_Auster_: (Still) playing Castlevania SotN (PS1 version from the PSN). I never played it during my early years, so thankfully I don't see it with a coat of nostalgia, and my opinion so far is that
it is pretty good. The game is pretty good, but it does have a few flaws, many of which, fortunately, did not appear in later Metroidcvanias, even those that are otherwise similar. Like these:
* Difficulty scaling is bad. The game starts out decently challenging, but then gets easier as you progress. Once you get past a certain point (and you'll probably know what point I'm talking about, once you reach it), the game suddenly gets significantly harder, only to then get easier again once you gain some levels. (Note that, if you're underleveled, you catch up quickly.)
* Stat growth at level up is random, so you can get a good level up or a bad one. (At least stats don't go *down* at level up.)
* When hit by an enemy, you do not become briefly invulnerable. This leads to being stunlocked to death, which is not fun.
* There's multiple ways to break the game, removing any difficulty the game has left. One involves a rare drop, but there's another involving two specific items with fixed locations that, when combined, break the game.