October Retro Community Playthrough - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

[Boshamp]

[img width=700 height=522]http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/y359/necrom99/Playthroughs/C4B2CD2C-81DC-4BD1-A299-06ACA4FE8976_zpscwmgysgo.jpg[/img]

I love that Crystal Cloak when you are in Bat form, such a good color to the sprite.

Do you guys run or slide backwards?

For those who don't know, sliding backwards is faster (and more stylish.)

Also, it's not really a spoiler, but just in case...

Spoiler (hover to show)

What do you guys think of the confession room? I think there a 3 different results. As a kid I never really understood it, but I knew I liked it. The music is very eerie.

I slide everywhere, so much faster, and adds a little challenge when you are wearing the jewel knucks early on in the game and sliding super close to an enemy and stopping and turning quickly to punch 'em. I use the Jewel knucks all the way up until I get the Shield Rod. That confession room is a pretty cool thing, it is placed at a time when you are mostly exploring without any storyline progression, so it makes things a little less boring at that time. Getting stabbed scared the hell out of me the first time it happened to me and seeing the way Alucard leisurely sits in the chair when listening to people confess always cracks me up.

So, I got all of Vlad's parts and the game-breaking Shield Rod + Alucard Shield combo.

But the whole right side of the inverted castle is yet to be explored.

I'm conflicted if I should just finish the game or try to paint the whole thing blue for no reason.

Fill it! I urge you to fill out the enemy list and items too, you have 3 extra weeks left before the next playthrough, go for it! Shield Rod + Herald Shield is a potent combo too if you are like me and use magic quite a bit, I wish I needed items more though...just like RPGs, I never use items because they are either too easy without them or because magic is overpowered, in this case, it is a combination of both.


...and know, a couple original thoughts. ha ha

Is anyone else trying to complete the enemy list in the library? I have never tried this and am wondering if anyone else would have some input on the topic. Leave your spoilers out though. at least until week 4.

is anyone else using magic? Which of the five spells do you use? Personally, I use Soul Steal almost exclusively because I am suicidal when attacking, am using the ring of Ares, and am never taking the time to equip food and throw it to heal.
Dark Metamorphosis is a good one, but so few of the difficult enemies bleed, and I don't take the time to stop and cast before one-hitting a bleeder to restore single digits at a time.
When I cast a spirit spell, it is Tetra Spirit and never just the regular Summon Spirit and it is rare,usually just to chase down a flyer if I don't want to waste MP to cast Soul Steal. (20 MP to quickly kill a flyer is a lot better than 50 MP)
Hellfire can hit hard sometimes...but just takes WAY too long to cast for me.

I am happy to see so much discussion on the game, this game deserves it.

[singlebanana]

I love how the bats wings change color to adapt to the cloak you are wearing. It's a nice touch.

[Boshamp]

I have spent a long time over many playthroughs of this game playing with Joseph's cloak for exactly that reason.

[JerryGreenwood]

The bat wings were clever. I wonder why they didn't do that with saddle of the wolf.

Is anyone else trying to complete the enemy list in the library?

Is anyone else using magic?

I'll give it a shot. I think I've done it before. One of the enemies is tricky (see below for spoiler.)

I never use magic. I honestly forgot it was in the game until you just mentioned it, Boshamp.


Have you guys died? I'm almost at checkpoint #2 and I've bit the dust 3 times, but in my defense, I'm challenging myself by not abusing certain sub-weapons and other weapons/items. 2 of the deaths were against Olrox. Kind of a tough fight.

One of my favorite things about this game is the variety of challenges you can give yourself to beat it. Of course, there's the lame ending, the real ending, and the Richter play-through. Also, you can get the 200.6%, you can fill out the monster index, you can find every item, etc.

The biggest challenge I can think of is the Naked challenge. It's simple. If you pick up a weapon, sub-weapon, shield, armor, etc. you fail. Easy to prove since you can't sell or discard anything.

Enemy List spoiler

Spoiler (hover to show)

Mud Man is only found when you fight Lesser Demon. Lesser Demon summons him during the fight. If you kill Lesser Demon before he summons a Mud Man, that's it. No more chances see a Mud Man.

200.6% super spoiler

Spoiler (hover to show)

You can go above this number. After you've touched all the blue squares it's time to find the white ones.

[techwizard]

Is anyone else using magic?

i only have dark metamorphosis so far but i don't understand it, i've tried the button combination and it doesn't seem to work. am i supposed to activate it in the menu somehow?

i made it to the week 1 checkpoint a couple nights ago and continued on for a while, i now have the Mist power and know of a few places to use it, so that'll open up more possibilities.

[singlebanana]

I use magic on rare occasions. Mainly during boss battles where I can stand far away in a safe spot and continue to attack. I used it the entire time in the battle with

Spoiler (hover to show)

Legion

.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

You forgot to mention the obscene drop rate on some of the items, like the Crissaegrim (1/588 RARE drop) or the Medusa Shield (1/1250 RARE drop).
http://fatalis.hive.ai/sotn/dropcalc/

[JerryGreenwood]

i only have dark metamorphosis so far but i don't understand it, i've tried the button combination and it doesn't seem to work. am i supposed to activate it in the menu somehow?

It should just work. It's not an attack spell so you might be using it and not realizing it's active.

[GrayGhost81]

You'll know if you did it right, trust me.

The spells are very hard to pull off, especially healing spells you need in a desperate situation.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

They're just button combinations that, depending on the system you're playing on, can be difficult to execute. You need to be fast, but very deliberate, with the inputs.

[Boshamp]

The bat wings were clever. I wonder why they didn't do that with saddle of the wolf.

Is anyone else trying to complete the enemy list in the library?

Is anyone else using magic?

I'll give it a shot. I think I've done it before. One of the enemies is tricky (see below for spoiler.)

I never use magic. I honestly forgot it was in the game until you just mentioned it, Boshamp.


Have you guys died? I'm almost at checkpoint #2 and I've bit the dust 3 times, but in my defense, I'm challenging myself by not abusing certain sub-weapons and other weapons/items. 2 of the deaths were against Olrox. Kind of a tough fight.

One of my favorite things about this game is the variety of challenges you can give yourself to beat it. Of course, there's the lame ending, the real ending, and the Richter play-through. Also, you can get the 200.6%, you can fill out the monster index, you can find every item, etc.

The biggest challenge I can think of is the Naked challenge. It's simple. If you pick up a weapon, sub-weapon, shield, armor, etc. you fail. Easy to prove since you can't sell or discard anything.

Enemy List spoiler

Spoiler (hover to show)

Mud Man is only found when you fight Lesser Demon. Lesser Demon summons him during the fight. If you kill Lesser Demon before he summons a Mud Man, that's it. No more chances see a Mud Man.

200.6% super spoiler

Spoiler (hover to show)

You can go above this number. After you've touched all the blue squares it's time to find the white ones.

Forgot about magic? I couldn't play without it unless I was super careful about dodging attacks from every enemy. ha ha

I don't die much anymore when playing, but I died about 7 times straight trying to rush through the echolocation room in the catacombs too fast. I also died a couple times getting cocky, thinking a boss was close to death and not casting a soul steal when I was low on health because I thought I could finish him off first. I have the Mud Man, I don't think I am unlucky enough to miss him, that boss gets off about three summons before dying for me, and the mud man always seems to be what it summons first for me.

Is anyone else using magic?

i only have dark metamorphosis so far but i don't understand it, i've tried the button combination and it doesn't seem to work. am i supposed to activate it in the menu somehow?

i made it to the week 1 checkpoint a couple nights ago and continued on for a while, i now have the Mist power and know of a few places to use it, so that'll open up more possibilities.

You don't activate them, once you use them, they appear in the menu for you to see the command list. If you are having trouble unlocking through blind trials, the Librarian sells you the combos if you need them.

You forgot to mention the obscene drop rate on some of the items, like the Crissaegrim (1/588 RARE drop) or the Medusa Shield (1/1250 RARE drop).
http://fatalis.hive.ai/sotn/dropcalc/

Oh snap, I didn't know there were any this rare. I always figured you had a common and uncommon for each enemy, but that the drop rates were universal, this should fill some time for me while I wait for week three to come for more discussion.

You'll know if you did it right, trust me.

The spells are very hard to pull off, especially healing spells you need in a desperate situation.

I thought it was just me, I suck at fighters and have never done well with button combos, Soul Steal takes me about 3 tries each time on average to hit it successfully.

[JerryGreenwood]

I always figured you had a common and uncommon for each enemy, but that the drop rates were universal, this should fill some time for me while I wait for week three to come for more discussion.


I thought it was just me, I suck at fighters and have never done well with button combos, Soul Steal takes me about 3 tries each time on average to hit it successfully.

Some of the drop rates balance themselves out, like the Medusa Shield that Shadow mentioned. The rate sounds crazy, but Medusa Heads are one of the most plentiful enemies in the game. Also, if you're lucky you can get that shield (one of the better in the game) very early. The Crissaegrim is the best weapon in the game so I think the drop rate is pretty fair. But overall, if you really want to complete the Enemy List and erase all the ?? ?? ??'s on the enemy cards, that would take a long, long time.

I play a lot of fighters and I think SotN is strict about the spell inputs, plus the controllers we're using aren't that good for this. Using my arcade stick in Ultra Street Fighter IV, I can execute a half-circle motion in the heat of a match 95-100% of the time. On my Xbox controller, I can do it 50-75% of the time. On my Xbox controller in SotN, I can only perform Dark Metamorphosis about 33% of the time.

[RetroRage]

...why haven't I checked on the community playthrough lately?  I would have loved to jump in on this

[singlebanana]

...why haven't I checked on the community playthrough lately?  I would have loved to jump in on this

It's not too late...

[techwizard]

we're only 11 days into the month, and it's a somewhat short game apparently so you still could join