Castlevania Aria of Sorrow Play Journal Entries Stagger Lanayru79 10/27/2016 9:51 PM Boy howdy, Aria of Sorrow is light work, but awfully fun! I went wild w/ Symphony of the Night nostalgia, checking walls to try and fill out the map, enjoying the not so subtle tips from Soma's friend to access the two most secret areas, and having to get pretty creative on a couple of bosses. Nattering and gasbag action in the comments, following a ... E Yeah! e 17 r 75 D Advertisement Share this Post 1 Tweet 2 Share Embed Comment Stagger 10/27/2016 9:56 PM WARNING: Unmarked spoilers appear in the comments. MAY appear anyway; I will mark a few relating to my catch-up on the playthrough via saved screen shots. Two major projects remain on the file. Saving up 300k gold for Hammer's last item, utilizing the Gold Ring and Mimic spirit to the fullest, is a bear. That item would help w/ the other pictured project, completing the set of Souls, but oh well. E Yeah! e 2 D Stagger 10/27/2016 10:08 PM ·Spoilers I enjoyed the castle structure and key item dispersion, but AoS wasn't challenging me greatly until the Clock Tower. While the Castlevania 3 memories warmed me, thank goodness the Fleamen weren't in this one. It was a tough climb. This was much tougher. What a battle! I failed a lot before stumbling on the effect of the Big Ghost on the smaller scythes and the fact that I could slide through the E Yeah! e 2 D Stagger 10/27/2016 10:17 PM ·Spoilers one attack that was giving me fits on Death's second form. I was level 20 and used Hrunting, if anyone was curious. The quality from there on out was really high. Such a cool prelude to Legion! All of those mummified saps filing in ... not too tough a fight though. I had yet to receive the dialogue tip on how to get into the Forbidden Area, which I didn't reach until after the Arena. E Yeah! e 2 D Stagger 10/27/2016 10:24 PM ·Spoilers By the time I got here, I knew flight was essentially the last big barrier to exploration. I thought, “Giant Bat boss? No sweat!” Then it was squashed by a giant fist. I was really fortunate to acquire the Medusa's Head soul while crossing one of the nearby gauntlets for goodies. The right eye portion of the fight would have taken me a while to succeed at w/out the midair freezing assist. E Yeah! e 2 D Stagger 10/27/2016 10:27 PM ·Spoilers Graham was kind of a pushover, but of course I had the ridiculous weapon and armor found beyond the rushing waterfall at this point, and was level 41. Certain things did not add up. What were those books for? It didn't take me too much stewing to see that a certain alignment of spirit slots would meet those cryptic clues, although figuring out what belonged in the third one was a little tricky. E Yeah! e 2 D Stagger 10/27/2016 10:31 PM ·Spoilers Here's where I was on completion at that point. I eagerly went to the Chaotic Realm first of course, enjoying the plot about as much as I'd expect from a Castlevania game. Not a strong suit of the franchise in my experience, heh ... Julius was tough btw. Here's a few things I liked along the way. Hidden and trick enemies! That blur in the aqueducts, the burrowing serpent, the 1MP Iron Golem ... E Yeah! e 2 D Stagger 10/27/2016 10:34 PM ·Spoilers That's good stuff. I beat on that Iron Golem from a safe spot for five straight minutes before thinking to try that Attack Mantle trick. This fight was also kind of lackluster, but the fact that it opened a boss rush and the game can be played w/ a Belmont are both very cool. I'm going to get my grind on for a bit, and see if I can put a dent in that Soul count. E Yeah! e 2 D Stagger 10/27/2016 11:44 PM Wow. 20% discount! Should have hunted Tsuchinoko's soul a long time ago ... also never should have bothered buying one of everything Hammer carries. I knew most of them would be drop items, but practically all? :p This project got significantly easier. E Yeah!? e 2 D Stagger 10/28/2016 12:20 AM No comment. E Yeah... e 3 D Hidalgo 10/28/2016 10:30 AM Been meaning to get into the castlevania seried for a while. Would you recommend most of the games available on tje virtual console? E Yeah! e 1 Nintendoer 10/28/2016 10:39 AM ·Spoilers I don't think it said anything, but beating the game also unlocked Hard Mode, which IMO is the game's true difficulty level. Starts out not being pitifully easy, with a more gradual difficulty curve from there. How about that book puzzle, though? Far more brilliant than the rings/specs in Symphony of the Night, if you ask me. Also, there's a really, really easy way to earn money. E Yeah! e 2 D Stagger 10/28/2016 12:09 PM It did not mention hard mode. Nice! I liked the book puzzle quite a bit, full agreement. As for easy ways to earn money, you can spoil. I've thought of just Black Panthering my way through the chests in the Forbidden Area or mining a 500 gold bag candle, but it appears to be just a +5 Luck item. It wouldn't reduce the soul grind that heavily given my stat is already at 80 w/ Ghost Dancer. E Yeah! e 1 D Stagger 10/28/2016 12:12 PM @Hidalgo: I played a lot of it when I was young before they took on the Metroid style of item locked navigation progression. Here are the ones I have experience with and can offer an opinion. All of the NES games are solid. The original and III are quite challenging, the latter offering multiple characters to play as and routes through stages. Simon's Quest is my favorite of those though. Very E Yeah! e 0 D Stagger 10/28/2016 12:15 PM different, cryptic and hard to figure out where to go as it was a half step away from stage based, pure platforming towards the Metroid formula. Super Castlevania IV is junk imo. Symphony of the Night on the original Playstation is the only other one I played before working to retire called me away from gaming for a decade. Excellent game - this is very reminiscent of it, perhaps better! E Yeah! e 0 D Stagger 10/28/2016 1:50 PM Whew, up over 80% of Souls collected ... looking at items like the Rare Ring, I have a feeling Hammer's special is of greater use than just a stat boost, so I'm going to knock that out. I'm sure I'll kick myself for doing so here at this repeated candle drop once Nintendoer spills the beans on his gold grinding method. E Yeah! e 0 D Nintendoer 10/28/2016 2:10 PM ·Spoilers Equip the mimic soul. Go to the save room in the clock tower right next to some spikes. Equip your best armor (more defense=greater damage from spikes, somehow). Then just hurt yourself on the spikes until nearly depleted, heal up at the save room, and repeat. 240,000 doesn't take very long at all like this. E Yeah! e 1 D Stagger 10/28/2016 4:05 PM I thought of running a damage gambit, but that's professional right there 'doer. :p So that ring definitely targets the soul rate specifically beyond the Luck stat, yet some of these have just brutal RNG drop rates. There you are! Great Armor and Flesh Golem were the ones remaining on my list that I couldn't remember where to find, so that's one down. I'd like to fill in all the drop item blanks E Yeah! e 1 D Stagger 10/28/2016 4:06 PM eventually too, but one thing at a time, heh ... I'm really happy to have landed the Gremlin soul looking around in here. Better late than never to double the Dancing Ghost stat boost to the big one in question ... E Yeah! e 0 D Stagger 10/28/2016 4:17 PM These two are exmples of a fiendishly low soul drop rate. I already established my grinding loop for each, but just burnt out working on them. That's saying a lot. I'm a champion grinder, heh ... anyway, after a dinner break, I plan to finish this task and try that boss rush out. E Yeah! e 0 D Stagger 10/28/2016 5:05 PM ·Spoilers Found ya! :p What a strange Soul - making Rotten Meat and Spoiled Milk useful. Then again, Potato Pancakes are in the game too. Konami developers have an odd sense of humor. E Yeah! e 0 D Stagger 10/28/2016 6:06 PM Yeah! I'll tinker w/ a limited number of item drops on my way back to a save point, seeing if that Rare Ring does a decent job, but then I'm taking a break before checking out the rush of bossiness.