Those are amazing insights! Getting rid of the popups also makes it more consistent to skip replays, since they delay the pause menu from showing up. Although, someone serious about speedruns could probably learn and anticipate the delay to mitigate. As for the movement being ten seconds faster, witness the power of bashing one's head against the wall completing all challenge ghosts and nightmare mode!

Ok so I haven't beat this level yet and I thought I was just really dumb.

I can only make guesses, but I suspect it may have something to do with how I beat treachery in the video before starting world 6. As far as I can tell, it doesn't modify Malice's behaviour in any significant capacity. I previously thought it to be tied to an item, but when I tried turning all the items off on another savefile, it still appears, sooo… Your guess is as good as mine. And on the topic of Treachery study material, I've actually composited an image of its attack pattern(the one at 6:30) for myself after a couple of failed attempts (since there's no save state to easily experiment). It helped a lot in forming a plan to tackle it. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQgcjIJMqYhOcGbaFJABveGHX-gO20nvOq3PufA4uSrn3_lN-j0GRL069AFLPCb1UPRqQvpjq24cLu1/pubhtml Excuse the visual artifacts, I have no prior experience and had been fumbling around for about half an hour to make it. Weaving between the intersections as I wrote in the description makes more sense when looking at this.

@@newrest560 Updated graphics were patched in slightly after release! There's been no changes to the actual bullet patterns, though.

Mystery solved! Looking through the patch notes, I presume this is the enhanced graphic mentioned in Jan 18's.

It's tough to speak about it without spoiling it. I suggest leaving it as one of the last collectibles to get. The level design is deliberately obtuse, but the solution to the postcard is comparatively much more elegant.

Nightmare mode umbrella has to be off, it's unobtainable with it on. That's what tripped me up for the longest while. I don't want to say too much, because I myself asked a hint from the dev (thank you btw), so I don't feel particularly worthy of obtaining that item. It's the one regret I have about this game. After abandoning finding it, I woke up one day with an eureka moment, and it would've been so much more satisfying had I not asked.

I don't blame you looking at this vid it would the last thing you had to Get

@@newrest560 Thanks, I finally got it! I think I've now completed all the "puzzle" parts of the game and only have pure execution challenges left (challenge ghosts, deathless clears, getting C.C. without cheating....) I don't usually play Nightmare Mode unless I have to so I probably would never have found the last vending machine without this video.

It's a secret. Play the game and find out ;)

In short, there's an item in town that allows to seal the skill scrolls. In Rispadar, there's a clothing shop (doesn't actually sell clothing in this game) that has books and seal tokens for sale (might be called 'Esoterica Seal Medal'). Buy some seal tokens, then seal any skill scroll by synthesizing it together with a seal token. Sealed skill scrolls will be colored black. Unseal the skill scroll by dismantling it. This doesn't apply for commands that don't need a skill scroll to activate unfortunately, eg shield bash.

@@newrest560 Yeah I ended finding them in the end, thank you it was usefull for Sealing that Shield Charge most useless ability in the game for me ^^

Kirihide, unlocked from Gladius.