I see what you’re saying here, but I reckon you’re making the same mistake that I usually do - trying to do it as quickly as possible. But if you breathe, take your time, and forget about your score, it’s pretty simple. This puzzle, like the better ones in CTR, is only difficult if you try and maximise your score. Getting the timing right in that case can be infuriating.
Level 4-24: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX896TSiraQ
Now that’s a puzzle! It’s not immediately clear how to solve it. The stars aren’t on a timer (most of the timers are pointless, as far as puzzles go).
I agree, this is probably the best puzzle in the game. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do it for ages, mostly because I went down the wrong path which involved trying to time two incredibly difficult swings with an impossibly-hard reaction cut. When I finally got it, I was facepalming.
p.s. Is this an elegant solution to 4-7? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtTLVxvqTJ8
Again, 4-7 stumped me for a while because I was trying to do it as fast as possible because of that timed star. But actually, you can go fairly sedately and still make it - the timer is very generous. The key, as that video implies, is to take it slowly and wait for the candy to stop swinging at key points. You can even do it more slowly than that guy did - I reckon his score was higher than mine for that level.
I’m not going to defend the elegance of every puzzle, because some of them are indeed a pain in the ass, but the point was that every time I got stuck I was trying to be way too speedy with it, or I thought that speed mattered when it usually didn’t. The ones that infuriated me the most were any level involving those cushions, mostly because I kept forgetting to tap them once or twice and not repeatedly whilst shouting “NOOO!”
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to improve my 4-7 score…
