Board 8 > The Cadence of Hyrule DLC kicks ass

(+) Yeah! (+)

I held off on getting Cadence of Hyrule until the physical edition came out with all the content, and was wondering if it was a mistake to get it as nobody seems to talk about this game at all since it came out. I didn't even know there was DLC to it!

But man am I glad I got it anyway, it's such a blast. Maybe a tad easy but I prefer that to the headdesk shenanigans of NecroDancer's impossible modes. The DLC is pretty well-integrated into the story too, I didn't realise I was playing extra content at first. For those who don't know (there's a really weirdly sparse amount of info about this online) Symphony of the Mask adds a whole Dark World map to the story, smaller than the regular map but sizable. There's a bunch of new mini-dungeons and enemies, the difficulty is increased quite a bit (but not to an unfair level), and there's two 'proper' dungeons with bosses and instruments and a new variation on the Ganon fight. Skull Kid plays well with his masks and he can't touch the OP weapons that you get by the end of the main story, I'm really impressed by this whole thing.

Am I just out of the loop or did nobody talk about this when it came out? It's so good! Maybe sacrilegious to say but this is probably a high tier 2D Zelda for me overall. So many of the songs are stuck in my head, I love Gerudo Valley but Lost Woods surprised me with how catchy it is. Also the Synthrova DLC fight is awesome. Haven't even tried the other extra characters yet!

Please play this game/DLC if it slipped you by too!

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I've been thinking about grabbing this, but I didn't think much of Necrodancer so I wasn't sure. Hyrule Warriors did make Dynasty Warriors work for me though, so maybe it's worth it anyway.

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It's definitely similar to Necrodancer, but it has more of a Zelda feel than I expected it too. It feels more like a Zelda game with some Necrodancer mechanics than a Necrodancer game set in the Zelda universe, if that makes sense. I think I might've preferred the latter, personally, but I highly enjoyed what we got.
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It's much less roguelite than CotND if that's what put you off, and it's not as hard in general. I agree with Mac, it's a 2D Zelda with rhythm mechanics, not Necrodancer with a Zelda skin. The dungeons (except the DLC ones) are the most like a typical level from Necrodancer but that's about it. The overworld is randomly generated but set once you start your run, and the general progression feels more like A Link Between Worlds than anything else with all the freedom you have.

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Loved the original game but I haven't gotten around to trying the DLC. Soon.

And yeah, I feel like I was the only one hyped about this game when it came out. This thread might be the only other time I've seen it mentioned here.

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Link kicks ass. Why? He kicks ass by virtue of being a knight. Knights, as we all know from history class, kicked ass. They came in hordes, rode horses, and slashed people up good. Link does all those, and more. What killed knights? Longbowmen. Longbowmen were little crappers that had the annoying ability to shoot arrows right through the thickest of armor. Imagine rushing at the enemy, resplendent in your ass-kicking armor, and then the guy next to you falls down. Then, another flash of movement and there's an arrow through your chest. It went through your armor like it was paper. Those damned archers and their ass-kicking bows. While you're bleeding there, you realize that your ass-kicking was not superior to theirs, and if you had a bow of some sort you may have had superior ass-kickingness and then blazed through those little archer-men like they were nothing. Link, however, is like an Archer-knight. He's got a sword, arrows, and a shield. He doesn't have that crappy armor that barely lets you move, he just carries a shield and then pwnz stuff hard. All his junk kicks ass too. He's got an Ocarina. The name Ocarina just kicks ass. But this isn't any Ocarina, its an Ocarina of Time. He can friggin travel through time with it, and he can do all sorts of cool stuff. He controls the planets rotation, changing day to night and vice-versa. This Ocarina kicks ass. He has the help of faeries. In the rare event that he falls, they revive him. So you're all like, "YEAH! I killed him, and overcame his ass-kicking power!" and then he comes to life and then kills you, because he just kicks that much ass. His arrows aren't just regular arrows, they're all sorts of crap. They can be infused with fire and never burn up, they can freeze people, and they can even vanquish evil with a few well-place shots. Not just that, but his bow-and-arrow isn't just a BAA, its a friggin missile launcher. THOSE ARROWS CAN CARRY FRIGGIN BOMBS! So this guy has the equivalent of a freeze-ray, a flamethrower, a gun-of-holiness, and some sort of rocket launcher. Just with his friggin arrows. Therefore, he must kick ass. Lots and lots of ass. But it doesn't stop there.


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RikkuAlmighty posted...

And yeah, I feel like I was the only one hyped about this game when it came out. This thread might be the only other time I've seen it mentioned here.

Across the net it felt like the game got some attention for like a week when it released, then nothing. The DLC didn't register at all, on Youtube the original game's OST has 100k+ views for a bunch of tracks, and the DLC ones don't even break 10k. IDK if they just didn't promote Symphony of the Mask or the game just didn't sell well or something. Either way it's a shame for such a great game.

(First track from the DLC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wEIuPU3i2E

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I waited for the physical edition instead of getting the dlc. I'm gonna go through it with my best like we went through the game when it first came out. How many total playable characters are there now?

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11 total, though a couple of them are lazy choices.

Link, Zelda, Cadence, Yves, Skull Kid, Octavo, Impa, Aria (from Necro), Shadow Link, Shadow Zelda and Frederick (Shopkeeper).

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Mac Arrowny posted...

It's definitely similar to Necrodancer, but it has more of a Zelda feel than I expected it too. It feels more like a Zelda game with some Necrodancer mechanics than a Necrodancer game set in the Zelda universe, if that makes sense. I think I might've preferred the latter, personally, but I highly enjoyed what we got.

While the gameplay itself is similar I definitely had a lot easier of a time with Cadence. Necrodancer was fun for the few hours I put in but it was a little too hard for me (probably should give it another try one of these days though).

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If you straight up don't like Necrodancer then you prob won't like CoH either. It think it's a solid 50/50 mix of Necrodancer and Zelda. Really impressive how they incorporated both genre's mechanics and made it more than the sum of its parts. I do prefer Necrodancer for its roguelike repetitiveness myself.

I honestly thought CoH was harder than Necrodancer though. The movements are so complex. There's diagonal movers, the spear guys, shields, all in the first few screens. I had trouble with it for a while, and I can play Aria decently in Necrodancer.

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foolm0r0n posted...

I honestly thought CoH was harder than Necrodancer though. The movements are so complex. There's diagonal movers, the spear guys, shields, all in the first few screens. I had trouble with it for a while, and I can play Aria decently in Necrodancer.

Cadence can be harder at the start for sure, but there's so much freedom with what to do and where to go that you can quickly get a bunch of hearts/weapons and the challenge drops significantly. I stopped getting game overs after the first hour or so and I am flat out bad at Necrodancer, didn't even get past Aria's first zone there. Of course I went into this with Necrodancer experience so I was probably better at it than I otherwise would've been.

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CoH gets really easy at the end, at least before the DLC.

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Just played the mode you unlock from first beating the game (spoilers for that: REANIMATE), I think that's it for characters with their own campaigns. Yves will probably be too much for me but at least he doesn't have the 'die on a missed beat' thing. I do wish there was a boss attack mode.

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