Castlevania Dungeon Forums

The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: AxeLord on December 17, 2015, 09:08:51 AM

Title: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: AxeLord on December 17, 2015, 09:08:51 AM
I've played through SotN MANY times, but at this point it's just become so easy to me that it doesn't feel worth it. How can I make the game harder? Isn't there some way to start with the lowest stats possible? I'm looking for the hardest possible run. Thanks!
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: VladCT on December 17, 2015, 10:38:04 AM
If you have a clear save, IIRC using X-X!V''Q as your name lets you start with 99 luck while the other stats are 0. Also, you might want to make a personal checklist of things not to use as a lot of things that you can get break the game anyway, the Crissaegrim being one of the main culprits.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Jop on December 17, 2015, 12:11:16 PM
I think you are saying normaly so no external things but this is a patch that make the game a little more hard, if you play the game tons of time the game it will be a little harder, if you never play the game it can be hard:

http://www.insanedifficulty.com/board/index.php?/files/file/80-castlevania-symphony-of-the-night-hardtype/ (http://www.insanedifficulty.com/board/index.php?/files/file/80-castlevania-symphony-of-the-night-hardtype/)

The changes are more damage and hp, items that work different or you cant obtain (Crissaegrim is one) i think the spells cost more mp, your flying kick dont work all the time like the normal game (i dont remember if was this or i think in another game) and something interesting Galamoth's lightning attack deals non-elemental damage
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: zangetsu468 on December 17, 2015, 01:43:08 PM
Luck code as per previous post, it is harder. Use no armour or weapons.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Lumi Kløvstad on December 17, 2015, 07:13:43 PM
Or just play as Richter or Maria, which were purposely designed to have a more Classicvania level of strategy and difficulty designed around Symphony's new movement upgrades.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: zangetsu468 on December 17, 2015, 10:03:32 PM
Or just play as Richter or Maria, which were purposely designed to have a more Classicvania level of strategy and difficulty designed around Symphony's new movement upgrades.

Are you kidding, it's possible to reach the last room of the game with Richter in about 7 minutes. granted this takes skill. If you beat all the optional bosses it's a different story though.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: X on December 17, 2015, 11:28:44 PM
If you want difficulty then play as Maria from the DXC version. I still haven't finished a playthrough with her yet. She's just too underpowered.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: TheTextGuy on December 17, 2015, 11:39:08 PM
If you want difficulty then play as Maria from the DXC version. I still haven't finished a playthrough with her yet. She's just too underpowered.

Her health goes down really fast.  As well, I don't know if she has any game-breaking item crashes (HYDRO STORM!  HYDRO STORM!).
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: zangetsu468 on December 17, 2015, 11:49:50 PM
I don't know if she has any game-breaking item crashes (HYDRO STORM!  HYDRO STORM!).

Except for Galamoth, he needs to switch to dagger item crash.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: crisis on December 18, 2015, 12:45:18 AM
Quote
I've played through SotN MANY times, but at this point it's just become so easy to me that it doesn't feel worth it. How can I make the game harder? Isn't there some way to start with the lowest stats possible? I'm looking for the hardest possible run. Thanks!

start with using only the 1st long sword & leather shield you get in the beginning without equiping NO other weapons/cloaks/shields/helments/armor throughout your journey, and avoid all HP/MP powerups aside from when u defeat a boss. see how far you get

good luck
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Lumi Kløvstad on December 18, 2015, 01:36:50 AM
Are you kidding, it's possible to reach the last room of the game with Richter in about 7 minutes. granted this takes skill. If you beat all the optional bosses it's a different story though.

Only if you're really good with the controller or are using a hotkeyed emulator to easily do his dash and superjump. And that kind of skill takes a lot of practice with Richter as he plays VERY differently to Alucard and requires more precise button inputs.

Richter is like Ivy in Soul Calibur: god tier to anyone who can master him fully, but a walking suicide trap to everyone else.

And then there's Maria in DXC, who deals no damage but takes all of it.

She's just a walking suicide trap ALL the time.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: VladCT on December 18, 2015, 01:44:48 AM
And then there's Maria in DXC, who deals no damage but takes all of it.

She's just a walking suicide trap ALL the time.
You know, I've been wondering about her Up + QCF dash move for a while now. What purpose does it serve? It doesn't even have invincibility frames, for crying out loud.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Lumi Kløvstad on December 18, 2015, 02:15:06 AM
You know, I've been wondering about her Up + QCF dash move for a while now. What purpose does it serve? It doesn't even have invincibility frames, for crying out loud.

Honestly, I can't say as I have any idea as I don't even remember what it looks like.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: zangetsu468 on December 18, 2015, 05:19:19 AM
Only if you're really good with the controller or are using a hotkeyed emulator to easily do his dash and superjump. And that kind of skill takes a lot of practice with Richter as he plays VERY differently to Alucard and requires more precise button inputs.

I say this as someone who has never played SOTN on an emulator, the PSX controller is more difficult and can get tiring.
The first time ever I played with Richter on a Saturn controller I nearly made it to the last room in about 13-15 minutes but kept dying on one part at the 11 minute mark. It's not that difficult on a SS pad, I don't consider myself an advanced gamer either.

You know, I've been wondering about her Up + QCF dash move for a while now. What purpose does it serve? It doesn't even have invincibility frames, for crying out loud.

There's certain areas of the map you can't access without superjumping or going bat (Alucard) that's why it's there. There's probably no invincibility because Maria has an arsenal of moves at her disposal.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Lumi Kløvstad on December 18, 2015, 05:58:06 AM
There's probably no invincibility because Maria has an arsenal of moves at her disposal.

And in DXC they're all useless at keeping her alive and her enemies dead.

Maria's mode on the PSP is mostly "sprint from boss to boss and hope you don't get nicked on the way there". She was a complete game breaker in the original Saturn port where she appeared, as I understand things (able to FLYING NINJA KICK everything to death), and they nerfed her too heavily in the PSP port in their noble-but-flawed attempt to make the game better balanced.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: zangetsu468 on December 18, 2015, 06:15:25 AM
And in DXC they're all useless at keeping her alive and her enemies dead.

Maria's mode on the PSP is mostly "sprint from boss to boss and hope you don't get nicked on the way there". She was a complete game breaker in the original Saturn port where she appeared, as I understand things (able to FLYING NINJA KICK everything to death), and they nerfed her too heavily in the PSP port in their noble-but-flawed attempt to make the game better balanced.

She was broken but fun in the SS version. I prefer the feel of her character compared to Richter as the additional playable character.

The PSP trying to be a "complete" version should've included both Marias and the additional areas from the SS version.

Were they actually trying to balance the game? I'm not so certain, she seems too underpowered. I'd say her mode IS hard mode on PSP SOTN.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: VladCT on December 18, 2015, 07:44:29 AM
Honestly, I would've preferred if we got a Maria that's somewhere in between her SS and PSP versions (*cough*likeinSerio'sgame*cough* :V).
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: X on December 18, 2015, 04:14:54 PM
Frankly Maria could have been powerful in DXC. All they had to do was put her attack power just below that of Richter and it would've been fine. While she doesn't use the Vampirekiller she is a Belmont in blood, so there was no excuse to not have her abilities being reasonably strong in this case. She was quite strong in Rondo. Why didn't they simply go with that but reduce it just a tad for SotN?
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Lumi Kløvstad on December 18, 2015, 08:38:12 PM
By that logic, you have to wonder how she went from being the game Easy Mode to being the Masochist mode.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Belmontoya on December 18, 2015, 09:53:30 PM
I imported my Nocturne in The Moonlight back way back in the day just to play as Maria.

It was worth it!

Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: zangetsu468 on December 18, 2015, 11:48:21 PM
@X she was nerfed for the same reason Julius was nerfed in DoS, and he's the last main heir to the Belmont Legacy. It's a gameplay mechanic, nothing more.
SS Maria (playable) was stronger and more nimble than both Alucard and Richter, why?
Realistically Richter could easily kill them both. It's about gameplay and difficulty not whose blood is from where.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: son_the_vampire on December 29, 2015, 02:24:08 PM
Richter is easy mode; with practice of course.

Try playing holding the controller upside down if it's a challenge you seek.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Lumi Kløvstad on December 29, 2015, 02:29:23 PM
Richter is easy mode; with practice of course.

Try playing holding the controller upside down if it's a challenge you seek.

Pretty sure Alucard is the easy mode here.

Evidenced by the fact that I die as Alucard maybe 3-4 times on a given playthrough and like... 99+ times on a given Richter playthrough.

On a Maria play, I die like 90k+ times. In the opening hallway. WHY DO ALL HER ATTACKS DO THE SCRATCH DAMAGE EQUIVALENT OF SCRATCH DAMAGE
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Jorge D. Fuentes on December 29, 2015, 03:07:36 PM
I don't remember the last time I died in SotN as Alucard.
Unless that one time I was trying to do the 'keep your items' glitch attack on a second playthrough and took too much damage.  Pretty sure that doesn't count, though.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: DoctaMario on January 04, 2016, 06:48:05 PM
I imported my Nocturne in The Moonlight back way back in the day just to play as Maria.

It was worth it!

I actually just found my copy of NitM back at my parents' house and downloaded a Saturn emulator to be able to play it. Man she is way overpowered and It. Is. AWESOME.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: piscesdreams on January 04, 2016, 09:29:59 PM
I've never played NitM. Maybe when I feel like going through SOTN again I'll go this route instead.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Lumi Kløvstad on January 04, 2016, 11:30:52 PM
I've always been much kinder to NitM than most, I think, and I believe it was well on the way to accomplishing something great. Most of the extra features are welcome additions for me, and it's merely the rushed execution I take issue with. For instance, while I think the new Richter sprite looks pretty bad, I applaud that they had the sense to question why Richter is still wearing the same clothes, especially as he's shown in the arena to be wearing his new dud prior to that fight, also implying that the Alucard Spear (which I think just began as a mistranslation of "Lecarde Spear" as the names are phonetically similar in English -- maybe Nagumo can weigh in) got its name by being, at one point, a spear wielded by Alucard.

I think the PSP "Director's Cut" of Symphony in DXC should have finished what Notcurne began, polishing up the Saturn version's additions and elaborating where necessary.

But alas!
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: zangetsu468 on January 05, 2016, 03:01:41 AM
I've always been much kinder to NitM than most, I think, and I believe it was well on the way to accomplishing something great. Most of the extra features are welcome additions for me, and it's merely the rushed execution I take issue with.

I completely agree. For me personally the screen slowdown wasn't an issue as plenty of older games suffered from this (not that it's an excuse but it's a me thing) but it was moreso the transparency and 3d visual effects which the larger Sword Spectres that didn't look right, as well as that room in the Holy chapel with the stained glass cruciform window that looked bad in the SS version.

However, the pro's heavily outweigh the cons imo. Most notably another character to play as (biased as she is my favourite) but also additional and variant tracks, and the music sounding better on the SS than PSX imo.

Also not sure if it was just me, but some spots - although few and far between - in the game seem to have higher frame rate than the PSX.
One example is the very first part of the game with Alucard (prior to Death/ 'item loss skip'-room) where there are wolves, it just seemed to me upon playing that their frame rate was higher or smoother or something. I will say that other areas in the game specifically in the catacombs and under water/ anywhere with multiple enemies or attacks.
Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Lumi Kløvstad on January 05, 2016, 03:16:02 AM
also additional and variant tracks, and the music sounding better on the SS than PSX imo.

Chaconne in C-moll for organ  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BapQXrhSpQo)outdoes everything else in the series that tries to be gothic (okay, BAROQUE; WHATEVER), and has a blast doing it.

Title: Re: Making Symphony of the Night harder?
Post by: Jazz Paladin Productions on January 07, 2016, 08:03:47 PM
While in theory I would say that SOTN could be harder, at a second glance, I would say that the game pretty much already gives the player a very customized difficulty level.

Inhibition is the key, really, all one needs to do is equip weaker gear, and you're set. Ever try beating the game with just the short sword? It is possible. Again, setting limits on one's desires to equip only the best gear is really the key to making for a more satisfying challenge.