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[C.A. Sinner]

Did this game get a really limited release?

yes. current release is actually a re-release

[JWK5]

It is a pretty rare game, even its re-release was pretty limited. I got it off Amazon for a fairly decent price, though (about $25).

[JWK5]

So as I am finishing up Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow I am really coming to loathe the grinding, particularly when I kill hundreds of the same enemy in a row to finally get one to drop its soul and then wind up getting killed before I make it to a save room. Losing levels due to death isn't so bad (they are easily regained as you go) but those random loot and soul drops often require agonizingly long periods of grinding to obtain. Demon's/Dark Souls had it right where you lose your XP/money but keep everything else, I hope future Castlevania games follow its example.

[Dragonmaw]

there's a trick to get your luck absurdly high so that souls drop constantly but i forget

[JWK5]

there's a trick to get your luck absurdly high so that souls drop constantly but i forget

Yeah, just early on it is a pain, and even with ridiculously high luck later in the game the rare souls are a complete pain in the ass.

[yellowmonkeystudios]

JWK5 the upcoming Castlevania game (Mirrors of Fate) doesn't look like it'll follow the same conventions as previous handheld titles before. Looks a lot more action based. So there's that :)

[JWK5]

JWK5 the upcoming Castlevania game (Mirrors of Fate) doesn't look like it'll follow the same conventions as previous handheld titles before. Looks a lot more action based. So there's that

Unfortunately it is based on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow which strips most of the Castlevania out of Castlevania and replaces it with God of War. Lords of Shadow wasn't a bad game at all, but it really didn't feel like a Castlevania game.

[C.A. Sinner]

from the gameplay videos i saw it looks pretty mediocre. idk why people are saying it's like old castlevania either. or at least i don't remember old castlevania having cutscenes every 5 minutes, a whip that covers half the screen, and "puzzles" that don't seem to fulfill any purpose other than being showstoppers.

[JWK5]

from the gameplay videos i saw it looks pretty mediocre. idk why people are saying it's like old castlevania either. or at least i don't remember old castlevania having cutscenes every 5 minutes, a whip that covers half the screen, and "puzzles" that don't seem to fulfill any purpose other than being showstoppers.

AKA God of War, lol.

The biggest bummer for me is that it really doesn't keep the Castlevania flavor. The Castlevania series has always had the vibe of a cheesy monster movie with a very distinctive musical style that has held strong regardless of what composer has taken the mantle. Even the prior 3D games (despite being lackluster) have kept the general feel of the series.

Lords of Shadow really throws it all out and instead feels more like an "orcs and elves" adventure rather than a campy monster movie mashup, and the music does not have the Castlevania feel at all.

[C.A. Sinner]

i mean yeah that's obvious. also i don't like god of war. i meant that mirrors of fate looks like sidescrolling lords rather than "real" cv.

the music is the biggest bummer for me. castlevania always had some of the coolest and most memorable music and now it's generic "epic" strings wtf

[SirNiko]

The measure of a castlevania game is the clock tower level. If the music and the setting for that level is off, the game is screwed.

[crowe]

the matrix now powered by the thirst quenching power of powerade

[SirNiko]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CG1Z7lq8zM

There is not a single thing about Zen Bound that helps me to reach a state of meditative rest or any other state that I would describe as "Zen". It is fidgety to QWOP-like levels, where you keep adjusting the figure to try and slide the rope just right to get it to fit into a little gap. Hundreds of times per level I keep thinking that if this was a real object, I could effortlessly thread the rope around but instead I'm making bizarre loops to accommodate the requirement that the rope be held taught at absolutely all times.

I do like the achievements, though. The final achievement, "Nirvana", is obtained by getting a perfect, 100% save file then deleting it.

[JWK5]

I am playing Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, I am at the very end of the game (sans the hidden two areas) about to take down Dario and I was going to try for a 100% soul collection but even with the Soul Eater Ring, the Dancing Ghost soul at level 9 (which gives an increasing luck bonus per level), the Flying Humanoid soul (which raises luck and intelligence for a period of time), and Dracula's Suit (which also raises luck) most of the uncommon and rare souls still take an ungodly amount of time to farm. I give up, it is too damn boring to be worth it. Oh well, at least I can still get a 100% on the map.

On another note, the whole "draw the magic seal" crap during a boss battle has to be the dumbest design decision I've ever faced in a game.* So many times during the game I either forgot the seal because I was focused on the battle or apparently didn't draw the line straight enough for the game's liking which caused the boss to heal and the battle to go on. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs to have his leg ripped of and be repeatedly kicked in the balls by his own foot.

*Actually, the dumbest design decision I have ever faced in a game was the cheat in the old N64 WWF/WCW wrestling games where you could hold the analog stick during a pin or submission and instantly kick out which made non-KO matches turn into a stalemate when both players knew the trick, and turned the single player campaign into a complete non-challenge. Way to completely wreck your own games THQ.



Portrait of Ruin is up next (which I am much more fond of than Dawn of Sorrow). Still playing Radiant Historia as well.

[SirNiko]

I liked the optional Vampire Hunter mode in Dawn of Sorrow. I liked how it cleverly mirrored Castlevania 3.

Maybe it would have been better to design the soul system so that in addition to the random drops, you get the soul automatically after you've killed a certain number of foes with no reward. Killing an iron golem for the fiftieth time is no different than the fifty first, so at that point the game really should accept you've mastered it and just give up the goods.

I still find that skill-based challenges for rewards are better. Both PoR and OoE implemented this in part with a quest system, and it was an improvement (even though they kept the random drop system).