Crypt of the Serpent King (UP)

I had a lot of trouble with this level on Easy mode, but it was much more straightforward (but time consuming) with a few changes to my strategy on Medium difficulty.

1) I was previously playing with the crosshairs turned off because I prefer a cleaner HUD. However, turning on the crosshairs in the graphics menu

A) helps immensely with aiming of the bow
B) turns red for timing sword and arrow strikes when an enemy is in range
C) helps to negate funky hitboxes (aiming at the snakes' tails don't seem to do damage)
D) helps to hit gauge distance so enemies can be attacked across the spike pit
E) helps the frantic fight against the final boss

2) I killed every snake in the level (roughly 25) by luring them back to the spike platforms, jumping across and then hitting them across the gap with my sword.

I would recommend using the sword exclusively to kill the snakes, as

A) with Strength 10, it only takes two sword hits to down a snake
B) it takes on average 4 arrow hits to kill a snake with the best Longbow
C) there are only 50-60 arrows available in the level between your starting 20 (extra arrows from past levels don't carry over) and chests.
D) there are about 25 snakes in the level. There are not enough arrows to kill all enemies, let alone the final boss
E) you are going to need lots of arrows to kill the final boss

The downsides to luring all the snakes back to pits include
A) It requires a lot more jumping, with greater risk of ending your run by falling on the spikes. I found the jumping to be much easier post-patch though, never missing with simple running jumps on and off.
B) It takes a long time, my runs were taking just under 40 mins
C) The chase mechanics are spotty. With Agility 10, you will be leaving the snakes in your dust, often having to stop and wait for them or doubling back to reactivate them if they get stuck on corners. Listening for audio cues stopping can alert you that they are no longer chasing you and you have to double back. I also frequently had to jump on and off the platforms to coax the snakes closer to the edge to get them into sword attack range and to save arrows. The crosshairs helped a lot to judge range. Carefully using the right analog stick to look down to get as close to the edge as possible was helpful to get hard to reach snakes.

The snakes will spin once every time they get hit, another reason not to use arrows. Sometimes, they would actually fall right into the spikepit themselves.

3) I ignored all gold and food in chests, though I still opened all of them in search of arrows. It saves a little bit of time, but still takes about 40 mins to clear completely.

Since damage done by your arrows don't scale with increasing your Strength stat, by the end, it takes two arrow hits to equal one max Strength 10 sword strike.

You are also going to miss a lot of shots against the final boss.

4) It frustratingly took 3 tries and over 2 hours to beat the final boss, even with breezing through the level without getting hit.

I tried the aforementioned "try to get crushed by the gate and glitch out" strategy twice, but couldn't get it to work either run.

My successful run involved using the best Longbow with about 50 arrows, peeking around the corner and shooting the boss with an initial arrow before he activates, then holding the left analog stick in place the entire fight at the 7-8 o'clock position so I was constantly moving backwards in a clockwise direction.

The boss constantly chases you and lunges forward, occasionally attacking and closes the distance quickly.

I would then simultaneously while holding the left analog stick, constantly tap the right analog stick in direction of the boss to try to make the aiming reticle turn red while more or less constantly firing arrows. I would say less than half actually were on target, but the constant movement prevented the boss from closing the gap enough to corner me, which led to my death twice on previous runs with other trials of backing up/strafing/running across the room.

5) The level design works to your advantage with having to open doors between rooms if you use it methodically.

I recommend opening new doors cautiously, backing up immediately as the door slowly opens and listen for the audio cue to see if any snakes are behind it

The door opens very slowly and I found many times there were snakes that activated as soon as I opened them. If this were the case, I would continue backing up and luring them one-by-one back to the spikepit.

You can also be reasonably confident that any new rooms you enter with spikepits and keys are snakefree with all different entrances shut if you are clearing the map methodically.

6) My final loadout ended up being 10/9/10 (Strength/Endurance/Agility). I did clear every enemy in entirety on the previous six levels, though missed a little bit of XP when an occasional enemy killed themselves trying to chase me through fire/lava/spikes.

For this Level, just keep doing what you've been doing to get here. By now, you should have Agility and Endurance maxed out (and probably a pretty high Strength, if you've been killing lots of monsters). Save up for the sword as early as you can, as it's the best weapon.

To fight the snakes, walk near them or let them get close to you, then back up as soon as they start to strike. As soon as you've dodged the strike, attack and move forward to land a blow just before they attack again. Rinse and repeat. It kind of works on the boss, too, but I found it easier to strafe around him and swing the sword when the crosshairs lined up.

If you need more detailed help, check out the Solutions for Hard Levels: