Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Sept 4, 2021 18:32:56 GMT -6
Super insightful! Thanks for summarizing
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Aug 11, 2021 6:34:41 GMT -6
If you need your machine for gaming, especially with 3d graphics, I'd generally recommend going for a dedicated GPU, NVIDIA or AMD. Even a low end one or an outdated one will do.
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Jun 22, 2021 14:31:18 GMT -6
Cool! Here's mine... 2. CBEDA
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Jun 18, 2021 6:20:43 GMT -6
You guys are too cute
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Jun 17, 2021 17:18:52 GMT -6
Hahahaha what?? How does purify do that
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Apr 11, 2021 20:20:53 GMT -6
Time 4 TeaOh, well in that case I'm clueless haha Sounds like it's needlessly obscure or indeed a bug then
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Apr 8, 2021 20:22:56 GMT -6
Could it be that it's based on how often you have returned books? It is kind of a trust thing, right? So OD would trust you more, the more often you actually return books back to him after a while...? Just a thought
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Jan 15, 2021 19:42:12 GMT -6
Lots to love about the classic mode, actually. They basically made an entire new game which is just super awesome! Original stages, bosses, enemy AI, player moveset all contribute towards making this its own thing entirely.
For me, it feels a bit too hard to play on normal and it really sucks that you can't change the difficulty halfway through your run. I mean, how am I supposed to know what setting is right for me before playing it? The thing that ultimately kind of kills it for me is the life system though. What is the point of making me redo an entire level again just because I died one too many times to a boss? I think that's retro-design to a fault. That's basically why I stopped playing it after dying too many times to the third boss. Maybe I'll watch a playthrough on youtube or something. I would have preferred just to play through it all myself but the life-system makes it too frustrating to power through it all.
The Kingdom crossover is a nice little thing, nothing huge but a cute reference at least. Really liked the graphics in that area. Wish it had a couple more rooms but overall it's quite nice. I played it on a 100% savefile just to see it so it was kind of way too easy though. The archer familiar is a nice idea but has some bugs. It will often not shoot at an enemy that's right besides you and then other times keep shooting at the spot where there was an enemy that is now dead, even if there are other enemies still around. That, combined with its low attack power makes it a bit useless.
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Dec 28, 2020 5:40:18 GMT -6
Mild spoilers below... There are 3 optional bosses behind doors that you can find the keys for elsewhere. One's in the garden, one's in the hall of termination, one's in the oriental sorcery lab. Depending on your current progress, they can be quite difficult fights so come prepared. Similarly there's a little music room near the dragon boss in the library. There's also a secret very dangerous enemy that comes up if you sit down on a chair on the train. Go in with curse resistance and be prepared for jumpscares One thing I found pretty cool on my first playthrough is that you can do some bosses out of order by going up towards bloodless right after you get the double jump. You can do this by jump-kicking up some suspiciously placed candles in one of the towers. A cool little nod to symphony can be found in orlok dracule's room in the library. Once you get the high-jump, you can jump up towards his chair from the room below just like in sotn! He can also appear as a challenging bonus-boss if you don't return his most valuable book to him before going through a certain room in the final area of the game. If you beat him and return to his place in the library, something special happens
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Dec 5, 2020 17:16:24 GMT -6
Amazing! New animations and sound effects even for the authentic (kinda janky ) Classicvania experience!
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Nov 12, 2020 17:53:24 GMT -6
Is the Bloodless download going to be available on all systems at the same time? Switch is a week later than the others I think.
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Nov 12, 2020 17:52:45 GMT -6
Wow thanks for posting this artwork, looks beautiful! Also, wow that's impressive that they are getting it running on mobile. And I'm glad they're going the start-price route rather than doing some garbage-monetization scheme.
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Nov 12, 2020 16:16:52 GMT -6
I love that it's officially the character now
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Nov 11, 2020 18:02:49 GMT -6
Love Bloodless mode! This is what Zangetsu mode should've been like. With abilities and upgrades hidden throughout the castle rather than giving you everything right from the start. Also I'm convinced that they rebalanced many if not all enemies for this mode! Truly a breath of fresh air. The new starting location is a great choice too and makes the game play out differently right from the start.
Well done, Bloodstained team!
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Aug 19, 2020 15:31:26 GMT -6
As this is a mobile game for the Chinese market and something made by today's Konami, that's a hard pass from me.
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Jul 8, 2020 11:59:52 GMT -6
The physical PC backer version will be such a complete edition if they keep their promise.
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Jun 19, 2020 18:21:25 GMT -6
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Jun 13, 2020 13:54:56 GMT -6
Well now we know that they surpassed a million sales. Cool post to put this into perspective!
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on May 7, 2020 20:51:54 GMT -6
So just played the DLC... Zangetsu mode is kind of barebones lol It's most comparable to Aria of Sorrow Julius Mode I think. You're super OP right at the start, begin with your full (but pretty cool) moveset, all story is removed. There's still levelling but since you're so ridiculously strong from the beginning it hardly feels like it matters much at all. Personally I'd have preferred something like the Dawn of Sorrow Julius mode which actually played into the story a bit and had some gating (getting additional characters for more abilities) so the world wasn't quite your oyster right from the start, making everything feel like nothing really matters... Before the DLC launched I was somewhat curious regarding what they'd do for the Zangetsu and Doppelganger fights (will they be swapped? etc) but they just kept the fights as they were, only that now they're less balanced. It just underlines that for this mode they didn't care about the story or any kind of logic one bit haha.
Yeah so the Zangetsu mode just kiiind of falls flat a bit for me. It's a fun stroll for the castle but that fun can be over in an hour or two. Keeps me wondering whether they couldn't just have spent a little more time on placing some of the more movement related abilities you have (the chain, the double jump, the upward slash) at certain key places in the castle to retain a little bit of progression and exploration, a little bit of that Metroidvania game design...
It's a different story with the randomizer mode which actually felt surprizingly interesting. This surprised me mostly because the castle layout is sadly still completely unchanged (except for the occasional save-warp room swap). And yet, with full randomization of key items and shards, it allows for some pretty fun and interesting combinations of abilities and gear that you'd otherwise never rely on so heavily. For instance, I got some waystones on the galleon, allowing me to skip Vepar. But more interesting still, I got Dimension Shift from a Bone Morte, allowing me to sequence skip into the water area, below the water even before entering the castle gates. This reliance on using frequent Dimension Shifts to avoid the comparatively strong enemies and get through sections of water without the diving ability, does surprisingly change up the gameplay a fair bit. I still wish they would have added some kind of level layout randomization or even just enemy placement randomization (within reason) to make things even more intriguing and multiple randomizer playthroughs more worthwhile and explorative but oh well... At least it's giving me more interesting playtime than Zangetsu mode does and changes up my playstyle more than I thought loot table randomizations would do.
Overall, I'm disappointed on one hand (bare minimum Zangetsu mode) and pleasantly surprised (of course after the big disappointment that was the cancellation of roguelike castle mode) on the other hand.
This kind of Zangetsu implementation does make me wonder what they're going to do with coop as it makes it sort of hard to imagine that a proper multi-character coop (Miriam-Zangetsu-Tagteam) would make a lot of sense. Will coop just mean two Miriam copies running around on one screen for no valid story reason whatsoever? It does not get my hopes up for an awesome coop mode that won't feel tacked on but well integrated. Similarly it does not bode too well for that third character we're supposed to get... I wish they can somehow learn from this and make some choices to retain some Metroidvania Design gating for whatever other character we'll get but I kind of doubt it...
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on May 7, 2020 18:46:34 GMT -6
Don't worry, you won't get that with me
|
|