I beat the final boss, haven’t had it in me to go back and do the optional stuff or clear out the map. mostly because i don’t really want it to end but i also don’t want to do hard mode
How does new game + work? Do you get to keep your shards and items, but pick a new difficulty?
Glad I looked this up before playing: if you name your save file “NIGHTMARE”, you can play your first game in hard or nightmare mode. All of the igavanias with a hard mode are better with it, so I’m glad they finally provided a way to skip the unlocking.
I just got to the double-jump. Enjoying this a lot so far, it’s often really sketchy to reach the next savepoint and I’m broke all the time on account of buying up potions and food. The first boss was obnoxious especially with the RNG on the adds and I needed to grind to level 10 to beat it (I only had one potion left for it, should’ve saved them).
I was sold on this from the mention of the industrial revolution in the opening cutscene and the starting equipment including Kung Fu Shoes. It reminds me the famous silliness of SotN Dracula really is the defining attribute of this series.
Oh I should clarify that I beat the final boss by using 9 fairy elixirs and at least one big potion as well. I just simply did not care to Get Gud
you are valid because i do the same shit
I got the impression overall that you are intended to exploit the game’s systems to become overpowered or use tricks rather than actually becoming more skilled at dodging, etc. For example, several bosses are a lot easier upside-down, not just the one loki mentioned above.
And a non-boss example of this is the race near the end of the game. I’d thought it would be a major pain and I was considering just skipping it, but it’s actually trivial if you use the right setup.
One other thing that might be worth mentioning is that I thought I had done this:
But I hadn’t really done it until much later in the game when I happened to be there again.
I’ve completed the demon list and the shard list, but I haven’t quite covered the entire map and I don’t think I want to go for the item list.
Game is real good y’all.
Thanks for talking me into buying it, SB
That mirror boss doesn’t really know what to do if you get right above him on that one platform. You can pelt him with bouncy water balls and dodge the occasional reflecty move.
Playing the NES style side game first helped with a couple boss patterns, but everything feels a bit more sloppy and far from 1:1.
The desert ended up not being so bad after I realized I got an anchor/club thing off one of the water cave monsters that swings like a normal sword but dramatically outclasses all the great swords I’ve come across so far. Make sure you keep tabs on that inventory!
So having learned that lesson I’m currently running with two of those rings that improve the odds on item drops, plus a hat that raises luck. They’re making a pretty noticeable impact, and I’m having fun with leveling and experimenting with all the sharts.
Betwixt annoyed amused
It’s crazy how much better the cooking system is in this game than it was in Breath of the Wild
I’m sure it’s already been mentioned upthread but the sheer number of weapons in this game is insane
Having all this variety of junk and secondary goals is really effective at avoiding the “oh, guess I wasted my time going to this locked gate I don’t have the key for yet” disappointment that’s prevalent in more minimalist metrovanias. That kind of thought never once crossed my mind as I was playing this. Every expedition at least showered me with XP and drops, and even relatively explicit cases of the walk-to-locked-gate pattern – such as the entrance to Oriental Sorcery – don’t feel that way because they also reward you with a major item at the gate and let you circle around instead of backtracking.
big trouble in little iga
That’s true of course, but I also noticed a lot of echoes of many of the GBA/DS Castlevanias, especially Aria and Ecclesia:
From Aria:
From Ecclesia:
It strikes me overall as a Sonic Mania style project made by a nostalgic generation of devs who grew up playing these games and fused them into an omni-game cherry-picking their favorite aspects of each.
Extremely clear take. On many levels it combines them to an utmost or the greatest yet, but being an amalgamutt on its own; not quite refined as it could be, arguably hard to distinguish without mention of them.
It’s kind of silly but I get the feeling what the game is missing most is A) Dracula and B) “castle” in the title. It lacks a thematic center because of that. After all, it’s not really leaning into the new “demon castle from hell featuring Blood Stains” theme very hard. Other Igavanias, even when clearly getting bored with Dracula, still paid tribute to the myth.
As for refinement, I wouldn’t have minded better telegraphed moves for the bosses for instance, but I think in most ways refining this maximalist monster with unlimited overpowered options and a mishmash of clashing horror styles is neither possible nor desirable.
Also, the credits for this game were some of the most baffling I’ve ever seen. There were so many publishers and dev studios! Wikipedia summarizes it as follows:
This leaves me very unclear on who was responsible for what and overall sounds like complete chaos. It doesn’t seem like a cohesive game could possibly come out of this process, and I suppose it’s indeed not cohesive, but it’s good anyways?
it’s like the production credits from any of Nic Cage’s straight-to-VOD movies from the past decade, all of which appear to have been tax writeoffs created to make only that one movie
Like who’s responsible for this guy? They deserve a bonus
(On second thought, I think the voice actors are at least half responsible for this guy being memorable. The script and concept is funny on its own but it’s the actors who have a great chemistry when he’s introduced.)
I didn’t follow the kickstarter/trailers enough to see when or how Miriam customization became a thing, but for such a hilarious one-off so they could implement it…like what came first, the enemy design or a KB/Todd? His Level Up effect each time you bring a new 'do just goes further to show: Let The Ideas Flow.
I think the portrait of Dominique behind him is supposed to imply that she got her haircut at Todd’s too, right?