Topic: Thoughts on CV3's cast (gameplay terms)?

[Claimh Solais]

Just curious on what people's opinions are of the CV3 cast in terms of gameplay.

My opinions?

Trevor: He is indeed the most well-balanced of the characters (I guess). While he can't control his jumps (unlike Grant) and his subweapons don't do EXTREME damage (unlike Sypha), he has a wider variety of weaponry to choose from, and his normal attacks do a much higher amount of damage. His attack range is farther as well, and he jumps pretty high. Those little gameplay aspects make him play extremely well (other than the lack of controllable jumps). Probably my favorite character to use.

Grant: He's pretty cool. The controllable jumps were a nice feature, but this was countered by how low he jumps. I find his attack range to be rather... ridiculous, as in its hard to hit anything (when I play as him, however the range problem was not present in Akumajou Densetsu). I would have preferred he got his own subweapons, rather than just two of Trevor's. However, his ability to climb on walls helped me out a lot. All in all, I say he's the middle-ground for party members.

Sypha: Probably my favorite of the party members. While her sprites in my opinion are awful to look at, her gameplay is pretty awesome. She jumps about as high and far as Trevor does, so that's no problem. Her staff is weak. As in, really weak. However, she makes up for this with her spells, which do an ass-ton of damage. Sypha is easily my favorite of the party members.

Alucard: Sucks almost entirely. The upgrades on his "fireballs" weren't exactly helpful, and his inability to attack on the stairs really made him bad to play as. Although, his ability to turn into a bat is probably one of the most helpful abilities in the game. Don't expect Al to be help in a lot of the boss fights, though.

Anyway, that's my opinion on them. What do you all think?

[JR]

I haven't played much with anyone besides Trevor, but I probably like Sypha the best. I only really tested her out against Medusa, and her flame subweapon made it really quick. I like the idea of utilizing her during boss fights and making short work of them. I kinda just stuck with Trevor after that though, since I came to the realization of how much of a hassle it would be to change over to her in the safer areas, get some candles and hopefully a good subweapon, then change back.

I have even less experience with Grant: I think I only used him in the stage you find him in. I really need to go back and do a complete playthrough with him as a partner. It sounds like an awesome playthrough to have him scale anything, so I want to try it. (I've only played all the way through this game twice, and I didn't play it for the first time until about 2005-2006, I think. Even then, I never truly appreciated the game until playing it again several months ago. I know, I'm weird.)

I used Alucard on my first playthrough. I only used him for getting past hard obstacles, and nothing else. I just remember playing through the falling blocks, and a few other parts I really hated. The path I took with Sypha was much more fun.

But yeah, overall, I think Sypha's my favorite. I like the idea of being more powerful against bosses than being able to fly or climb, I guess.

[Puwexil]

Grant has always been the most interesting partner because of how unique his totally free-form climbing stands within the series. Generally mobility-enhancing abilities like his offer more in terms of experimentation and improvisation anyway, next to someone like Sypha who's designed to mow down bosses quickly and effectively and not much else.

Regardless, Sypha's shining moment comes when you freeze the stream of water in one of the later stages. It's sort of an unparalleled moment of unexpected environment interactivity, especially in context of the platform. Alucard similarly has his when you use his bat form to bypass the falling block section, i.e. the most boring part of the game. There is an use for him after all, the lanky bastard.

[SilentCircuit]

Aside from Trevor, Grant is probably my favourite of the other three to use.

[Tanatra]

Grant is probably the most fun character to play with due to his climbing ability (though I often die while climbing around edges and on ceilings with the guy.) Alucard is good only for turning into bat form to bypass certain parts of a level. I don't think I've ever beaten the game without Sypha. Her fire spell will take down Drac's first form in no time, then Trevor w/ the axe can handle the next two.

[Josh the Funkdoc]

trevor and alucard should be pretty self-explanatory.  i will add that alucard is surprisingly good against certain bosses: phantom bat, frankenstein, death's 2nd form.  also, trevor is a tad weaker in the japanese version since holy water has a smaller hitbox and deals 1 less hit.

cv3 grant is up there with cv4 simon as the most fun oldschool cv character to play skillfully.  you'd be surprised how well he can handle bosses with that quick normal attack and triple axes!  obviously the japanese version loses a lot of the fun, what with the crappy throwing dagger and only allowing II for the axe.

sypha is the least necessary character in the US version, as most of what she does trevor does better; fire spell is far better for recovery after death than the dagger/axe, and ice spell is pretty nice in a lot of situations, but nothing compares to holy water.  in the japanese version, however, she becomes the best character in the game due to a difference in her lightning spell.  not only is it available much earlier in the JP version (ghost ship, before medusa), but hitting a boss with all 3 orbs at once does more damage than even 3 holy waters!  you can take cyclops and frankenstein down to 1 HP with this, and kill dracula's first 2 forms instantly.