Topic: MJ1990's Super Castlevania IV No-damage, Hard Mode, "Eternal Candle" Challenge

[markyjoe1990]

I've hit a snag...

In block 7, there are enemies that can destroy candles. While the rules don't really say anything about enemies destroying candles, I think it'd be more impressive if I still killed them before they destroyed any candles.

The first enemy that does this isn't a problem. The second one however is in a terrain one-tile lower than mine, and it's about 10 pixels away from the nearest candle, which is heads straight for. I can only manage one hit on it before it knocks the candle out and there's not enough room between the enemy and the elevation left of it for me to get enough hits in on it before it hits me.

[markyjoe1990]

Woo. Block 7 is up.

Super Castlevania IV: Hard Mode, No-Damage, Eternal Candle Challenge [Block 7]

Despite the wolf enemy destroying a candle, the rules specifically state that only the player cannot destroy the candles. Nothing is said about enemies, so... yeah.

[uzo]

He didn't so much destroy it as knock it over, so that's fine.

Really cool stuff there too. I like how you just by passed the stair segment, knowing exactly where to jump down. Also the boss music was fitting. One of my favorites too.

[markyjoe1990]

Fun fact: I've always, ALWAYS skipped the stair way area. I've always considered it way too tedious to go through normally, and since you have to go downstairs rather than up, it makes combat really annoying due to Simon's inability to aim downwards while on stairs.

Also, Block 8 was disappointingly easy. It'll likely be up by thursday.

[Sinful]

I prefer to skip the stairways too. Except I haven't played this game near enough to have them memorized, so when I fear I'm getting near the bottom, I'll stop. But I still land on enemies sometimes or even die from hitting the bottom. Meh, beats going down them still.


Anyways, nice vids. Plus I'm a fan of making games that I know well more challenging by setting higher goals for myself too. And man, all games should have at least one extra loop or extra difficulty levels (hidden or not), or more of both (Man, Super Castlevania should of had at least one more difficulty as the second loop feels like normal difficulty... but if it was the game might of not been as popular? IGA knows best. People like easy games. Yep, yep yep. And I should know, I turned into one of them during the 32-bit era... luckily I recovered... though moods may change and I may go back >_>)

And in regards to the vids, I kinda do wish you had the original tunes. But that's just me as I'm more of a fan of videogame sounding tunes then say redbook audio of say, let's say, Rondo of Blood for PC-Engine. So don't mind me... But for these vids your doing, it does make your videos much more unique, on the bright side, thus stands out more + more memorable... Well, can't wait for your next vid. And thank goodness it'll be up soon, as I'm loving them.

[markyjoe1990]

I've been playing Block 9, Block A, and Block B and can safely say that Block A is going to be easy. Block 9 is hard due to it's length and dickery with the skeletons, and Block B................ *cries* Will be the worst Block in the entire series.

[Sinful]

and Block B................ *cries* Will be the worst Block in the entire series.

Um, because the bosses, right?

Anywho, today's the day still, right?

[markyjoe1990]

Um, because the bosses, right?

Anywho, today's the day still, right?

Block B is hard because of two bosses in particular. Slogra and Dracula. Gaibon has a relatively predictable pattern, and nearly all of Death's attacks are negated by brandishing your whip or not being in the way.

So why are Slogra and Dracula hard?

Despite the fact that he gets knocked fifty billion feet in the air after each hit, Slogra has a long invincibility grace period that allows him to get a lot of attacks in. After being hit and landing back on the ground, he can instantly open up with an attack. While the wand he uses is easy to avoid, the problem comes in when he uses the lunge attack upon landing, which not only requires timing with precision on par with Kaizo Mario world hacks, but requires you can be running away from him as fast as you can, since he lands very close to you no matter what. If you can't increase distance from him AND time your jump to dodge the lunge perfectly, you will be hit. He doesn't use this often while using his weapon, but when you destroy the weapon, he spams the living shit out of this.

As for Dracula, he's simply just a very long boss fight. Though, some really bad situations can occur when fighting him. in particular, if you're on right of Dracula while he summons forth a tiny energy orb, you can do nearly nothing to stop the orb since hitting it will make it launch a screen-spanning energy shot attack (Which you can only dodge successfully if you are to the left of the orb due to it's energy shot pattern), and leaving it around will let it screw you up with it's eratic movements.

Aside from that, avoiding Dracula's attacks require a lot more precision than most bosses.

The stage itself is completely pathetic until you get to the sequence near the end with skeletons and the headless guys. The skeletons are absolutely relentless. The enemy placement is astonishingly well thought out unlike most stages in the game.

What sucks though is that one mistake against ANY of the bosses means you have to play through the entire stage again,

[GuyStarwind]

This run is pretty impressive and I've enjoyed watching it. Honestly I suck so bad at this game I don't enjoy playing it. I've beat it once but that was after I exhausted all my blood, sweat, and tears. Any who I'll be looking forward to your next video.

[markyjoe1990]

It's block 8 time!

Super Castlevania IV: Hard Mode, No-Damage, Eternal Candle Challenge [Block 8]

Some of you may be offended by my choice of music for the boss.

[Sinful]

lol, what the heck was with that boss tune? And what make you think of that? (Not saying anything bad, definitely gave me a good chuckle because it fit in very well with what you were doing. So yeah, pretty creative on your part)

I must say the level tune you picked worked really well. It sounding like it had an echo made it seem much more like you were in a dungeon + even the sound effects sounded like they echoed a bit. So yeah, I must say it really enhanced the atmosphere of that level.


Smooth how you made that one skeleton dragon disappear that was placed right after that one set dropping spikes by abusing the screen scroll to make it disappear. I recall once when I didn't have a sub-weapon that it was kinda tedious to to take him out with just the whip. Thus always made sure I had a sub-weapon for that part (which is kinda out of the way to get, so I didn't quite win again in saving time )

Never knew it was that easy to walk through them long & narrow set of single dropping spikes in a row, as I always crouch walked underneath them all. And man, is that ever boring as it takes forever. ... I also never noticed that you can make it sooner past them two counter weight dropping spikes earlier to thanks to you again, as I usually wait until they both almost line up and go up together. So thanks for saving me time on something else that bored me for how long it took.


Well, all in all, another great video + learned a lot too. Glad I gave this topic a chance (almost didn't).

[markyjoe1990]

lol, what the heck was with that boss tune? And what make you think of that? (Not saying anything bad, definitely gave me a good chuckle because it fit in very well with what you were doing. So yeah, pretty creative on your part)

I must say the level tune you picked worked really well. It sounding like it had an echo made it seem much more like you were in a dungeon + even the sound effects sounded like they echoed a bit. So yeah, I must say it really enhanced the atmosphere of that level.


Smooth how you made that one skeleton dragon disappear that was placed right after that one set dropping spikes by abusing the screen scroll to make it disappear. I recall once when I didn't have a sub-weapon that it was kinda tedious to to take him out with just the whip. Thus always made sure I had a sub-weapon for that part (which is kinda out of the way to get, so I didn't quite win again in saving time )

Never knew it was that easy to walk through them long & narrow set of single dropping spikes in a row, as I always crouch walked underneath them all. And man, is that ever boring as it takes forever. ... I also never noticed that you can make it sooner past them two counter weight dropping spikes earlier to thanks to you again, as I usually wait until they both almost line up and go up together. So thanks for saving me time on something else that bored me for how long it took.


Well, all in all, another great video + learned a lot too. Glad I gave this topic a chance (almost didn't).

Thanks for your compliments. I'm quite glad my videos are helping and entertaining people.

I've recorded Block 9 and A. All that's left is B. I've mastered the strategy for Slogra. Unfortunately, luck is still involved when facing him on the first phase, and because of his eratic nature in the second phase of the fight, he's extremely nerve racking.

Gaibon, for god knows what reason, is giving me a lot of trouble. His earthquake causes spikes to fall from random parts of the cieling, and sometimes it's hard to avoid along with Gaibon's tendency to slam into you when he tries to take flight again. His random downward shots are also annoying. His second phase is the easy part.

I find it odd that Death is the easiest of the three. His sickles are completed negated by brandishing the whip, holding up and standing in the left corner. From there, his only viable attack is the scythe throw, which is easy to avoid and leaves him open for attack. My entire strategy consists of waiting for that moment.

[VladCT]

LOL, what was the boss music from? It was pretty hilarious but I am honestly ashamed that I didn't get the reference.

[markyjoe1990]

It's from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It's the Horse Racing music.

[VladCT]

Uh...can you give me some context here? I still don't get why you picked that (LOL never played OoT, problem?).