Whipping A Dead Mr. Hed: The Castlevania Thread Of Sacred Remains

[Wolf]

I don't know that I have a particular eye and ear for minutiae in general, but for Symphony of the Night in particular, it's a different story. There's a lushness to its presentation that I fell in love with from just about the first moment, so I'm especially attuned to changes, even little things like the sound of thrown daggers pinging off of a wall (very few other versions, even very few emulators, get this right). I remember renting it in the late summer or early fall of 1999 for the first time, and as soon as I started wandering the Alchemy Laboratory, I knew this was a title I needed to own.

Sounds like I'll be keeping Requiem mainly for the ability to play Rondo on the big screen, then. It's still worth it for that, at least. I remain amused that in the game selection screen they use the Ayami Kojima artwork for it, despite that being for a version of the game not present, but I suppose it's to make it seem more of a piece with Symphony.

 

[Peklo]

I've been playing SOTN on Luck Mode, which I didn't know existed until the other day. It makes the game so much more fun for me that I kind of never want to go back to vanilla Alucard. I swear I'm not doing a Real Gamer thing here but the two times I have previously played through Symphony I've found it so easy that it ended up getting more or less boring. This, though. This is nice. Challenging but not insanely demanding, and upgrades/equipment feel more important and useful.

I don't think it's unusual at all to try and glean new and interesting ways to interact with these games on subsequent replays, as so many of us do. I'm pretty sure I haven't played Symphony outside of Luck Mode for maybe fifteen years or so, since it ostensibly intensifies one of the prime appeals of the game with more toys to play around with, tunes the beginning of it to be somewhat tougher... and eventually flattens out to be just as effortless as the standard mode, and potentially even more frictionless with the obscene amount of critical hits that a high luck bestows.

In that vein, I just did a challenge run of sorts in Aria, which has a Hard Mode much like Dawn's that isn't very interesting on its own, so you can juice it up with some modifiers of your own. I believe speedrunners often do this sort of stuff, with the added factor of utilizing randomizers, but this was just a personal ruleset applied to the base game, in brief:

1) have to immediately equip any soul or equipment that drops. Doesn't apply to duplicates.
2) guaranteed souls from bosses and the like are off-limits; same with all equipment that's lying around as treasure.
3) can't buy anything.
4) first time through a room, have to battle everything once, to give un-optimal souls a chance to drop, so you can't cling to a lucky drop too much should one happen.
5) no grinding, just traversal and fighting things as you go.

Ended up with Ronginus' Spear/Gym Clothes/Crimson Cloak as the final equipment set, and Fish Head/Manticore/Red Crow for souls. Ronginus' Spear was an amazingly lucky drop from an Erinys, from its rare drop slot, and was a big help for the end-game... even if its Holy element is exactly the wrong thing to bring to the fight with Julius, but in there I mostly relied on burst damage from the Manticore transformation, which was probably overall the MVP throughout the run for survivability and damage; Death especially would've been horrific without it since the first phase is once again the problem, and my weapon at that point was the short-range Baselard.

Randomizing the entire inventory (and layout) of the game is probably the more interesting prospect for veterans, but this was just the kick the game needed for my long-term engagement. Aria is the most compact and briskest-moving of the games of its type to begin with, so shuffling the deck as you go fits really well with its strengths.

 

[Wolf]

I feel a little dense asking, and I know I could Google it, but what's Luck Mode? I'd rather not try to wrangle with Google and AI results for an answer, and prefer to get it from someone who can offer insight.

 

[Torzelbaum]

It's a mode where Alucard starts with 99 Luck (LCK) but all of his other stats are much lower which makes it a lot harder to survive.

There is a way to cheat / sequence break during that mode which greatly increases your survivability.

(You activate Luck mode by using the name
X-X!V"Q .)

 

[Wolf]

Hmm, that's going to make my reliance on the Basilard for the early game rough going.

Edit: Yeah, that's the first time I've ever had to really work during the Gaibon and Slogra boss fight. Good to know healing items still seem to pack the same punch, but using the 80-point-restoring turkey to bring myself up to my max of... 29? 30? (after grinding to level 5 on Mermen early on, as I typically do) is to weep. Definitely will be interesting to go back to.

 

[Ludendorkk]

I also haven't played SOTN in anything other than Luck Mode in at least a decade if not longer.

I swear I'm not doing a Real Gamer thing here but the two times I have previously played through Symphony I've found it so easy that it ended up getting more or less boring. This, though. This is nice. Challenging but not insanely demanding, and upgrades/equipment feel more important and useful.

I don't think it's an outlandish take, base SoTN has so much overpowered stuff in it often breaks itself even when you aren't trying to do it on purpose. Luck Mode adds just enough teeth to give a little enjoyable friction while letting you play with more equipment (and the game is ultimately still very easy).

 

[muteKi]

Now you've got me wondering if the shadows were there in the catacombs in the Android version because I am pretty sure they were but it's clearly based on the PSP/PS5 version so I'm confused if they patched it back in. It IS a great way to experience the game, and I'm a little disappointed it's not been put on PC

 

[Torzelbaum]

I don't think it's an outlandish take, base SoTN has so much overpowered stuff in it often breaks itself even when you aren't trying to do it on purpose.

If you're trying to get the best ending then you'll be exploring a lot and getting lots of equipment, power ups and level ups.

Makes me wonder how much of a challenge a low exploration % normal mode run would be.

 

[Wolf]

So, as happens most years as we approach Officially Sanctioned Spooky Season, I'm getting the major itch to really dive into any number of Castlevania titles (and other horror stuff, but mainly Castlevania). Oddly, I'm especially getting the itch for the Lords of Shadow games (less so Mirror of Fate). It's always weird to me, because I feel like I shouldn't like these particular games, and yet I do. And the hell of it is, I'm at kind of a loss to articulate either side of the dilemma. Honestly, I should probably dive into Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness instead, having owned those since launch and barely played either. But we'll see.

 

[Tomm Guycot]

Gentle reminder folks who got the Classic-vania itch from Haunted Castle but haven't played Bloodstained Classic Modes 1 and 2....

...those exist.

 

[Torzelbaum]

 

[R.R. Bigman]

Portrait of Ruin is a lot better than I remembered. Essentially, the opposite of my Dawn of Sorrow experience. It looks and sounds so much better! Just a year later made a big difference.

My big gripe is that if you want to complete all of Wind’s quests, you have to grind like a motherfucker. I feel bad cussin’ like that, but some of the conditions are obscene. The absolute worst is trying to get enemy drops from enemies in the Nest of Evil. You can’t just dash out the door and back in to kill the guy again. You must die or complete the floor. I swear the RNG for the entire floor is set the moment you enter, because even the rewind feature doesn’t seem to help.

Aside from that, great game.

 

[Peklo]

You can use the suspend feature for the Nest of Evil drops, which places you at the entrance of the current room you're in, reshuffling the drop table. I'm not sure if all three games behave the same, but at least for Portrait drop chances are dictated upon entering a room/the enemy spawning in, so rewinding to game your chances does nothing.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

You can use the suspend feature for the Nest of Evil drops, which places you at the entrance of the current room you're in, reshuffling the drop table. I'm not sure if all three games behave the same, but at least for Portrait drop chances are dictated upon entering a room/the enemy spawning in, so rewinding to game your chances does nothing.

I did rewind to before I enter the current room! I remember reading about how drops work in these sometime ago, so that's what I’ve been doing. Even with Luck boosted to over a hundred, that 8% drop is not happening. I want that dang Chaos Ring so I can ace the Boss Rush!

 

[Mogri]

I did rewind to before I enter the current room!

But rewinding does nothing, though

 

[Torzelbaum]

But rewinding does nothing, though

So does that mean RNG is only set when you load a save (including a suspend)?

 

[R.R. Bigman]

I went back to just dying after not getting the drop and reloading. It eventually worked, so now I only need one more spell drop to get the last quest done.

 

[Mogri]

So does that mean RNG is only set when you load a save (including a suspend)?

I don't know about "only," but emulator rewind will only change the results if there's some other source of RNG in the mix. (This is true of all games, not just Castlevania, although many games will change the RNG on each frame.)

 

[R.R. Bigman]

I got the stuff I wanted and finished the game. The tag team final boss is really intense, and a cool idea. Much more a challenging final encounter than Dawn’s last boss, who mostly shuffles in place and sicks langoliers at the player.

Late game padding and optional obsessive grinding aside, this one is still quite good. Has some neat ideas with the dual character setup, looks great with some expressive spritework, and sounds much better than Dawn. Having Yuzo Koshiro helping with the OST is never a bad idea.

With the new Zelda coming later this week, I’ll have to put Ecclesia on hold for a bit. I hope it holds up as well as Portrait did.

 

[Wolf]

So I've been playing Symphony of the Night in Luck Mode, and it's definitely an interesting change-up.

I never really minded the ease of the vanilla experience. Honestly, I enjoyed it. Valued it, even. It's a game with a lot of places to go, a lot of monsters to fight, and a lot of ways to fight them. But there was rarely any real strategic component to it. You use whatever weapons you want to use, because, amusingly for a game starring a half-vampire going off to kill a full one, it has no teeth. And again, that was fine. If I wanted to use the Runesword for a half-hour or so, just for grins, well, there was nothing stopping me. Sure, I might get knocked around a bit until I re-familiarized myself with its arc of attack and its timing, but oh well. It's not like it mattered. I had the health to spare. I think the most tactical I got with my weapon use was breaking out the Red Rust to curse the Doppleganger during its boss fights. Otherwise, just use whatever.

I find myself now being very concerned about which weapons to use when. My usual strategy upon starting is to grab the Basilard at the earliest opportunity and ride it through the early game until I can find or buy a weapon that does about twice its damage per hit, since its speed makes it preferable for DPS reasons despite there being plenty of ostensibly stronger weapons available. And again, if I get knocked around a bit, well, so what?

But starting the game with 25 max health -- less than a third of my usual 85 starting amount! -- and all other stats drastically reduced made me pause for a moment. Range for the Basilard sucks, even if you're using the back-toward-attack button combo that makes it swing like a regular sword. You've got to get awfully close to make it work. And yet, a slower weapon just drags the fight out more, giving me more opportunities to get hit in a different way.

Currently, I'm headed toward the caves, after having gone through the Royal Chapel and then gotten the leap stone. I'm rocking the Jewel Fist at the moment, because it's got the edge in DPS over everything else I can find or afford. But its lack of range changes how I approach a lot of enemies. Spearmen used to pose no problem, since any sword or rod I'd be using at this point would let me get in close enough to do damage without being stabbed first, but the Jewel Fist negates my range advantage utterly. Now, the best strategy is to be more careful in my timing, and take them with the diagonal strike that naturally occurs on the descent of a jump. It's not hard to manage, but it requires more thought and planning than I'm used to.

Even with the Red Rust curse, I was worried about the Doppleganger fight in the Outer Wall due to the boss being fast and maneuverable, but needn't have. A massive critical meant I ended the fight after two hits. Two! Nevertheless, I'm still a bit concerned about some upcoming encounters. I haven't even touched the Coliseum yet, and there's a particular corridor there, with horsemen and skeletal musketeers that always mauls me pretty badly on most runs, and I'm not sure how I'm going to make that work.

But I'm enjoying it despite all this. I think of Castlevania in much the same way I think the people who have favorite vacation spots think of those. I go back to it often enough that it has the comfort of familiarity, but not so much that it becomes boring or rote. Luck Mode adds a new dimension of novelty to the experience by requiring me to apply some real thought and planning, to hang back and choose my attacks rather than just leaping gracefully in and laying about me with whatever weapons seem most fun.

I wonder how far I'll go. I tend to tap out after I reach the reverse castle most runs, not for reasons of difficulty so much as for choice paralysis. It's easier to play the first half, where the nudging guidance of limitation forces me to choose from only a small number of places I can go at any one time. By the time you've hit the reverse keep, though, you can go anywhere whenever you like. Consequently, I start to get bogged down because I can no longer prioritize a direction to travel. But with Luck Mode, maybe that'll change. I guess we'll see.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1842771633766817987

 

[Torzelbaum]

I haven't even touched the Coliseum yet, and there's a particular corridor there, with horsemen and skeletal musketeers that always mauls me pretty badly on most runs, and I'm not sure how I'm going to make that work.

That is an annoying spot. I think you could try the Hellfire teleport and then hold up to get the two meteors Dark Inferno but I'm not sure if that will actually do you any good.

 

[Peklo]

Soul Steal is generally a good option for overwhelming situations like that room, and especially so in Luck Mode where health is a more active concern.

 

[WildcatJF]

Crossposting: I’m starting a Halloween appropriate run of Castlevania Aria of Sorrow with 100% map and souls!

LVLS+ Plays – Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Part 1

Welcome to LVLS+ Plays, where I LP various games! I’m starting a Halloween appropriate run of Castlevania Aria of Sorrow with 100% map and souls! Castlevania Aria of Sorrow (c) Konami Reprodu…

jfieldsted.wordpress.com

 

[Torzelbaum]

Soul Steal is generally a good option for overwhelming situations like that room, and especially so in Luck Mode where health is a more active concern.

As time goes on I find it harder to consistently do the controller motion for Soul Steal. I don't have that problem with Hellfire.

 

[Exposition Owl]

I’d like to thank the good people of this thread for letting me know about Luck Mode for SotN. Just finished playing through Rondo and then Symphony, and Luck Mode gave me some rare drops that made things new and interesting.

 

[Torzelbaum]

I’d like to thank the good people of this thread for letting me know about Luck Mode for SotN. Just finished playing through Rondo and then Symphony, and Luck Mode gave me some rare drops that made things new and interesting.

Cool. What did you get?

 

[Exposition Owl]

Cool. What did you get?

Well, I got some stuff earlier than you normally find it, which mostly made up for the weaker stats by mid-game (which I guess is how Luck Mode is ideally supposed to work). The first new and interesting one, though, was a Fist of Tulkas about halfway through the inverted Castle. I usually prefer weapons with a longer range, so the Fist gave me a chance to switch things up and try different tactics. Then, about 90 percent of the way through the game, I ran across my first ever Crissaegrim! It really does trivialize combat, so I’m actually glad I didn’t find it earlier.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

Man, it would be cool if the later Iga games had a Luck or Magician mode that greatly alters the way you play the game while still following the basic gameplay. Lot better than running around as a side character who has almost none of the cool abilities the main character has and can’t use items!

I finally finished Order of Ecclessia in the Dominus Collection. That game has also held up rather well. Every enemy has three times as much HP as they really should, but otherwise it is very solid. Makes sense that IGA would use it as a blueprint for Bloodstained.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1842771633766817987

Sorry, folks. We have to cancel. We're missing a critical cord, and the laptop isn't powerful enough to run the Elgato without it, so we have to postpone. But we're ordering a new cord, and hope to make it up with a stream during the week or something when we get it.