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[Tiktaalik]

I first noticed this in Aria of Sorrow, and I'm finding the same thing is happening in Dawn of Sorrow. Every once and a while, I'll find a boss that totally, totally kills me. I'll try a couple of times and learn his pattern but I'll still eventually die. The only way I can get by him is to walk around for a while, killing enemies, leveling up, and stockpiling a ton of health items before attempting again. Does anyone else have the same experience or am I a totally crappy Castlevania player?

edit: maybe a mod could change the title to "level grinding" instead of "leveling up" since obviously you level up in the game.

 

[Wario64]

Leveling or grinding in Castlevania is for pussies.

I go through each of em without level grinding so if I can do it, you can do it

 

[Trurl]

I have the same experience, but I suspect that I also suck.

 

[Tarazet]

I suspect the best Castlevania players could skip almost every enemy and still win, but for those of us who suck, leveling is pretty much a given. That's why it's there.

 

[MarkRyan]

Usually if I find a boss that's too tough for me I just explore another part of the castle. There are almost always multiple paths for me to go, and I'll just come back to the tough boss at a later time.

 

[Oldschoolgamer]

Paging Bjork and Red Scarlet.

 

[DarknessTear]

I've never had to grind before. I just keep going. But then again I've been a whore for the series since the NES days and I'm good at them.

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

I grind quite a lot. But then I have an obsessive compulsion to level up. Give me a stat or an ability that can be improved with use and I have to level it to the max, or I just won't be happy.

Spoiler

At the moment, I'm getting my arse kicked by death in DoS. I can get through his first form okay, but I can't seem to avoid those big ghost skull things his 2nd form flings at me, any tips.

 

[PkunkFury]

I never grind in Castlevanias, the last two seemed to be set up so you wouldn't need to. I also don't use items (health potions and the like). If you are smart enough about how you use the souls you should be powerful at any level

 

[Ranger X]

You guys probably are going too fast, not killing enough ennemies as you explore, etc.

Seriously, all Castlevania with levels have been greatly balanced except Circle of the Moon imo.

 

[flammie]

Seriously, all Castlevania with levels have been way to easy except Circle of the Moon imo.

Fixed.

Seriously though, the 2d castlevanias since Symphony of the Night are way easier than the ones before it. I think the bosses are difficult only because having save points so often make people sloppy castlevania players who are willing to take damage if it helps them kill faster. You learn to race though the levels and not really worry about taking damage since you can just get to a save point to restore your health. Once you reach the boss, you have to unlearn all of that to avoid taking damage during the fight.

 

[Kabuki Waq]

man i wish Castlevania would go back to being kick ass platforming and action game not this RPG crap.

 

[nincompoop]

Seriously, all Castlevania with levels have been greatly balanced except Circle of the Moon imo.

Holy shit :lol :lol :lol :lol
That might be the most incorrect statement in the history of mankind.

 

[Bartman3010]

I'm at the very last boss of Castlevania DoS, and I'm hardly putting a dent in him, if you have the time, the njust power level. I'm at level 38, but man, I need something that causes more damage, because this is not cutting it at all...

 

[Ranger X]

Levelling up isn't challenge. It's just assle. If you take your time, kills lots of ennemies while exploring, get the souls and such, you should NEVER need to level up.
Difficulty should lies in boss paterns, how you use your abilities, different ennemi attack, tougher plaforming, etc. Circle of the Moon needed unnecessary levelling.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

All the bosses are pretty easy imo.

Just study their pattern.

 

[nincompoop]

Circle of the Moon needed unnecessary levelling.

No it didn't, it needed skill (which apparently you don't have). Unless you go out of your way to avoid killing things, you'll never be too overmatched against any enemies/bosses in the game, once you get their pattern down. OTOH, in the other Metroidvanias you get so overpowered when you level up that the enemies/bosses barely pose any threat at all unless you purposely avoid killing things.

 

[Ranger X]

No it didn't, it needed skill (which apparently you don't have). Unless you go out of your way to avoid killing things, you'll never be too overmatched against any enemies/bosses in the game, once you get their pattern down. OTOH, in the other Metroidvanias you get so overpowered when you level up that the enemies/bosses barely pose any threat at all unless you purposely avoid killing things.

That's your experience with the game, fine. At the time i played it i stopped because i needed to level up (maybe i was going through the game a bit fast, i didn't really liked this Castlevania anyway). Your comment on skills well, you can keep them for yourself. Old Castlevanias like Chronicles and Dracula's Curse were more difficult and i kick their arses.

 

[drohne]

i've never had to grind in a metroidvania...and i'm usually horribly overleveled by the end of the game, especially when there are souls to collect. those occasional bosses who can kill you a couple times are refreshing -- their patterns are generally well designed, and you should really try to learn them.

 

[Angela Liu]

Got the Mandragora soul ability? Bosses are cake with it.

 

[Ranger X]

Got the Mandragora soul ability? Bosses are cake with it.

I don't know if this was towards me but i don't remember this soul. Maybe that was a key soul i should have had.

 

[jko]

whoever dogged CotM needs to burn...it's the most balanced metroid-vania YET. the rest are rubbish in terms of challenge and balance.

 

[RevenantKioku]

I've never had to grind except maybe in CotM.
I still can't beat the Magician mode. :*(

 

[jko]

I've never had to grind except maybe in CotM.
I still can't beat the Magician mode. :*(

imo, all the unlockable modes are harder than the original. ESPECIALLY at the battle with Dracula. but that's what makes this game the best of all metroid-vanias.

 

[teepo]

i've never grinded in a castlevania game or any game for that matter.

never even grinded in rpgs. i aint down with pussy shit.

 

[Gattsu25]

Seriously, all Castlevania with levels have been greatly balanced except Circle of the Moon imo.

You're joking right? Out of all the Metroidvania's CotM is the least power-level friendly...I don't think I've EVER power-leveled in that game and I *KNOW* I've never after my first playthrough

quit with the weaksauce trolling, CotM kicks ass

 

[golduck342]

imo what made circle of the moon hard is that is was ridiculously hard to get the cards. If I didn't stop to collect more cards I would've been stuck somewhere with two cards which I wouldn't be able to use cause they were the same type.

I think all the others flowed pretty well. I tend to agree with flammie. Save points have made us sloppy players.

 

[brandonh83]

i aint down with pussy shit.

Gamespot.com needs you

 

[bjork]

Paging Bjork and Red Scarlet.

Ha, I think Scarlet knows better than me

For Aria, you can cripple yourself or overpower yourself by equipping the right souls. Same for DoS and HoD. CotM not so much, since some cards are unattainable until later, but you can do some CotM boss fights without being touched...

For example, the Dragon Zombie, you can just crouch on the platform above each head with the spinning fire shield on, or twirl the whip (it takes longer that way), and you'll never be touched. Or for Camilla, just turn on the ice shield and stand on the middle platform. You don't ever need to move... I laid the DS down and walked away, and when I came back she was dead.

For SotN, you can overpower yourself pretty easily... but a bare fist is arguably better than the most weapons in the first castle...

I think it just depends on how you want to play it, but most (if not all) CV bosses come down to knowing the patterns, kind of like knowing the safe spots in an R-Type game.

 

[RevenantKioku]

imo, all the unlockable modes are harder than the original. ESPECIALLY at the battle with Dracula. but that's what makes this game the best of all metroid-vanias.

Nah. It gets to a point where it's annoying, and that makes the game overall less fun.

 

[bjork]

Leveling in CotM is easy... just play up past Death, and then the bomb skeletons in the first hallways are replaced with blue bears and these spider chicks... they're slow and easy to kill, and have a decent yield. Or as a cheaper but slower means, turn on the "walk to gain xp" DSS combo and tape down the direction as you walk into a wall

Hard in a Castlevania is trying to get the 420.9% that guys have by exploiting room glitches. I'm only at 228% and I have no idea how to get some of this stuff... First castle map, all the white/grey spaces are non-rooms that you can access, and will add to your Walk Armor's power as well as your total %:

 

[jko]

Nah. It gets to a point where it's annoying, and that makes the game overall less fun.

to each his own i suppose. i find a hard and challanging castlevania very fun.

 

[Gattsu25]

Nah. It gets to a point where it's annoying, and that makes the game overall less fun.

just looking at this quote, I'd swear you were talking about leveling too quickly in girlgamer friendly titles such as AoS and DoS

 

[Red Scarlet]

Paging Bjork and Red Scarlet.

?

Levelling up didn't really come to mind the first time in these, more it was just trying the bosses a few times to get a feel of how to try to fight them, and bring along health recovery items. That seemed to do the trick the first time through some of the tougher bosses (namely in Circle of the Moon and some of the bosses in Aria of Sorrow).

Not really sure what bjork is talking about, I'm not that great at these games overall.

 

[bjork]

?Not really sure what bjork is talking about, I'm not that great at these games overall.

We're all our own worst critics. Watching your sotn runs along with those of others is what got me into trying to beat the speedrun record. <3

 

[nincompoop]

I never bothered with the bonus modes in CotM until I recently started a game in magician mode. I'm up through the Camilla boss fight, and so far it's been extremely easy. You can pretty much go through the entire game beating everything with cockatrice summons and using unicorn summons if you somehow get low on health, or by using the appropriate neptune combo do nullify damage against element-specific enemies, and your intelligence is so high that you won't have to worry about running low on mana.

 

[Oldschoolgamer]

?

Levelling up didn't really come to mind the first time in these, more it was just trying the bosses a few times to get a feel of how to try to fight them, and bring along health recovery items. That seemed to do the trick the first time through some of the tougher bosses (namely in Circle of the Moon and some of the bosses in Aria of Sorrow).

Not really sure what bjork is talking about, I'm not that great at these games overall.

Modest. Its okay, we all know you kick ass. I just got through watching your Maria run earlier as a matter of fact(and the alt Richter run). For some reason, I have been going back and watching a ton of speedruns on different games. It amazes me that their is one for Paper Mario...

 

[Red Scarlet]

We're all our own worst critics. Watching your sotn runs along with those of others is what got me into trying to beat the speedrun record. <3

Those are for the extra characters only, I think you surpassed me with Alucard awhile ago.

Modest. Its okay, we all know you kick ass. I just got through watching your Maria run earlier as a matter of fact(and the alt Richter run). For some reason, I have been going back and watching a ton of speedruns on different games. It amazes me that their is one for Paper Mario...

I guess. There's lots of neat ones around!

I haven't played Dawn of Sorrow, but in Aria I had problems with Death, the big..ball o' zombies, and Balor. For all of them, it was buying some potion and trying to learn how to avoid attacks/what weapon helped most instead of fight around. Try that and/or a combination of a level increase and trying again. If souls are in Dawn of Sorrow, maybe you'll find a good stat-boost one or a good special attack, that may have been what helped me beat Death in Aria the first time.

 

[bjork]

Those are for the extra characters only, I think you surpassed me with Alucard awhile ago.

I may have, though my times lately don't reflect it :\

Still gunning for sub-43:52, though.

If souls are in Dawn of Sorrow, maybe you'll find a good stat-boost one or a good special attack, that may have been what helped me beat Death in Aria the first time.

Death is pretty cake in DoS... you can get multiples of a soul to beef it up, so it's possible to boost your strength or whatever, but the hardest part of the Death fight is drawing the stupid seal. I swear the stylus stuff totally isn't needed in that game -_-

 

[Oldschoolgamer]

Death is pretty cake in DoS... you can get multiples of a soul to beef it up, so it's possible to boost your strength or whatever, but the hardest part of the Death fight is drawing the stupid seal. I swear the stylus stuff totally isn't needed in that game -_-

Qft. That sealed caused me to die once. I wasn't really leveled high, and, since at that point i didn't give a damn about souls(my first run), I was playing with the best of my abilities. I managed to get him down to the seal part, and, messed it up with a stray line. He came back and hit me with the Skull attack and I game overed -_-..

 

[X360FanBoyLOL]

I level by trying to get souls I don't really try to level up

 

[Ninja Scooter]

if you have to worry about "leveling up" you're not playing the right Castlevanias.

 

[Gattsu25]

CV II!! >_<

 

[jepense]

You don't really need to grind in Castlevanias imo, it's enough to just not avoid fighting when exploring. Actually, I find that it's a major flaw in the balancing of a game if grinding is really necessary to get past bosses. I did need several retrys when fighting the boss in the tower in DoS, though. Afterwards I realized I could have taken another route and fought the super-easy lake boss first to gain some exp before this more difficult monster, so I guess I was underleveled at that point.

 

[Hamfam]

Levelling up and soul collecting to upgrade weapons/magic attacks is the entire fun of Dawn of Sorrow.

Otherwise you might as well just play with that Julius character with the stupid whip, which is boring as Hell.

 

[thetrin]

I never grinded levels, but I often found myself grinding souls in Dawn and Aria, which inevitably meant exp as well.

 

[Schnicktick]

One question:

How am I supposed to open that door at the bottom of the tower in Julius Mode in DoS? It's the door,

Spoiler

which Julius opens when struggling for the 3rd ending.

 

[Koren]

I grind quite a lot. But then I have an obsessive compulsion to level up. Give me a stat or an ability that can be improved with use and I have to level it to the max, or I just won't be happy.

Spoiler

At the moment, I'm getting my arse kicked by death in DoS. I can get through his first form okay, but I can't seem to avoid those big ghost skull things his 2nd form flings at me, any tips.

Spoiler

I used the boss soul that transform you into a bat to fly above the skulls, and it helps me a lot. I hope that will the same for you. Besides, I think I remember there's a safe zone between the skulls when they attack...

 

[Ranger X]

quit with the weaksauce trolling, CotM kicks ass

Because trolling means "having a different opinion than yours"... *rolleyes*

On another note,
Did you read what i think about difficulty?

 

[Blue Geezer]

die squirrel die:

Spoiler

i found the easiest thing was to simply walk in the opposite direction of the skull so if it comes from the left walk right and vice versa.