VinnyVania: Symphony of the Night - Part 03

Alexlove vinnylove

I think this is my favorite GB series. Excited to watch it tonight after making pizza.

Vinny should watch It Follows

and

I truly hope they do the inverted castle

I always enjoy seeing my sticker on Alexs laptop

Also

It Follows was a cool suspense horror movie. I really loved that weird dreamy atmosphere they had going on.

I LOVE VinnyVania and I LOVE this game ^_^. Yes I'm pretty excited about it, but hey a man is allowed right? Great run!

Vinny, that horror movie you are talking about with the voodoo possession is The Skeleton Key! Great movie indeed!

Love this feature, just relaxin' and exploring in one of the best games ever.

Oh man, gotta do inverted castle--the bad ending is only like a third of the game!

Also: dang it, Vinny missed that relic in the giant zig zaggy room with the doll women so many times through.

@alex A D.Va Halloween costume is easy to pull off, just go in this sort of direction.

someone made an altar for that snorkel.

Vinnie I'm with you with Signs.

I love horror. Doesn't really scare me.

The cornfield scene in signs, where you see that.... spoilers I guess ?

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Where you see that tiny little cankle, that back of an aliens foot; that moment was probably the most frightening thing I've seen on film in like twenty years.

It "got me" jump scare wise but more importantly the scare lingered and festered beyond that point. It really unsettled me.

The pacing in Signs is pretty great all things considered.

I never go swimming without my HOLY SYMBOL.

Alex says the best/worst Usual Suspects reference at 1:02:15. Jesus Christ

A question: Are Spells in this game just contextualized cheat codes? Or just a game mechanic?

Yea, chat failed on that one.

@vinny hey just wanted to let you know Part 02 isn't attached to the Castlevania SotN game page.

god damn they got to the Colosseum and it's MY FAVORITE MUSIC YEAH ALEX I AGREE IT IS GREAT!

@tevor_the_third: Just a game mechanic. A lot of the spells are just fun little things to mix up the gameplay. However, one of the spells (soul steal) is stupid powerful and can kind of feel like cheating.

the shop dude in the game tells you how to do the spells. for a price...

Also putting in another recommendation for It Follows, really enjoyed that in theaters

It Follows,Sinister and the new chucky film only real good horror films last decade. Insidious and Conjuring were cliche filled trope trash films. Sinister is esp great. The Atmosphere and dread and slow build make it a perfect horror film.

A journey of 1000 snorkels starts with one drowning...

Vinny only half exploring a room so that he missed the relic just floating in the open at the edge of the screen hurt. Now he doesn't get to see damage numbers!

@vinny Crud I meant to post a comment on the last one well before this went up. Haven't watched this one yet.

Anyway I recently played through this game again. It's shocking how much of it one remembers (though not all at once, I mean things like "oh there's a breakable wall in this room") despite last playing it about 10 years ago.

Just some general suggestions for your playthrough:

• Don't stress about following the "right" path. The game is designed to give you a few options, though your basic strategy should be to either go to areas on the map that you haven't been to, or return to old areas after getting new relics. I think the cases where you should do the latter are pretty obvious, assuming you actually go to the menu and check what a new relic does. Also chat seems to not know what they're talking about...
• The map. It is incomplete and the goal of the game is to fill it in. You probably forgot that you bought a map from the librarian which is why you have rooms on the map before visiting them. The map has "gaps" in the walls where there are doors, but there are also breakable walls in this game. Some of them hide items, but some of them open up significant new areas.
• Alucard is OP so this game is mostly on the easy side (some bosses I think you have to be willing to cheese). So use the equipment (weapons/shield) that you like best, but also you should try out more weapons since some of them have unique effects. One tip for DPS is that you can jump in & attack right before hitting the ground, so that landing cancels the animation. Then you can attack from the ground immediately. Personally I can't stand using a slow weapon without doing this.
• Special moves with some weapons. I don't think the game tells you this in any way, but you can try fireball+attack or left-to-right+attack to get special attacks with certain weapons. There are some that are really sweet (I thought Shotel was pretty awesome). Also Shield Rod is extra special so maybe you should look that one up, just so you can see what it does.
• People will scream bloody murder if you don't complete this game for real (I think you know what I mean). I would say you don't need a guide to do it, because basically if you focus on exploring the castle and encounter Maria enough times you'd end up doing the right thing. However, I'm sure that chat will have this covered in ALL CAPS when you get there.

Enjoying my morning tea and this pre-Halloween movie talk...what, there's some Castlevania too?

BONUS

I'll add another recommend for It Follows - the soundtrack by Disasterpeace is awesome too.

@beefavenger: Yeah, you could see it at the edge of the screen a bunch of times. My OCD!

Vinny and Alex talking about movies...probably the most boring thing they ever done. I wish they care more about the game, but them talking about movies is not the best content they can provide. They are obviously bored of this game if they're trying to fill conversation by talking about something else other than what's going on in game.

Monkey Shines was shot at a hospital that I used to work at. Such a weird movie.

@baddudes: There is a lot of backtracking in this game. It's tough to say interesting new things about the game when they're in a bunch of rooms everyone has seen twice already. The only criticism is that I do wish they'd study the map more and figure out where the gaps and empty spots are before roaming.

Don't know if someone told Vinny, Leviathan is a Sci-Fi book. That is probably what he was thinking of

I'll second The Witch, I really enjoyed that one. Not really horror, but still atmospheric. I don't think that the director/producers set the horror expectation for it, but more-so critics. The trailers don't really make it seem like a horror movie in the traditional sense. On the other hand I read multiple reviews referring it as such.

Another good horror/not horror movie that is definitely creepy and has good atmosphere is The Orphanage. That has a great twist at the end as well. My fiance and I also watched Pet Sematary recently and it holds up. The acting, for the most part, is pretty atrocious, but it's eerie as hell.

*edit* And if you want fucked up: A Serbian Film.

@tevor_the_third You can also purchase scrolls that have the spell inputs n them from the old man in the library.

@tevor_the_third said:

Alucard has a mana bar that limits spell usage. But yeah, some of the spells are really OP.

Love that feeling when you walk into a new room in Castlevania and shit's already all the way fucked.

I second this advice. If an area gives you trouble, don't be afraid to go somewhere else instead of banging your head up against a place you might not be ready for. Remember that this is a game with stat/ability progression.

Prince of Darkness, Phantoms and Triangle are pretty good.

@onemanarmyy: Maybe somebody really likes Dio

This isn't my first rodeo....boateo, whatever.

I think when it's boats, it's a regatta!

As far as space-horror goes, I really liked Pandorum.

Chat has gotta step up its game. They keep missing all sorts of hidden little things.

I don't mind the movie discussions since that kind of banter is always good when they backtrack, but it seems like when they go on those rants they become very unfocused on the game itself, which in turn makes both of them miss stuff even when they try to be thorough.

Let's be honest, not much is going on in this game for the viewer (and this is coming from someone who likes it). Movie chat was my fav thing about this stream, much like how "video game code" chat was the best part of Brad's Geo Wars stream.

What kind of a sadist comes up with something like Owl Knight?
Jesus Christ!

Most of the V/H/S series is lame, which is a shame given the level of talent involved. Ti West and Adam Wingard have done amazing work elsewhere, but their segments in those movies are pretty average.

With that being said, there is a really, really good segment in V/H/S 2 called "Safe Haven" (directed by The Raid's Gareth Evans) which is absolutely worth seeing. It is metal as hell. One of the better pieces of horror filmmaking I've seen in a while.

In case @vinny reads the comments, that courage thing at the end is from Game of Thrones (at least as far as I know - it's probably from other stuff as well). Ned Stark's wisdom.

"Can a man be brave even when he's afraid?"

"Why, that's the only time a man *can* be brave."

Or something.

Loved the movie talk, but man watching Vinny play this game is so painful to someone who has so much revernance for this game, and completed it so many times. He went into a room and utterly ignored an item. I may just need to listen to the audio

I am wondering if they need a bigger / closer screen to look at while playing or something. Things that look so obvious on my screen might be a lot harder for them to see depending on how their setup is.

Most films based on Lovecraft stuff are awful, categorically. Those that are pretty good have gretly deviated from the source material, but not because a good film couldn't be made while also being faithful. In the Mouth of Madness is great but its genuinely one of those films that gets better every time you watch it just because there are so many great things hidden in plain site.

@dezvous@vinny: So true. I missed part 2 and thought they had skipped it. Then found it under popular videos. As an aside; man, I love this series! I hope they do Inverted Castle just so that it keeps this thing going...

As much as I was/still am a defender of Bloodlines, this is obviously the best Castlevania game by far; watching Vinny playing it is making me realise I'm wayyy past due another replay.

"Marble Gallery" is such a great tune.