felt so dangerously huge and unpredictable. For my younger self they just posed a very dangerous threat.
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thehackercat
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Re: What is the hardest place/level for you in Keen 4?

Post by thehackercat »

It's the Isle of Fire for me. In fact, I've been trying to complete a Hard playthrough for the past few days and it's the last holdout.

There are certain spots where you have to go up or down a pole, where a Berkeloid is waiting. And their behavior is such that they stay right on top of you and don't give you any room!
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Soul Monster
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Re: What is the hardest place/level for you in Keen 4?

Post by Soul Monster »

thehackercat wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 20:22 It's the Isle of Fire for me. In fact, I've been trying to complete a Hard playthrough for the past few days and it's the last holdout.

There are certain spots where you have to go up or down a pole, where a Berkeloid is waiting. And their behavior is such that they stay right on top of you and don't give you any room!
I agree with that, and this is the most challenging stage to me as well. Isle of Fire is a very difficult stage solely because of the Berkeloids and their tendency to follow you and attack at random, not to mention the glitch where their fireballs go through walls. In particular, it's that one in the bottom passage of the stage that irritates me. The other thing is the large amount of fire in the stage, which at times leaves the stage feeling cramped without much room to screw up a jump and limiting your movement, especially on the floating platforms. I can't tell you how many cheap deaths I've had on this stage because of these 2 reasons, and the fact that if you drop down, you'll most likely land in fire.
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Re: What is the hardest place/level for you in Keen 4?

Post by Quillax »

Last time I played Keen 4 (on Normal), I died so many times in Cave of the Descendants, in the exact same places Hisymak mentioned (plus getting the guns to the left of the poles and red gem). It is possible to come in and out of that top-left corner of the big secret area alive, but you have to be very precise! When you stand on a falling platform and jump off quick enough, it'll actually stay where it's at, albeit in a slightly lower position. It seems that the leftmost platform has to be low enough so that you can jump back onto it, but not so low that it falls down and goes back up in a spot high enough that seems to be impossible to reach.

Cave of the Descendants was perhaps the level I died in the most, if we're not counting Pyramid of the Forbidden. Thank goodness the latter has a free extra life at the beginning! Hillville and Well of Wishes were also a bit troublesome for me, thanks to the doughnuts over the fire and the Dopefish respectively. :dopefish
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