So, the new path I opened turned out to be a bunch of dead ends. I was about to leave the area until I happened to receive just the right shard at just the right time (trying to be spoiler-free here) and discovered a new area.

I believe I audibly exclaimed "holy s**t" when I saw it was an

Spoiler

Egyptian tomb

level. Like I said before, I've tried to avoid spoilers, so this was completely unexpected because I hadn't seen it before. Awesome level with great eerie music. By sheer bad luck, I apparently keep missing a save room in this area and the enemies are starting to get pretty nasty, so I ended up going through most of my healing items before I finally found a teleport room.

 

I got to the same area yesterday!

What's funny is that I got to it in an unusual order, apparently. I missed the way up to where the blood ability is, and instead ended up in the area for the bad ending. Found a bunch of cool stuff there, and then eventually made my way up to the bells. Went underground after that.

 

Interesting. So, you're saying you went to the top of the bell towers first?
I tried to do that and couldn't find a way, though I noticed that I could extend the range of the Reflective Ray ability through alchemy. I did see a couple of spots where I might be able to get higher in the towers using that upgrade. There's a also a way to enhance the jump ability...so many possibilities...

This is what's so cool about this type of game. There's no one correct way to complete everything; it depends on what shards you happen to get and what abilities you upgrade.
Oh, and the Reflective Ray is an awesome ability, with some uses beyond just the narrow spots designed for it.

 

No, I carefully hopped through a hall of rotary saws in the Livre ex Machina and found the Hall of Termination right after the Tower of Twin Dragons boss. I got a bunch of loot there, but realized I couldn't progress. Then I backtracked and found the bells from the bottom entrance like normal. Apparently, most people don't find the Hall of Termination until several areas later. **shrug**

 

Ah, gotcha.
I actually did it almost the same way. I did a little bit of exploration in the bell towers, but not a lot before I went to the tower of twin dragons. Then I did the library, the Hall of Termination, and part of the underground before going back to the bell towers.

I've been looking into buying the soundtrack, but it only seems to be available on Steam, and Steam claims I "need the base game" to get it. Is Steam the only option? I'd like it to be in a lossless format if possible, and Steam says it's available in FLAC, but again, I apparently need the game on PC first.

 

I'm pretty sure it's also available on GOG, but it might still be classified as a DLC. I can't check it from work, game-related sites are blocked  

Speaking of the soundtrack, I just got to the first bit of rock music in the game! If you haven't yet, I think you will soon.

 

So which type of Castlevania does this game play like? The Metroidvania ones or the older ones?

 

Metroidvania. It's from the director of Symphony of the Night, so the alternative would've been surprising.

 

If you do want a game that plays like the older Castlevanias, you could try Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. It's designed to look and play similar to a classic CV, though it's not quite as hard.

 

So picked up the Switch version. Finally got a chance to play it today. Minus the visual downgrade, havent had the lag issue some have had. Most likely cause I just started. (How do people see what the framerate is? since I hear it drops a lot too)

But the loading sucks. First loading screen after starting up a save takes ~30+ secs. Some screen switch takes 5-10 secs. I remember the days when cartridges has less load time than disc based.

Also the metal case that came with it...its the other system's case with a added plastic piece to hold the gamecard. Not even connected like a dual disc case...just tossed in.


The game itself. So far so good. Hopefully I can juggle this in the dozen im playing at the same time lol

 

yeah Im glad I picked up the xb1 ver also if the switch port just fails but they have already said they are planning some quick small patches for it to resolve issues...just popped in the thing and its already patching but this is probably the day 1 patch that didnt do anything.

again since I got the xb1 ver also, the steelbook is nice and I can use it for that. I keep my switch stuff in 2x24 travel cases anyway so no real issue there. art is awesome on the steelbook too.

 

Are both on the same disc or are they separate releases?

 

Separate release. Curse of the moon came out months ago

 

If you wanted curse of the moon physical I think best buy has limited run versions they are like 30 bucks but they are pretty scarce, I found one once but I had the digital on my switch and hesitated. Honestly, I kind of regret it now but it could show up again who knows

 

Just got there today  
Fairly short area, but those enemies are brutal and I died a couple times. Got the new ability and now I’m exploring the bell towers.

 

Hold up, Curse of the Moon is $30?   I think I'll pass.

 

In the last couple of areas, I've encountered a little conundrum.
I had settled on using regular swords for most of the game, due to their combination of good range, quickness, and power. However, the latest enemies I've encountered have just been too powerful for my swords, and I don't have access to any stronger swords (they're either too expensive or use alchemy ingredients I don't have). I do have a couple of great swords that are MUCH more powerful than my regular swords, so I guess I'll be using them for now, even though their slow swing has proven to be a hindrance in this game.

What's disappointing is, I obtained some kind of beast slayer whip as a rare drop from an enemy, and that whip was stronger than any of my regular swords...but then I died and lost it. Damn finicky enemy refused to give it to me the second time through  

Also, I love how the spike armor lets me just walk through item-giving candles to break them. Definitely a time-saver  

 

You probably already noticed, but there are a couple of shards you can use to speed up your greatswords.

What I would do is use crafting to get the "greatsword expertise" shard to 9 (g.sword attacks get faster at each rank). At that rank it becomes a skill shard and no longer uses a passive shard slot. You can then equip it as your passive shard anyway, for double the effect. There's also the Optimizer shard, which is effectively an "everything expertise" shard.

 

What's this about a game breaking bug?

 

The Xbox version had a bug in one update where chests would get saved in the wrong open/closed state. If you started your game before it was fixed, you may or may not be able to get key items you need to progress. A lot of people have worried that other platforms might be affected, but this doesn't seem to be the case so far.