Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Cloud-of-Bats Boss KILLINAT0RED! After only a couple of attempts too. Excellent. Then I worked my way up the Tower of Despair, where Gergoth waited at the top. I suspected it was going to be pretty difficult to kill, because although I didn’t have much of a problem when I played through as Soma, I knew it only because of his “special talents”, which the three characters I have now all lack. Anyway, twenty or so attempts later, and finally killed …

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Well, I wasn’t going to play it, but I found myself drawn into Julius Mode for a few hours. I’ve now got all three characters in my party, and have explored a substantial area of the map. I’ve also defeated a fair few bosses too, including Dmitrii and Dario. I made it to the giant fish boss, but I’d almost gone through the “wrong” entrance to it, so there wasn’t a save point nearby. Decided not to risk it (I …

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow: DAWN BROKEN!

Hurrah! The Abyss wasn’t as hard as it seemed at first, as you could just sail through it ignoring many of the baddies. Found a save point right before another boss, who threw bats or something at me. He was reasonably easy to kill, although he did take millions of hits. It seems using the laser beam thing on him was the best way to finish him off. Plowed further on into The Abyss, and found a warp point (so …

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

I can’t believe I say that yesterday and then make the SAME mistake AGAIN. Rubbish! There’s a Magic Door I can now get through, but didn’t as I had to go back and tool up. And stuff. So forgot about it. Again. And in there, was a very simple to kill boss, who, yes, I was right, jumped in and out of a mirror, whilst using other mirrors to shoot lasers at me. And with him dead, I had to …

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

You know, I really should pay attention to what I’ve already done, you know. I keep getting stuck as I reach somewhere, and then either die or thing “I need more potions and then I’ll come back”, and then forget where I’d been and assume it’s a dead-end on the map. I did the same thing today, again, and as a result ended up exploring and doing other stuff, and ran out of places to go. Even though I knew …

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Gah. Stuck. I spent a merry hour or so wandering around and trying to “solve” the moving rooms slide puzzle (and it turns out if you do, you don’t get anything), and trying to reach new areas. And failed. Most parts of the map I can’t get to are blocked off either by jumps too high to make, or what look like corkscrew wall things that I can’t move. However, there is one room that is most odd. In the …

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Castlevania seems to have turned into a sort of Metroid clone since Castlevania IV. Not that I’m complaining, since I really enjoyed Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission, and this kind of fills the hole that their completion has left. In may ways it is better too. You get more freedom over where you’re supposed to go, and there is less hand-holding. There is still all the exploration and upgrades, but there are so many upgrades to find, choose, use, and …

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

More exploring, and also making new weapons from cheap weapons with easy-to-obtain souls to sell for huge profits. Hurrah! Worked my way through the top-right of the map, finding some harder baddies to kill (most of the others die in one or two hits now so were becoming a bit easy), but then made the mistake of walking through a Magic Sealed door and into a boss – a giant eel, underwater, who fires ice things. I died. Pah.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Well, the vampire thing was killed first go this time. Why didn’t any tell me I had potions to heal myself, eh? Tch. He gave up a soul that allowed me to double-jump, meaning I can now reach areas I couldn’t before. Went off exploring then, mainly through the village and into the Demon Guest House area, finding new areas to open up. There’s a large ballroom bit, and after that I found Dario – the other Dark Lord Candidate. …

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Just a brief play before bed. I’ve wandered past the Garden now, and into another part of the castle. There I found Dmitri, or whatever his name is, fighting some thing that threw balls at him. He killed it, and there was some conversation regarding Dmitri’s ability to copy magic attacks. Then I had to fight him. He started by throwing balls at me, but after I’d hit him once with my thrown-through-an-arc axe move, he then did that to …

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

This DS game arrived this morning. I know lots of people have been saying how ACEBEST it is, but I haven’t actually played a Castlevania game since Super Castlevania IV, and that was more than 10 years ago. Five minutes on the crap 3D N64 Castlevania doesn’t count (although that was more than 5 years ago anyway). Anyway, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. What I got, was a slick, smooth, fantastically animated platformer with a deep weapon upgrade …