The more I play the new DLC, the worse it becomes

[noisyturtle]

Level is way too big, time is far too short, exp is much too little, visibility is near zero, sidescrolling sections are horrible.

The more I play, the less thought out and unbalanced the Castlevania DLC feels to me.
Just an opinion

[Hyper Realistic Blood]

Sounds like you might just need to take a break from the map. Luckily, a lot of the unlocks don't rely on being there. I know I've been having a blast with CV characters in the library and tower.

[Blackdragon]

Quite the opposite seemed quite simple to me, although very fun.

[fourskulls]

I actually fixed the too little xp problem. It seems I had turned off Charm/Curse while playing the Contra level. When I turned it on I'm able to make to to lvl 200/300 (if I can survive).

[Arcane Wayfarer]

If you have unlocked endless mode, time will not be much of an issue.

[Albireo]

Second the charm/curse. Ode really feels like a proper expansion to the base game. Should be doable without but you would need to creep through 1 chievo at a time. Very slow, not fun. Turn on increased spawn rates.

[Mr.Joel]

I personally consider the Castlevania map to big multiple maps combined into a big one. I just pick a section I want to explore to focus on unlocks or general fun and teleport there.

[Okhu]

What is people doing that they are xp starved?... my last run on that map I was about level 400 before Death showed up.

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Mr.Joel:

I personally consider the Castlevania map to big multiple maps combined into a big one. I just pick a section I want to explore to focus on unlocks or general fun and teleport there.

Exactly this. I think this intent is clear with the teleporters and how half of it is locked until the Throne Room Event.

[Atomicbean]

There's legit no reason to not just play with Endless Mode on - It doesn't prevent anything, except ~maybe~ the one specific character unlock that requires you to "beat" a stage with 2 different characters, which is ridiculously easy to just do on one of the 15 min maps with hurry mode on in 7 1/2 mins anyway.

Hurry Mode also makes exp gains a moot point, and if you have endless + Darkassos, it's by far the better option to have it on for the extra chest every minute of in-game time, which becomes every 30 seconds.

My last run I was level 1600 by the 28 minute mark without hurry active. Just go ASAP grab a arma dio and select the new mana thingy that increases enemy density. Literally the first thing you should do. Hail to the Future (Darkasso) makes accessory selection a completely moot point these days, so no real reason to try and wait on picking one of them up. The only reason to not do Bolero/Hail/Crystal Cries as your first 3 arcana is if you don't WANT the game to be stupidly easy and your power to scale ridiculously high. Which I honestly do understand, but the fact that I could clear every single part of the fully unlocked map in sub 30 mins on a 0 egg character (this last run where I hit 1600 before 30 mins.) means that... it's not really an issue of map design? Just a question of how much you want to break the game or not.

My big issue with the DLC is simply how many things there are to unlock for a DLC that only has... 1 map... and before you start saying things like "but you can unlock most stuff on other maps", sure, that's true for the first 20 characters. But not true for the secrets, nor like half of the massive 80? characters that you have to unlock. There's literally only like 84 total characters between base game, updates and all DLC prior to this. That's right. There's literally almost as many characters to unlock from this ONE map as there has been in the years the game has been out. And if you don't count stuff like Random and some of the ghosts and other near identical secret characters, or the megalos, as real characters.... it's basically the same or even more.

[UmbreonMessiah]

Wow, I can't imagine what it would be like to be you. The more I play this DLC the more I fall in love. This might legitimately be the greatest DLC ever released for any game, ever. There's almost TOO MUCH to do, and all of it is fun.

[Jaeus]

Originally posted by Okhu:

What is people doing that they are xp starved?... my last run on that map I was about level 400 before Death showed up.

To be fair, power-up Charm doesn't seem to even work on the stage. But maybe it does once you've beaten the throne room unlock at least once. My exp issues feel possibly less severe than when first clearing the map... maybe.
I never considered just turning Endless on... really shows how accustomed I am to either killing or dying or quitting to Red Death to end a run.

I think my major complaint with the DLC is:
PLEASE GIVE US AN OPACITY SLIDER!
Some of the major union weapons literally cover the entire screen and block out all other graphics, and some like the Gale book are half the screen on their own.

And I'm someone who is used to Limit Breaking weapons so hard I can count the pixel... Singular pixel, that is half the screen size.