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I'm not a fan of PoR, but it has the Dracula/Death tag fight and that's amazing.
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Dec 24, 2016 20:17
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I can forgive all of Portrait of Ruin's flaws because of Old Axe Armor mode.
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Dec 24, 2016 20:17
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BattleMaster posted:For all its flaws I enjoyed Portrait of Ruin the most, but all of the DS and GBA Castlevanias are excellent. I hope Bloodstained becomes a series because IGA really knows what he's doing. I love that him and Hideo are making games that will still appeal to their fans anyway, showing you don't really need the IPs. Bloodstained does look great.
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Dec 24, 2016 20:22
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BattleMaster posted:For all its flaws I enjoyed Portrait of Ruin the most, but all of the DS and GBA Castlevanias are excellent. I hope Bloodstained becomes a series because IGA really knows what he's doing.
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Dec 24, 2016 20:27
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I find Circle of the Moon super difficult compared to most of the others.
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Dec 24, 2016 22:48
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Electromax posted:I find Circle of the Moon super difficult compared to most of the others. Dracula's final form on CotM is a huge and fairly sudden difficulty spike.
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Dec 24, 2016 22:56
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Electromax posted:I find Circle of the Moon super difficult compared to most of the others. CotM is 'hard' I think because there's no real reliable way to upgrade yourself due to the wonky card drop system. Honestly while I like the card system in theory the way they designed it is really bad and is the big thing that drags it down for me. The mere fact that getting certain combination of cards can MASSIVELY increase your power leads to really uneven difficulty.
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Dec 24, 2016 23:00
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ImpAtom posted:CotM is 'hard' I think because there's no real reliable way to upgrade yourself due to the wonky card drop system.
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Dec 24, 2016 23:14
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Zereth posted:It would've worked a lot better if they were just in specific places to find rather than as random drops. Yeah, that would have solved a lot of CotM's problems I think. Getting them as post-boss rewards or just finding them in the castle would have given a lot more flexibility without the RNG. The other ones ones do have random drops of course but they supplement them with assured drops and more significant weapon and equipment upgrades so you're not in quite the same position. CotM's card system is so central (and there are so few cards relatively) that it stands out more.
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Dec 24, 2016 23:18
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, that would have solved a lot of CotM's problems I think. Getting them as post-boss rewards or just finding them in the castle would have given a lot more flexibility without the RNG.
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Dec 24, 2016 23:28
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Zereth posted:Wasn't Circle just cards and relics and nothing else? Yeah, CotM was cards/relics and subweapons. That made the cards a lot more significant because they were the only way to make significant power increases.
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Dec 24, 2016 23:34
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Even if it's kinda rough due to being the first of the DS entries, I'll always like Dawn of Sorrow the most. Something about the whole soul gimmick really resonated with me, thought it was cool as heck even if I still remember grinding a Valkyrie soul for like 3 hours.
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Dec 24, 2016 23:37
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Even if it's kinda rough due to being the first of the DS entries, I'll always like Dawn of Sorrow the most. Something about the whole soul gimmick really resonated with me, thought it was cool as heck even if I still remember grinding a Valkyrie soul for like 3 hours. The soul gimmick is really cool because it means every enemy is significant. Finding a new enemy means a new potential power and even if the bulk of those powers are useless it sort of helps re-contextualize the game. It also gives you a ton of flexibility in builds (even if, again, there are a handful of builds which are so good there's no reason to do others.)
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Dec 24, 2016 23:39
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Electromax posted:I find Circle of the Moon super difficult compared to most of the others. CotM really highlights how much of the difficulty in the Castlevania games is caused by the controls. It's far more restrictive than the other handheld games when it comes to movement, making precise dodging more essential. Compare this to Ecclesia, which also gets touted as fairly difficult entry in the series, but which has so many ways to move around that it's trivial to circumvent all but a handful of scenarios. Also, PoR is my favourite Castlevania, but if you enjoyed any of the handheld titles, you're pretty much guaranteed to like the others as well.
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Dec 24, 2016 23:41
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Samuel Clemens posted:CotM really highlights how much of the difficulty in the Castlevania games is caused by the controls. It's far more restrictive than the other handheld games when it comes to movement, making precise dodging more essential. Compare this to Ecclesia, which also gets touted as fairly difficult entry in the series, but which has so many ways to move around that it's trivial to circumvent all but a handful of scenarios. Much of Ecclesia's difficulty was, iirc, from how much damage getting hit would cause. The Metroidvanias have always thrown some attack/enemy patterns that could be a pain in the rear end to deal with if you're out of position or seeing them for the first time, with increasing regularity as the series went on. Ecclesia not only did this more regularly, it also came with greater penalties for getting hit in general. Shanoa's enhanced mobility options were less of a neat trick, and more of a necessity if you wanted to survive some encounters.
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Dec 24, 2016 23:49
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fivegears4reverse posted:Much of Ecclesia's difficulty was, iirc, from how much damage getting hit would cause. The Metroidvanias have always thrown some attack/enemy patterns that could be a pain in the rear end to deal with if you're out of position or seeing them for the first time, with increasing regularity as the series went on. Ecclesia not only did this more regularly, it also came with greater penalties for getting hit in general. Shanoa's enhanced mobility options were less of a neat trick, and more of a necessity if you wanted to survive some encounters. Yeah, this is very true. Shaona is a glass cannon. She can deal INSANE amounts of damage but in response is (unless you do certain specific builds) effectively reliant on dodging, not tanking attacks. It does lead to a bit of a feast-or-famine playstyle where the easiest way to deal with several tough enemies is to nuke them before they get an action.
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Dec 24, 2016 23:59
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Ecclesia made different types of weapons much more important, which i didn't catch on until much later, making bosses a pain in the rear end just because I was hitting them with a scythe, when it should've been a hammer or something. Of course that goes out the window in the late game, when nova skeleton powers are just too good. Shanoa's inclusion into Harmony of Despair was pretty weird because she only had 3 weapons, when in OoE she had like 100. Of course this is the same game that made Jonathan the weakest and hardest character to level up. But goddamn it, I levelled every Belmont and Johnathan up to maximum damage whip because Whip characters are classic. For those that never played because seriously at this point, the ship has sailed and it's playerbase is made up of like 2 hackers, to level up whip characters you had to upgrade their subweapons, and upgrading subweapons was based on hitting enemies and the number was the same for every weapon. Johnathan had like 12 subweapons, and the later belmonts that cost 5 dollars each to buy, had like 4-6 at best. Subweapon levelling caused your Vampire Killer to do slightly more damage and you had to hit like 20,000 times to get it to level 9. Made Shurikens and Kunais easy to level up, but not so much for say, the Wrecking ball. Fargin Icehole fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Dec 25, 2016 |
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Dec 25, 2016 00:01
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Fargin Icehole posted:Ecclesia made different types of weapons much more important, which i didn't catch on until much later, making bosses a pain in the rear end just because I was hitting them with a scythe, when it should've been a hammer or something. Yeah, the laserbeam of death is perhaps a bit TOO good for what it is but eh. A crazy friend of mine once ground Shanoa up to the point she could literally oneshot Dracula which is pretty amusing to me.
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Dec 25, 2016 00:02
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I really hate how DoS's soul upgrade system replaced finding weapons with hoping the right souls drop (and being willing to sacrifice them for a needed weapon upgrade). I finished the game my first time through with a terrible weapon because after AoS I didn't know you needed to upgrade- I thought it was an optional supplement to finding them.
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Dec 25, 2016 00:04
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, the laserbeam of death is perhaps a bit TOO good for what it is but eh. canon
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Dec 25, 2016 00:13
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fivegears4reverse posted:Much of Ecclesia's difficulty was, iirc, from how much damage getting hit would cause. The Metroidvanias have always thrown some attack/enemy patterns that could be a pain in the rear end to deal with if you're out of position or seeing them for the first time, with increasing regularity as the series went on. Ecclesia not only did this more regularly, it also came with greater penalties for getting hit in general. Shanoa's enhanced mobility options were less of a neat trick, and more of a necessity if you wanted to survive some encounters. Yeah, the DS games in general upped the damage you take from enemies (particularly bosses), making dodging more important when compared to SotN where end-game gear basically let you tank just about anything. However, the timing for avoiding attacks is fairly generous, and there's no penalty for spamming healing items like there's no tomorrow. What made CotM difficult compared to the other games is that you have to be much more precise in your dodging and that there are no vendors stocking infinite potions. The arena fights in each game are a good example of this. CotM's arena is genuinely tough and requires you to be very efficient with your actions. PoR's arena is also tricky, but can be cheesed with easy healing options. Ecclesia's arena would be tough if you couldn't just fly in the air and rain down attacks on your enemies without fear of retaliation.
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Dec 25, 2016 00:28
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Fargin Icehole posted:Shanoa's inclusion into Harmony of Despair was pretty weird because she only had 3 weapons, when in OoE she had like 100. Of course this is the same game that made Jonathan the weakest and hardest character to level up. But goddamn it, I levelled every Belmont and Johnathan up to maximum damage whip because Whip characters are classic. I wanted to like Harmony of Despair but this is the kind of stuff that just made it completely unpleasant to play.
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Dec 25, 2016 00:45
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, the laserbeam of death is perhaps a bit TOO good for what it is but eh. I wonder who that crazy friend is.  But, yeah, the skelaserbeam was too good because for some reason they decided to make it fire/holy. Also, needless to say, I loved the attribute system and I hope it makes it into Bloodstained.
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Dec 25, 2016 00:47
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Random Stranger posted:I wanted to like Harmony of Despair but this is the kind of stuff that just made it completely unpleasant to play. Simon Belmont took a little less work than most, but to give you an idea. Full range whip that you normally know in the original game only gets unlocked when you level up all four subweapons. The big offender was that Johnathan was the only whip character when the game started, but the good part was, Julius was the first belmont in the game and had animations to whip in all 8 directions, and could use the magnetic spheres shanoa used as a hook. His playstyle was basically Super Castlevania IV, and he only had six subweapons to level.
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Dec 25, 2016 00:56
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My favorite memory of Harmony of Despair was when it was possible to set up an infinite healing combo with Charlotte so you just spammed magical superheals that never ended up their nerfed it into the ground.
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Dec 25, 2016 00:58
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Folks here are pretty much nailing why CotM, and especially its alternative modes, was my favorite of the portable series. I maxed my level on every mode in that game...
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Dec 25, 2016 01:18
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The one time I played PoR I used Jonathan the entire game and now I feel like I missed out big
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Dec 25, 2016 01:23
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ImpAtom posted:My favorite memory of Harmony of Despair was when it was possible to set up an infinite healing combo with Charlotte so you just spammed magical superheals that never ended up their nerfed it into the ground. Pretty sure it was because Konami didn't give a flying gently caress, so long as you gave them money
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Dec 25, 2016 01:30
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I recently tried to replay CotM and dead-ended on the Zombie Dragons. gently caress that fight.
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Dec 25, 2016 01:42
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I think the biggest blocks on CoTM are the twin dead dragons, and the Sewer level. Sewer level is such a spike on difficulty if you just take it easy
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Dec 25, 2016 01:45
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Fargin Icehole posted:I think the biggest blocks on CoTM are the twin dead dragons, and the Sewer level. Sewer level is such a spike on difficulty if you just take it easy Fun fact: It's possible to skip cleaning the water in the sewer. I didn't clear the water the first time I played through.
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Dec 25, 2016 01:47
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Twin Dragons and whichever level had the ice witches are what I remember struggling with.
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Dec 25, 2016 01:51
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Looper posted:The one time I played PoR I used Jonathan the entire game and now I feel like I missed out big CHAIN LIGHTNING GALE FORCE SPEED UP ACIDIC BUBBLES ALL BE STILL
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Dec 25, 2016 01:56
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Looper posted:The one time I played PoR I used Jonathan the entire game and now I feel like I missed out big Yeah, magic is really good but sometimes needs proper setup, which makes for interesting strategies. You can also increase your damage output nicely by having both characters out and attacking. PoR had a ton of stuff you could do and was full of neat little gimmicks, jokes, and one-offs, probably the best of any of the Castlevanias if those are things you like. Samuel Clemens posted:CHAIN LIGHTNING EXPLOSION
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Dec 25, 2016 02:03
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Discendo Vox posted:Fun fact: It's possible to skip cleaning the water in the sewer. I didn't clear the water the first time I played through. Me too, no idea how I totally missed Death's area. I just tanked my way through every room with the combo that gave you 4x the invincibility time after taking a hit and switching to the one that refilled 1hp per second when I found a safe spot.
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Dec 25, 2016 02:27
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Paracelsus posted:Yeah, magic is really good but sometimes needs proper setup, which makes for interesting strategies. SALAMANDER
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Dec 25, 2016 02:37
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MarsDragon posted:I recently tried to replay CotM and dead-ended on the Zombie Dragons. gently caress that fight. This is one of the best parts of CotM and one of my favorite Castlevania boss fights altogether. It's a much more manageable fight if you have one of the damage-dealing barrier card combinations, but it's a super tense fight even if you're well-prepared for it. And then there's the "holy poo poo" moment when you kill one head and the other starts cannibalizing it to restore HP. If not for the final boss, unfair upgrade system, and inability to buy a goddamn potion, I'd have no trouble calling CotM my second-favorite Metroidvania. My favorite post-SotN Metroidvania is Aria of Sorrow, but only if you play it on Hard, which totally should have been the regular difficulty to begin with (it's still easier than CotM or Ecclesia). Even on a first playthrough, I recommend using a copy with a complete save file so you can access that. Rollersnake fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Dec 25, 2016 |
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Dec 25, 2016 03:41
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I've only beat CotM once but it was without using the card system at all because I didn't understand it, how much harder did I make the game for myself?
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Dec 25, 2016 04:12
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All metroidvanias are good. Well, except HoD. That one makes me physically ill.
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Dec 25, 2016 04:20
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GodFish posted:I've only beat CotM once but it was without using the card system at all because I didn't understand it, how much harder did I make the game for myself? The game is basically designed without needing the cards; the cards themselves are really uneven in how meaningful their effects are, so it's not that much of a penalty. Difficulty mostly becomes an issue for bosses in the latter half of the game.
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Dec 25, 2016 04:36
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