Zach

That was one of the most satisfying puzzles I've done in months. Loved it.

That was absolutely miserable. It's fine to have some clues that do the "not what word you thought the clue meant" thing but this was everywhere and it made it impossible to even cut into them from the other direction. Number, senior, aerial act, server, synthetic oil, NUMBER (saying it twice), plus archaic words like the zen riddle or group of assistants? Come on.

WAY too much of this puzzle needs hints. It makes sense if you already know the solutions but trying to get through it without help is a nightmare. I did it, and it took forever, but wow that was not at all satisfying.

Upper left had too many esoteric answers. The clerk was bad, that is NOT the phrase for being on the verge of failure, the breakfast one feels like the kind of thing that is for NYC residents specifically, and the indigenous thing was entirely new to me. It felt like I was doing a jigsaw puzzle where the box was missing a bunch of pieces.

Yeah... No. I was able to get the whole puzzle except the middle part without help but even then I had no idea what the clues were doing for the themed ones. Then the middle bit was near impossible because there was no indication as to what it was doing. Especially when you're doing it on the app, puzzles like this are just too ambitious.

34a is, for the record, inaccurate. That's not who that was.