October Retro Community Playthrough - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

[Boshamp]

I was also concerned about giving away too much too early, but like you mentioned, you would have to start over if you miss those key points before the Belmont battle. Then again, the first castle can be blown through very quickly once you have had some practice if you do happen to miss out your first time around.

[singlebanana]

Of course I'm playing ahead for the checkpoints, but I cleared the first castle this weekend in less than 5 hours. I know people are much quicker than I am, but it's been over 10 years and I had to do quite a bit of exploring to find a few necessary relics. Gameplay on the inverted should go much quicker.

[singlebanana]

I was also concerned about giving away too much too early, but like you mentioned, you would have to start over if you miss those key points before the Belmont battle. Then again, the first castle can be blown through very quickly once you have had some practice if you do happen to miss out your first time around.

Would you have to start over, or can you just start from the last save point?

[Boshamp]

You know...I haven't experienced the "short" ending myself. I guess it would be a matter of if it creates a save after defeating Richter or not. Also, are there any points of no return should you miss a required relic? I suppose if not, you could always just boot up the save and go searching for whatever you missed before returning to fight Richter.

[GrayGhost81]

I killed Richter, watched the credits, and went back to my last save to start working on the real ending.

[Boshamp]

Well there you go. I forgot just how much of the game takes place on the back nine. Sure, by percentage it is half, but the story, item depth, boss battles, and difficulty from the second half are the majority of the game. By gameplay value, I would say it is 25%/75% in favor of the Inverted castle, if it really ended at Richter, the game would be a 5 or 6 rating instead of a 10 for most.

[GrayGhost81]

I finished taking the steps to get ready for beating Richter the "right" way. Next time I fire up the game I'm ready to

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meet Maria under the clock to get the Holy Goggles,

then fight Richter again and flip the damned castle.

[Boshamp]

When I was discussing checkpoints with Rich before we started, I learned there is a throwback to an earlier Castlevania game that I hadn't known about. I plan on playing through the NES Castlevania games at some point in the near future as a result of learning this, but if you have played earlier CV games, I hope you notice the throwback, making your excursion into the inverted castle all that much sweeter.

[techwizard]

i'm enjoying the game but it feels directionless...i haven't yet gotten any sort of "goal" that i'm supposed to follow, right now i'm essentially just checking each unexplored area to see if i find anything new. so far it's working, but a lot of times i beat a boss and then it feels like the next room doesn't let me proceed, i have to backtrack and check somewhere different. am i doing it wrong?

[GrayGhost81]

i'm enjoying the game but it feels directionless...i haven't yet gotten any sort of "goal" that i'm supposed to follow, right now i'm essentially just checking each unexplored area to see if i find anything new. so far it's working, but a lot of times i beat a boss and then it feels like the next room doesn't let me proceed, i have to backtrack and check somewhere different. am i doing it wrong?

How far are you into the game? I was having a very similar experience in the beginning, but somewhere a little after I was three hours into the game, it opened up in a huge way and I was totally guided by areas opening up and the drive to make Alucard more powerful.

[singlebanana]

A few hints to make your experience more enjoyable:

1. Buy the Castle map from the library. It will show you unexplored areas on the map that will help guide your search. Look at it by pressing select. Rooms are outlined in a white border, so look for spots were this border is not enclosed in white. There are more hidden areas not noted on this map, but it still helps.

2. Make a note of "impassable" areas as you go. Those too high to reach, blue doors, grates, etc. so that you can return to them later.

[GrayGhost81]

There's one last thing I want to try to do before I flip the castle if possible:

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How do you move the statue on the right hand side of the clock room?

[singlebanana]

Here you go:

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To the right of the clock room, there is a stopwatch sub-weapon. Use that in the clock room

[GrayGhost81]

Really? Could have sworn I've tried that. I'll give it another shot. Here's another one for ya:

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The only familiar I'm missing is the sword. I'm told that it gets dropped by that spinning sword pain in the ass enemy. Is it any one of those? I'm thinking of going to the church-like room with the spiral staircases and killing him till he drops it if that's the way. Please advise.

[singlebanana]

Really? Could have sworn I've tried that. I'll give it another shot. Here's another one for ya:

Spoiler (hover to show)

The only familiar I'm missing is the sword. I'm told that it gets dropped by that spinning sword pain in the ass enemy. Is it any one of those? I'm thinking of going to the church-like room with the spiral staircases and killing him till he drops it if that's the way. Please advise.

Yeah, that's a very tough one to find and I'm sure the first to discover it did so out of luck. It's my favorite familiar, so this was the only video I've looked at so far for tracking it down. Would be impossible for me to describe.

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