![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Right on the heels of finishing my recent Miriam playthrough, I have just completed a playthrough with Aurora. Time comparisons, Miriam playthrough was around 33 hours, but the Aurora playthrough was only a little over 5 hours. This, even though I still traversed pretty much the entire castle, same as with Miriam. (Only place I didn't bother to go with Aurora was the 8-Bit Nightmare area, and that's mostly because I just forgot to do it before beating the game. I could technically go back and do it whenever, but probably won't bother.)
One of the reasons it went far more quickly with Aurora than with Miriam is that, spoiler alert, you pretty quickly gain the ability to straight up fly. No limits, no MP usage, you're just able to literally fly wherever you want. You move so much faster in the air than on the ground that there's very little point to walking after that. It's not quite "Miriam with the Accelerator shard" fast, but it's still pretty fast. And, apparently, "flying" also counts as "swimming" since the movement is identical when you're underwater, once you can fly. Also, flying makes several of the bosses complete freebies, since you can just fly above them and rain down monkeys on them, i.e. one of the attack shards you get.
Yes, you do get shards. No, you don't get shards from every single enemy the way you do with Miriam, and the ones you do get only amount to a total of eight unique attacks/familiars. Actually, no, not unique. The only two attacks you get that are truly unique are the two you start with, the little sprite familiar, and the Light Ray attack, which paints enemies while you hold the button and then blasts them depending on how many times you tagged them before releasing the button (which increases as the shard gets more powerful). Aside from that, every single other shard attack/familiar you get is one that Miriam gets in her version of the game, though they are renamed to characters from Child of Light in this. And you only ever get the weapon you start with, the Sword of Mathildis (although at one point, something happens that causes Aurora to change the way she attacks with it, but it's still technically the same weapon).
For exploration, most of the chests are gone. Most of them. You'll still find chests every once in a while, containing items that will raise the rank of Igniculus (the sprite familiar) or the Light Ray. As such, if you want to max those out, you'll basically have to seek out all the places a chest could be, even though most of the time there won't be anything there. Also, all the HP and MP upgrade items are still scattered about. The ammo upgrades are gone, though, since Aurora doesn't use guns, so at least one out of three times you bust open a breakable wall, nothing will be there.
There's actually a bit of story, told via (rhyming) text, at various intervals, usually after beating a boss, and some dialogue, usually after getting a shard for the first time. Also, Johannes is just there, for some reason, and does alchemy for Aurora, same as he does for Miriam. And you talk to Zangetsu a bit when you meet him the second time. Aside from that, none of the other NPCs are present in the game. Well, no, Dominique is there, too, but only as a boss. You never actually talk to her.
All in all, I guess it was pretty cool. More involved than either the Zangetsu or Bloodless modes, at any rate (what little I played of them). I didn't max all of the shards (game says I'm at 89% overall completion with Aurora), and I doubt I'll bother to do so, but still. If nothing else, it kind of makes me want to play through Child of Light again. Which, I guess, was the whole purpose of the thing. (I still think Aurora was a weird choice for playable character in Bloodstained, though.)
I might try a Bloodless playthrough again, later, but for the time being, I'm kind of a little burned out on Bloodstained again.
One of the reasons it went far more quickly with Aurora than with Miriam is that, spoiler alert, you pretty quickly gain the ability to straight up fly. No limits, no MP usage, you're just able to literally fly wherever you want. You move so much faster in the air than on the ground that there's very little point to walking after that. It's not quite "Miriam with the Accelerator shard" fast, but it's still pretty fast. And, apparently, "flying" also counts as "swimming" since the movement is identical when you're underwater, once you can fly. Also, flying makes several of the bosses complete freebies, since you can just fly above them and rain down monkeys on them, i.e. one of the attack shards you get.
Yes, you do get shards. No, you don't get shards from every single enemy the way you do with Miriam, and the ones you do get only amount to a total of eight unique attacks/familiars. Actually, no, not unique. The only two attacks you get that are truly unique are the two you start with, the little sprite familiar, and the Light Ray attack, which paints enemies while you hold the button and then blasts them depending on how many times you tagged them before releasing the button (which increases as the shard gets more powerful). Aside from that, every single other shard attack/familiar you get is one that Miriam gets in her version of the game, though they are renamed to characters from Child of Light in this. And you only ever get the weapon you start with, the Sword of Mathildis (although at one point, something happens that causes Aurora to change the way she attacks with it, but it's still technically the same weapon).
For exploration, most of the chests are gone. Most of them. You'll still find chests every once in a while, containing items that will raise the rank of Igniculus (the sprite familiar) or the Light Ray. As such, if you want to max those out, you'll basically have to seek out all the places a chest could be, even though most of the time there won't be anything there. Also, all the HP and MP upgrade items are still scattered about. The ammo upgrades are gone, though, since Aurora doesn't use guns, so at least one out of three times you bust open a breakable wall, nothing will be there.
There's actually a bit of story, told via (rhyming) text, at various intervals, usually after beating a boss, and some dialogue, usually after getting a shard for the first time. Also, Johannes is just there, for some reason, and does alchemy for Aurora, same as he does for Miriam. And you talk to Zangetsu a bit when you meet him the second time. Aside from that, none of the other NPCs are present in the game. Well, no, Dominique is there, too, but only as a boss. You never actually talk to her.
All in all, I guess it was pretty cool. More involved than either the Zangetsu or Bloodless modes, at any rate (what little I played of them). I didn't max all of the shards (game says I'm at 89% overall completion with Aurora), and I doubt I'll bother to do so, but still. If nothing else, it kind of makes me want to play through Child of Light again. Which, I guess, was the whole purpose of the thing. (I still think Aurora was a weird choice for playable character in Bloodstained, though.)
I might try a Bloodless playthrough again, later, but for the time being, I'm kind of a little burned out on Bloodstained again.
