Just finished the game (with ending C) and had lot's of fun playing it, i'd say that along with Shovel Knight this is the best platformer I've played in recent years. The game is pretty hard by today's standards and I can relate to people getting frustrated with lack of checkpoints, but for me each death encouraged me to better myself and find some other strategy to beat the level and the bosses. I grew up playing classic NES/SNES/DOS platformers, so I felt right at home with the difficulty level. The controls are perfect, each death is only a result of you screwing up. Beating each level takes practice and you need to be persistent, when you finally beat the level, you feel great satisfaction in doing so. After beating the game I played the first three levels again and beat them on first try without deaths not even breaking a sweat. Initially each level felt almost impossible, but now after tons of practice, they were pretty much a walk in the park. So in essence, the game is not that hard, it's only up to you to hone your skills enough to beat it.
