Topic: Dawn of Sorrow, no weapons

[xdiesp]

I showed DOS to my nephew, 4 years old. Just Soma throwing soul attacks in an empty room, to stay safe lol. Little guy processed what he was saying, and sentenced: he's a magician!

This gave me the idea of setting aside all weapons and play with just souls. I still throw punches here and there, mostly for candles or finish off something. I've got to say that while the grinding of souls is required like this, still you get far more "variety" of actions this way. You keep doing different stuff.

High point is re-evaluating many secondary souls you didn't care about originally. Low, that bosses always require some mana pots to finish them off quickly.

[Chernabogue]

Nice idea here. It must be really fun!

[shelverton.]

I'm guessing it makes the game a bit more challenging too...

That actually bothers me sometimes.. Time and time again, we (the Castlevania fans) must come up with our own ways to make the games harder, cause they're simply not designed to be very challenging at all. At least not the Metroidvanias. Sure, I can try to avoid leveling up too much, but jumping over enemies to NOT gain experience points is artificial challenge. Most other RPG type games I've played don't seem to be as easy, but maybe it's just me getting somewhat "good" at Metroidvanias. Anyway, I think that in the future we should always have the option to use level caps in these games, from the get-go, not as an unlockable "new game+". I always feel cheated when I beat a Metroidvania, even if the games are mostly excellent in every other way.

But anyway, I might try this "no weapons" challenge for DoS someday

[Profbeanburrito]

I've been wanting to play DoS again, so this would be fun to try

[xdiesp]

Time and time again, we (the Castlevania fans) must come up with our own ways to make the games harder, cause they're simply not designed to be very challenging at all.

That's exactly like this. In fact, I'm doing "magician mode" on Hard and equipping only the 777 chest and soul eater ring.

[Harrycombs]

I did a no weapons challenge on Symphony. It was still really easy. This could definitely make Dawn more fun, maybe I'll try it after I finish my current playthrough of Aria.

[darkwzrd4]

I agree that the metroidvanias are way too easy and that you have to create your own challenges.  I tend to beat them within five days of buying them (especially the handheld ones).  However, a lot of the more recent ones have level caps on hard mode though (very challenging).  What I like about LoS and LoI is that despite the fact that you get upgrades in terms of health and magic, you don't level up and the amount of damage you do doesn't really change.  It's also what made the classicvanias challenging.  The enemies would get stronger, but your character would stay the same.  RPG style leveling doesn't seem to work well with CV.  Different armors, weapons, and skills along with various hp and mp increasing items hidden through out the areas seem to be the way to go.  Think SotN and OoE with a level cap of 1.  Assuming that there aren't too many max up items and ways to recover, such games should be challenging and would be the perfect marriage of gameplay styles that would appeal to the whole CV fan base.

[uzo]

I like to do "only weapon" runs of SotN and other games. Not equipping any accessories or armor, just getting new weapons. It's not as challenging as I'd like in some games but on 'hard mode' it tends to be pretty good. In SotN though I still equip some capes cause they look cool. SotN still fails in difficulty with this method though. Honestly, the only way to make the game really hard is forcing yourself to use Red Rust only, haha. But it doesn't work half the time, gets frustrating.

I wonder if someone could make a level capping code for SotN, only allowing you to gain so many, or none at all. That might make it interesting.

[Chernabogue]

I'm trying DoS with only souls, and it's kinda hard. I only have the skeleton one to attack so far. x)

[xdiesp]

I'm trying DoS with only souls, and it's kinda hard. I only have the skeleton one to attack so far. x)

Warg is incredibly powerful right at the beginning, and Axe simply devastates the first boss. Later on it gets easier, with mana pots and better souls. But you'll have to grind a lot if you want the best. Note I'm playing a New Game+ on Hard with all Luck gear.

[xdiesp]

Sorry for the doublepost, but here's the rundown with playing without weapons:

- the beginning is very hard, you have to grind Skeleton and Axe to be able and do the first boss (Flying Armor)
- right next, low mana keeps you close to candle respawns and save areas
- then you learn to use mana conservative souls. Now here's fun, because you keep switching souls at lightspeed for different kind of enemies
- you will definitely use mostly if not all the souls you receive, with lots of variety. Not using mandragora the whole damn game
- all bosses require mana potions, and you don't even need to grind much to be 100% effective against: alamaric sniper, axe armor, lilith for mad spam

There's still room for experimenting: burer + hell boar kills Abaddon in 20 sec.