Doing Things The Hard Way vs I'm Sorry

[James]

So far I've managed to collect all the trophies except the 1 minute gravitron and the master of the universe. I think I'm going to have to be happy with that, because I don't see myself getting either of those.

But for me, the most difficult part of the game so far was definitely getting the V rank in the lab. Getting over the spike in I'm Sorry and then getting back again is super difficult. Doing Things The Hard Way seemed harder at first, but I think that puzzle is more practicable. What I mean by that is that before you build up much skill you can make it over this spike once in a while, but Doing Things... is essentially impossible initially. With enough practice, I find I can now get the Doing Things... trinket in one go most of the time. But the trinket beyond the I'm Sorry spike is much less amenable to practice. Even after an incredible amount of practice, I can still only get it maybe 20% of the time on a good day. And since you have to do it both ways, that's 20% of 20%, which equals 4% of the time. Plus it's near the end of the level, which means that even once you've mastered the level, you have to play through the entire thing and then die, around 25 times before you get it.

Here's a good analogy. Doing Things... is like juggling, and I'm Sorry is like shooting a half-court basketball shot. Before you've practiced, you might hit the odd lucky half-court shot sometimes, but you can't really juggle for more than a couple of throws. After enough practice though, you can juggle for nearly as long as you want, but you'll never make more than a modest percentage of half-court shots.

Does anyone else agree with my characterization of these puzzles? Does anyone prefer one "style" of puzzle (more practiceable versus more probabilistic?).

[StephenM3]

Well, here's a tip for I'm Sorry (not that I can get a V rank on it myself):

If you try to get it by running off the edge of the platform with the checkpoint, like so,

it's nearly impossible.  You see, you don't always go as far 'into' a bounce beam every time; it has to do with where you started out and accelerations and a bunch of stuff like that.  If you just run off that platform, bounce, bounce, bounce into Please Forgive Me, then bounce back up into I'm Sorry, you're going to barely have any room to go over the spike there.  You'll find it's a lot more do-able if you flip off the checkpoint platform, and take that extra bounce on the way.  The easiest way I've found (you get the most room) is if you start from the checkpoint in Please Forgive Me, but obviously that's not what you want in a speed run.

[James]

That's the only way I've been able to do it: from the checkpoint in Please Forgive Me. If you've been able to do it without dying up to that point you'll be well under the par time anyway. But I guess if you're going for a record V-rank time you'd want to do it the faster way.

I've actually heard it's not just difficult but impossible if you just run off the platform in I'm Sorry. Is this correct? Has anyone ever been able to get it with this method?

[Shasharala]

I've heard it's impossible as well and havn't heard of anyone being able to do it.

[StephenM3]

I think it may be impossible to do it by running off the platform in I'm Sorry; I know SoulEye tried at it for a good long time and could never succeed.

But it's possible to do if you flip off the platform in I'm sorry.  Even I can do it (though it took me a couple tries), and it's just a short bounce so it shouldn't slow you down significantly if at all..

[The Brass]

I can get it from the I'm Sorry checkpoint if I flip off the platform. It seems that running of the platform instead of flipping makes it impossible. So this would be a bug: if you run off a platform into a horizontal Inversion Plane, your head will not sink into the IP as much as it normally does, and this will continue with HIP flips of the same kind until you land.