Cronos is the gaming equivalent of someone who desperately needs to be right, even if it bites them in the ass. Singular Fixation, The Game.
Is it technically difficult to spawn things on top of you, and have triggers for enemies bursting through the wall be a guaranteed stagger on your character in a game with severely limited healing items? Technically, yes, that does make things more difficult. That would make you right in calling it difficult. It also makes it more difficult to eat if I glue my mouth shut. Doing that would make me a dipshit, though.
Cronos is kind of a dipshit. The kid who doesn't care if doing something is worthwhile, but does it just to be right. The kind of person who tells on themselves if it'll also get you in trouble. Like I said; a dipshit.
There is so much good squirreled away in this game, sandwiched between game design choices that just feel annoying and malicious. Not scary, not tension inducing--just annoying. Everything just feels like the devs needed to be right, at the expense of being enjoyable.
And it is so, so close to being great. The atmosphere is fantastic, the sound design is fantastic, the world building is provocative and thoughtful. I wanted to wander everywhere, see everything, read everything. But it is an absolute chore to play, because being right is more important than being enjoyable. And, technically, the game is difficult, in the same way that performing your own colonoscopy might be. Towards the Church, I just found myself dreading the next combat encounter. Not because it was scary, or tense, or difficult, but because it was so tedious and remarkably unenjoyable. I saw a bunch of explodable shit everywhere and just decided, nope, I am not sludging through another half-baked 'all doors lock until you kill every enemy' shooting gallery with the most unmaneuverable character since the tank control days of old. Running in circles charging my shots and trying to craft ammo while dodging enemies with attacks that seem wholly undeterred by walls or doors or any other obstacles. And there was no way I was going to do yet another boss fight where I have to play ring-around-the-rosie with pillars while its projectile attacks clip through and still damage me anyways.
And, by god was I not going to spend another full 72 seconds (yes I counted, because it was just so goddamn slow) climbing a ladder like a geriatric riddled with arthritis.
I love slow burns. I love atmosphere. I love difficulty. But I also love my time, and respect it more than anything else. And Cronos really wanted you to die in dumb ways just to be right about being able to kill you. And even mostly failed at that as I only died about 7 or 8 times total by the time I reached the Church. Even when the game threw cheap unavoidable hits at me (again, the favorite in this game is enemies that smash through a wall at random places and stun you into damage, with the trigger being directly where the enemy bursts out into). It felt like getting together with friends for some D&D and having a DM who makes up new rules to hamstring you every time you're doing too well, or like going on a date with someone who is angry at you for agreeing to go out so they keep sticking their fingers in your food and drink and farting loudly to try and get you to leave so they don't have to 'be the bad guy' and end the date themselves.
Again, a dipshit.
Cronos has so much to love, and there was so much I did love. But by god did Bloober want me to really know it didn't want me there and didn't want to end the date themselves.
