Yeah, him. It took me ages cos I was doing little damage. Maybe I had the wrong setup.

It's an odd game in some ways. I'm only taking a single point of damage in most of the new areas I find now. Sure I paid top dolla for a diamond plate of some description, but I'm feeling a bit OP for a Caylevania game.

davyK wrote:

 I remember feeling in sotn that i would end up overpowered and i dont like having too many abilities. 

It’s my only criticisms of the game. Circle of the Moon on the GBA is more challenging and has a great magic/card system thing. I loved that one. Downhill from there.

Just had another 20mins,am yet to encounter an enemy that takes more than one swipe, I think.

Enjoying it though, but I'm very much running around without knowing where I'm going.

Not sure, is the % on the save file the map then? Was well below 100 last time I paid any attention to it, 75% maybe?

Those games are out there as alternatives if you're looking for a challenge sure, but that doesn't really address the issue surely?   Circle of the Moon is an option too according to Elf, which sounds like a more traditional CV challenge wrapped up in the SotN forumla.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - played on Xbox One (3.5hrs)

Games lauded as classics from bygone eras aren't often as impressive on a first time play as they were then, especially from the 32-bit era imo, but this has so much going for it I enjoyed my playthrough immensely despite being 20+ years late to the party.  The core hack & slash CV gameplay is absolutely on point, so there's a rock solid foundation to the gradual exploration, and everything unfolds at a fair clip without any real scope for getting agonisingly stuck (hello Super Metroid).  It gives plenty of modern Metroidvania types a run for their money.  In fact, if you take Hollow Knight and Ori in the Blind Forest out of the equation - just because they're my favourites - SotN would probably squeeze into an all-time 2D Metroidvania top 5 even as a modern title, despite the few issues I had with it.  Those issues are as follows: far too easy (to the point of imbalance really), transformations under-used and a bit of an afterthought in terms of control, a fiddly inventory (by modern standards) and a very basic map that doesn't list area names.  Genuinely though, if this was a £12.99 EShop game that arrived as an indie Rebirth thing it'd still get deserved props.  Graphics are pretty much the best 2D I've seen on Playstation and I even liked the use of 3D geometry in amongst the sprites, which is often a turn off for me.  Some lovely parallax scrolling going on, mostly stunning areas and just an absolute visual treat overall.  Very impressed, main character animation is superb.  Music seemed varied and mostly strong too.  It's a very good game played cold in 2020 and I've no doubt it was absolutely terrific in 1997, so my retro review would be 93%, but I reckon I'd give it a modern [8] depending on price.

GBA ones are just like SotN. I personally found CotM less easy, should I say, than SotN. 

If you have the double pack, it’s gonna be Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow. Personally think they get worse so if you can find CotM, my personal recommendation is that one.

With CotM you might have to grind a bit before you enter some areas. I remember the Colloseum to be particularly brutal if you enter underleveled. So yeah, probably a bit harder than SotN.

Ah Lords of Shadow.
Nice game but it was more God of War than Castlevania.
Gone was the metroidvania level/world design and power up ability system. Instead we got Gabriel Kratos running and fighting around linear levels. Can't help but feel something was lost along the way.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

It's a very good game played cold in 2020 and I've no doubt it was absolutely terrific in 1997, so my retro review would be 93%, but I reckon I'd give it a modern [8] depending on price.

TBH if I'm trying to be 'objective' or whatever, I think SotN was always an 8/10 game. But it's also one of my favourite games ever, like top 20 at least, because it has such a unique vibe.

The games that followed all do a better job of being Metroidvanias in a way, in that they get the formula and pacing 'right'. But they also feel more routine because of that, so none of them stand out, despite being solid.

I like Bloodstained: RotN more than any of those. It's the closest thing to the original SotN in spirit for me. That is, it's also a bit uneven and messy, and all the better for it.

Just beat this with 190.4%

Can't beat Galamoth. The game is an absolute walkthrough yet that one battle seems impossible. Not sure if I just need to grind XP until I'm ultra strong or if there's some magic combo of weapons that could take hours to decipher?

Also there's a few screens I can't get to in a caverns because I can't get up into the water. Again, not sure if there's something magic that I've not got? I read a scan of the manual but there was no help there.

I'm on level 44, seen 1797 rooms, have 2524 kills and am missing 3 relics. Playtime is 9hr 45mins.

Don't really want to resort to a guide by I honestly can't see where I need to go.

Any subtle hints from anyone who's played it before?

Thanks.

Yeah that's exactly it. Is it a relic I need to be able to do that?

Cool, I do actually have them. Will try it out tomorrow