The Clan of the Cave Bague

DEATH == DEADED. My first attempt at DEATH filled me with unreasoning fear. He is the grim reaper, after all. So, I fired off a panic-laden “nneeeaaargh!” type email to deKay and decided to have another go.

I looked at my soul configuration and decided to go for something a little more defensive. First off, I equipped Axe Armour (which lobs axes up the way) as it’s fairly gentle on mana and gets in multiple hits of about 30hp each. I then went for the Company of Bats soul specifically to let me get out of the way of the orrible horizontal skull attack. My third equipped soul was the one which boosts constitution a little.

Going in, I played purely defensively – dodging his attacks but staying close enough that I could keep up a constant barrage of axe lobs. Flapping upwards at the appropriate time got me out of the way of the zoomy skulls of doom, and in the end DEATH was deaded without me taking much in the way of damage (although I did go through an obscene amount of high-mind-up potions).

The ability death leaves is quite nifty – acting as a kind of semi random mini smartbomb by firing out little scythes at odd angles. Anyway, progressing on I got to the Abyss, which is NOT a nice place. I believe Tasslehoff Burrfoot said the same thing. Anyway, I scampered around – got a nifty high jump ability and found the save point before the penultimate (I think) boss. I had a go of the boss and died. RUBBISH. I only had one small potion with me and the beggar summons swarms of locusts which do uber damage, so I’ll need to trek all the way back through the abyss to get to the teleport to go to Tescos and get more potions.

Kept my appointment at the centre of the map. Twice. The first time, I neglected to wear a certain piece of jewellery (which, in fairness, it would be unlikely that I’d know to do this at this stage) which resulted in my being EVIL and unleashing the wrath of the Belmont clan. So – that would be another bad ending then It has, however, helpfully unlocked Julius mode, which is ACE.

Anyway, reloaded, equipped said bauble, and headed back only to find……. no boss! There was a very interesting cutscene which hints at a relationship of some kind between Soma and Genya. Given Genya’s androgenous looks, I’m hoping it’s purely platonic. AND they’ve pointed me in the direction I need to go next – the big tower in the south east of the map. Methinks it may be time to do a massive bit of exploration to make sure I find all the mirrors that are dotted around the place before going any further. I’m thinking the next boss is likely to be Death. And then Dracula. Maybe.

So, a top tip is – when you’re playing a Castlevania game and it seems like you’ve reached the end of game guy, don’t kill him, but look for an alternative way. In this instance, the alternative was to spot the big fiery scary looking geezer in the mirror and pop through to give him a good ganking.

I only had a few potions with me, so it was going to be a tough fight (even though I’m level 45) but I got him on my second attempt. I found a little devil familiar combined with some vertically chucked axes worked wonders. Not much damage individually, but they wore him down eventually – all I had to do was keep out of his way (not easy when he fills the screen) and keep swigging mana potions.

So – one more boss down, and I’m being lured to the center of the map. I wonder if the shoot-flames-along-the-ground power up will open that portal at the base of the tower……

Dawn of sorrow is a very pretty game – the further I get the prettier it seems to become – lots of pseudo 3d stuff going on and beautiful painted sprites. So I thought I’d put in some screenshots since it’s a while since I’ve done that.

All in all, a lovely game. Trouble is, I have a funny feeling I’ve missed a big section underneath the tower – where the swirly black portal is. That part of the map is looking suspiciously empty. Anyhoo, I’m on the pinnacle and we’ll see where I end up from there.

You’ll notied, by the way, in the screenshots there are a lot of Big Things(tm). That’s because Castlevania is full of Big Things(tm).

Hah! Well, in response to deKay’s unwarranted abuse, I’ve pwn0rised the clock tower and gubbed Paranoia. There’s a downside though – now I can hop through mirrors, so I’m going to have to rummage through the whole castle looking for all the bits I’ve missed.

I have to say, the pseudo-plasma graphical effect when you’re through the mirror is truly lovely.

Clock Tower:

NYEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGHHHH!

That is all.

The more observant among you may have noticed a brief loss of service there – nelefa.org has just been moved from Donhost back to the inimitable Yoyo Collective Consciousness. But it’s all over now and normal service has resumed.

This is so far beyond irony that it’s actually painful. To think that the biggest advocates of immoral software patenting are being stung by their own greed is a much needed indication that there is some justice in the world after all Perhaps Microsoft should have spent more time keeping its own house in order, rather than coding new ways of restricting what people are allowed to do with their own computers.

BBC NEWS | Business | Patent row could hit MP3 industry
News that Microsoft has been fined for violating MP3 patents belonging to Alcatel-Lucent could have widespread fallout for the industry.

Ok, so after gubbing the dirty great zombie dinosaur thing, I wandered around in vain for – ohhh – a good couple of hours, unsure what to do next. Then I remembered that the room where the boss dies isn’t actually the boss room, but at the very bottom of the tower. So, much double-jumping with flying armour later, I was back at the top of the tower and found a shiny key which opened the doors half way down.

So – that led me to the clock tower which is NOT a good place to be. The difficulty curve, at least as far as the environment goes, is through the roof – it’s a sticky place. Loads of spikes. There’s not much worse than being on a spinning disk which is slowly moving towards spiky death when you’re petrified by a medusa head. Then there’s the annoying flappy things which make you lose all control until you’ve mashed the living daylight out of the buttons.

Anyway – in the clock tower, there was a minor boss – easy to defeat but with an ACEBEST power up. I can now stop time. Oh yes – and very handy it is too. So, this has opened up another bit for me where I met a big bat boss. So I can now turn into a bat and flap about the place! Hooray!

I am writing this post as an experiment. I am endeavoring to observe and measure the Martin-Minute. The Martin-Minute is the period of time which elapses between me making a post and RedSmartie posting a comment.

Get Ready…

Get Set…

G-G-G-G-Goooooooooo!