What made it so good? Why has it not been replicated since?

Not really. There's a good amount that drop endgame enemies early on higher difficulties but not many actively gatekeep some enemy types to higher difficulties because given how most people play games they won't even see those assets. Having things like Fiend Ryus only appear above the base difficulty is a very Itagaki thing to do, doubly so is some of their positions within the game, as if put there to fuck with you when you thought you were safe. I think the last one being at the bottom of the huge staircase that connects the final area to the city where on your first playthrough you can just run through to restock and upgrade and such is a clear example.

Those cat girls on Hard were hot.

Post more Rachel.

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Nice thread.

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Playing devastation right now and getting filtered by devastator on commander difficulty.

i really liked it when the tentacle monster covered rachel with his slime

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When he does the big ground slam that sends up a chunk of earth, use that to get up high and smack him in the face for extra damage.
Also dodge dodge dodge.

Wait for him to punch the mound up and jump to the top so you can wail on him if you want to go that route, also his head is really big so headshots are somewhat easy if you use guns. Besides that just learn the timings for his attacks and use Focus to get your hits in.