Crimson Needle 2.5 - Chapter 1

Time: 83:50:03
Deaths: 53138

12.1.2025 - 24.3.2025

For almost 2 years The Farewell Medley was easily the largest IWBTG fangame ever. This changed in the summer of 2024, when Crimson Needle 2.5 was released. At first I had no idea how big it was going to be, and I didn't think much of it although I watched Max stream it. When Max got to the second chapter, my view on this game changed drastically. I thought that this was incredibly peak, and I had a really hard time believing it when Pluto said that she likes chapter 3 even more than chapter 2. At the start of 2025 Max was on a long break from streaming, and I decided to start the game myself. I thought that it would take me more than a year to beat the first chapter, as it gets quite a bit above what my skill level was back then. I started really locking in on this game, and eventually my patience was rewarded with the clear. Personally I would say that this is the hardest game I have ever beaten, although a lot of people would probably find Ace harder. For me though, floor 100 alone is comparable to Ace, and maybe even harder.

For those who don't know, chapter 1 is basically a remake of a 2015 fangame called Crimson Needle 2. I haven't played it, so I can't really compare them, but a lot of people say that this is a pretty big improvement from the original. Overall as a gimmick needle enjoyer, this is easily the best vanilla needle I have ever played. It's really cool how memorable each of the tilesets really are in terms of gameplay. Some of them have a sense of progression through them, like 88-90 where it starts with very simple needle and gradually becomes more complicated and fast paced. Another instance is 46-48 where The first screen is 32px needle, the second screen is 16px needle and the last screen is line needle. You also have some really surprising screens like floor 45 where you get to pick between an L needle screen and a single save screen, and of course floor 12 where you have an entire modern needle tutorial with multiple screens. There are also tilesets that work very well thematically, such as 91-93 which feels like an abandoned bathhouse, and every screen has a different water-related gimmick. 67-69 has simplistic but really good looking visuals, and the gameplay works super well with the artistic style. Of course the tileset that takes the gold medal is 85-87, which is very different from the rest of chapter 1, and has some of the best needle I have ever played. Floor 95 is another screen that feels very different from the rest of the chapter, and is a nice surprise considering that the rest of 94-96 is fairly simple. Floor 100 is an amazing conclusion, and it's one of the best needle saves I have ever played. Unfortunately I got quite unlucky with it so in the end I didn't really enjoy it that much. Overall this chapter was incredibly fun, and even if this was the whole game, I would still really love it and consider it one of my favorite fangames.

Of course this game is still far from over. Some people even call this just the prologue, and chapters 2 and 3 are the real reasons why I started playing this. Really can't wait to play more of this. This might be one of my favorite games of all time. Huge thanks to Kale and the rest of the team for making this masterpiece.