beat castlevania harmony of dissonance today and oh boy is this game poorly paced

the part that i really struggled with is the lack of warp rooms for most of the game

like, i get that the first ones you run into are screwy to preserve the twist about it being two different castles

but the key to unlock all the real warp rooms should have been available shortly after that reveal so you can unlock them as you come across them and not as one of the last things you're likely to do in the whole game

(and they really expected it to be one of the last things too, given how strong the enemies around it are)

you know what i did like though, directional dashes on the bumpers

i want to say sotn had a backdash on one of the bumpers, but it didn't have a forward dash, so it was good for dodging attacks but made closing the gap again to attack annoying

while cotm had a button combo for backdash that really did my thumb in, cotm in general really did my thumb in with all its button combos

that said i think i liked cotm more than this one on the whole

after a few months of giving it a rest, i'll eventually finish out the castlevania advanced collection with aria of sorrow