I agree with everything said here. I also happened to play through this waterfall place past the sportsdome that's supposed to be for one of the secret endings and good god this place is absolute trash tier. I think this is even harder than the final boss of the game, who does that? The First of all every single one of these weird shadow enemies are so bulky in HP I wasted some of my best items before even getting to the boss of this area, and speaking of the boss:
1. These three fish people are too bulky in HP, this battle went on for 15 minutes for me.
2. All three of them have the capability to heal everyone when they're all low on HP, effectively adding the extra 10 minutes I spent on this boss.
3. These enemies have too much HP.
4. The final, final fish guy after this battle is the most badly designed boss I have ever seen in any possible LISA fangame, and I just finished playing the demo of Lustful. This guy should have been killed the first time, giving him a second form just makes this battle drag on even longer. It also doesn't help that a random helper joins in as piles on that status ailment that makes allies refuse to be healed (why is that status even in the game?)
5. These. Enemies. Have. Too. Much. HP. More HP doesn't make a boss tougher, it just makes it longer, and makes you waste more items than you need to.
There's a fine line between hard and challenging, and hard and bullshit, and these update crossed the line of the latter by at least 50 miles. I don't feel like I lost these battles because it was my fault, I lost these battles because the RNG of my crits, stats, and dodges were not good enough. Does Stinkbomb EVER poison the target? Can intimidate actually intimidate enemies? Can hiding actually let me dodge attacks more often?
What was originally a decently balanced and overall enjoyable experience has now turned into one of the most stressful games I had the displeasure of experiencing this year, and I am extremely disappointed that Hopeful sank to the low of other Lisa fangames where things just need to keep getting harder and harder until you hemorrhage.