Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia Deathless (Hard, MaxLv50, NG+)

Unlike Portrait of Ruin, Order of Ecclesia has no Konami Man/Twin bee to buff your offensive stats on subsequent New Game+ runs, so rather than try out MaxLv1, I stuck with MaxLv50. Like Portrait of Ruin, playing on New Game+ makes the early game trivially easy, and the challenge doesn't really start ramping up again until you get to the mid/late-game, but that's okay, because the early-game of Order of Ecclesia is where most of the problems are and if it's over faster that's a good thing.

By far the most impactful difference between the base game and New Game Plus is the fact that you have access to Rapidus Fio from the start. It turns the game into some bizarre mix of Castlevania and Sonic the Hedgehog, where it's now suddenly much more viable to just avoid a lot of enemies altogether. And since I start off the run at a level that's already appropriate for the endgame, I don't miss out on anything substantial by not killing enemies.

I also want to note that the Albus, Barlowe, Blackmoore, and Dracula fights are VERY different on Hard Mode and learning Hard Mode Albus was particularly fun.

Done on emulator, DeSmuME.