oh, I meant it as more of a design choice lol. Just seems weird to have this random spring in the middle of this gothic castle

Oh, okay. Yeah, they probably coulda just blocked the way with a heavy block to achieve the same effect (as they do in a couple other spots), but the spring does stand out as an interesting setpiece.

Oh yeah, I mention banning it at 1:11. Felt it would make the challenge less painful (and we can't have that can we)

@@heyfrankevans So you did, pretty blink and you miss it, that's on me.

ok, yeah, you did get them. i just figured you would be the type it use speed runner strats to bypass some things if you could.

I don't think you understand how incredibly hard Pokemon challenges are and how much effort and time goes into strategizing what to do. No one really does "beat Pokemon with X pokemon", that's something huge channels do for views. The vast majority of challenges are nuzlockes of already difficult pokemon romhacks. Both Castlevania and Pokemon have a ton of work going into them, physically and mentally, it isn't fair to dismiss the other.

​@@evelynphore7635 Dude, I know. I've watched full movies of run and bun and kaizo hacks, I've watch MartSnack beat Pokémon without visuals or audio and beat every single seed of platinum at once. I specifically mentioned x Pokémon game with x Pokémon and not just all challenges in Pokémon games because of this. I stand by my opinion that this takes more time and effort then even beating Pokémon games with Magikarp or Sunkern and the fact that Castlevania challenges are underrated on youtube.

Yeah, I figured I was missing a couple. Probably would have helped but I really didn't want to explore every single room to find them lol

why? genuinely curious lol

@@heyfrankevans RPG mechanics in games tend to allow players to cheese the challenges set forth by the game (sometimes without realizing it), creating a significantly easier experience than intended. That's fine, but it can and does often trivialize all the work that went into actually designing the player experience. I think that's fine if you're designing a game for a child, but I think the player shouldn't be able to so significantly subvert the intended experience without realizing it and taking steps to take off their seatbelt so to speak. So for Pokemon, as an example, think "My Charizard is level 40 after my second badge" vs "I am doing a mono type challenge run." Pokemon RBY had a really well refined intended experience that most players totally missed because the game didn't have better guardrails. If you're interested, there's a good KZbin essay by ... I think his name is ji_mothy? That really opened my eyes to the intentions of the dev team for Gen 1, and how something like a soft level cap could be helpful. Another example of this done right (sorry, Pokemon again) is Pokemon Clover, a fan game. It enforces a soft level cap to keep the boss fights and gym leaders relevant at every stage of the game.

Oh, it doesn't show up in game, I just edited it in there! Happy it looks realistic though

I wouldn't say so, games like Portrait of Ruin or Curse of Darkness don't have the system but leveling up still feels natural. Getting to level 99 is still really difficult, just not pretty much impossible like in SotN.

what are you on about

dawn, portrait, mirror of fate, and simon's quest all have belmonts that can level up.

@heyfrankevans doesn't Richter start at lv. 99 in Richter mode in PoR? And I figured Julius would start at max level, too. Ultimately, I believe I misspoke. I feel like it's extremely rare for a Belmont-centered (Morrises not being Belmonts) game to have character levels for the main character.

@@bryandavid192 no, I'm pretty sure they both start at level 1 like the main character. Your second statement is completely right though, character levels are pretty rare in games with a belmont as the main character

@heyfrankevans I'm willing to stand corrected on the DS alternative modes, and I can go as far as to say that I confirmed that you're correct. I could have just supposed that they shouldn't level up, and therefore, they don't, which is just silly. I just feel as though the Belmonts start out as peerless warriors throughout the series and have little room to grow in basic capability, so I find myself rejecting the idea of levels, perhaps too much.

I don't count the LoS series as the comparable to the main series, though. The premise, the family structure, and the mechanics of the game are all completely different. It might as well be a totally different franchise in my opinion.