Best GBA Castlevania game.

CHOOSE.

Never played any of those, but my favorite one is number 4 (SNES).

Circle of the Moon had the best controls IMO, but Harmony of Dissonance was killer because it was so similar to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night...which is, in my heart, the best Castlevania ever.

So, Harmony of Dissonance is my choice.

I've only played Circle of the Moon. And I am not finished it yet. I really enjoy when RPG elements are mixed with an action oriented game (leveling up, items, and such)

I hate the first one, the second was good, the third one was incredibly amazingly awesome. Aria Aria Aria Aria Aria.

EDIT: btw it has a weapon system like Symphony of the Night, instead of just the whip in the other two.

they all needed more impse

Epyo said:

btw it has a weapon system like Symphony of the Night, instead of just the whip in the other two.

Same type of weapon system you say? Well I haven't played that one yet, but I'm definitely gonna buy it now.

After playing all three, I still had a hard time deciding on a favorite, so I'm afraid I can't provide a straight answer. All three are great fun, but none of them are perfect.

1. Circle of the Moon - The most challenging of the three, which is considered a strength compared to the others, and also has good music QUALITY (the music itself is mostly new versions of songs from past games). The areas can seem monotonous, though, the story is standard fare, and the graphics are the least impressive.

2. Harmony of Dissonance - The music took a beating here (the weakest of the three) and the improved graphics don't contribute much, but it's there, and there are more secrets to find. It may be an easy game overall, but there's still plenty of time to be spent accomplishing everything.

3. Aria of Sorrow - Excellent graphics, interesting dialogue, and successful re-creation of the SotN gameplay, along with great NEW music, for the most part. However, the length and difficulty reaches its lowest point here, between the three games. Anyone will blaze through this game.

Hrm, well, after this bit of evaluation, I'm leaning more towards AoS, despite the ease with which you can tear through this game. The fun factor is compensation enough. :)

I was kind of annoyed at Harmony of Dissonance, I guess the game it's self was pretty good, but the music? GARRRR!!!!
Bad music = Bad Castlevania game

Aria of Sorrow plays the best and, deffinately, looks the best. But I feel it's too disenfranchised from the Castlevania Name. Circle of the Moon feels The most like a Castlevania, Whips and stuff. I DON'T like this trend of Making Castlevania an RPG. Collecting cards (The Japanese LOVE that), collecting furniture and souls (Gotta Catch 'em all) just seems to detract from the gameplay. The story line for Aria of sorrow was weak at best. "Oh gnos you are now dracula" *sigh*. I miss whips, I miss Simon Belmont and I miss Dracula. Best Castlevania on the GBA... Aria of Sorrow for gameplay, Circle of the Moon for Atmosphere.

That's AoS, by the way.

Circle.... or Aria for me. And you do actually get other weapons in Circle, plenty of them. It just isn't implemented the same way (it's through the card system).

Harmony of Dissonance just looked gaudy to me, and didn't feel like too much fun to move around in either.

Symphony of the Night

Oh wait...

The obvious answer is Castlevania 3.

You would've been correct if you said Castlevania IV. So close, Scuba, so close.

Aria of Sorrow, because of the ability to replay it three different ways - Hard mode, Boss Rush mode, and play through the game again as J (real name omitted for spoilers). The J game alone is pure old-school action, though it's not as fun as playing as Richter in SotN.

OMGOMGOMG

As anyone from #zdoom knows, I am a Castlevania fanatic. While I love all three games, my personal favorite is Circle of the Moon. The DSS system is one of my all-time favorite spell systems (although the souls of AoS are more flexible, granted).

Circle of the Moon just had everything I wanted to see in a Castlevania game at the time, and with the half a dozen or so different player modes, it has a lot of replay value. I've played through CotM at least 10 times now. Magician and Fighter modes are my favorite. I have cleared the Battle Arena in every mode (very difficult for Magician and Thief mode), and I have reached level 99 on my original Fighter file.

I am currently writing a fanfic which is a prequel to CotM, and explains what happened in 1820 when Morris Baldwin sealed Dracula. You can find the first three chapters here:

http://eternity.mancubus.net/text/crescent_moon_concerto.txt

Appendices here (don't read these first, a few spoilers):
http://eternity.mancubus.net/text/cmc_appendices.txt

Partially completed castle map:
http://eternity.mancubus.net/text/cmc_castle.png

Lemme know what you all think ;)

Aria of Sorrow. It's just so cool. :D

Ct_red_pants said:

I was kind of annoyed at Harmony of Dissonance, I guess the game it's self was pretty good, but the music? GARRRR!!!!
Bad music = Bad Castlevania game

Actually, the sound quality of the music is low, but the tunes are quite well-written IMO and are plenty CVish -- they invoke in my mind the NES and GB days. My favorites, in no particular order, are the Marble Gallery, Shrine of the Apostate, Chapel of the Heretic, Aqueduct of Dragons, Skeleton Cave, and Castle Center themes. Theme of Juste isn't a shabby tune either and is in the same vein as Theme of Simon and the later main theme in Aria. The touch of "Bloodlines" which can be heard in the intro of the chapel tune was brilliant. I didn't even recognize it until about the 8th time I heard it, and then I was like "OH WOW!"

Quasar said:
Actually, the sound quality of the music is low, but the tunes are quite well-written IMO and are plenty CVish

I'd have to disagree. The music from CV1, 2 & 3, despite there 8bitness, where quite catchy. Yet Harmony of Dissonance just sounds odd. Although, I haven't finished it yet, so maybe I’ll find something better before I do.

Castlevania 64 RULES!!!

*Century quickly dives behind a wall to avoid being hit with tomatoes, then shouts "just kidding!"*

Century said:

*Century quickly dives behind a wall to avoid being hit with tomatoes, then shouts "just kidding!"*

Good call. :P Castlevania 64, imho, is the worst incarnation of Castlevania. Ever. Simply put, it didn't feel like Castlevania.

Century said:
Castlevania 64 RULES!!!

hey, it would have ruled if it had decent controls!

OMG vampires! OMG Skeletons on motorcycles! OMG Chainsaw Frankie! OMG evil children! OMG Creepy music! OMG Army of darkness references!

Ct_red_pants said:

CHOOSE.

I choose Castlevania: The 100th un-needed sequal.

I have a GBA with only Doom, Doom2 and that Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. So I vote for that.

Deathman said:

I choose Castlevania: The 100th un-needed sequal.

SO that would be Castlevania 106? Because there are at least 5 deserving sequels for Castlevania.

Castlevania 3
Castlevania Bloodlines
Super Castlevania IV
Dracula X is a good sequel
and Symphony of the Night.

The first N64 Castlevania was poor, but Legacy of Darkness, which is how KCEK WANTED to release the game in the first place, fixed almost everything that was wrong with the original. The camera is much better behaved, the old stages are redesigned to be bigger, more clever, and not nearly as frustrating, the new stages are excellent, the player characters are better balanced and have very cool graphical effects as they power up, and the subweapons can even increase in power (3rd level Axe is just awesome -- KABAM!). There are also new enemies and bosses (Hydra, Medusa, Queen Arachne, and the Harpy to name a few). All this makes it a great game IMO.

And of course, there's Cornell, the most awesome Castlevania character yet. Alucard may turn into a wolf, but Cornell turns into a WEREWOLF, and a cool looking and insanely powerful one at that. The Henry quest is also fun -- it adds some variety and more replay value to the game.

It is, IMO, 100% KCET's fault that the original release of the game was so bad. They made KCEK release far too early. If you recall, original screenshots of the N64 game showed Cornell, Henry, the ghost ship, and many other elements which had to be cut before the first release -- so unfortunate.

Quasar said:

The first N64 Castlevania was poor, but Legacy of Darkness, which is how KCEK WANTED to release the game in the first place, fixed almost everything that was wrong with the original. The camera is much better behaved, the old stages are redesigned to be bigger, more clever, and not nearly as frustrating, the new stages are excellent, the player characters are better balanced and have very cool graphical effects as they power up, and the subweapons can even increase in power (3rd level Axe is just awesome -- KABAM!). There are also new enemies and bosses (Hydra, Medusa, Queen Arachne, and the Harpy to name a few). All this makes it a great game IMO.

And of course, there's Cornell, the most awesome Castlevania character yet. Alucard may turn into a wolf, but Cornell turns into a WEREWOLF, and a cool looking and insanely powerful one at that. The Henry quest is also fun -- it adds some variety and more replay value to the game.

It is, IMO, 100% KCET's fault that the original release of the game was so bad. They made KCEK release far too early. If you recall, original screenshots of the N64 game showed Cornell, Henry, the ghost ship, and many other elements which had to be cut before the first release -- so unfortunate.

One problem with Legacy of Darkness is that there is some very noticable lag in some parts.

Yeah the framerate is painful, I will admit that as one of its greater faults. But then considering the platform, I can be understanding. IMO they should've waited for the next generation of systems to even try a 3D Castlevania (and then it should have been on GameCube, NOT PS2 ::grrrrr::).

I only have Circle and Harmony. Harmony is definately the better of the two.... while the biggest weakness is the music, it improves on everything else.... graphics, control (especially control, the control in Circle SUCKED, and it was MUCH less linear than circle, definatley more of a SOTN feeling. I should get Aria of Sorrow.... i completely forgot about my GBA.