**lol thanks man.
And I hear from videos off Gametrailers that the DLC for Castlevania HD comes out this month.
Also 3rd place now!**
grats on 3rd! the DLC is taking way too long to come out.
Map pack out right now. Egypt level. Dr. B’s not in it, unfortunately.
ASTARTE IS A CUNT.
Astarte was the Cleopatra-wannabe boss from Portrait of Ruin. She’s back, and she’s pissed right the fuck off. Holy shit.
Tried it solo, on Normal, with Jonathan. I’ve beaten Hard Dracula solo with Jonathan, btw. The level’s easy enough, but Astarte does a respectable amount of damage even on normal (I had to use my Super Potion). Dodging Astarte’s Temptation attack is a pain; the spread is wide and dense. I never tried the forward roll, or attacking the hearts, but meh, still won.
So then I try it solo on Hard, with Soma, in case there are sexy weapons and shit in the level. ASTARTE KICKED THE CRAP OUT OF ME. My Soma Arsenal presently consists of Nebula, RPG, and the Disc Lord and Dracula souls, and NOTHING I did hit her for more than SINGLE DIGIT DAMAGE. Not kidding. She pulls out Temptation, I use the Final Guard soul, and it FAILS! Charmed. Her attacks do 70-120 damage. She fucking destroyed me.
So I says “fuck this” and whip out double Yatsusuna Alucard. And each Yatsu hit does 7 points of damage. 7! It doesn’t matter how fast the 7s were flying out of her fucking body: she wasn’t dying! Mist Form dodged Temptation handily, but fuck, I fought her for a good 8-10 minutes and SHE DIDN’T DIE. A few missteps and a Super Potion later and I’m FUCKING DEAD.
Hey-soos flippin’ creesto. It’s like I was fighting Dr. B.
EDIT - According to GameFAQs:
- Dodge Temptation by jump kicking her head/using Medusa Soul.
- She has a crippling weakness to Holy attacks, but resists like everything else. Valmanway apparently does 1 damage per hit.
- Charlotte can learn Delta Spark, her “triangle” attack.
- So far she’s been witnessed dropping, Winged Boots, Valmanway, Royal Crown, and some other high level stuff.
I’m going to try again later/tomorrow using a Holy Rod and some other Holy stuff.
EDIT 2 - If Alucard can get charmed, that’s stupid.
Dr. B has such high resistances, everything heals him. Everything.
So, is the expansion worth the 400 MS points?
I’ll still get it, but weren’t we supposed to get characters too? I was looking forward to loli-Maria and Julius '99.
My hard run this morning went pretty much exactly the same as specs’ did. Makes me want to play Jonathan, but I have no real reason to unless she drops Simon’s Cape or Simon’s accessory or something.
Not a bad level but I maxed my mummy soul in two playthroughs, so besides being able to farm a new boss the DLC doesn’t offer much. Didn’t expect it to though so I’m not dissappointed.
Timing the DLC release so close to Lords of Shadow seems a little counter productive to me. Maybe they assumed people would be done with it by the weekend.
It’s 400 points for a map that might make getting some high end stuff (Valmanway, Winged Boots) easier, and it offers some new abilities for Soma (Astarte and Mummy souls) and Charlotte (Delta Spark). It was worth it for me, as I play the game enough for that to matter, but if you don’t see yourself using that new stuff, save your money.
NINJA EDIT - Also some new gear, like a Royal Crown and possibly a weapon or two.
So far, Sorrow Julius (not the '99 one, sorry), loli-Maria, and Yoko are either confirmed by Konami or have leaked videos on YouTube. Apparently, people have hacked the game and discovered Dual Crash callouts for Richter and Simon. Not sure when any of them are coming.
Yeah, after my ranting earlier I too eventually found the level easy. Longinus/Holy Rod and some careful dodging defeated Astarte, and with Shanoa I beat the whole level on Hard while only getting hit twice. Oh, and Pneuma hits Astarte for 1 per hit. Not sure how Lapiste fairs.
Dr. B drops the impossibly impressive Valmanway 2, which mortal hands can’t even touch.
dang. I thought the art for Julius made him look younger, but I guess I remembered wrong.
still looking forward to more characters though. I hope Julius gets more than grapple-whip to set him apart from Jonathan.
Me too, I’m not looking forward to grinding subweapons again and if the only difference is the choice between swinging and martial arts I’ll stick with the uppercut. I hope he levels up completely differently than jonathan. The more different they are the better, especially since they will probably use the same equipment.
Edit: Just watched a replay of the top Soma on the leaderboards, he stayed right above Astarte and kept kicking yorick skulls down at her. They were doing +300 a kick. pretty good way to do it. Soma is still top tier, the guys just has too many options.
^Haha, so much for ppl expecting to see less Soma. Due to the sheer ease of which he can dodge Charm with Medusa along with a boss soul to grind for, I think we’ll actually see more Somas online. lol, so much for the big Valmanway nerf.
I don’t know if this is widely known yet but there’s a universal method my friend and I found that is 100% reliable to dodge the Charm. Been playing all day from 5pm and I still have yet to see ppl do it, tho I haven’t checked any replays so I could be wrong. It’s a universal method everyone can use, even Charlotte.
Essentially, it’s pretty much a well placed double jump/slide depending on whether she is facing you or not. Basically, when she summons the charms you’ll see two arches of hearts materialize, one in front of her and one behind. Both are about 4 character lengths away from her. You want to memorize this position because the first step after you hear “come hither” is to get right in front of where the hearts form. The positioning isn’t really that strict just try to be relatively close to the hearts without actually colliding with them. Second step is when you see the hearts shoot (the arch of hearts on her left will shoot right and the right arch left) if you’re facing her you do a high double jump toward her over the hearts, and if you’re behind her you slide right under them. (dodging from behind is easier because it still works even if your position is a bit further.)
Imho much more reliable method for Jon than martial arts, especially using a 360 pad. Dunno if it’s better than misting with Alucard but if you’re playing Soma I’d still recommend Medusa. Srsly, nothing is easier than Medusa.
Soma is the beast. As Jude said, dude is just too versatile.
Me wants those Valmanways, I’ll have to go after that Astarte motherfucker.
EDIT: According to GFAQs (who are salty that Soma can still destroy Astarte despite the Val nerf against her), Claimh Solais is the way to go on her, or spam Yorick souls above her head like Jude said.
The problem with the Yatsu/Valmanway “nerf” is that it isn’t a nerf.
Dual Valmanways (or Valmanways/Yatsus for Alucard) are still the best set of weapons to use… just not against one enemy (Astarte). That doesn’t “nerf” them for shit, it just makes you have to change your gear (and thanks to the book just before Astarte, that’s brain dead easy).
What Konami SHOULD have done is do to Valmanway what they did to Soma’s Yatsu: still have a swing animation that produces the various slashes. So you hit swing, Alucard/Soma still do a one-hand swing animation where they are, like other one-handers, rooted in place briefly (barring a jump) while all the little slashes animate and hit. Mechanically this would probably disallow swinging both hands at once, which is just fine; if, at that point, Yatsu/Valmanway damage is too low, adjust upwards accordingly.
Hire me, Konami. Seriously. I’ll fix this game for you right quick; just put me in charge. I promise I may return the reins to whoever was doing it prior.
Also, Sonic Strike didn’t go through Temptation. I timed it perfectly, so that the part where Jonathan vanishes was active when a heart went through me. How it looked: he came out of the Sonic Strike animation per normal, as though he wasn’t hit… but had a heart over his head. :bluu: I’ve yet to try Danger Knee/Forward Roll, as I was in multiplayer and the general feeling fighting Astarte was “chaos.” She’s going to be a solo farm for me.
Dr. B manangles the titiflorations based on scientific observations.
“chaos” is a good way to describe most of the fights I’ve had with her online, people just running around doing random stuff and spamming the screen with spells so you can’t see what she is going to do. I haven’t played it much though, maybe people are starting to catch on. I’ll try it some more tonight after I finish a paper.
What they need to make instead of new levels with the same items is just an item exspansion that changes what a lot of the drops in the levels are. That would give people a reason to play all the levels again. I still don’t know how they could tweak things to give the game more purpose than just farming. Something to lengthen the lifespan a bit.
I completely agree with the Valmanway nerf, none of the stuff that is broken in this game would require a complex fix. Better planning from the beginning would have done it.
Fist of Tulkas tears Astarte to shreds pretty convincingly. Dr. B calls it the “Fisting of Tulkas.”
has anybody downloaded the extra characters for this yet? 240 points seems kinda steep to me for only one character though. im interested if anybody can shed any light on how they actually play.
I can shed that light.
Julius is from Dawn of Sorrow, but has extra animations: his run animation is all new and he has new whipping animations for 8-way whipping. He can whip in 8 directions (ala Simon in Super Castlevania 4, otherwise known as the BEST Castlevania game, Metroidvanias be damned) and can grapple Shanoa’s Magnes points (but it’s a little awkward). Two martial arts: Uppercut (like Jonathan’s but less good) and Omnia Vanitas (found in Ch. 5 purple chests, like Forward Roll on fucking crack and steroids). He has less sub-weapons to level and seems to do more damage than Jonathan. Also, Julius’s whip travels noticeably further.
Yoko is the laziest cut and paste job in the history of gaming. She has three spells and that’s it (she starts with them all). Like Jonathan, Julius, and Shanoa, she builds them by using them. They’re strong, but they, along with her melee mace swing (or kick if you’re crouching), are all she has. No RB action. No dive kick. Just boring power.
Julius’s dub voice is great. Yoko’s is shitty. Also, there’s a bug where you hear Yoko’s spells from across the map no matter how far in you’re zoomed.
And yeah, Konami’s prices are ridiculous.
Dr. B can whip in 365*365 directions.
any insight on Richter and Maria?
I thought Richter came with Julias and Maria came with Yoko (or vice versa).
does Yoko get back HP on every hit like she did in DoS?