I’m 35% through this already! Lawks. Killed the Manticore easily this time, as I found that if you stand in the doorway, you can’t be hit. Grenade-tastic! After that, it was STOP! Hammertime! As in, I met Hammer. And he told me he was going to set up a shop by the castle entrance. As you do. I then collected a soul that gave me a double-jump (finally!) and had a bit of an explore some more, heading vaguely to …
Squeezed a bit more of this game into my day, exploring an area I’d have found far more easily if I’d actually looked at the map I’d found. Worked my way up into some sort of bell tower, but couldn’t find anything to do up there, so came back down again. I then found another save point, followed by a Manticore boss, that killed me. So it’s harder than Harmony if nothing else…
How did this happen? I’ve always liked Castlevania games, and was quite excited about 18 months ago when Dawn of Sorrow came out, even though I hadn’t really played a Castlevania game since the SNES one about 12 years previous. But good as it was, it didn’t propel me into buying any other, older, Castlevania games. Last year, however, when the first details of Portrait of Ruin for the DS were filtering onto the internet, I thought I’d best pick …
So, no sooner had I finished Harmony, I was on to Aria. They’re even on the same cartridge (hence the same box art on the left there), so I didn’t have to swap games or anything. Ace. Only played for about half an hour so far, and Soma’s sword (rather than Juste/Nathan’s whip) is taking a bit of getting used to. I’ve already found a few things about Harmony that I prefer to this (yes, I know – and I …
Well. After getting a couple of keys, I was able to get around pretty much the entire map. Picked up the Griffin’s Wing and Crush Boots too, so I then could get round the entire map, and killed a few more bosses on the way and collected fahsands more power-ups and some well ace armour. I reached Level 48 or so, and my DEF stat was so high that almost no enemy could deal out more than a couple of …
ROCK ON! Two player SUPER ROCK OUT this evening, as my friend Chris and I twin-axed through some tracks. That makes it sound about a million times better than it actually was, but in reality it was crap because I lost every single one. Rubbish.
Grr! I’m stuck again! I’ve explored everywhere I can, and even though I now have the smash-through-walls whip attachment, I have exhausted every area there is. I have killed a couple more bosses (including a Giant Merman), and found a load more HP/MP/heart Max power-ups, and have explored 125% of the castle(s) now, but I have no idea where to go next. There are loads of doors still locked, a hole in the floor that is sealed, and at least …
After half an hour of searching, and finally resorting to watching the first part of a speedrun on YouTube, I eventually found somewhere I could reach but hadn’t been to yet. And so, I had opened up a huge new area! In fact, my exploration status went from about 65% of the castle, to 102% in this evening’s play. No, that isn’t a mistake – it turns out there are two castles. Cripes. Both are effectively the same layout, but …
Hmm. Some of the flaws are starting to show in this game now. The map isn’t as easy to navigate as in Circle of the Moon, especially in the way that there are rooms which serve no purpose than to slow you down. No baddies, no spikes, just a poorly laid out room to navigate. They’re not hard, just annoying. Then there’s the structure of the bosses. You don’t seem to have to do them all in a specific order, …
Well, now you can! We’ve got a Samsung VHS-to-DVD recorder at work, and on some of the on-screen menus you’re asked to press any key. Helpfully, the remote includes an Any Key for those people who wish to take the request literally.
And so it’s out with Circle of the Moon, and in with Harmony of Dissonance. I’ve played it for almost an hour and a half already, and I’m enjoying it. There’s something not quite right about it, though. Maybe it’s the way Juste (your character) has a bizarre blue glow and shadow trails. Maybe it’s the fact I had to start again completely powerless. It could be that L and R perform dashes rather than special moves. Or perhaps it’s …
After trying several times to kill Dracula, I gave up. The final boss has two phases: one where he appears and disappears, and has three attacks – poison clouds, laser beam, and meteor strike, and after that he flies around a lot, then turns into a load of bats and a giant eyeball. The first phase was easy, especially if I used the DSS card combo that effectively grants you double energy. The second, however, was not. Dodging Dracula flying …
Damn that Devil thing! I either get past it unscathed and then have my HP demolished by the Dark Armours, or the thing kills me. Thankfully, I found a fantastic way of killing Hugh without me losing much energy at all – shoot a load of crucifixes away from him, then jump over him and them as they come back, they all pass though Hugh and Super Damage ensues. Aces. So after a couple of attempts with this tactic, he …
I’m getting near the end now. I can smell it. That, and I’ve uncovered more than 80% of the map and have only one “magic power” left to obtain. Killed Camilla, who was actually very easy once I took my time about it and actually dodged her attacks rather than blindly trying to whip her. My axes proved very useful too. My power-up gained was Roc’s Feather (isn’t that Link’s power-up? Hmm…) which lets me jump very high indeed. Then …
Spent about an hour playing online, and managed to get the Complete 50 Games Online achievement. Had some decent games, with no restarts like yesterday. I just wish people would think a little more about what they’re setting up – Walls mode with the full map and only three players simply doesn’t work. You have very little chance of even seeing any walls by the other players, let alone being forced into colliding with one.