I got a Wii and this game for Xmas and have spent every day since screaming and swearing. I've never had more than 7 lives, have had game over about 20 times and can't get to the end of world 1. Till now I considered myelf good at platformers and have completed all the Sonics,Spyros, Ratchets and Jak and D on Sega and PS1/2 and 3 many times but this game is impossible. Am I losing my touch or what?
I am having exactly the same problem and the air is blue! A tip I've been given is to redo either the mini boss or big boss before you end a gaming session and it saves everything again so even if you lose all your lives you won't lose the progress.
It was made more difficult after the previous version had a number of complaints that it was too easy. Shame there can't be a difficulty select option (easy normal hard).