Rebalancing Castlevania.

I wrote this huge amazing post detailing how I’d like to see the characters in in Castlevania HD rebalanced… but I left it on my work computer. Which means what you’re reading right now isn’t a post, per se, so much as a placeholder which will magically transform into a post at some later time. Not unlike the majestic butterfly, in truth.

Spoiler: I wish they’d make Charlotte better.

Ten hours later…

Rebalancing the Cast: My Castlevania Dream Team

Lately I’ve been very, very bummed out about Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. I feel like the honeymoon is over, and now I’m just pounding my head against it. None of the loot I want is dropping, my favorite characters are proving to be useless in the new chapters, and speaking of those new chapters, the 8-bit level is such a monumental pile of horse-shit that it’s barely comprehendable that it made it out onto the servers. New content is all well and good, but there are things about the core game that are broken and need to be fixed if Konami intends to continue to support this game.

Those loot tables need some serious attention, for starters. Seriously, the fans are getting restless.

One thing I’ve noticed is that while there is one character in Castlevania HD who is so broken he makes all the other characters useless, far fewer players use that characters than you’d expect. Less than half of the people I play with regularly main Soma, and while I certainly see Somas running around in PUGs, he never dominates every slot in the group. I believe most serious players, hardcore speed-runners and such, probably do main Soma… but very, very few people only play one character. I imagine much of the player base use Soma and “someone else”, and a lot of what we’re seeing are folks who already have Soma where they want him and are exploring other game options.

There are some characters who rarely get played, though, and I think that’s a shame. All ten characters are fun to use, but not all ten are useful in the actual game. Xbox gaming culture being what it is, you can get booted from a group for no reason outside of showing up to the level with a “bad” character.

Therefore, I think Konami should make “eliminate bad characters” one of their design goals. In this post I’m going to pretend Konami asked me to do exactly that.

—

Soma

The weapon-using characters are Soma, Alucard and Shanoa… and there is no question they are top-tier. It is no coincidence that the best characters in the game just happen to be the current fan favorites, or that they’re featured on the game’s title screen. Within that top-tier is another top-tier, though, which consists of Soma alone. If you were to make a list of every metric by which a Castlevania HD character could be measured, Soma would be at the top of them all, often by a very large margin.

Speaking as a non-Soma player, my list of Soma balances might seem controversial. It is this: no change whatsoever. Soma is perfectly fine as-is. Yes, he breaks the game wide open. Yes, he is EZ-mode. Yes, he is mindless and thoughtless and all the 14-year-old GameFAQs monkeys flock to him like flies to shit.

So what?

Ridiculously broken characters are fun. And let’s be honest, this game would not be as popular as it is without the white-haired Jappo prettyboy swordsman who eats souls manning the helm. I am confident that Castlevania HD owes a large debt of gratitute to the popularity of Soma’s character, and I am perfectly willing to sit back and let him just dominate the game forever.

If Konami ever actually intended to make Survival mode fair, things would be different. That clearly isn’t Konami’s intention, though, and I don’t think I could argue that it should be.

—

Alucard

Everything I just said about Soma applies to Alucard as well. Alucard is, in a lot of ways, the modern face of Castlevania. Truth is, this series has not been about Belmonts since Symphony of the Night came along and stomped everyone’s nuts.

In fact, if Alucard needs re-balancing at all, I would suggest making him better. Two words: Shield Rod. I mean, shit, the game’s already broken. Why not just go full hog?

—

Shanoa

I haven’t played Shanoa, primarily because I despise everything about her and her stupid game, but she seems really powerful already and some people absolutely swear by her. She has the second-best mobility in the game thanks to Magnes, and while she can’t go anywhere Soma can’t, she can get to a lot of those places easier. (Soma needs to grind a certain number of certain kinds of souls, then use a series of precisely-timed jumps. Shanoa just needs to press LB.)

What Shanoa is missing, though, are her glyph combos from Order of Ecclesia. My initial thought was to give her the unique ability to Dual Crush by using two glyphs in quick sequence. If the MP expenditure is high enough, this would be a good way to get Dual Crushes into more common use without making them overpowered. Currently, nobody ever uses Dual Crushes because it’s too much of a hassle to coordinate two people long enough to pull one off, especially in situations requiring skillful dodging. Like, say, every single boss fight. It might be nice to see some crazy super-attacks flying around for a change, even if that means more Shanoa players.

—

Jonathan

Below the weapon-users you have the Belmont characters, who play similarly to the classic arcade-style protagonists. These characters are defined by their trademark whips, their arsenal of subweapons and their martial arts.

Jonathan’s specialty is subweapons. He gets all the standard Castlevania favorites, like crosses and axes, plus a whole slew of crazy new stuff like paper airplanes, grenades and wrecking balls. These weapons get stronger the more he uses them, and since he has so many it takes Jonathan longer to level up than any other character.

That’s the only thing that needs fixing, really. Since he has twice as many subweapons as the other Belmonts, his XP meters should fill up twice as quickly. If the road to being maxed out weren’t quite so long we might see more blonde kids out there chucking boomerangs and ninja stars.

—

Julius

J is the most widely-used Belmont character, very likely because he’s got the strongest and most versatile whip. His Vampire Killer is longer and more powerful than the others, and can be aimed in any of eight directions. His ability to whip upwards through floors at monsters that can’t retaliate is absolutely critical in some areas.

The unique attribute of his whip is that he can use it to grab magnet studs. This ability unfortunately has no utility in any of the stages that I’m familiar with. (And after a hundred Beelzebub runs, I’d say I’m pretty damn familiar.) Magnets are always placed with Shanoa in mind, which means they’re perfectly positioned to hold a character in place and fling them around the room. Not that useful for a character who can only swing and dangle.

In theory, J can go anywhere Shanoa can by grabbing a stud, jumping upward, then grabbing it again by whipping downward at it. In practice, though, this is supernaturally difficult, and made more so by the slippy Xbox controller. Expert J players are doing this already, but mere mortals like me aren’t using the magnets for anything. What a waste.

My solution: implement J’s whip so it works more like Shanoa’s Magnes. Allow J to carefully aim and fling himself from magnets exactly like Shanoa can. No, this makes no sense giving how whip-swinging mechanics worked in other Castlevania games… but then again, J was never able to grab things with his whip in the first place, so we’re already taking liberties. The character would be more fun to play, and it would bring the number of players that can reach those crazy-off-limits chests to three.

—

Richter

Richter is probably the most powerful Belmont, in terms of sheer damage output. He is, however, the most difficult to use. His specialty is in martial arts, just like in Symphony where he zipped around the map with a variety of dashes, slides, backflips and uppercuts. Played correctly, Richter is poetry in motion. The button sequences required to make use of him put the barrier of entry pretty high, though; Richter is one of the least-played characters in the game.

The kind of player who is drawn to Richter already thinks he’s perfect. I’m not that kind of player, but I see absolutely no reason to argue with them. The snap reaction here is “give him item crashes!” but I really don’t think that’s necessary. Richter’s not here to Hydro Storm everything to death, he’s here to backflip-headstomp-kneebash his way through mazes of skeletons and flea men. No need for a touch-up here.

—

Simon

I don’t like the way Simon was implemented.

For starters: Simon is an 8-bit character, which means he’s small. That’s a huge asset, and is enough to set him apart from the other Belmonts. He also came along with a whole slew of 8-bit subweapons, which were different from their modern counterparts in some unique ways.

Where they missed the boat, I think, is that all four Belmonts can use those 8-bit subweapons, and Simon can use the modern ones. In fact, Simon comes equipped with the modern ones, and the 8-bit ones have to be farmed up from chests. And not only that, but the only subweapon XP that counts towards powering up Simon’s whip are the same ones that count for Julius and Richter; his 8-bit weapons don’t alter the stats of his whip at all.

A new Simon player, therefore, needs to ignore the 8-bit weapons and charge up the modern ones. I think this is backwards. I don’t think 8-bit attacks should be exclusive to 8-bit characters, but I do think there should be an incentive for 8-bit characters to use those 8-bit attacks.

—

Maria

The bottom-tier characters are the magic-users. These three characters almost never get played, so they need the biggest buffs. Of them, I am least familiar with Maria. I do know she has two very powerful assets: she’s small, which is great for dodging and positioning, and she can drop-kick. That right there is a leg up on the other magic-users, giving her a whole host of offensive and defensive options Yoko and Charlotte could only dream of, but which the rest of the cast takes for granted.

Maria got a huge boost in the balance patch that hit a while ago, in the form of MP reduction on her attacks and a damage boost. It’s not enough, though. Even wearing as much MP-boosting and MP-regen gear as you can get your hands on, a Maria player will still burn through her entire mana pool in just a few seconds. Her options at that point aren’t great. She can: 1) fight the boss with her doves, which is about the same as “not fighting the boss”; 2) run around waiting for her mana to refill; or 3) let her teammates do the work for her.

Even with the fastest mana regen possible, waiting two seconds between attacks is not fun… especially not when Soma and Shanoa are sitting there with their blenders and giant rock fists punching merrily along.

Since these three characters are so mana-intensive, it only seems fitting that their gear reflect it. To some extent it already does; the amazingly good Robe Decolette doesn’t drop for anyone else. (It doesn’t drop for me, either, grr.) In addition, I would make MP-bolstering accessories like Sage Rings, Chaos Rings and Astral Rings exclusive to magic-users. (Not that the rest of the cast uses those items as it is!)

Finally, I would just give them a blanket bonus to their base MP; they’d start with 150 instead of 100. This would allow Maria’s initial salvo of cats and birds to go on longer. Still not enough to spam a boss to death, but probably good enough that her MP would last throughout a well-played fight without having to resort to a Mana Prism to recharge.

—

Yoko

I only recently started playing Yoko. I’d avoided her because her lack of variety really turned me off; she doesn’t even have enough Hunter Skills to fill up all four of her attack commands! After a bit of grinding, though, I discovered that what Yoko lacks in variety she makes up for in sheer power. All three of her elemental attacks are incredibly strong. Properly played, Yoko can out-damage Soma in many fights. That’s no small feat.

All Yoko needs, besides the same MP boost Maria gets, is the ability to drop-kick. I see no reason to deny any Castlevania HD character this very basic move. Her spells are strong, but they are also awkward, and if her MP runs out she must fall back on what is the weakest and shortest-ranged regular attack in the game. She doesn’t need to be further crippled by being unable to headbounce.

—

Charlotte

Ah, my Charlotte. My broken heart personified. This could really be its own separate post.

Charlotte used to be so, so good. She had the Heal spell, see, which spent 40 MP and restored 60+ HP. All she needed was an Astral Ring, which allows you to cast spells with your HP, and bam! — infinite mana battery. As long as she stayed above 40 HP she could stay alive casting spells forever. None of Charlotte’s spells were very powerful, but that didn’t matter. Her ability to cast them endlessly made her one of the best solo characters, and her ability to cast Heal endlessly made her irreplaceable in teams.

Then the patch came. Now, under best-case-scenario conditions, Heal costs 50 MP and restores 47. No more mana battery. Laboring under the same mana constraints as everyone else, her lackluster attacks really took a hit in functionality.

I can see why the nerf had to happen: all a team needed was a single, half-awake Charlotte player and it would be impossible to lose. Even a team full of twinked-out Somas needs to stay on guard at least part of the time during normal play, but with Charlotte in the group? You could literally have your healbot stand just outside the boss room, chain-casting Heal, leaving a permanent rainbow of magical health just sitting on-screen for anyone who wanted it.

This had to be fixed. I understand that. But man, without that mana pool exploit Charlotte is so weak that there’s no reason to use her ever. Having invested nearly 40 hours into maxing her out, it was like Konami had just come by and pissed in my Cheerios.

The first thing I’d do to help Charlotte would be to give her a drop-kick, using the same rationale as for Yoko. The second thing I’d do is give her the same MP boost as the other two casters.

Next, I would restore Heal’s invincibility frames. Used to be Charlotte was invincible for a moment after casting Heal. This allowed her to walk through fire, granting her access to certain chests the designers didn’t mean for her to access. The idea was that Player 1 would stand on a switch to turn off the fire, then Player 2 would go get the chest. Well, if Player 1 was Charlotte, she could just cast Heal, walk through the fire, open the chest, then cast Heal again to get back. I wouldn’t consider this a big loss if not for the fact that other players can still do it. Soma and Julius both have moves that get them through fire, both of which are “working as intended”. This was never a game-breaking glitch, just a minor perk, so it would be nice for bottom-ass-tier Charlotte to have it back.

With those three things taken care of, Charlotte is still the worst character in the game, like, by a huge amount. Heal is still amazing, but Maria and Yoko can do that now too with a bit of grinding, so it’s no longer unique. What Charlotte needs is a cool, unique feature that makes her appealing to players. I came up with two ideas.

Make her a full-blown support character.
Some people are already claiming that Charlotte is a support character, but it’s not true. She currently has 25-ish spells, 24 of which are attacks. The last one is Heal, which is now situational at best. Even the most dedicated, well-played and well-equipped Charlotte in the world cannot keep pace with the damage bosses are capable of inflicting in this game. To really play a support role, Charlotte would need some other method outside of restoring HP.

Fortunately, this is easy! Add three new spells to the game, similar to Heal in execution, which raise stats in a manner similar to how food works. One spell for +STR, one for +CON, and one for +INT, and Charlotte would have everything she needs to be the perfect buffbot. The bigger the party, the more powerful Charlotte becomes. If Charlotte waltzes into the boss room and drops 150 MP worth of buffs, she’s more than pulled her weight. Every team would want Charlotte.

She still sucks as a solo character, but that’s okay! If there’s room for the braindead uggo character (Soma) and the rock-hard pixel-counter (Richter), there’s room for the passive white mage player.

Or, alternately…

Find some way to make her a mana battery without making her invincible.
The whole point of the healbot exploit was that it was okay for Charlotte to have weak attacks, because she could cast them indefinitely without caring much about mana regeneration. That was enough to make her viable in most fights. The mana battery part of the exploit was absolutely fine; it was the infinite HP part that was broken.

I know this sounds stupid, but the solution is a spell that restores MP. Maybe something which costs 20 and restores 40. This, combined with the rapid regeneration granted by her best gear, would allow her to chain-cast Energy Flow thirty times instead of ten. When she backed off to recuperate, she’d only be out of the fight for five seconds instead of twenty.

Of course, this just opens up the possibility of the old broken endless Heal cycle again. It seems like every aspect of Charlotte is balanced around that one spell. Maybe the solution is to just give the exploit back, exactly the way it was, and who cares if it breaks shit. I had fun with it, anyway.