Freedom Planet 2 update for 13 March 2023

Hello Avalicians! We have released another patch that adds ranks to the Battlesphere menu for each challenge, adds new visual options to help reduce motion sickness in certain areas of the game, further balances the difficulty of the secret level, and includes other fixes and quality of life changes.

Thank you so much for your continued feedback and reports! We're planning another round of fixes this year ahead of the release of the console versions of the game. We'll keep you all updated!

General

• Best ranks in battlesphere challenges (courses, arenas, and bosses) will now be displayed in the info panel for each challenge (certain challenges do not store your best rank because it's irrelevant)
• A specific ambiance used in cases including the final boss arena (Cutscene_Rumble.ogg) has been slightly modified so that it now loops without clipping.

Display
New options have been adding to the Display Settings for reducing certain instances of background motion and reducing screenshake effects. Aimed at making the game easier to play for those who feel certain effects of motion sickness, the BG Motion option comes with three different settings - Full, Reduced, and Minimal - which affect movement of background elements in several specific cases.
If the player sets the option to "Reduced":

• The reverse background scrolling in The Battlesphere and Globe Opera 2 are swapped to a more standard parallax background scroll.
• Storm Slider's boss arena (both in Lightning Tower and in The Battlesphere) will no longer scroll the background.
• The Rotating Cylinder BG in the Bakunawa Fusion arena in Weapon's Core will move at 1/5th its normal rate.
  If the option is set to "Minimal", the above changes will be present, and:
• The BG in the cruise ship section in Shenlin Park will not scroll.
• The BG in the Wolf Armor arena in Snowfields will not scroll.
• The BG in the subway section in Palace Courtyard will scroll very slowly.
• The BG trees in Sky Bridge's chase section will have their speed cut by 40%, and they will also display at a significantly reduced opacity.
• The Rotating Cylinder BG in the Bakunawa Fusion arena in Weapon's Core will be stationary.
• The mass of floating rocks that appear in the background partway through the fight in Diamond Point will disappear altogether.

Results Screen

• Several visual adjustments have been made to help clarify the thresholds for each rank and how the ranking system works in general, as well as to make obtaining the highest ranks a bit more satisfying.
• When the player achieves a Perfect Run, a panel showing the No Hit Bonus will now appear on the results screen. For the sake of clarity, a Perfect Run will also now grant a 25% bonus to crystals (this bonus previously only affected rank).

Neera

• A new grinding animation has been added for when Neera mounts a rail under specific conditions.

Shade Armory

• Attempted a fix for an issue where the player could potentially end up on the wrong collision layer going into the boss fight with Syntax Spider.

Diamond Point

• The color of the rocks in the background has been slightly darkened and their opacity very slightly reduced to improve visibility of both the stage and other, dangerous rocks.

Bakunawa Rush

• Fixed a softlock in which the player could climb a wall and get stuck outside of the level boundary.

Clockwork Arboretum

• Fixed a softlock in which one of the elevator doors would not lock properly, potentially causing the player to escape the elevator shaft and be unable to get back in.

Weapon's Core

• The stealth meter now shakes intermittently while the player is in danger, to make it more visible to those unfamiliar with the mechanic. Additionally, the radius in which it can spot the player has been slightly reduced from 180 to 160.
• Adjusted the movement timing of circuit sparks; Sparks approaching a closed circuit will slow down, speeding back up when the player opens that circuit. All circuits in the level have had the speed of their sparks significantly increased, meaning that players will have more time to reach each circuit, while also needing to spend less time being stationary.
• Assist characters will now wait either until the boss has completed one cycle or until it heals before they come in.
• The timing for Assist Neera's appearance has been adjusted to more reliably hit the boss.
• The trajectory of the boss's bullet ring attack has been slightly adjust to match more closely with the warning it emits.
• Fixed an issue where assist characters would sometimes appear during the cutscene.