Nocturne in the Moonlight - Castlevania SotN (PSP version) Blind

[Voltgloss]

Hearing raocow's aversion to gridning kinda makes me have to take back my suggestion on trying Aria of Sarrow. In order to play that game you have to be able to withstand grinding enemy kills for souls, unless you put in a gameshark cheat that makes all kills have 100% soul drop rate or something.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

Grinding is NOT required to play and beat Aria of Sorrow. The best way to play it is to just go through the game straight through, using whatever souls happen to drop, and not stopping to farm at all. Makes every playthrough different; makes every playthrough unique. There are very few instances of souls where you'd actually need to farm, and those particular souls have high drop rates, making farming a matter of only a few minutes (and making it likely that those souls drop anyway through normal, non-farming gameplay).

[Tenlade]

spoilered reply:

You need to grind for two particular items to reach the end of the game,and i dont recall them having that high a drop rate.
edit: wait its 3, you need one specific type of soul to get through an area.
2nd edit: ok, checking drop values, the required ones seem to have an extremely high drop rate.

[Voltgloss]

That probably should be spoilered.

I've always gotten the first two souls to which you're referring to drop in a matter of minutes, and usually get one of them without farming at all just from naturally killing the (many) instances of that monster that show up in the late game. I'm in the process of my third recent playthrough of the game right now and having the same experience each time. And the "third" soul you reference (i) is not actually required, and (ii) has multiple different workable options.

[Tenlade]

put in spoilers then, and

looking at the data it seem youre right in the drop rates being high, though it still might take a while to farm the souls, and you need to know which monsters in particular to farm. Obvious for two of them since they have hints, the other ones the hints are more subtle.(and frankly, kinda terrible since they're just pictures of monsters with multiple recolors.)

[Voltgloss]

put in spoilers then, and

looking at the data it seem youre right in the drop rates being high, though it still might take a while to farm the souls, and you need to know which monsters in particular to farm. Obvious for two of them since they have hints, the other ones the hints are more subtle.(and frankly, kinda terrible since they're just pictures of monsters with multiple recolors.)

I don't disagree that the hints for the others are subtle; however, what I think is more important is that figuring out those hints are completely optional to beating the game. Personally, I kinda think the weapon you get for figuring out those hints is too overpowered and takes quite a bit of fun out of the endgame.

[Tenlade]

Good point. Spoiler discussion aside its a great game regardless.

As for the game currently being LP'd, there reeeally isn't much left to say. doubling the content by flipping things upside down is a pretty creative idea, but unfortunately with most of the game being hallways and cooridors, it doesnt really change much, and the areas that aren't, with a few exceptions (orlox's quarters have a few spots upside down in the original castle to hint at this), really none of the areas were designed with the intention of being flipped, as its mostly just flat ceilings you have to fly up to reach the door in the room.

[Gardenolva]

Now I know that raocow doesn't want to farm AT ALL!

[Tenlade]

the secret to farming/grinding/playing any mmo ever is to do it in windows mode while watching tv, or watching youtube/podcasts. Incidently, raocow vids make good grinding distraction videos.

[Gardenolva]

the secret to farming/grinding/playing any mmo ever is to do it in windows mode while watching tv, or watching youtube/podcasts. Incidently, raocow vids make good grinding distraction videos.

or play another game...

[Tenlade]

but then you just reach the grinding point in that game and have the same problem all over!

[Alice]

Hearing raocow's aversion to gridning kinda makes me have to take back my suggestion on trying Aria of Sarrow. In order to play that game you have to be able to withstand grinding enemy kills for souls, unless you put in a gameshark cheat that makes all kills have 100% soul drop rate or something.

Definitely not a big issue at all. 100% soul completion isn't remotely required for the game and there's only two you would have to grind for at all for the true ending. (I think this has mostly been said already but just giving my personal view on it still.) And even that isn't a big issue since you'll more often than not get at least one of those two in a normal playthrough anyways and the other is more a matter of finding an enemy to get it from than actually grinding for it anyways. (In my personal experience you're more likely to get

succubus than the fire demon soul because the fire demon only appears in a few rooms. But there's one room where there's two fire demons, on just inside either entrance, which is stupidly easy to get it from. I don't think it has ever taken me more than five minutes.

) The only things 100% soul completion are actually necessary for are 100% completion (which rao doesn't look to really care about in Castlevania games) and obtaining the chaos ring which is something raocow probably wouldn't be interested in anyways since it completely breaks the game with the red minotaur soul.

[Octagon]

I assume Lesser Demons summoned by Cthulhu can't summon mudmen, because recursive summoning would be really silly.

I'm really glad that this Holbein dagger dropped. In a way it's better than the grindy thing for the purposes of this LP - all the spam, none of the brokenness.

Today I noticed that lives maxes ups don't actually scale with anything, and it kind of bothers me. 5 HP stopped being relevant a long time ago.

[Bean]

It adds up with some of the bosses. You never know when those extra five HP will come in handy.

[Voltgloss]

I'm really glad that this Holbein dagger dropped. In a way it's better than the grindy thing for the purposes of this LP - all the spam, none of the brokenness.

Agreed. I'd forgotten all about the Holbein Dagger. It's basically a shorter-range and lower-damage version of the Crissaegrim (the weapon dropped by Schmoos). Glad to see raocow having fun with it.

[raocow]

oh *explicitive* I found a way to record this game with bandicam! Goodbye all my problems ever!

[KobaBeach]

ALL GLORY TO BANDICAM

[Alice]

Today I noticed that lives maxes ups don't actually scale with anything, and it kind of bothers me. 5 HP stopped being relevant a long time ago.

A free heal when you're near death is quite convenient though.

[Mineyl]

Today's English lesson with Min: "then" is a transitional adverb that joins two clauses together, while "than" makes a comparison. Examples: I'm going to the store, then I'm coming home. I have fewer eggs than you.

Yes, I have to be that guy. Sorry.

I was just thinking yesterday that the Crissaegrim would be more fun to use if it were a lot weaker, and lo and behold, we're reminded of the Holbein Dagger's existence. There are just too many neat weapons in this game that don't get sufficient exposure because of the game's structure and ironic brevity.

Also, ignore the people on Youtube saying to fly through caves or something dumb like that. I don't care how many thumbs up they get.

[Sorel]

Also, ignore the people on Youtube saying to fly through caves or something dumb like that. I don't care how many thumbs up they get.

Do you really want to see so much suffering

[Mineyl]

Do you really want to see so much suffering

Some of us just want to watch the world burn...for half a raocow episode.

[Sorel]

Do you really want to see so much suffering

Some of us just want to watch the world burn...for half a raocow episode.

I bet it will be 2 episodes.




Fun Fact: there is a school near where I live that is called Holbein. he.

[Nimono]

I was just thinking yesterday that the Crissaegrim would be more fun to use if it were a lot weaker, and lo and behold, we're reminded of the Holbein Dagger's existence. There are just too many neat weapons in this game that don't get sufficient exposure because of the game's structure and ironic brevity.

There's the Vorpal Blade if you want exactly the Crissaegrim but not really. It drops from the Archers in the Anti-Chapel and has the same exact features as the Crissaegrim, only it's weaker and only hits once. ...though since it has the same range, it's probably just as broken!

also raocow just so you know, the reason you like the sword you got today that lets you attack while walking is why a lot of people want you to farm the Schmoo- it does the same thing only it has the best range in the game and hits 4 times per swing, still with the same rate of fire for each press of the button. That is why it is so broken. Insane range, one of the highest attack increases in the game, hits multiple times, lets you walk while attacking... Everything just explodes when you walk into them.

and it's not even THAT tough to get one with ring of arcana + alucart equipment to boost your luck dramatically. Still, I don't recommend you go farm for one unless you REALLY want to play with it- owning just one destroys the game's difficulty. But since nothing's really dangerous for you anymore it seems... Again, only if you REALLY want to, and you've made it clear you don't want to. ;)

Oh yes, on that note: If you ever want to play another Castlevania, I'd recommend Harmony of Dissonance! Sure, it's definitely not one of the best Castlevanias and the music is REALLY terrible due to being forced to use the GBA's built-in 'instruments' (that is to say: it's all square waves and triangles and sines and sawtooths like you'd hear on NES, just more channels...), but there's so many options with it and so many ways to break the game, it turns out to be kinda fun! Like, for example, with just your starting items plus a specific subweapon, you can get one of the endgame items as one of your FIRST because they stupidly put it in a room near the first boss! ...of course, it's not really a game breaker, but still! Hurray for sequence breaking!

[Mineyl]

I must be the only person on the planet that liked HoD's music. So lonely here.

[Lejes]

Harmony of Dissonance has mostly the same map design issues as Symphony of the Night, though. It's not as profoundly empty as the inverted castle is, but most of the map space is still spent on wandering around for non-critical upgrades.

[Voltgloss]

I replayed Aria of Sorrow last weekend and am replaying Harmony of Dissonance this weekend (like, right now in another window as I type this). And I strongly recommend AoS instead of HoD. HoD has a lot of long-distance backtracking - even if you use the quicksave feature, which is fairly obtuse to begin with - and does NOT give nearly as much direction as I remembered (or as AoS does) as to where to go and what to do. The boss battles are a lot less interesting as well compared to AoS - they're for the most part damage sponges and the fights are wars of attrition.

Most importantly though, in my opinion, HoD is a lot slower-paced compared to AoS. The rate of travel through the castle, the rate the story progresses, the rate at which you get upgrades - it all moves slowly. I can see raocow getting quite bored with HoD, where I doubt very much he'd get bored with AoS.

And, as Lejes says, HoD's map design has much the same issues as SotN, and for similar reasons. AoS, on the other hand, does NOT have those design issues.

Bottom line: HoD is less fun to play, and less interesting to experience, than AoS.