[username]

In honor of the venerable Fucking Konami Week, I've decided to play the used copy of ZOE: The 2nd Runner I picked up last week. While it seems to be a quality piece of software, I completely suck at it. I make it right past the first boss and enter the enemy ship, and then tend to die right there against the normal enemies within a minute or so, which strikes me as rather pathetic on my part. I have no experience with either this series or mech games in general (not sure if there is really much overlap here), so I'm curious if there are any handy tips to help me survive a bit better.

Also, my used copy unfortunately has a small but noticeable scratch on it that causes the intro movie to stutter, and the previous story to outright stop playing, only to start again when I tilt the PS2, which after a few seconds will stop again and force me to resume the tilting. I can still press start while it is moving to skip these so I won't outright freeze, but I'm curious if the story is "OMG so good!!!" that I should just try to find a better copy as I haven't really heard anyone say a damn thing about the story either positive or negative, and in truth if unexceptional I'd just skip the random cutscene if necessary. On a similar note, as I gave up on the previous story vid do I really need to know what happened in ZOE1 to follow this game, or is it just background info?
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http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/castlevania-sotn/clip1.mp3

[username]

No encounter in particular was giving me trouble, as I took a good chunk of damage (>50%) before getting to the first boss, who oddly enough didn't give me much trouble, and then got owned a few times in the area immediately after by normal enemies.

I think it was mainly the fact that there were 3+ "real" enemies (not like the dozens of flying tiny ones that you just mass homing to death), and while I tried to take one out the other 2 would nail me in the back. That and in all fairness I wasn't very finesse in my movements, just holding dash and charging straight in with few twists and turns on the way. I actually hadn't even thought of dashing in and out and instead tried to just stand in there and block when needed, so that plus the rapidly tapping dash tip should help make a difference. Thanks.
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http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/castlevania-sotn/clip1.mp3

[username]

After my last post I put about 2 and a half hours into the game, and while I'm still a bit rough at it, I'm at least competent enough to get through most areas with only a continue or two spent. If it wasn't for the ability to grab enemies and chuck them at other enemies I'd be screwed.

I really don't care for the camera all that much (if the right analog stick caused it to shift faster it would be much improved), and perhaps due to my own inadequacies combat still feels a bit less... elegant than I'd have hoped, but beyond that it is a pretty darn fun videogame. I'm not the biggest Gradius fan, but when you know who showed up it put a massive smile on my face.

Also, none of the story/cinema scenes have skipped or froze yet, which is a pleasant surprise. It feels like the Metal Gear Solid B-team was behind them, which is still pretty good, but if push comes to shove I could probably live without them.
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http://www.audioatrocities.com/games/castlevania-sotn/clip1.mp3