Get Your Medusa Head In The Game - Let's Play Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Get Your Medusa Head In The Game - Let's Play Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow!

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Released in 2003, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is one of the last and best Metroidvanias made for the Gameboy Advance.

After Dracula's final defeat in 1999, he and his castle were sealed into the eclipse because reasons. In 2035, Soma Cruz and his fabulous coat were sucked into the eclipse, and now he must conquer the castle and absorb the monsters' powers in order to escape, and find his girlfriend a personality. The game's story is simple and predictable, but it does what needs to be done, and provides a twist that is, if not surprising, at least creative, and takes the series in a new direction.

We're gonna be ignoring all of that poo poo.

My name is PMush Perfect, and I am going to be performing a challenge run. Specifically to spite this game's RPG elements, I am going to be completing the entire game without ever killing a single unnecessary enemy, up to the true final boss, Chaos.

How's this gonna work?
This is going to be a hybrid LP of a sort. On Normal, I will be completing each section in a single run, with deaths mostly edited out, using subtitles to explain the strategies and quirks of this particular challenge. Then, once you know what I'm supposed to be doing, Hard will be a montage of my many, many deaths (and occasional successes) for two co-commentators to bathe in schadenfreude and laugh at me sucking at video games. There will be a rotating roster for the latter, so if you have a mic and a sense of humor and you want in on this, shoot me a PM.

Spoiler Policy
I would prefer we avoid gameplay spoilers, because for anyone who does not know the game, I don't want to ruin the surprise of just how I'm going to get my rear end kicked. Story spoilers, I'm much more lax about, and won't really be paying any attention to. If you'd like a more standard run of the game, I recommend Garin's Hard Mode LP. It's definitely not a bad story, just not what I'm here for.

Normal Mode

Hard Mode

Featuring Herr Tog and UZWorm

Featuring Herr Tog and CirclMastr

Hard Mode discontinued because, frankly, I'm just not good enough.

Special

Featuring Castleween!

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Jun 28, 2017

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 03:06

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 11:09

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Hard #1 coming soon. Editing an hour and a half of me dying to regular rear end enemies takes a long time.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 23:11

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

This time on Medusa Head: Expositional yet pointless dialogue.

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Mar 18, 2017

# ¿ Mar 2, 2017 02:37

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

WilliamAnderson posted:

"This video is not available."

Hmm. I know some browsers can't handle https links, for whatever reason, but I don't think that's what's happening here. I've viewed it successfully on several different computers (and one phone), so, unfortunately, I think the problem is probably on your end.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2017 23:11

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I'm also pretty sure that you can get Giant Bat before needing to go that way, which just lets you fly through the slot instead.

Bingo.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2017 23:30

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Featuring Herr Tog and UZWorm

# ¿ Mar 5, 2017 23:50

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

quote:

Mama Hen - Today at 1:08 PM
Sorry about radio silence on the LP. I've been trying to get the soul from one of the bosses

I looked up stuff from TAS resources about RNG manipulation

And every so often, a seed will just straight-up freeze the game

After about a hundred attempts, I am ready to say, fairly definitively

It is impossible to get the soul because every time it WOULD drop, the game softlocks.

THIS TOOK SEVERAL HOURS OF ATTEMPTS TO FIGURE OUT

I am going to need to take a short break from the game now.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 22:16

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

It may in fact be because I was toying around with gameshark codes earlier to try and turn on 100% soul drop rate, to save myself from grinding like this in the future.

...I may need to test if this freezes ANY soul drop.

:negative:

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 22:52

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Yeah, Manticore, so I can get under the waterfall. If I can get the Great Armor soul in the bargain, cool, but that's not necessary.

I didn't do it in the Normal run because there, the Balmung is more than enough. But on hard, that extra little boost from the Claimh Solais is gonna be crucial.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 23:33

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV7a4uahTOI

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 06:52

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

This Time On Medusa Head: Probably only like half of the music in this episode is from Aria.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2017 14:45

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

hanales posted:

This is a frustrating challenge to watch, because so many of the enemies are jerks and deserve a swift death.

Especially blue devils.

When I was first planning this run, I actually spent a long time calculating XP on just how many enemies I could kill out of convenience without gaining a level. In the end, I decided it was against the spirit of the challenge, and to only get the two necessary kills (one Flame Demon and one Succubus), but it was very, very tempting.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2017 20:12

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

I am so sorry for the next video.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2017 22:49

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

I don't know what kind of wicked witch I pissed off to curse this LP, but over the course of the last week, I've been fighting with CirclMaster's audio being so out of sync that I could swear it becomes more out of sync when I try to replay it. It was literally almost ten minutes shorter than everyone else's.

I'm finally buckling down to finish it up but Jesus loving Christ, this LP. :cripes:

Edit

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Mar 27, 2017

# ¿ Mar 27, 2017 09:32

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

A week and a half later, I finally figured out where the gremlin came from. It's my video editing software again. And yet, I'd still rather deal with this than pay several hundred dollars for a program that actually works, or gently caress around for however long it'll take to learn Avisynth.

...I really need to learn how to use Avisynth.

Anyways, here's a new video or whatever.

Featuring Herr Tog and CirclMastr
Content Warning: :effort:

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Mar 28, 2017

# ¿ Mar 28, 2017 17:37

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Simply Simon posted:

"Oh, hey, this doesn't seem so-"

Simply Simon posted:

code:

vid = 	title.FadeOut(60,$FFFFFF) + video4.FadeIn(60,$FFFFFF).FadeOut(60,$FFFFFF) +\
	dissolve(video.Trim(20254,21454).ChangeSpeed(2).FadeIn(60,$FFFFFF).Overlay(music,mask=music.ShowAlpha(),0,0)+video.Trim(21455,22364).ChangeSpeed(2), 
        video2.Trim(18858,20701).ChangeSpeed(2), video3.Trim(19392,21036).ChangeSpeed(2), video.Trim(22696,24924), 60)

# ¿ Mar 28, 2017 19:02

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Herr Tog posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TQQKpwYnzg

I am in fact not dying but need to do a Tay Zonday and move away from the mic to breathe or cough.

Fun fact: Al has never sung Hardware Store live. I don't think anyone can blame him.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2017 21:24

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Double-posting to say that I fixed the 10 minutes of dead air at the end and reuploaded. Oops.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2017 21:47

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Herr Tog posted:

You know? I am honestly surprised. Not even like on a TV show?

I've been trying to find an original source, but I can't. Even the 'official' wiki doesn't really have a source on that tidbit. So... :shrug:

I could be wrong!

Edit I appreciate how we're all avoiding the elephant graveyard in the room.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2017 01:17

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

This time on Medusa Head: Gets your torches and pitchforks!

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Apr 5, 2017

# ¿ Apr 1, 2017 18:50

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

I went ahead and changed the button.

New episode coming as soon as I stop being obsessed with Zero Time Dilemma.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2017 03:02

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Time for me to sell out while I put off updating the LP for just a little bit longer.

I'm looking to use an Aria of Sorrow avatar, but I'm not sure what! So, anyone willing to throw out ideas or even images/gifs, you might win the pride of knowing a FFF-list LPer has your idea as their avatar on SomethingAwful.com!

If I can't decide, I'll probably just get a Soma walkcycle or something.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 08:05

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Soma sitting on his throne when Julius confronts him. Ideally without the text in front of course, but you can use the text as your avatar text.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 11:11

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

This time on Medusa Head: DMCA Takedowns!

# ¿ Apr 21, 2017 01:55

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

hanales posted:

I spent so much time riding those boats thinking they would break a wall or something revealing a secret. I must have wasted hours.

Well, you do ride a boat over a ramp to get to a certain area before you get the double-jump, but it's completely optional and not super important.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

That blue imp room looked like a pain in the rear end. How long did you spend punching the air there?

So long I seriously considered killing as many as I could without leveling up.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2017 03:14

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skKZPNDEjHc

# ¿ May 16, 2017 21:06

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

This Time on Medusa Head: An actual, honest-to-God update.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 19:10

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Well, I've been going back and forth on this for a while, but I think it's time to just admit it: I'm not good enough to complete the Hard mode version of this challenge. Not while keeping up all the work required to record and keep track of everything I'm doing, and even if I do eventually succeed at the Valkyrie tower, there's a lot more and a lot worse to come. Dreading doing it almost killed the LP, so it's time for me to throw in the towel.

Normal mode will still continue just fine, though! (I've actually got all the raw video recorded, now it's just a matter of :effort:

# ¿ Jun 15, 2017 08:48

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Herr Tog posted:

can we still hand out and talk about video games?

Hell, you can still make fun of me for being bad at video games. I'll just need to find a different one.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2017 12:06

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

C-Euro posted:

Also I'm sad that you didn't give a shout-out to the Medusa Head soul in your latest video, as it completely chumps part 2 of the Balore fight.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2017 14:07

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

This time on Medusa Head: Making up for lost time!

I actually had most of the work for these episodes done before the hiatus, I just had to brush off the files and finish it up.

For the record, there are two more regular videos to come, and then I'm going to be doing something a little special with the final fight.

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Jun 17, 2017

# ¿ Jun 17, 2017 13:37

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

You ever make a reference to a video you haven't actually released yet, but just finished editing, and forgot you haven't posted it yet?

Because I just did that. :j:

# ¿ Jun 18, 2017 04:54

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

This Time On Medusa Head: Incredibly obvious musical foreshadowing!

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jun 25, 2017

# ¿ Jun 25, 2017 01:53

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I am loving these music edits.

On the other hand, I hadn't really anticipated just how much you'd be able to brute-force these fights via healing potions. I mean, you can't carry an unbounded supply of them, but they do give you a hell of a lot more leeway than I'd expected you'd have.

This is part of why Hard kicked my rear end. "Brute force through potions" just stops being an option.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2017 05:32

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

CirclMastr posted:

The last good Castlevania was 2.

Fight me.

It's okay if you never played OoE, a lot of people didn't.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2017 18:51

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

This Time on Medusa Head: No montages!

# ¿ Jun 26, 2017 20:53

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

For the Final Time on Medusa Head: Music!

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 11:11

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 11:09

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Blaze Dragon posted:

Now you're doing Julius Mode, right?

That would honestly probably be easier than this (if I weren't so bad at Julius mode). There's not much to gain from killing regular enemies in Julius aside from convenience.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

...I'm giving you some weird looks for Sonic Boom and the kazoo Bloody Tears, though.

I accept those looks with pride.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 20:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Get Your Medusa Head In The Game - Let's Play Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow!