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Gaming trivialities...
Still working on the Saturn version of Symphony and on Portrait. I killed a boss in each of them today. I tend to get overly nervous about bosses.
In Symphony, I shouldn't have bothered. It was Karasuman in the Clock Tower, and it might just have been the most pathetic boss I can think of---ironic given how tough parts of that stage are. You can just knock it into the corner and juggle it until it's dead; it never even touched me. While my boss-anxiety is kicking in this time through Symphony (I dawdled for some time before taking on the Werewolf and Minotaur and again on Olrox, then didn't have undue trouble with either of them), the only bosses I can even remember being killed by are the first two. My first time through the game, Gaibon and Slogra took several tries, and then the first Doppelganger killed me at least once (this time through he bat-charged me a couple of times; "That's not fair! Give that back, you!! GRR!"). Of course, as Symphony goes along, it really becomes stacked in the player's favor, so that even the most powerful bosses in the end are only as hard as you want them to be. (The Symphony playthrough I posted in my project, turns out they one-hit-killed Scylla by accident; Skull Shield spell; I remember doing that to Granfaloon once, too, but I meant it...)
Maybe that will happen with Portrait, too, but it hasn't yet, and today I met the first boss, Dullahan. Some of his attacks are really brutal; he killed me twice. Given my anxiety problems, I'm rather proud of myself that I just kept trying. I drank some potions, but on the third try, I got him. ^__^
It seems like those first bosses are either awfully simple or simply awful. Some, like Creaking Skull in Aria, are just pathetically easy, but if they're not, the limited resources you have early in the game can make it rough.
Speaking of making it rough, on the Saturn Symphony game, I've been running into some "what I get for using an emulator." Apparently a problem even in the real game is that the Saturn didn't handle transparency the way the PlayStation did, so some of the originally-cool effects are kind of clunky and ugly-looking. Then the emulator handles it even worse. Until now, it was just even more clunky and ugly-looking, but now, er... The water is completely opaque. The walls around it are visible, but I can't see myself, enemies, items, anything that's in the water. I'm resilient enough at this point in the game that I think I can blunder through it (starting to be stacked in my favor, plus I can go there on my PlayStation version and see where things are), but a pain in the butt. I haven't gotten that far yet, but I'm worried by what my bat-sonar looks like, too. If that thing doesn't work, I could be in some serious trouble here in a bit. Especially with a cleared save on the PlayStation version to examine that spike maze at leisure, I can probably manage it somehow even if it doesn't work (I'm wondering if I would have enough MP to slip through it as a mist if I know exactly where I'm going), and I shouldn't just assume that it won't before I try it, but it could potentially be a huge pain in the butt.
On a brighter note, I've encountered some of the content I hadn't seen before, including the second fairy and second demon familiars, the Astral Dagger (has a homing attack) and a color-changing cape (which is neat, but often not Alucard's best colors and occasionally downright fruity; when it turns orange sherbet colored with a pink lining...?). I've been through one of the Saturn-specific castle areas, too, the Cursed Prison, and, well... The thing is two rooms. The new enemies that are in one of those rooms look pretty painfully tacked-on, and perhaps the most interesting thing about it was trying to figure out what those things hanging from the ceiling in the background were supposed to be. It's just kind of levered in connecting the shaft leading to the Cavern with the Cthulhu hallway in the Marble Gallery, right under the inverse of Dracula's room. I could think of much better places to add things in... (Like if that gear-clicking puzzle in the clock tower actually led you into a whole new map area that would connect up with Olrox's Quarters (the prison part?) and the Library, or fill out more below the Stone Rose hallway and the Outer Wall.) But no, they did that, and the Underground Garden which runs below the Entrance and doesn't, as far as I know, connect with anything else at all. Ah, well. It's still fun, you know. ^_~
BTW, more insights from the Japanese-language version: it's still called the "Holy Symbol" (literally, katakana hooriishimboru), and it still looks just like a Snorkel. I think everybody nicknames it the Holy Snorkel...
Still working on the Saturn version of Symphony and on Portrait. I killed a boss in each of them today. I tend to get overly nervous about bosses.
In Symphony, I shouldn't have bothered. It was Karasuman in the Clock Tower, and it might just have been the most pathetic boss I can think of---ironic given how tough parts of that stage are. You can just knock it into the corner and juggle it until it's dead; it never even touched me. While my boss-anxiety is kicking in this time through Symphony (I dawdled for some time before taking on the Werewolf and Minotaur and again on Olrox, then didn't have undue trouble with either of them), the only bosses I can even remember being killed by are the first two. My first time through the game, Gaibon and Slogra took several tries, and then the first Doppelganger killed me at least once (this time through he bat-charged me a couple of times; "That's not fair! Give that back, you!! GRR!"). Of course, as Symphony goes along, it really becomes stacked in the player's favor, so that even the most powerful bosses in the end are only as hard as you want them to be. (The Symphony playthrough I posted in my project, turns out they one-hit-killed Scylla by accident; Skull Shield spell; I remember doing that to Granfaloon once, too, but I meant it...)
Maybe that will happen with Portrait, too, but it hasn't yet, and today I met the first boss, Dullahan. Some of his attacks are really brutal; he killed me twice. Given my anxiety problems, I'm rather proud of myself that I just kept trying. I drank some potions, but on the third try, I got him. ^__^
It seems like those first bosses are either awfully simple or simply awful. Some, like Creaking Skull in Aria, are just pathetically easy, but if they're not, the limited resources you have early in the game can make it rough.
Speaking of making it rough, on the Saturn Symphony game, I've been running into some "what I get for using an emulator." Apparently a problem even in the real game is that the Saturn didn't handle transparency the way the PlayStation did, so some of the originally-cool effects are kind of clunky and ugly-looking. Then the emulator handles it even worse. Until now, it was just even more clunky and ugly-looking, but now, er... The water is completely opaque. The walls around it are visible, but I can't see myself, enemies, items, anything that's in the water. I'm resilient enough at this point in the game that I think I can blunder through it (starting to be stacked in my favor, plus I can go there on my PlayStation version and see where things are), but a pain in the butt. I haven't gotten that far yet, but I'm worried by what my bat-sonar looks like, too. If that thing doesn't work, I could be in some serious trouble here in a bit. Especially with a cleared save on the PlayStation version to examine that spike maze at leisure, I can probably manage it somehow even if it doesn't work (I'm wondering if I would have enough MP to slip through it as a mist if I know exactly where I'm going), and I shouldn't just assume that it won't before I try it, but it could potentially be a huge pain in the butt.
On a brighter note, I've encountered some of the content I hadn't seen before, including the second fairy and second demon familiars, the Astral Dagger (has a homing attack) and a color-changing cape (which is neat, but often not Alucard's best colors and occasionally downright fruity; when it turns orange sherbet colored with a pink lining...?). I've been through one of the Saturn-specific castle areas, too, the Cursed Prison, and, well... The thing is two rooms. The new enemies that are in one of those rooms look pretty painfully tacked-on, and perhaps the most interesting thing about it was trying to figure out what those things hanging from the ceiling in the background were supposed to be. It's just kind of levered in connecting the shaft leading to the Cavern with the Cthulhu hallway in the Marble Gallery, right under the inverse of Dracula's room. I could think of much better places to add things in... (Like if that gear-clicking puzzle in the clock tower actually led you into a whole new map area that would connect up with Olrox's Quarters (the prison part?) and the Library, or fill out more below the Stone Rose hallway and the Outer Wall.) But no, they did that, and the Underground Garden which runs below the Entrance and doesn't, as far as I know, connect with anything else at all. Ah, well. It's still fun, you know. ^_~
BTW, more insights from the Japanese-language version: it's still called the "Holy Symbol" (literally, katakana hooriishimboru), and it still looks just like a Snorkel. I think everybody nicknames it the Holy Snorkel...
