Post B2hg4e0KQmySlbc1iK by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
(DIR) More posts by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
(DIR) Post #B2ZHNUyUSUPmpPQ9zs by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-23T05:45:48.800427Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
Aria of Sorrow, Retroarch, with no shaders, the NSO color correction shader, the mGBA color correction option, and then the standard non-NSO GBA color correction shader
(DIR) Post #B2ZHNWYKaig7irCIV6 by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-23T05:50:49.098271Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton I'll play it tomorrow
(DIR) Post #B2ZHNXEs2Yhpqn6Go4 by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-23T05:56:06.212845Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
Aria of Sorrow is pretty good, one of the absolute best of the metroidvania styled Castlevanias
(DIR) Post #B2ZHQWKxqiVJvGNFUO by LittleTom@poa.st
2026-01-23T06:27:25.097806Z
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@DrRyanSkelton NSO one is pretty good.
(DIR) Post #B2ZOojny7wpsJzR3M8 by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-23T06:29:44.130203Z
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@LittleTom Definitely the one I am leaning toward. Github says it was designed to mimic the switch online GBA color filter, hence the NSO
(DIR) Post #B2ZOolM2MlgJ7wNm64 by LittleTom@poa.st
2026-01-23T07:50:12.657446Z
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@DrRyanSkelton Yeah I was impressed that Nintendo actually cared enough to implement it.
(DIR) Post #B2ajrPnbG2I3L2LBLc by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-23T20:58:52.424073Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton >Castlevania in Japan with a student protagonistWe had the Castlevania anime all this time. It actually looks great.
(DIR) Post #B2ajrQsbEvsqgpggmO by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-23T21:25:55.811806Z
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@deadheat So true. Only thing you need to know is this is generally a fairly easy game. Luck is not real so do not make any gear decisions based on raising the Luck stat.
(DIR) Post #B2ajrRXMnMUejGlFK4 by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-23T22:30:27.320571Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton Yeah the game is surprisingly easy. I got the Eurasia rom and was actually wondering if they hacked the game to make you stronger. I was thinking about grinding a bit for souls to see what they all do, but if Luck doesn't work I guess I will just play normally. Also sex with ???
(DIR) Post #B2ajrSLLnWTZEI9AES by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-23T22:35:21.260289Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Grinding for every soul is deranged. The only thing that meaningfully makes them drop more is the ring Hammer sells at an absurd price. Yoko CUTE.Also I would not recommend googling this game as there is a story spoiler that is, by its nature, very easy to spoil. Doesn't mean a lot if you do get it spoiled but best to avoid it if possible.
(DIR) Post #B2ajrT8Grdbjg12EU4 by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-23T23:19:57.042164Z
2 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton Yeah wikitrannies often spoil the story in half of the articles for no reason, I just avoid them all before completing the game
(DIR) Post #B2aoGU4Iv9A5dUMZrE by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-23T23:36:30.994019Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton Yes she is very cute. Thank you friend.
(DIR) Post #B2cSHXm2otbGk5qI1A by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-24T14:31:52.765895Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton Did you catch the Sky Fish? This game has some fun secrets.
(DIR) Post #B2cvHc6pbBh0rIx0im by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-24T16:25:16.971370Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@deadheat I have seen neither of those. Nice.
(DIR) Post #B2cvHdOwnJmIrmQzb6 by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-24T22:11:05.285821Z
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@DrRyanSkelton There are some rooms in the ice caverns where some sort of ray of light crosses the screen in a split second, so I had the autistic idea of using the Time Rabbit soul to freeze time just to look at it. If you freeze time as the thing is crossing the screen, it turns into a flying fish that you can kill. The Sky Fish soul is that angel on the second image, if you use it you get an attack and luck buff for some 5 seconds.There's also another secret enemy you can kill with the Time Rabbit, when you enter a room at the end of the wine cellar after the boss, you can see something burrowing into the ground and disappearing. If you use the Time Stop power before entering the room, you catch the Tsuchinoko before he goes and you can kill him.I like that the game gives very visible clues to these things, I still haven't looked into any guide, so there may be even more things around to do with the Time Rabbit I haven't found. The soul drop % seems to be pretty generous with these monsters btw, I got them in 3-5 tries.
(DIR) Post #B2cvHeeE9zawjSai3M by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-25T00:05:30.303085Z
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Those I think I have gotten but on an old playthrough YEARS ago. I think if you DO put in autistic effort to get 100% souls the game will give you an infinite MP ring for the effort though by the time you do that you can probably beat the game just mashing the attack button
(DIR) Post #B2cvHfQRGk9x8z9DCS by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-25T00:15:14.293000Z
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@DrRyanSkelton BAD ENDINGYeah there's no way I would try to get all monster souls, even getting the souls ring would be too much time and effort since it costs 300k gold (I think 240k with the Tsuchinoko soul equipped)
(DIR) Post #B2cvHfzBBZwssjOxLk by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-25T00:23:57.307619Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
If you need a hint for getting past that, there are three books, and the check for when you have complied with the requirements is upon dealing the last bit of damage to Graham.
(DIR) Post #B2cvHgqhyYlbYkRhmi by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-25T00:35:23.247360Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton I just looked it up just to make sure, thankfully I already have all the souls required, funny thing I actually had the three equipped since they are good but swapped the giant bat for Death to fight Graham. Now just checking on the cute girl for the extra dialogue before moving on.
(DIR) Post #B2edHdltj1FSTNUKQ4 by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-25T00:42:29.329919Z
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The young lady in the old Dracula novel was Mina Harker if memory serves lol.You've almost certainly seen where you need to go next but it's a bit of a "Wait, THAT'S where they want me to go next?" the first time you play as it's not exactly marked "Draculas only beyond this point" so if you need a hint I can provide.Also I forget precisely when they let you have it but black panther is now basically the only thing you'll ever put on R, at least once you get it.
(DIR) Post #B2edHeoPr8rBhTfqz2 by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-25T02:48:36.298454Z
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@DrRyanSkelton Alright really good game. It's interesting that Final Fantasy Tactics also had its next game released for the GBA, and it's pretty good too.
(DIR) Post #B2edHfN9lye7RDvb8K by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-25T03:29:22.073584Z
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Evil demon washing machine slain. This represents one of the first peaks of the Metroidvania CVs after SOTN where they really figured out the formula. The three games that followed this were largely just "Aria but with X", up to Bloodstained which really is also just Aria but with X too. The two previous GBA games were kinda misfires, and Aria didn't get a real challenge until OoE and Bloodstained.Also, funny story, my first run of the game I needed money and I thought "Well, this Claimh is super good and better than everything else. There's NO WAY there's anything between here and the end of the game that resists Holy!" right before I discovered Julius was the next boss.
(DIR) Post #B2edHfvBjRrt8lqmB6 by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-25T03:49:25.040330Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton Have you played any of the 3D games? I played a little bit of Curse of Darkness for the PS2 a long time ago but that game was boring
(DIR) Post #B2fA6jN5rSyj8uI9NQ by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-25T23:36:31.013241Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton This one was a misfire? Let's see how bad it is.
(DIR) Post #B2fA6kOY3XjiJhypHc by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-25T23:46:21.288983Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
It's PLAYABLE but you'll immediately recognize that Yamane Michiru's tracks all got reduced to "dvvvv dvvv dv dv dvvvvv" sounds due to limited cart space
(DIR) Post #B2fA6lF0uThgwQWj3o by mwee@mai.waifuism.life
2026-01-26T02:32:09.769Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club The composition was great just limited by the hardware https://youtu.be/ouwGpIW9Twk?list=PLCBFCB11FD122D30C
(DIR) Post #B2hg4YB65q1UhGbXfM by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-26T01:26:40.402181Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Also it's like impossible to die. I honestly don't think there's more than maybe 2 or 3 bosses that even can theoretically kill you, outside of maybe having too much fun L/R dashing and damage tanking between save points
(DIR) Post #B2hg4ZQ1TpYYXqayZM by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-26T01:59:39.954044Z
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@DrRyanSkelton Furniture collecting? What's going on big guy?The dashing is good, but he's pretty slow in general, also I don't like the uncontrollable suicide jumping when attacking from Castlevania XX. If every magic book you get gives you a different magic for every sub-weapon, that's a lot of spells that you can cast, but since the sub-weapons are not easily available I'll probably be using the homing ice daggers for the rest of the game.I'm liking it tbh, it's not as good as aria of sorrow because you are so slow and the game is already making me backtrack around areas I already explored and I'm in the first hour of the game, but I'm glad they learned good game design lessons from it.
(DIR) Post #B2hg4aZHCuYK6pvsdE by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-26T02:40:27.432241Z
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The movement in this game is intolerable unless you are mashing L/R to just speed through the game
(DIR) Post #B2hg4bGWc79CGyAQ2i by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-26T03:32:33.305577Z
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@DrRyanSkelton This is actually painful, every room is full of platforming and enemies, you can't really fly through them, and after clearing it all you will have to come back later and do it all over again because they thought the teleport room should be at the bottom of the map far away from what you have to come back to do :l_ugh:
(DIR) Post #B2hg4c5DZdhGoBsu3c by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-26T03:42:53.751676Z
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If you wanna do a full lap of these GBAvanias, COTM came before both and it's jank in the totally opposite direction as HoD: Quite hard but very safe, boring, and awkward. Also very slow.
(DIR) Post #B2hg4csUcR71H0wFrU by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-26T14:36:52.986879Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton AI Lydie. Gemini is total garbage though, if I still had NovelAI I would make a great Lydie.
(DIR) Post #B2hg4dph4KT2EcdX8a by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-26T16:31:33.089392Z
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SEX with Lydie
(DIR) Post #B2hg4e0KQmySlbc1iK by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-26T22:22:42.442477Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton I had fun but I can't believe they made a double castle this big with a character this slow and with no means of fast travel. The teleport rooms move you from castle A to B and vice-versa, I guess because they wanted to make the game very linear all the way to the end, but it was really awful having to always walk all the way everywhere. I did not try to 200% the map, you will end up doing it just by how much the game makes you wander around, it probably took just some extra 10 minutes to cover some unexplored corner.
(DIR) Post #B2hg4ehDrJHkudgHZY by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-27T00:10:55.201953Z
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Also definitely a game made to overcorrect for the GBA's screen and needing some sort of color correction in emulation badly. Yeah, so much of the game was just dead ends at the end of a giant one way path sending you to other dead ends nestled at the end of other bullshit paths. Definitely one I'm not intending to play again.
(DIR) Post #B2hg4evkzGuZdiTtE8 by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-27T00:23:15.875123Z
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The color stuff is partly because COTM got fried by reviewers for being too dark to see on the GBA's screen and it was their first attempt, so HOD hard corrected in the opposite direction. On emulator, you will have no idea from where the complaints could have come.My main opinion is that IGA REALLY wanted this to be SOTN2, there's so much STUFF packed in this game that's just not necessary. So many bosses that just can barely even hurt you so many areas that just waste time, I believe it that they cut the music rather than cut the game content down just from looking at the game, not so much from any official source except that it's obvious Yamane Michiru doesn't compose dishwasher noises. Ever. Not since the 90s has she done that.I've heard Maxim mode is fun but I'd rather jab rusty needles into my temples.
(DIR) Post #B2hg4fPXCYjN84Pfdo by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-27T00:37:52.617648Z
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@DrRyanSkelton >Maxim modeDidn't know about that but absolutely not, I'm done with this game
(DIR) Post #B2hg4fcePnDrmkY95M by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-27T04:45:33.553261Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton I played 15 minutes of it because WHY NOT, I was actually curious about what sort of character he wasHe moves at least twice the speed of Juste and has an invulnerable spinning forward jump that you can use to bypass any enemy. I made it to the entrances to the final boss but they were both locked, you can't get the Dracula relics to open them and there was nothing in the throne rooms so I have no idea what you are even supposed to do with himPlaying with him is actually pretty fun, and that's crazy. They not only knew what would make the game more fun, but they did it in an alternative game mode.
(DIR) Post #B2hg4gTTFPTQQZGKPo by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-27T04:56:49.354790Z
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I really REALLY don't want to have to try to play this dogshit game again but that is a pretty nice sales pitch.
(DIR) Post #B2hg4hKI51iz4NyVkG by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-27T05:49:48.788155Z
2 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton Yeah he plays like a ninja, very fast movement, very fast attack speed with a sword, he can't use subweapons and throws his sword at medium range with his hearts. Wiki says you have to kill all the bosses for the final boss door to open, but I'm not doing that, I'm good now.Probably going to play Dawn of Sorrow next
(DIR) Post #B2iDl34WuugBAAPBEO by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-27T06:09:26.700355Z
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Dawn of Sorrow, you'll find very quickly, discards the Kojima Ayami art of Aria to make it an animevania that looks like the cheap seasonal anime. If you aren't using the Dominus Collection to play it you may want some romhack to avoid having to draw the seals on the touch screen. (I highly recommend the Dominus Collection if you want to play the three DSvanias. It is a real value add ahead of emulation.) There's parts of Dawn that are good, the graphics and music are phenomenal (Part of that is achieved by reusing every single Rondo sprite, same as SOTN), but the balancing is worse. Weapons now have to be fused with souls and thus the growth paths are either "Grind infinitely (The drop rates are still shit and Luck is I believe still not a real stat.)" or "See what other people recommend for the few weapons that are easy and super good" and the level design is just worse than Aria in general.
(DIR) Post #B2iDl3wlfG43sNmUls by DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club
2026-01-27T06:19:02.360571Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
youtu.be/N4MPOzr6g8A This video is actually really good at just telling you what you need to collect to get winning souls and weapons at a good cost/effort ratio but if you just grind at it you should be fine too. It's still not a hard game
(DIR) Post #B2iDl4p0PbRwab9oJM by deadheat@freesoftwareextremist.com
2026-01-27T12:18:54.896795Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton >farming and grindingPlease no... Maybe I could try Circle of the Moon next but that game looks rough, I'm pretty sure HoD improved a lot upon it. It's interesting that Castlevania went through all this evolution cycle years after SotN which theoretically was their peak
(DIR) Post #B2iLtofocSRgkJXLgO by mwee@mai.waifuism.life
2026-01-27T15:28:26.458Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@DrRyanSkelton@shin.mugicha.club This is why I recommend playing the maxim mod at least. He can zip through the castle like he's on speed.