WHAT GAMES ARE YOU PLAYING THESE DAYS

[Yuber]

Agreed, assuming said enemies are not very mobile. I'd say the easiest and most disappointing boss fight in SOTN is Death. He's the dickhead that steals your stuff at the beginning of the game and it kinda sucks that even without cheap crap like the Crissagrim and such you can just wipe the floor with the dude in like 10 seconds without putting much if any effort into it. Dracula at least has a decent amount of HP but I wish his attacks were a little more difficult to dodge. I absolutely love the game but man does it have some easy bosses.

I find the Bible subweapon to be seriously underrated, and it's fairly good against Drac as well as flying enemies but I don't really use many sub-weapons to begin with. Alucard is so versatile that that kinda thing is just a bonus left over from the OG Castlevania games and naturally very nice to use if you're playing with Richter.

Gil: I never use the Shield Rod stuff myself because of how OP it all is, ie either massive stat increases for a period or stupidly powerful attacks, but if you happen to have a Dark shield dropped from the Malachi, its ability is a really awesome looking spell, same with the skull shield. Those giant skulls outside near the clock tower or whatever the area is called drop it rarely, and luck mode makes it not all that hard a drop to get.(easy with ring of arcana but I got one right after Slogra & Gaibon once I had the Jewel Knuckle) Skull shield ability is a huge laser, Dark shield is a full screen kinda earthquake for lack of better words.

[kode54]

Just finished SotN PSP version, and was not terribly disappointed by the new translation, or by the lack of I Am The Wind. I even noticed on replay that they included a translation of Nocturne that wasn't too shabby, either.

I also didn't even notice that replay mode is harder even without the luck cheat affecting your stats. You start at a much lower level, and enemies start giving way less experience after only a few levels.

My usual practice is to level for a while on the mermen until I can get off all the spells at that point, including Soul Steal, and I noticed I had to reach at least level 8 or 9 before I even had 50 MP to cast it on a replay game.

Oh, fun trick. You can get a second Ring of Arcana / Rare Ring early on in the game, by trying your luck smacking into the librarian from underneath, using the jump boots. Also the venerable Axe Lord Armor.

[Yuber]

Oh yeah, that's how I got my first Ring of Arcana/Rare Ring, and once you get to the inverted castle(only works once you get there) you can also get the Dracula Tunic via the same method of smacking the librarian from beneath. It does not drop until you have reached the reverse castle though.(trust me I tried)

Because I item farm, my main 200.6% luck mode save has Alucard at level friggin 68 so when I fight Drac, I literally unequip everything and fight him bare bones. Farming God's Garb from Final Guards gives you massive amounts of exp.

I have so many damn HP though that he's still way too easy and Alucard's bare hands at a high level are super fast and do pretty substantial damage as well, but the goomba stomp(thanks for the term Gil) is how I like to take Drac out. Literally all you have to worry about are the Xenomorph heads and his fruity rainbow laser nonsense and you're good. His big fireball is so slow that I don't even understand why it's an attack but it does look kinda cool. On my new save I think I'll fight Galamoth completely unequipped; that'll be fun.

edit: Richter sounds like a child in the PSP version so it's not so much that it's atrocious, but the hilarity of the OG version is gone and as far as the trans goes they kinda tried to make it a hybrid of the original JP & US versions and imo it just doesn't work that well. 100% a matter of taste of course.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Oh yeah, that's how I got my first Ring of Arcana/Rare Ring, and once you get to the inverted castle(only works once you get there) you can also get the Dracula Tunic via the same method of smacking the librarian from beneath. It does not drop until you have reached the reverse castle though.(trust me I tried)

That would explain why I never got it.

the goomba stomp(thanks for the term Gil)

My pleasure.

[Yuber]

Oh and someone correct me if I'm wrong but I believe luck mode is the only way to play SOTN with(minus the obvious luck) terrible starting stats. If there's a way to play the game on "hard mode" without the luck bonus, I've never heard of it. Also the Drac Tunic, while pretty decent is very quickly eclipsed by the walk armor, Alucard Mail and God's Garb. It's more of a novelty item that raises some stats by a bit more than anything else.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Oh and someone correct me if I'm wrong but I believe luck mode is the only way to play SOTN with(minus the obvious luck) terrible starting stats. If there's a way to play the game on "hard mode" without the luck bonus, I've never heard of it.

It is the To my recollection, it is the worst stats you can get. Though the prologue secuence with Richtereaffects your starting stats.

[Yuber]

All I do during the intro is get as many hearts as possible with the secret stairs and spam hydro storm. It's basically an insta-kill for both forms of Drac.

Having played Rondo as well I find it really cool that the last boss of that game was re-imagined in SOTN. Rondo Dracula is known for being one of his easiest incarnations in classic CV but I suck so much with Richter that I still regularly die trying to kill the bastard in Rondo. My strategy is jump over the fireballs and smack him in the first form which I can usually get past, but it's Richter's super slow stride and my bad timing in Drac's 2nd form that usually gets me. The main way I die(Maria makes him effortlessly easy) as Richter is literally being goomba stomped by Drac's bigass demon form.

I don't even want to attempt to fight Dracula in the SNES re-imagining of Rondo because he looks damn near impossible with all those pits surrounding you. Demon form's pretty cool looking though.

e: I would not be at all surprised if at least part of the way Alucard controls was taken from Maria's physics in Rondo. Both are super smooth to control, and the double jump is especially similar.

EDIT2: Forgot to mention, the dialogue in the fan trans of Nocturne during the intro is taken directly, at least in part from the conversation between Richter and Drac during the ending cutscene between the 2 in Rondo. I'm a sucker for little details like that.

[grinvader]

I suppose fighting Galamoth with crap equips at a low level(no lightning absorb of course) would be the closest thing to a serious challenge in the game aside from very very early on in Luck Mode, but the summon spirit attacks are a good way to take enemies out with your lower stats. Only problem is that the mist makes it very easy to dodge Galamoth's lightning, and if you hit the guy fast enough he flinches which renders him more or less useless.

Spirit summoning is for people that can't land a soul steal. :P

Richter sez: HYDRO STORM!

Actually, hydrostorm sucks against Galamoth. Even a maxed Richter can't kill him with it (not enough hearts). No, the real way is to highjump through his lightning stab, airdash to the top-right platform, and use the knife crash right in his fucking face to trigger the staggering. With 10 hearts a pop you'll have enough to actually kill him with it.

Also @Yuber: check out the Master Librarian's boss vids for a level 1 no eq Galamoth strat. Not very hard, but stupid long (yes, it uses form of mist).
And play Portrait of Ruin for the fucking music. Jail of Jewel all day everyday.

Regarding stats, you can get pretty bad stats if you pick everything (including the secret room) before Drac, lose your entire life in the fight AND take more than... 6 minutes? Been a while, could be more. Nothing close to X-X!V''Q level, but pretty bad for your first time through the game... and it usually is.
Of course, best stats are the reverse - whip only, no damage, fast kill.

[joe_devore]

I've been playing WoW these days...

[Gil_Hamilton]

I've been playing WoW these days...

May as well get Progress Quest and cut out the middleman.

[joe_devore]

I've been playing WoW these days...

May as well get Progress Quest and cut out the middleman.

never heard of Progress Quest... I play WoW because my brother does and its something we can play together at times.

[Yuber]

Been replaying some old SNES games like Yoshi's Island, gonna replay CT and Super Metroid next and boy do I need to continue playing Xenoblade(not X, original). XBC is a HUGE timesink though.

Also, regarding MMOs I haven't touched that genre since friggin Ultima Online in 97-99 along with some fan servers(ran a small Sphere server myself too) in 00-01.

[Agozer]

Well, trying to finish Witcher 3 GOTY some day before I die. I'm beginning to think that it's going to be an impossible task.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Canabalt again.

[odditude]

trying to finish off the BoF2 retranslation, which i got distracted away from some time in 2011.

[kode54]

Finally finished Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, more than two years after buying it.

[Gil_Hamilton]

So fast!

[Johan_H]

are video games still a thing

[Gil_Hamilton]

are video games still a thing

Naw, they got replaced by D&D a few years back.

[neoblaze]

I'm playing Rocket League, bitches!

[Gil_Hamilton]

I started my lasted rerun of Metroid 2: Return of Samus.
Because genocide is good clean fun that the whole family can enjoy!

[kode54]

I started my lasted rerun of Metroid 2: Return of Samus.
Because genocide is good clean fun that the whole family can enjoy!

Remember that AM2R is actually a well made fan game! Well, except for the inclusion of "shine spark" tricks for certain items.

[Gil_Hamilton]

I started my lasted rerun of Metroid 2: Return of Samus.
Because genocide is good clean fun that the whole family can enjoy!

Remember that AM2R is actually a well made fan game! Well, except for the inclusion of "shine spark" tricks for certain items.

Another Metroid 2 Remake is a well-made fan game that feels just like a GBA Metroid game, and I mean no disrespect to DoctorM64's work, BUT...

It is a fucking TERRIBLE adaptation of Metroid 2 that misses the entire goddamn point of the game, and I wish ANY of the other remakes his unintentionally-ironic title refers to had survived so there was a slight chance of people playing something that wasn't shitting all over one of my favorite games(since it had been made abundantly clear years before AM2R released that no one is ever going to play the original in a post-Super world).



Let me be bottom-line this: as a Metroid 2 replacement, AM2R is worse than garbage, it is the equivalent of smearing feces across the Mona Lisa and calling it an improvement. It has negative value to a Metroid 2 fan, the world is objectively a worse place for AM2R's existence, and I will never ever willingly play it ever again.

[kode54]

It gave me something new. Therefore it was better for my attention. That's okay, I don't play games anymore anyway. Well, except for Minecraft.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Minecraft isn't a game, it is an addiction.


In other news, I have ALSO been messing about with Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed again. Had some friends over, and we felt the need for speed, so everybody was super sonic racing. And nobody was cursing about blue shells, because SRT has weapons with a concept of balance that extends beyond "punish the guy in first for being good at racing".