Here's the funniest thing about the Clock Tower in SotN: It's not the fact that it's obviously a stopping point for early players, like most armchair critics like myself love to point out. Yes, you can only basically walk into the entrance of the area before finding the need to turn back and explore the castle some more. It isn't because it's a classic area of the series, either. Clock towers were basically baked into just about every Castlevania at this point, so its appearance here is basically par for the course.
No, what makes this particular Clock Tower interesting is that it practically doesn't matter unless you're gunning for the best ending of the game. There aren't any key items to be found in it (the Fire of Bat doesn't count), and by the time you make it to the point where you can properly map it, most of the weapons and items scoured through it are old news. There also aren't any save rooms here, either. You finish it or you don't, and that's pretty much that. I guess for the hardcore, though, this is soonest one can find the Muramasa sword, which takes a ridiculous amount of effort to bring to its full potential. I've already said it enough times, but you never need to do what needs to be done with it to destroy the game, and even if you do, it's assured overkill anyway. But I'm not you, Mr./Ms. Muramasa wielder, so you do you.
From a video-making perspective, this area presents its own unique challenges. For one, it's another of those areas with a lot of wide open space, so I was initially concerned about not having enough to say (which wasn't the problem). The other hard part, though, is the constant assault of Medusa Heads inside the actual CT. It can be hard to stay put while my dialog rolls along while also putting up with that, which is one of the reasons I stop for a while to talk about the Harpies without actually getting in there and dealing with them (SECRET: The other reason is because I sat in that spot expecting to talk about something totally different for way too long, so it made more sense to get through the Harpy explanation ahead of time as opposed to re-recording the video).
This episode also has a bit of obvious re-recorded dialog sections. I never, ever, use the Cross weapon in this game. It's too expensive to toss and doesn't inflict enough damage vs. the Holy Water to justify hanging on to it, and lacks a certain versatility when other weapons/ magic will give you the same effect. So, it's probably been, shit, years since I actually picked up the Cross and used it, and totally forgot that it was basically an item crash and not the boomerang like in other games of the series. That patch of dialog needed some fixing as well as other stuff that you can probably make out on your own. I try to have these videos down to a science, but sometimes, you know, memories and such get in the way.
No discussion question this time. This area's about as straightforward as it comes, and there wasn't anything that struck me as odd that was worth talking about (but I'm happy to be proven wrong). The next episode, though, is going to be an odd one. I need to head back and map all of the hidden rooms and areas that I couldn't without the ability to fly, but backtracking is boring, so I'll use the time to drop in further info and dev tidbits that didn't fit neatly anywhere else. That said, I'm on the fence about taking the slowest possible route or blasting through it to save some stuff for later. Sine there isn't a ton of development info left to talk about, I might lean for the latter. I don't know.
Again, thanks for watching.
