I just purchased the game so I’ll need a partner or two to play with from time to time. Just message me on Xbox Live.
one thing about this game that is frustrating me (and its true of a lot of the recent castle games actually, but to an extreme level with this one) is the randomness of the item or weapon drops in castle games.
ive been trying to level up charlotte, ive played a couple times online with her (im wanting to do it single player before i go online) and ive done the first level a fair few times with her, and attempted the 2nd level also with her, but i still only have the crappy bog standard weapons she started with (knife thing that does only 2 damage to the 2nd boss, and her fireball ,move, which doesnt even level up) and im finding it extremely difficult to get her any better damage wise due to the scarcity of weapon drops for her.
ive played through a couple of the DS games too (POR and OOE) and i remember i couldnt even finish most of the sidequests on POR due to certain items practically never ever dropping from enemies, right now on OOE even an item such as salt, which i need for the chefs 1st side mission, i still havent had once despite me being near the end of dracs castle now.
i think konami really needs to address this issue as certain characters are about 10 times harder (and unneccesarily so) to play than other characters like johnathan and alucard. and its extremely irritating repeating levels over and over esp when they take 10-15 mins at a time just trying to get ANYTHING better than your current setup.
and then i just saw this. FUCK. figures i only ever played as johnathan in portrait of ruin…
Well, with all of the characters they need some upgrades to go through the game solo, especially since the bosses have way too much health in regards to the equipment that you start with.
Charlotte needs a LOT of work to be competitive, especially compared to Soma and Alucard. You’ve gotta capture multiple copies of multiple spells to get her magic damage up to a reasonable amount, which is way more difficult than using spells (Jonathan and Shanoa), killing tons of enemies (Soma), or just wearing good equipment (Alucard).
Shanoa is a good first character, since she won’t have problems running through the game the first time, which gives you access to good gear. Get to stage 5 on hard, grab some yasutsunas, and you basically have an awesome Alucard and you should be able to grind whatever you need from whatever stage. If you get two Valmanways, max out minotaur soul (super easy), and a medusa head, and you basically have the Soma that I run through bosses with.
Charlotte only needs a few spells-- Heal, Thunder Ball(for normal enemies), Death’s Scythe(for bosses) and whatever else you might like. I don’t know if having multiple spells boosts her overall spell damage, or just her base weapon attack.
Yes, picking up multiple spells will boost your overall spell damage with Charlotte as well as her weapon attack.
The way that I went was to get to Chapter 5 Hard with Shanoa, buy a good weapon for Soma, and then slowly work my way to the purple chests until I got a Yasutsuna. After that, it was pretty much golden.
Been playing this game and absolutely loving it since I heard about it. If anyone wants to run some stages add me on xboxlive
Got Charlotte maxed and got 2x Pneuma with Shanoa. Not sure what else to do now. Maybe I’ll try to run with Soma to get the 2 purple chests solo stage 5 hard.
All this grinding reminds me of playing psu jp back in the day.
Got the vals, got the boots, got the scythe, got the robe, got the solias, got the tunic, got the chaos rings, got the thief rings, got the berserker, got the gugnir, got the nebula, got the feather. I want to keep playing but I don’t have anything to aim for 
Well just managed to grab 2x Yasatsunas changing Alucard from normal to god tier.
Farming for vals now.
Pneuma eludes me. Building Jonathan blows. However, if you’re looking for an easy way to give his whip a lot of power quickly, level up everything to 5 or 6 before taking anything beyond that. It helps.
Game’s grindy. A part of me likes the grind. A more rational part of me recognizes the grind as a bad thing.
This game’s network UI is trash. There should be easy drop in/drop out support. In North America we’ve been doing this sort of thing right since FUCKING TRIBES. Hell, even earlier if you count all those DOOM networking methods before DOOM became open source. But alas, Konami = Japanese company = no way they’ll ever listen to this sort of criticism or take action to improve it.
Got a Yatsusuna with Alucard. Just one. And I kill hard Drac plenty easy with it. Would like Death’s Robe, 1 or 2 Valmanways, 2 Pneumas, and to own Konami to make this game not a grindy mess.
Dr. B’s jab = Valmanway. His cross = two souped up Autocrossbows that shoot Valmanways.
I finally got passed the Puppet Master. Dude was annoying. Next two bosses were almost a breeze. Chapter 4’s was I know that much. Dude is a push over.
But I’m absolutely tired of playing alone. You don’t get any access to purple chests alone and since this game is so grind heavy it’s getting monotonous. Konami should have spent an extra year making a proper Castlevania though.
I’ve got a maxed out Charlotte with astra/skull combo, a pimped Alucard with two Yasatsunas, and my Soma’s got 1 Valmanway trying to farm the 2nd and get a Berserkers tunic when I’m done. Once I’m done with Soma I’ve still gotta farm Jonathan and Shanoa up. Should keep me going on the game for another week or so.
I don’t really find the grind too bad but I played a lot of Diablo II and its pretty much the same concept when it comes to progression. Actually hoping the DLC for the game is cheaper than the game was. A real Belmont would definitely make the game.
uhm, What’s the Astra + SKull combo?
Astral Brooch + Skull Ring or something?
Astral Ring + Skull Ring, curses Charlotte but gives her infinite MP(uses her HP as mana), not necessary but its helpful in fights where you’re just gonna dodge anyway (i.e Dracula and Death)Just use heal to keep your mana up and you’re golden.
where do i find the astral ring?
Astral Ring is in Ch6 hard mode, they drop like water. Should be real easy to get, I’m playing right now if you want me to run you through ch 6 hard real quick.
Thanks for grinding a bit with me the other night SixMachine, I’ve still got some more to do if anyone needs/wants to build subweapons/spells in survival.
This game has some good points and I think if they reworked somethings it could be really fun. Too bad Konami doesn’t care that much. I wish they had all the songs in the list where you can change the music. I like the song in the options menu a lot.
Still needs Simon’s plate.
If you are on 360 you can simply copy whatever music you want onto the harddrive and play it that way i’m fairly certain you can do that with ps3 aswell although i have never owned one so can’t say for sure.
Seeing as Konami for some retarded reason elected to not include the most classic tracks like bloody tears, vampire killer etc etc and especially my most recent favourite: [media=youtube]tRN4R1QR8v4[/media] it’s what i did so i could actually play castlevania the way it is meant to be played.
With Bloody Tears screaming in the background.
Edit: Also i wish you could somehow play as Soma in his Neo-Dracula form: [media=youtube]njetYkpagNM[/media]
Just for how badass it would be to fly around with a red aura and throw winglasses.
It would also give me a legitimate excuse to do the whole WHAT IS A MAN dialogue on mic.
Thanks again R3y for getting me through hard mode. Definitely was the boost I needed.
I’ve got the Valmanways, the Yasutsunas, but nothing else. Still don’t have Final Guard or Berserker Mail, so I’m prone to getting randomed out by first turn Demonic Megiddo on third form Dracula.