Now I have a new problem, every controller I use (wired 360 or ps4 with ds4windows), the face buttons aren't working. The dpad works, but thats it. Rebinding doesn't work either...
So anyways, I think I'm VERY close to finishing the game. Already got the first (bad) ending, and here's my tally so far:
-
7 out of 8 black orbs, only missing one according to the black staff is down in the aqueduct, which I can't seem to reach with just three jumps and two dashes.
Is there another mobility thing I'm missing?
-
Only have 1 of 3 books, which I got by "solving" the Death Room. Real proud of that one, actually. Don't even know what they do yet.
-
I can enter cursed mirrors and went through the light beam, can't go through the dark one yet.
-
The three mirrors I can recall passing by are the ones in the Princely Quarters, the big one in the Horror Gallery, and the one in the Underground Cavern.
Yes, I already beat the second Efrain fake, although it's weird that you have to use the fake Le Carde sword that you get from the Golden Flute place to even scratch him...
what changed??? Also have I forgotten any mirrors?
-uhhhhhh... Like 97% done with the game, map completion in the castle is 94%?
-
Still have no idea what the red fog rooms are or what they do. Found 4 of them now. One in the Swamp in La Tourvelle, one in Albaret, one in the Princely Quarters, and one in the Aqueduct.
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I have all the Viltheim stuff EXCEPT the sword I guess, so I can't go through the Path of Untruth just yet. Tried that and uh... yeah.
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Can't pass through the looping room near the bottom of the Garden of the Dead. You know, the one where it clicks every time you're about to reach the end and you get looped to the beginning? Yeah got no clue what's going on there.
Reason I'm posting this now is that I really don't want to have to scour literally the entire fucking castle all over again just to find out where I can go. Taking a small break right about now...
So anyways, I think I'm VERY close to finishing the game. Already got the first (bad) ending, and here's my tally so far:
-
7 out of 8 black orbs, only missing one according to the black staff is down in the aqueduct, which I can't seem to reach with just three jumps and two dashes.
Is there another mobility thing I'm missing?
-
Only have 1 of 3 books, which I got by "solving" the Death Room. Real proud of that one, actually. Don't even know what they do yet.
-
I can enter cursed mirrors and went through the light beam, can't go through the dark one yet.
-
The three mirrors I can recall passing by are the ones in the Princely Quarters, the big one in the Horror Gallery, and the one in the Underground Cavern.
Yes, I already beat the second Efrain fake, although it's weird that you have to use the fake Le Carde sword that you get from the Golden Flute place to even scratch him...
what changed??? Also have I forgotten any mirrors?
-uhhhhhh... Like 97% done with the game, map completion in the castle is 94%?
-
Still have no idea what the red fog rooms are or what they do. Found 4 of them now. One in the Swamp in La Tourvelle, one in Albaret, one in the Princely Quarters, and one in the Aqueduct.
-
I have all the Viltheim stuff EXCEPT the sword I guess, so I can't go through the Path of Untruth just yet. Tried that and uh... yeah.
-
Can't pass through the looping room near the bottom of the Garden of the Dead. You know, the one where it clicks every time you're about to reach the end and you get looped to the beginning? Yeah got no clue what's going on there.
Reason I'm posting this now is that I really don't want to have to scour literally the entire fucking castle all over again just to find out where I can go. Taking a small break right about now...
In no particular order, and I may be wrong on some of this...it's been some while since I played it.
- Assuming you beat Death, there was a clock in the starting part of that area. I believe that houses the item for the red fog rooms or a Stopwatch item. Either way, one of those two would clearly help your issues.
- The black headband increases the range of your dashes. You need this to get the orb, but I forget where you get it.
- IIRC, you can get one from one of the books from the red fog folks. You need an item to see their human form; I assume the red fog is to imply their spirit is in the room.
- Don't worry about lacking 100% completion in the castle. I forget the percentage you can get prior to the final area, but I believe it was 97% in the castle. I presume it's the areas you can't visit, like the room that needs black armor.
- Might be quite wrong on this, but I thought the Von Viltheim sword was a purchasable weapon. Did you check all of the shops?
I beat the first game on hard and honestly, it's now one of my favorite "Castlevania" games. Plenty of stages, great locales, and the level design is surprisingly good. Only complaints are that the bosses can be a little easy to cheese if you have a bunch of hearts and that the music is mostly just remixes. This would have been the direction I would have liked the series to go, at least handheld wise.
Now I have a new problem, every controller I use (wired 360 or ps4 with ds4windows), the face buttons aren't working. The dpad works, but thats it. Rebinding doesn't work either...
Do you have anything else plugged in that may be detected as a controller? If I have multiple controllers plugged in (or even my media remote dongle), then the controller that I want to use for a specific game sometimes won't work. Try unplugging other controllers or input devices (aside from your mouse and keyboard, of course).
In no particular order, and I may be wrong on some of this...it's been some while since I played it.
- Assuming you beat Death, there was a clock in the starting part of that area. I believe that houses the item for the red fog rooms or a Stopwatch item. Either way, one of those two would clearly help your issues.
- The black headband increases the range of your dashes. You need this to get the orb, but I forget where you get it.
- IIRC, you can get one from one of the books from the red fog folks. You need an item to see their human form; I assume the red fog is to imply their spirit is in the room.
- Don't worry about lacking 100% completion in the castle. I forget the percentage you can get prior to the final area, but I believe it was 97% in the castle. I presume it's the areas you can't visit, like the room that needs black armor.
- Might be quite wrong on this, but I thought the Von Viltheim sword was a purchasable weapon. Did you check all of the shops?
Thanks for the advice, the first two points were all I needed.
I beat the game and got the other endings, whoo! 100% map completion to boot.
So yeah, here's a series of points and hot takes on the game.
-The castle is infinitely better than the areas before it because it's like one giant puzzle you solve piece by piece, with some truly eureka moments.
-There are some areas that seem like, REALLY small, way smaller than they should.
-Likewise, the sparse amount of save points (and ESPECIALLY the limited amount of warp rooms) seems... unnecessary? The save point distribution got better in the castle, and for the most part I accepted that as part of the game, but there's really no good reason warp points should have been limited to one per earldom with the main castle having a whopping
five
across all
THIRTEEN
areas. It created way more backtracking than I think was necessary, and may have served to bloat the game's playtime by anywhere from a half-hour to an hour...
-The game plays real good, once you get used to things like the complete and utter lack of animation cancelling for most, if not all practical abilities. Classicvania always did center its challenge around deliberate controls, didn't it? Thankfully jumps having free air control makes it very accessible for a guy like me who was practically brought up exclusively on Igavanias and CV4.
-The award for most useless ability in the game goes to
the air float technique. Stiff to use AND costs hearts unless you equip something specific? No thanks.
-My health and hearts topped off at
840 (including the HP Max Extend from Guillecourt) and 160, respectively.
Odd numbers to finish with.
-The final boss/sequence is... balanced so weirdly. The first fight is both super-easy, nothing and arguably the most you see from the prior two endings. The best ending changes things up, in kinda odd ways. Fighting
all three of the earldom bosses at once
confirms once and for all that the bosses are the fucking worst thing in this game oh my god why. If I didn't use
the holy cross to nuke over half their collective health from the word "go"
, I might have spent way too long on fighting them, and even more items... But then the game doesn't end because we don't have a REAL final boss yet. I don't have many problems with
Lucifer
as a fight overall, but losing against him is the fucking worst because checkpoint starvation rears its ugly head once again... Feel real fucking mixed about the execution of the best ending as a whole.
-The story is fucking nothing. Probably the weirdest thing is how mute Lecarde is in cutscenes, when he clearly has voice clips for aura attacks.
-Including
Jeanne Servigny, the Death Wall, the Cage, the Necromancer,
the second Efrain Fake fight, the Trap Statue, Anna, and the shocking multitude of instant death traps you can potentially trigger
, there's a truly insane amount of places where the game just outright kills you unless you have the specific item(s) to beat it. Which raises the question of why do so many of these fights lock you into unwinnable situations in the first place?
-In the end, I liked the game, and I was hooked enough to play it from beginning to end with no other game interruptions, clocking in about 10 hours total. I like AM2R a bit more for its consistency, and Distorted Travesty 3 is still the best pseudo-metroidvania fan game out there and I have yet to be proven otherwise. But the high points in this game are pretty goddamn high... wish there weren't so many lows, either.
-Was I the only person who thought the overly horror-centric atmosphere was more goofy than frightening??? Music was on point 90% of the time, but I don't understand the comments I've seen elsewhere about this game being an "actually scary" CV game.
TL;DR still a good fangame, feels a bit rough around the edges especially at most key moments, but the level design is aces even if some of the overarching game design feels a little too archaic for its own good. Would still recommend it, especially to people thirsty for more CV specifically, but in regards of other metroidvanias, you CAN do better. People saying this is the best fangame ever lack perspective.
EDIT: The only thing I was confused about in terms of unsolved traps post-best ending was the
Book of the Caged Souls
, and I was about to ask here if it was just a raw unsolvable trap... until I solved it. So hey, there's that. Never bought the two most expensive items, though. I'll live.
area in this game is fucking sick. Loved the enemies, music, and the dialogue before the boss. Boss was fun too, yes some of his attacks are random with no telegraphing, but if you do the right thing and got at least some of the HP increases by this point, it won't come close to killing you.
I'm close to the end, any help would be appreciated! I have like 93% completion overall, can't for the life of me find whatever item lets you live underwater... Feel like I missed something obvious
What's the point of the path of untruth? Nothing seems to happen there. The game sort of glitched out on me when I went there for the first time and gave me an HP extend and did the boss completion music when I teleported in... I sequence broke into the illusion area and used the skull emblem a bunch before getting the 2x dash so I hope that didn't mess anything up
I'm close to the end, any help would be appreciated! I have like 93% completion overall, can't for the life of me find whatever item lets you live underwater... Feel like I missed something obvious
What's the point of the path of untruth? Nothing seems to happen there. The game sort of glitched out on me when I went there for the first time and gave me an HP extend and did the boss completion music when I teleported in... I sequence broke into the illusion area and used the skull emblem a bunch before getting the 2x dash so I hope that didn't mess anything up
The item you're looking for is somewhere in the path of truth.
I think it's like statue 2 or 3, where you have to complete the gravestone puzzle.
The path of untruth is supposed to have a boss involving one of the objects necessary to reach the true ending, that doesn't sound normal at all. Something may have gone wrong... Likewise, you shouldn't have succeeded moving through the path of untruth without certain equipment... Did you not get a book or something in that room, or did you just get an HP extend and leave?
The item you're looking for is somewhere in the path of truth.
I think it's like statue 2 or 3, where you have to complete the gravestone puzzle.
The path of untruth is supposed to have a boss involving one of the objects necessary to reach the true ending, that doesn't sound normal at all. Something may have gone wrong... Likewise, you shouldn't have succeeded moving through the path of untruth without certain equipment... Did you not get a book or something in that room, or did you just get an HP extend and leave?
Wow, didn't realize you could hit the bottom of the graves.
When I was there I picked up the book and left. I have read on the CV dungeon forums that the glitch I described has happened to others, albeit at different locations.
Overall I think this is probably the best SOTN style Castlevania. The level design is much better than anything IGA has put out. They really nailed the environments. Love all the Gothic and Victorian stylings. The statues especially look amazing, and there are a ton of them.
Of course, it has the same flaws as every other metroidvania, so it doesn't reach the heights of the first game. One thing that I hate is when there is obviously something more to a room but you don't have the necessary item for it yet, but you have no way of marking that on the map so you are forced to write it down or hope you remember it down the line...
Wow, didn't realize you could hit the bottom of the graves.
When I was there I picked up the book and left. I have read on the CV dungeon forums that the glitch I described has happened to others, albeit at different locations.
Overall I think this is probably the best SOTN style Castlevania. The level design is much better than anything IGA has put out. They really nailed the environments. Love all the Gothic and Victorian stylings. The statues especially look amazing, and there are a ton of them.
Of course, it has the same flaws as every other metroidvania, so it doesn't reach the heights of the first game. One thing that I hate is when there is obviously something more to a room but you don't have the necessary item for it yet, but you have no way of marking that on the map so you are forced to write it down or hope you remember it down the line...
I mean it's still a pretty good fangame, but the boss design really sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'd recommend the game to anyone thirsty for CV with that one particular caveat. And this is coming from someone whose castlevania exposure is almost exclusively Igavanias post-SOTN and SCV4.
I mean it's still a pretty good fangame, but the boss design really sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I'd recommend the game to anyone thirsty for CV with that one particular caveat. And this is coming from someone whose castlevania exposure is almost exclusively Igavanias post-SOTN and SCV4.
Some of the bosses look cool(just like in the first game), but the names of those bosses are, well, lackluster. Especially considering that IGA's games pulled from various mythologies, seeing names like
Upended Demon, Caged Corpse, Corpse Guest, Hell Picture, and Nightmare Plant
just felt underwhelming. Also thought choosing
"Medusa Statue" over "Queen Medusa" (given the nods to CV1)
was a missed opportunity. Though I didn't have a problem with the story-related bosses (as in, the ones with actual character names). Other than my nitpicking, the game's stellar!
You implying that just because it's a free fan game that it's not subject to criticism? I'm still recommending the game overall, but there are a couple of clear flaws with the game, and I don't believe its price should shield it from noting those criticisms.
Some of the bosses look cool(just like in the first game), but the names of those bosses are, well, lackluster. Especially considering that IGA's games pulled from various mythologies, seeing names like
Upended Demon, Caged Corpse, Corpse Guest, Hell Picture, and Nightmare Plant
just felt underwhelming. Also thought choosing
"Medusa Statue" over "Queen Medusa" (given the nods to CV1)
was a missed opportunity. Though I didn't have a problem with the story-related bosses (as in, the ones with actual character names). Other than my nitpicking, the game's stellar!
EDIT: The only thing I was confused about in terms of unsolved traps post-best ending was the
Book of the Caged Souls
, and I was about to ask here if it was just a raw unsolvable trap... until I solved it. So hey, there's that. Never bought the two most expensive items, though. I'll live.
I don't remember exactly WHAT it was, but when you die from reading the book,
it explicitly emphasizes that your will was overpowered. Now think about the death room and how that required specific equipment to overcome those traps. This is basically another death room puzzle divorced from the room itself. Really, the only issue I have with this one is that the hint isn't obtainable without just dying straight up. So what in Lecarde's arsenal can you equip to ensure your will isn't overpowered? I'll put an even more straightforward hint in the next spoiler.
It's one of the headpieces, and you needed it to pass a different part earlier in the game. Read the descriptions.
I don't remember exactly WHAT it was, but when you die from reading the book,
it explicitly emphasizes that your will was overpowered. Now think about the death room and how that required specific equipment to overcome those traps. This is basically another death room puzzle divorced from the room itself. Really, the only issue I have with this one is that the hint isn't obtainable without just dying straight up. So what in Lecarde's arsenal can you equip to ensure your will isn't overpowered? I'll put an even more straightforward hint in the next spoiler.
It's one of the headpieces, and you needed it to pass a different part earlier in the game. Read the descriptions.
Controls totally busted, can't bind buttons. Menus don't really make much sense, they say to press "Attack" to go back to the menu which is bound to E on keyboard by default. Pressing E does nothing. Escape exits the game.
Finally played this for a few hours today. Fantastic. It's basically a much better Castlevania II with some other elements added from the Igavania games. You only power up with getting better gear/health/heart upgrades as opposed to leveling up, which works pretty well.
Kinda amazing how far some good level design with solid platforming goes. Music is great.
I do agree that the bosses could be better, but they're a good challenge. The plot also doesn't make any sense to me thus far.
Controls totally busted, can't bind buttons. Menus don't really make much sense, they say to press "Attack" to go back to the menu which is bound to E on keyboard by default. Pressing E does nothing. Escape exits the game.
