I'm not the first to suggest a hard cap as a way to possibly fix the issue of memories having a one second cd by the game's end even without looping, but I haven't seen any true suggestion of it other than "add a hard cap". So how does this sound (numbers would be additive):
Cap based on difficulty:
- Easy: no cap
- Normal: base cap of 1s
- Ominous: base cap of 2s
- Nightmare: base cap of 3s
Then, on top of that, add to the cap based on number of loops, but the penalty starts in world 4:
- World 4, no loop: +1s
Maybe change them to .5s if the higher difficulties end up being too hard. This could also address the issue of people getting bored in multiple loops and ending their runs by intentionally dying.
- At the beginning of each loop: +1s
fish