October Retro Community Playthrough - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

[RetroRage]

So I'm slowly making my way through the inverted castle, dying constantly.  I keep encountering enemies that take either 1 damage or nothing at all.  Everything that hits me takes 60 or more damage.  I just now stated using my familiars.  This is quite the experience....

[techwizard]

So I'm slowly making my way through the inverted castle, dying constantly.  I keep encountering enemies that take either 1 damage or nothing at all.  Everything that hits me takes 60 or more damage.  I just now stated using my familiars.  This is quite the experience....

i feel like you either took a more difficult route, didn't level up enough, or aren't using newer weapons as you find them...i don't remember having that many issues in the inverted castle. by that point i was able to 3 or 4 hit kill most enemies, and it didn't take long to start 1 hitting a lot of them.

[JerryGreenwood]

So I'm slowly making my way through the inverted castle, dying constantly.  I keep encountering enemies that take either 1 damage or nothing at all.  Everything that hits me takes 60 or more damage.  I just now stated using my familiars.  This is quite the experience....

Tech is right. Your weapon and armors must be awful. You should be cutting through most enemies like butter. What do you have equipped? Where is your save point? I'm sure there are a few good pieces you missed that you can retrieve very quickly.

If you've saved somewhere in the inverted castle, you might have to go back and get some gear relatively close to the Richter fight.

[singlebanana]

I know it causes a lot of dissension amongst fans of the series, but Castlevania II:SQ for NES is my favorite Castlevania for that platform.
 

Yep, same here. I get a lot of flack for it sometimes, but I'm a fan of less linear games and for me, figuring out the puzzles makes it a lot of fun. Oddly, my least favorite on the NES is CV III. I know this is almost everyone's favorite, but I have just never been able to get into it.

[RetroRage]

Here's what I had explored before I began playing tonight.  Now I have 75% of the map blue.

[img width=700 height=933]http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w365/adsanislo/20141024_185359_zpsqkuoxbrd.jpg[/img]


I switched a few things around, the inverted castle is much easier now.  I put on the Twilight cape so hearts aren't a problem anymore.  I picked up the AlucarD sword and shield so now I'm choppin people in half pretty easily.  I also picked up a Nauglamir and the Dragon helm so my defense is in great shape.

Also, I had no idea I could go back to the original castle with Library cards.  This game keeps getting better.  And I caught up to the current checkpoint!

[Slowman]

Sorry but I gotta hype my Castlevania marathon stream, going live very soon!

http://www.twitch.tv/rswslowman

[techwizard]

glad to hear it's going better retrorage! and that's cool slowman, if i have time i'll check it out. do you know how long you'll be streaming?

retrorage's mention of the Nauglamir and the Dragon Helm reminded me of something i forgot to bring up during recording of the podcast. did anyone besides me notice how many Silmarillion references there are in this game? specifically it seems to reference the Children of Hurin story a lot. this game could have been really awesome if the story was based off that book, but it's still cool to see all the item references anyway. there's a Mormegil sword, Mormegil was a name given to a character in the Children of Hurin for the black sword that he used in battle. the Dragon Helm was worn by the same character, it was a dwarven helm which is supposed to be the only thing that protected some characters from dragon fire, and it was passed to this character from his father indirectly. Nauglamir was a necklace with a silmaril (jewel) embedded in it, a country was destroyed during a war over that.

it goes on and on, i really enjoyed all the references to that.

[singlebanana]

Ahhhhh..... I remember you mentioning this on Skype prior to recording. Hate we didn't get that in.

[RetroRage]

So many references.  It's deeper than a Cohan brother movie

How is everyone else doing?  I'm watching Slowman's stream right now, and just within 5 minutes I've seen him pull off moves I didn't even know were in the game...

[RetroRage]

I just finished the game.

Spoiler (hover to show)

The Shield Rod/Alucard Shield combo is so broken.  I kinda wish I didn't stumble across it.  The Dracula fight was the most anti-climactic fight ever. 

[Slowman]

Spoiler (hover to show)

Yes, [your spoiler].  I sort of felt bad using it on the stream but I wanted to quick and dirty finish the game fast.  I'd already finished CV, CVIII, Super CV IV, and Dracula X earlier in the morning.  Thanks for tuning in!

My final stats for today's savegame was

-level 46
-196.0%
-4:21:55
-full bestiary
-all relics

[JerryGreenwood]

I'll also post my final stats when I get home.

So I finally beat the game with Richter. It took about 30 minutes (not including the 20 times I died!), but I have a question. Does anyone know if I have to beat the 5 bosses in the inverted castle in order to fight Dracula? Since you don't get Drac's pieces in the Richter game, I skipped some of the bosses and I only got to fight Shaft and the ending was....quite lame.

[Slowman]

I'll also post my final stats when I get home.

So I finally beat the game with Richter. It took about 30 minutes (not including the 20 times I died!), but I have a question. Does anyone know if I have to beat the 5 bosses in the inverted castle in order to fight Dracula? Since you don't get Drac's pieces in the Richter game, I skipped some of the bosses and I only got to fight Shaft and the ending was....quite lame.

Just go straight for Shaft, you don't have to fight any boss or collect anything with Richter, only whatever is in your way while you're getting to Shaft.  The reason you don't fight Dracula is that with Richter, you're playing the timeline that is pre-Alucard.  If Richter defeats Shaft then Dracula is not resurrected and Alucard never needs to show up to take care of it.  The reason Alucard showed up is because Richter failed and was possessed by Shaft, necessitating the game proper.  A Richter playthrough is the "pre-game", essentially.

[singlebanana]

I just finished the game.

Spoiler (hover to show)

The Shield Rod/Alucard Shield combo is so broken.  I kinda wish I didn't stumble across it.  The Dracula fight was the most anti-climactic fight ever.  

Well.......you didn't HAVE to use it.  

[MaterialHandlerMike]

There was a certain sword in the inverted library, that I obtained, to make the game pretty easy. I wonder if this sword is as cheap as the rod combo? Going to have to try that rod combo to see....