FUCK YYYOOOOOUUUUU

>>11866552 (OP)
Just stunlock every boss with holy water lmao

>>11866552 (OP)
>only one hit left to kill him
>brick falls on my head
I swear this happens to me every time, or some equivalent of it.

>>11866608
The stone golem in IV, which I think most people would consider an easy boss, always fucking gets me because of the falling bricks. Something about tracking his upward motion while the blocks are going down just doesn't compute and I always end up eating a brick to the face while trying to throw an axe.

I just beat this yesterday –NES version, of course –and while I enjoyed the early game, the difficulty spike in the second half is insane! I must have blown 50 lives on Level 7's space elevator alone, and Level 8's endless gauntlet of trail-and-error one-hit kills was really quite something.

Fun game with some good music, but it needed a complete difficulty rebalance. Apparently the GB sequel is better?

>>11866635
The GB game is just as good I'd say

Is Dracula's Curse harder or easier than CV1?

>>11866642
harder

>>11866642
Play the JP ver with the TL hack (there's one with the JP titlescreen and one with a remade CV3 titlescreen ftr), it's easier than US CV3 but even then it's still harder than CV1.

>>11866552 (OP)
I dont get how anons always seem to have trouble with this boss. Just jump and throw crosses ezpz
>>11866627
You can whip the falling bricks. The only thing that makes it "hard" is that any time there are more than 2 enemies on screen or mode 7 is active the game slows and stutters and when that happens your inputs get eaten. It's one of those games that could have been great if they'd taken the time to polish the gameplay
>>11866635
It's the same thing. Space elevator followed by trap gauntlet but with jankier controls
>>11866642
Like other anon said, even the easier jp version, following the easiest path is much harder than CV1

Unless you keep Grant and just cheese the game

>>11866597
you didn't beat the game

>>11866552 (OP)
I kept attacking the small one because I thought it made more sense it was the weaker one

Someone yell at me to finish CVIII, Rondo, and Bloodlines

>>11866791
I honestly managed to beat Death with triple cross once and ever since I only ever use holy water on him

>>11867118
I killed him with the cross once, but was killed by a stray scythe before I could touch the orb.

>>11867118
Do it whip only

>>11866819
Aaaaahhh!

>>11866552 (OP)
How do I get into Castlevania 2. I'm trying to play the game without looking up a guide but it's just so frustrating, I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels unable to make any traction at all.
I'm talking to all the NPCs I can find but can't seem to work out where to get started. I know that this was apparently a tough gane back in the day too, but I'd rather beat it without using a walkthrough or not beat it at all so to speak.
Any hints?

>>11866552 (OP)
Fuck flea bunnies, fuck Medusa heads, fuck blading bonerz

>>11867213
Do you know the infamous spots that stumped people? Either way just make a map and take notes of what people say, but if you don't just play until you get frustrated and cheat like everyone else once you've felt like you exhausted everything trying to advance. There's some retranslation hacks but the 1 I played made the game way too easy. You could look at one of those translation comparison sites to see what you're getting vs a literal translation. Game is fucked, I got near the end so many times as a kid but could never figure it out. 1st time I saw what to do I nearly lost my shit like how are you supposed to figure that out? I mean, it kind of vaguely makes sense except for how long it'll take for you to actually do it. However if you do know the part I'm talking about then just make the map and persevere. There's really 2 fucky spots but 1 is a lot easier to figure out although it does take some trial and error/guess work. Or watch a let's play and follow along, or huff spray paint and punch a cop do whatever you want to do faggot. Play Symphony of the Night. See if I care.

>>11866608
Just whip the block

>>11867246
>>11867213
Oh I forgot, use holy water in the castles to find fake floors.

>>11867213
You have to equip the blue and red crystals respectively and kneel for a few seconds at a couple dead ends. The white crystal let's you see the invisible blocks in the first mansion. Draculas ring gets homeboy to take you to the 5th mansion. Everything else is straight forward.

>>11866791
>>11867118

I tried to stun lock him with holy water but missed the timing and managed to kill him normally. The real esoteric knowledge there is using the holy water to 1-shot the armors in the Medusa hallway so you can fight Death at full health

>>11867246
>>11867256
Thanks anons, I was somewhat aware of the infamous spot (hard not to be in this day and age) I'll make a map and try and push through, bit like Phantasy Star, but I think making a map made more innate sense in that game for me, so good advice lads.

>>11867118
I've never used holy water because it never occurred to me

>>11867289
>making a map made more innate sense in that game

Yeah a top-down maze is a much more intuitive sort of maze than the weird scheme this kind of game uses, where you can't ever really tell what direction you're going in the greater world because the world is neither designed nor depicted as a Euclidean plane or space. The overall map is not complex, but it's still quite easy to get lost in.

Anyway, do NOT look into the death star (or you will die).

>>11867213
It's horribly mistranslated. Use the retranslation + map hack (also adds saving like the JP original).

>>11866552 (OP)
Bosses were so much better in CV1 than 3

Hate that bastard

Easy way to fight this boss: Just move as far to the right as possible, NEVER facing left even for a moment and never jumping any higher than you need to, and then once you're over there, stay within the few rightmost columns of screen tiles always. You'll get hit a lot, but due to the way the collision logic works, being that far to the right will prevent Simon's vision radius from ever overlapping the death star, and so even if his health runs out he will never actually be able to die. That means you can whip the boss as many times as you want without any danger.

>>11866552 (OP)
This is where I get stuck too.
I beat Frank once and was basically shitting my pants with 1 life left through the next stage, where although I think I made it pretty far on my first attempt, died.

Thoughts on Adventure? I just beat it on Super Gameboy and while it was complete BS at some points (the ropes in level 3) I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I'd still rank it near the bottom of the series though.

>>11869192
It's definitely one of the weaker classicvanias but still not as bad as the internet hyperbolic chamber make people believe it is. Definitely has cool set pieces and of course a legendary soundtrack.

>>11866552 (OP)
>FUCK YYYOOOOOUUUUU
nicolas cage pls go

>>11869192
I've played the Adventure an unreasonable amount of times and reached the third or fourth loop. Not too sure why. Maybe it's the game being short and simple while something like Dracula X is more of a commitment. Maybe there's something vaguely satisfying about beating the second stage boss.

The GBC port cuts down on some of the slowdown and makes Christopher handle more like Simon and Trevor. I haven't played that one as much but it did feel a bit more like a consolevania; just takes a while to adjust to how jumping from platform to platform works there.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/8636/
I found this. I'm surprised there isn't an actual Akumajou Densetsu hack with the US difficulty.

>>11869192
It might be a hot take, but I actually think Adventure is a good game, just one trapped behind poor performance. The spotty jumping is due to the inconsistent frame rate. The whip downgrades are admittedly annoying; you basically have to try and play the game with very few hits. But it has great music, cool ideas, and was by far the best-looking GameBoy game at the time of release.

>>11869192
It's actually not bad by early Game Boy standards, but that's like saying someone is intelligent by retard standards. It has a little soul to it but it's mostly just a gimped version of the NES games because what the fuck else could it be?

It's playable and if you were a early 90's kid killing time on a family trip or something then it was nice to have. But there's honestly no good reason to play it unless you've had your fill of literally every other classicvania and feel the need to experience the entire series or are just curious about the GB era in a historical sort of sense.

>>11871916
It really annoys me how you people are redefining "hot take" for no reason. It already meant something: a take on some recent event that is hot off the presses (i.e., released right after the event itself, and quite possibly not deeply thought through or well supported with evidence). Why make it mean "a stupid opinion that is controversial"? What does the "hot" part have to do with that? Why do you let retarded new slang into your brain like this? Okay that was my daily venting of annoyance at young people and semiliterates, thank you.

>>11866642
Much harder. CV1 isn't really hard at all outside of the grim reaper.

How do people find CV2: Belmont's Revenge and CV Legends? I'm finding the former to be a certain improvement over The Adventure, desu.
Also in CV2:BR, what's up with the sub weapons? Are the Axe and Cross, like, exclusive to different versions or something? I only got Axe and Holy Water in the B&W version, and only got the Cross and Holy Water in the GBC version.

>>11867216
>fuck Medusa heads
yes

Best girl in the whole franchise.

Are the DS games retro yet?

>>11872650
>Are the DS games retro yet?
Not according to the board rules
Might be in a year or two though

>>11866552 (OP)
Bro, just use this method.

https://youtu.be/CuByLoeberM?si=R7y3d5cnMvGLk4E4&t=101

>>11872630
Belmont's Revenge is pretty well-liked. I'm fond of it myself. I guess it's a bit of a cult classic within the fanbase, like the X68K game.

I haven't played much of Legends but my understanding is that it's seen to be a regression in quality and generally gets ranked around The Adventure's level. I should get around to finishing it sometime so I can really understand what people are talking about. It might've been floatier but I'd have to check.

>Are the Axe and Cross, like, exclusive to different versions or something
Yeah. Japanese release had the Cross, English release had the Axe. Then the GBC version got the Cross in both languages.

PILE OF SECRETS!

>>11872764
Legends isn't as broken as Adventure but it's very, very dull. Levels seemingly go on forever and they're extremely monotonous, and the enemy placement along with lack of normal subweapons make them very annoying.

>>11869192
They knew they fucked up and tried to salvage it with BR

>CV3 loop 2 whip only

can you do it?

>>11866597
>tfw the first time i played through 1 i thought you could only do that on death
frankie was such a pain in the ass, not even because of him but because of igor's bitch ass
>>11867118
try it with the triple shot axe, i'd say it's easier than cross

>>11875685
Uh.... maybe? The flying skulls are the only truly awful part of 2nd loop and I guess you can brute force them as Trevor.