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tenshinoakuma) wrote2010-11-06 10:09 pm
tenshinoakuma) wrote2010-11-06 10:09 pm
Entry tags:
More adventures in Castlevania
I will split this into two.
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
I finished it yesterday (Good ending and Bad ending) and really, I had an absolute ball with it. I nearly died getting the Good ending. I don't just mean in the actual battle itself, but the fact the true final boss exploded into flames, burning me after it died, leaving me on ~100HP. Each burn did 120+HP damage. I really got lucky there.
I haven't yet seen the Best ending for myself, but I did see a script for it. There's not much different from the Good ending, just a couple of changes to the text. But the text is so worth it.
SUCH A DORK.
That said, I tried out Boss Rush, did pretty well until I got repeatedly stomped by Balore. He's pretty difficult when you don't have the Souls that are useful for him, and bad timing on the jumps. I did manage to beat him... only to die on Graham, who I usually find ridiculously easy. But apparently I can't jump well when going from left to right. I ragequit Boss Rush right then.
I started a new game in Julius mode. It's pretty fun playing as Julius, but not only does the no menu thing make me ):, it also means I'm getting some serious Control Screw, since the game reverts to default controls (I was playing with attack and jump buttons swapped around). Not only that, since Julius has a different style of play, he takes a while getting used to. Some of the tactics I used to use as Soma (especially the ones that involve ducking under attacks) just don't work as Julius, since the old man can't crouch as low. The biggest thing that messes me up is the Backstep, which now moves me forward. I spent all of Soma mode reminding myself not to turn around before backstepping (because I have a habit of turning to run instead of backstepping) and then I had to unlearn it.
I stopped playing at around 1:30AM. I started Dawn of Sorrow and played until like. 3AM. But I'll get into that in a moment.
I returned to Soma mode to get all the souls (initially I intended just to get the Red Minotaur and Medusa Head so Boss Rush was easier, but then I figured ehhh I might as well get the rest). I seriously do not understand why I did not equip the Panther Soul the moment I got it. Sadly if I don't kill an enemy in one hit, I get knocked out of it and get hurt ):
I grinded for quite a while to get Red Minotaur. I actually stopped and went on a detour to get the Killer Mantle Soul halfway through to go get the Iron Golem Soul, but I found out the Killer Mantle is just as effective on the Red Minotaur (probably because it, like the Iron Golem, doesn't have mana) so that sped things up a bit. The Sky Fish was tricky to get, especially since the timing of its appearance varies and timestop doesn't stop it, just slows it down. I also found out that if you go to talk to the Save Room statue while timestop is in effect, time will instantly resume. Aside from that, there wasn't too much interesting while I collected Souls.
Except.
The Mandragora.
Okay so. Harvesting Souls had been pretty easy. Most of them involved finding a monster that spawned next to the entrance and killing, and exiting and reentering really, really fast. There's a small room that contains a Mandragora (and two slimes), so I figured, hey, farming this will be really fast like all the others, right?
WRONG.
I slaughtered over a thousand of them. I kill a Mandragora once every 2 seconds, although sometimes I mess up. I spent a really long time going in and out of the room, and often went on detours to farm other souls before coming back. I was thinking, "Is this a bug or something? It really shouldn't be taking this long to get the soul, right? I've got all items and souls on to boost soul drop rate and I now have a million Slime souls."
And then I realised why.
See, Mandragoras are a little bit special. You don't actually see them immediately. You first see a skeleton, who then pulls out the Mandragora, which screams and kills the skeleton before dying. All this time, I'd been killing the skeleton as soon as I saw it. But killing the skeleton doesn't count as a Mandragora kill. So. I'd been spending all that time DOIN' IT RONG. BEING EFFICIENT WAS MY DOWNFALL.
... It dropped its soul within 5 tries after I figured out I was killing it too fast.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Okay, first off, I was a little bit sadface about the change in artstyle from the ridiuculously pretty art in Aria (The more I look at it, the more I think I have an artcrush on the artwork) to an anime style. The anime style isn't bad, per se, but I'm always comparing it to Aria's pretty, pretty art.
And... well, Soma's coat isn't furry anymore ):
Like with Aria, I had to do some experimenting to figure out what all the buttons do. Logically, it should've been easier for me to figure out what was what since I'm now familiar with Aria, but PFFFFF I kept on doing power attacks and eating through my MP instead of normal attacks until I realised A isn't for normal attack.
Soma looks a bit taller in Dawn (sweet jesus did he like, get a growth spurt in the 1 year? He's already ridiculously tall looking), but I noticed his knee high boots and WHAT IS THIS HAIRFLIP first. Something I didn't mention in Aria is that sometimes I have a hard time telling the difference between what is foreground and what is background. It's most notable in the Clock Tower, where sometimes I don't notice the rotating gears that you're supposed to stand on until I smash Soma's head into them. Now, with Dawn, I have a similar problem. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between objects I can stand on and objects I can just pass through. On top of all this, sometimes I have a hard time differentiating enemies from the background, and I think this may be in part due to less saturated colours in Dawn. It might also be because enemies on Dawn's DS screen are smaller than their appearance in the resolution I had Aria's at.
As a result (and... well, me just sucking for various reasons), I end up chugging down potions even on non-bossfights. I suppose it's not too much of a problem since enemies drop more cash in Dawn than they do in Aria, but it's troublesome having to backtrack frequently to restock potions. I've also yet to find a decent Bullet Soul, so that can also be contributing. Yoko can release souls, but I think I skimmed the text too fast and missed the important bits, because I don't really understand why you'd want to do that. The dialogue between Yoko and Hammer is kind of... okay. Nothing interesting for me there, anyway. I seem to get lost a lot more in Dawn than in Aria, too. Though maybe it was just because I was playing at like 2AM.
It's a bit troublesome that there are parts in the game where you have to use the stylus. Troublesome because both hands will primarily be using the buttons, so if I need to suddenly use my stylus, I screw up and generally have to redo that part D:
p.s. Seals can go DIAF.
EDIT: RECEIVED THE BEST ENDING FOR ARIA OF SORROW IN JUST INDER 12.5 HOURS. ALSO, SOMA IS LEVEL 69. I swear I don't do these things on purpose.
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
I finished it yesterday (Good ending and Bad ending) and really, I had an absolute ball with it. I nearly died getting the Good ending. I don't just mean in the actual battle itself, but the fact the true final boss exploded into flames, burning me after it died, leaving me on ~100HP. Each burn did 120+HP damage. I really got lucky there.
I haven't yet seen the Best ending for myself, but I did see a script for it. There's not much different from the Good ending, just a couple of changes to the text. But the text is so worth it.
SOMA: Yes... I couldn't have won the last battle by myself. Everyone's kind words led me to victory.
MINA: I'm so glad that your experience didn't change you.
SOMA: But it DID change me!
MINA: In what way?
SOMA: I'm a lot cooler now!
SUCH A DORK.
That said, I tried out Boss Rush, did pretty well until I got repeatedly stomped by Balore. He's pretty difficult when you don't have the Souls that are useful for him, and bad timing on the jumps. I did manage to beat him... only to die on Graham, who I usually find ridiculously easy. But apparently I can't jump well when going from left to right. I ragequit Boss Rush right then.
I started a new game in Julius mode. It's pretty fun playing as Julius, but not only does the no menu thing make me ):, it also means I'm getting some serious Control Screw, since the game reverts to default controls (I was playing with attack and jump buttons swapped around). Not only that, since Julius has a different style of play, he takes a while getting used to. Some of the tactics I used to use as Soma (especially the ones that involve ducking under attacks) just don't work as Julius, since the old man can't crouch as low. The biggest thing that messes me up is the Backstep, which now moves me forward. I spent all of Soma mode reminding myself not to turn around before backstepping (because I have a habit of turning to run instead of backstepping) and then I had to unlearn it.
I stopped playing at around 1:30AM. I started Dawn of Sorrow and played until like. 3AM. But I'll get into that in a moment.
I returned to Soma mode to get all the souls (initially I intended just to get the Red Minotaur and Medusa Head so Boss Rush was easier, but then I figured ehhh I might as well get the rest). I seriously do not understand why I did not equip the Panther Soul the moment I got it. Sadly if I don't kill an enemy in one hit, I get knocked out of it and get hurt ):
I grinded for quite a while to get Red Minotaur. I actually stopped and went on a detour to get the Killer Mantle Soul halfway through to go get the Iron Golem Soul, but I found out the Killer Mantle is just as effective on the Red Minotaur (probably because it, like the Iron Golem, doesn't have mana) so that sped things up a bit. The Sky Fish was tricky to get, especially since the timing of its appearance varies and timestop doesn't stop it, just slows it down. I also found out that if you go to talk to the Save Room statue while timestop is in effect, time will instantly resume. Aside from that, there wasn't too much interesting while I collected Souls.
Except.
The Mandragora.
Okay so. Harvesting Souls had been pretty easy. Most of them involved finding a monster that spawned next to the entrance and killing, and exiting and reentering really, really fast. There's a small room that contains a Mandragora (and two slimes), so I figured, hey, farming this will be really fast like all the others, right?
WRONG.
I slaughtered over a thousand of them. I kill a Mandragora once every 2 seconds, although sometimes I mess up. I spent a really long time going in and out of the room, and often went on detours to farm other souls before coming back. I was thinking, "Is this a bug or something? It really shouldn't be taking this long to get the soul, right? I've got all items and souls on to boost soul drop rate and I now have a million Slime souls."
And then I realised why.
See, Mandragoras are a little bit special. You don't actually see them immediately. You first see a skeleton, who then pulls out the Mandragora, which screams and kills the skeleton before dying. All this time, I'd been killing the skeleton as soon as I saw it. But killing the skeleton doesn't count as a Mandragora kill. So. I'd been spending all that time DOIN' IT RONG. BEING EFFICIENT WAS MY DOWNFALL.
... It dropped its soul within 5 tries after I figured out I was killing it too fast.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Okay, first off, I was a little bit sadface about the change in artstyle from the ridiuculously pretty art in Aria (The more I look at it, the more I think I have an artcrush on the artwork) to an anime style. The anime style isn't bad, per se, but I'm always comparing it to Aria's pretty, pretty art.
And... well, Soma's coat isn't furry anymore ):
Like with Aria, I had to do some experimenting to figure out what all the buttons do. Logically, it should've been easier for me to figure out what was what since I'm now familiar with Aria, but PFFFFF I kept on doing power attacks and eating through my MP instead of normal attacks until I realised A isn't for normal attack.
Soma looks a bit taller in Dawn (sweet jesus did he like, get a growth spurt in the 1 year? He's already ridiculously tall looking), but I noticed his knee high boots and WHAT IS THIS HAIRFLIP first. Something I didn't mention in Aria is that sometimes I have a hard time telling the difference between what is foreground and what is background. It's most notable in the Clock Tower, where sometimes I don't notice the rotating gears that you're supposed to stand on until I smash Soma's head into them. Now, with Dawn, I have a similar problem. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between objects I can stand on and objects I can just pass through. On top of all this, sometimes I have a hard time differentiating enemies from the background, and I think this may be in part due to less saturated colours in Dawn. It might also be because enemies on Dawn's DS screen are smaller than their appearance in the resolution I had Aria's at.
As a result (and... well, me just sucking for various reasons), I end up chugging down potions even on non-bossfights. I suppose it's not too much of a problem since enemies drop more cash in Dawn than they do in Aria, but it's troublesome having to backtrack frequently to restock potions. I've also yet to find a decent Bullet Soul, so that can also be contributing. Yoko can release souls, but I think I skimmed the text too fast and missed the important bits, because I don't really understand why you'd want to do that. The dialogue between Yoko and Hammer is kind of... okay. Nothing interesting for me there, anyway. I seem to get lost a lot more in Dawn than in Aria, too. Though maybe it was just because I was playing at like 2AM.
It's a bit troublesome that there are parts in the game where you have to use the stylus. Troublesome because both hands will primarily be using the buttons, so if I need to suddenly use my stylus, I screw up and generally have to redo that part D:
p.s. Seals can go DIAF.
EDIT: RECEIVED THE BEST ENDING FOR ARIA OF SORROW IN JUST INDER 12.5 HOURS. ALSO, SOMA IS LEVEL 69. I swear I don't do these things on purpose.