Castlevania Fans?

[JustCallMeKaito]

  My favorite would either have to be Aria of Sorrow or Order of Ecclesia, I really can't decide which.

 The soul mechanic of Aria gives a truckload of replay value to the game, not forgetting that the characters are probably the best in the series.

 However, I love how Order of Ecclesia puts a new spin on simply attacking enemies, as well as having the best soundtrack in the series.

 

 As for the worst? Castlevania: The Adventure. That's not an opinion. It's a fact that the game is a broken, unplayable dumpster fire.

[Doomkid]

I love almost every pre-SOTN Castlevania game: 1 and 3 on NES, 2 on Gameboy, 4 and Dracula X on SNES and Bloodlines on Genesis. 6 amazing games all up imo, hard to choose just one, but Castlevania 1 and 4 are probably tied for ‘best’ to me personally.

 

The Castlevania Adventure on GB is hot garbage. You move slow, the enemies move slow, the game scrolls slow, the music is slow, it’s just like pouring hardening concrete all over a great formula. Castlevania 2 on GB feels much closer to the quality of the NES games. However, Castlevania 2 on NES is also poopy as I recall, it’s way too boring and long with all the backtracking and useless people in town that give bullshit hints.. Too much dumb formula changing crap imo but it’s forgivable, they didn’t want 2 to be identical to 1 so they changed it up. It just didn’t work for me.

 

SOTN is a good game too, but it actually has a bit in common with Castlevania 2 on NES what with retreading old ground and stuff, it’s just that SOTN is way better to move around in and look at. It feels like there was never another “straightforward, done in less than an hour” Castlevania game after that so I got a bit bored of them. Great series overall though.

[Avoozl]

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Edited July 17, 2019 by Avoozl

[FeverDreamer]

I absolutely love the first game in the series. Sure, it isn't as good as 4 gameplay and mechanic wise, but it's extremely difficult(which I love, it makes it feel like so much more of an accomplishment when you finally beat it), and it's really atmospheric. The music is great too.

[[McD] James]

@JustCallMeKaito

 

The Castlevania Adventure has Battle of the Holy, so there's at least some value to its otherwise pitiful existence. As bad as the game is, I wouldn't go as far as to call it one of the worst games ever made, whereas I can without hyperbole declare The Haunted Castle to be one of the worst games ever made. 

 

On another note, Chorus of Mysteries is one of the best rom hacks I've ever played. 

 

Slightly off topic, but I'm close friends with the guy who has the email address Olrox@hotmail.com, which is the name everyone refers to him as. He periodically gets emails from people referencing SOTN to him.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Ajora

[SiFi270]

17 hours ago, Doomkid said:

The Castlevania Adventure on GB is hot garbage. You move slow, the enemies move slow, the game scrolls slow, the music is slow, it’s just like pouring hardening concrete all over a great formula.

 

It feels like there was never another “straightforward, done in less than an hour” Castlevania game after that

Sounds to me like you'd appreciate Adventure Rebirth... if you're willing to resort to piracy, because I'm pretty sure any chances to buy it legitimately were lost when the Wii Shop channel closed.

 

I'd also like to second the Soul of Dracula recommendation. What's especially impressive is how heavily it borrows from what are the two worst games according to this thread, and it still makes everything work.

[snapshot]

I always wanted to try them but I'm not really into sidescrolling platformers, a 3D game would be nice.

 

> "looks up 3D Castlevanias"

> "not as well received as the 2D ones"

 

oh.

[Jello]

30 minutes ago, tempdecal.wad said:

I always wanted to try them but I'm not really into sidescrolling platformers, a 3D game would be nice.

 

> "looks up 3D Castlevanias"

> "not as well received as the 2D ones"

 

oh.

Yeah... From what I've played of Lords of Shadows, it's ok. I keep meaning to go back and finish it, but it's just ok. The games for N64 were horrible. 

 

I haven't played all of them, I've beat 1 and 3 on the NES. I couldn't be bothered to finish 2, it was a complete ass-ache. Of those, 3 was my favorite, but 1 is still good. My two favorites are Super Castlevania 4 and Symphony of the Night, but they're so vastly different from each other that I can't really compare them. Castlevania 4 is the best of the traditional games, I enjoyed it more than Dracula X. As for the Metroidvania games, the only one I've really played is SOTN, as I've never owned a handheld that I could play the other games on. But SOTN is really damn good.

 

I have been playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night recently, and it's very enjoyable. But I'm pretty sure every Castlevania fan has already played it by this point; it's the sidescroller Castlevania that fans deserved, but Konami refused to  make.

[A Nobody]

41 minutes ago, tempdecal.wad said:

I always wanted to try them but I'm not really into sidescrolling platformers, a 3D game would be nice.

 

> "looks up 3D Castlevanias"

> "not as well received as the 2D ones"

 

oh.

I love Castlevania 64.

[[McD] James]

Lament of Innocence is incredible. Every Castlevania fan should at least try it out before writing it off. It perfectly encapsulates the look and feel of the Castlevania series in 3D. The soundtrack is amazing too. Curse of Darkness has better combat than Lament of Innocence but suffers from lazy level design and bland, repetitive environments. The protagonist is also a goober. 

[Chow Yun Thin]

Paging @wildweasel to this thread...

 

As for me, I've only ever put serious time in Castlevania 2 and SOTN. I don't know if I would play the NES originals nowadays because my tolerance for bullshit Nintendo-hard mechanics is much less than as a kid. I know of rom hacks for 1-3 that improve air control, and 2 has a less confusing text hack and a more in-depth retranslation/QoL hack.

 

 

I don't know why anime Ryu Richter on a guitar amuses me so.

[Maser]

Symphony of the Night and Lament of Innocence are my faves! 

[silentzorah]

Grew up on Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse.  Castlevania 64 got me through adolescence.

 

...Matter of fact, I've remade the Villa level in Doom.  Twice.

[GarrettChan]

I played CV1 a lot although it's not the my favorite of the series since it's quite short (approx. 15~20 min). The way I prefer to play is whip only.

 

CV3 is my favorite of the all. However, I like the soundtrack from the Japanese version, but I like the difficulty from the American version... so it's weird thing to me. CV3 is a little bit too long, so I don't play as much as CV1.

 

Rondo of Blood is behind CV1 and CV3.

 

I used to like Metroidvania, but now I'm not...

[A Nobody]

1 hour ago, GarrettChan said:

I played CV1 a lot although it's not the my favorite of the series since it's quite short (approx. 15~20 min). The way I prefer to play is whip only.

 

CV3 is my favorite of the all. However, I like the soundtrack from the Japanese version, but I like the difficulty from the American version... so it's weird thing to me. CV3 is a little bit too long, so I don't play as much as CV1.

 

Rondo of Blood is behind CV1 and CV3.

 

I used to like Metroidvania, but now I'm not...

What made you dislike Metroidvania?

[GarrettChan]

8 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

What made you dislike Metroidvania?

Well, I'm sort of fine with those, maybe something like 6~7/10, but I won't play it by my own. Right now I just prefer straightforward and simple gameplay. Metroidvania has a general problem that whenever you get a new power-up, you need to remember where is your next destinations to put the new power-up into good use. If I play a lot in the recent days, I can remember it. However, sometimes you have to leave the game for 3 days or more. That's the situation I can't remember the next place and will waste a lot of time searching for it.

 

Ritual of the Night came out recently. I did look up some hints to "fix" this problem if I can't figure out after searching for 30 minutes. This is how I do these games right now.

[A Nobody]

6 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

Well, I'm sort of fine with those, maybe something like 6~7/10, but I won't play it by my own. Right now I just prefer straightforward and simple gameplay. Metroidvania has a general problem that whenever you get a new power-up, you need to remember where is your next destinations to put the new power-up into good use. If I play a lot in the recent days, I can remember it. However, sometimes you have to leave the game for 3 days or more. That's the situation I can't remember the next place and will waste a lot of time searching for it.

 

Ritual of the Night came out recently. I did look up some hints to "fix" this problem if I can't figure out after searching for 30 minutes. This is how I do these games right now.

Aw.

[june gloom]

On 7/13/2019 at 6:31 PM, The Strife Commando said:

Isn't SC4 considered one of the easiest Castlevania games in the series? What did you not like about OoE?

 

I dunno about "easy." None of the Classicvanias are easy. Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrow -- those are easy.

 

OoE though... uninspired level design, unbalanced difficulty. Enemies are hard-hitting damage sponges and you're a wet napkin armed with a noodle, and it stays that way almost the whole game. Circle of the Moon is objectively worse, though.

 

Best of the Iga-era CVs is probably Aria.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Circle of the moon has op af spells. Kinda like playing old games spamming hydro storms... boring as shit unless you are speedrunning just like hydrostorming.

[Matthias]

I am like a huuuge fan of Castlevania games and I played all of them but...

 

...I am not sure what else to say :D

[[McD] James]

7 hours ago, arobase said:

 

I dunno about "easy." None of the Classicvanias are easy. Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrow -- those are easy.

 

OoE though... uninspired level design, unbalanced difficulty. Enemies are hard-hitting damage sponges and you're a wet napkin armed with a noodle, and it stays that way almost the whole game. Circle of the Moon is objectively worse, though.

 

Best of the Iga-era CVs is probably Aria.

 

Castlevania 4 and Castlevania Legends are both kinda easy. Rondo is easy if you play as Maria. I've heard that the Japanese version of Castlevania 3 is way too easy for its own good. 

[june gloom]

Maria is a gamebreaker but she's basically a side mode. Richter is the "real" game and there's some super bullshit 64 going on in spots of his campaign.

 

CV Legends is "easy" but it's also enormously crap, and non-canon. CV4 is on par with Bloodlines in terms of difficulty.

[A Nobody]

1 hour ago, arobase said:

Maria is a gamebreaker but she's basically a side mode. Richter is the "real" game and there's some super bullshit 64 going on in spots of his campaign.

 

CV Legends is "easy" but it's also enormously crap, and non-canon. CV4 is on par with Bloodlines in terms of difficulty.

Wasn't Legends considered non-canon because of Iga?

[[McD] James]

No way, Bloodlines is way harder than Castlevania 4. It often appears on lists of the hardest Genesis games, though that's really stretching it. 

[amackert]

I'd put Bloodlines and 4 on a similar level difficulty-wise, with 4 being slightly higher. The TL/DR is, the difficulty in both can be made fairly redundant in different ways, but 4 is a larger game with a lot more to learn.

 

What generally makes 4 easy for people familiar with it is the eight-way whipping combined with a tripled boomerang/cross. Most bosses can be wrecked in seconds with this setup.

 

What makes Bloodlines easy is you can get guaranteed upgraded sub-weapon drops in candles. Since there's no timer in the game and transitioning screens via staircases resets the candles on the previous screen, you can grind out endlessly for gems, eventually getting an upgraded sub-weapon in the process. The screen-clearing attack you get from that can be abused, hard.

 

The other thing that makes Bloodlines easier is that there's very little to no RNG in the game's boss fights, leading to highly predictable battles that can be replicated just about 100% of the time. The levels themselves are also generally predictable in most cases as well due to the game having less enemies on screen overall--more often than not you only have to worry about dealing with a single enemy at a time, whereas 4 more often than not has multiple enemies to deal with (often of different types).

 

Overall I give the edge to 4 because it's a longer game with a lot more to learn. If you put both of these games in front of a player familiar with Castlevania that for some reason hasn't played either of them, I can pretty much guarantee you they would end up clearing Bloodlines first (at least on the normal difficulty).

 

The second loop (Expert mode) in Bloodlines is harder than Part 4's second loop, but it can still be made pretty redundant thanks to the unbalanced upgraded sub-weapon mechanic.

 

Side note: Bloodlines is by no means "one of the hardest Genesis games". Not even close.

Edited July 18, 2019 by amackert : side note

[Matthias]

The difficulty is rather subjective - for example I don't think Bloodlines is a hard Castlevania. And among Genesis games - there are some much harder (Tazmania, Mickey Mania).

 

Second, in Metrodvanias it really depends on your level. When you visit some boss sooner, with level 10, it's pretty hard, because you don't do much damage. But if you visit the same boss later with level 40, two hits and it's dead :D

 

Circle of Moon was the most difficult game for me, when I played it for the first time - I was totally lost. The bosses were totally insane and final boss - I had to use cheats to beat him.

 

When I played it again a year later, for some reason it was totally OK. The first boss Cerberus was done quickly with no issue. Necromancer was ok. The goat thing... I remember it was hard as f*ck, but my second playing totally ok... and I also got the logic of final boss and realized he can be beat with no losing a single health point, because he does over and over again the same things. Eventually it's easy game for me.

 

I have never finished the old Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse for NES. It's really... really hard game for me.

[Barry Burton]

5 hours ago, Matthias said:

The difficulty is rather subjective - for example I don't think Bloodlines is a hard Castlevania. And among Genesis games - there are some much harder (Tazmania, Mickey Mania).

 

Second, in Metrodvanias it really depends on your level. When you visit some boss sooner, with level 10, it's pretty hard, because you don't do much damage. But if you visit the same boss later with level 40, two hits and it's dead :D

 

Circle of Moon was the most difficult game for me, when I played it for the first time - I was totally lost. The bosses were totally insane and final boss - I had to use cheats to beat him.

 

When I played it again a year later, for some reason it was totally OK. The first boss Cerberus was done quickly with no issue. Necromancer was ok. The goat thing... I remember it was hard as f*ck, but my second playing totally ok... and I also got the logic of final boss and realized he can be beat with no losing a single health point, because he does over and over again the same things. Eventually it's easy game for me.

 

I have never finished the old Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse for NES. It's really... really hard game for me.

 

Agreed with CV3. CV3 is just way too difficult for its own good. The final stage is a test of extreme patience. I guess they figured having more playable characters meant no checkpoints would be okay, but come on. That stage is a nightmare, and then you have to fight Dracula's 3 forms and if you die, its back to the beginning. Just brutal all around.

 

Also agreed with CotM lol. Dracula hits really hard in his second form, and the bosses are pretty challenging to beat. Surprised no one has mentioned the battle arena lol. Easily the hardest section of the entire game, albeit completely optional.

[RichardDS90]

Started on Super Castlevania IV as a kid. I'll forever have fond memories of that, along with tomato soup after an operation I had which kept me from school.

I absoultely love the series, and I really would love to finish the GBA and DS games on them. Though I did kinda complete Circle Of The Moon but I abused statesaves and was very underleveled. Doesn't help Whoisthisgit's (Awesome YouTuber, best by far!) videos on Castlevania makes me really want to play them again.

[Lygophilia]

I played a few many years ago, but I there is the collection, I can play many more.

[Devalaous]

On 7/14/2019 at 12:59 PM, JustCallMeKaito said:

  My favorite would either have to be Aria of Sorrow or Order of Ecclesia, I really can't decide which.

 The soul mechanic of Aria gives a truckload of replay value to the game, not forgetting that the characters are probably the best in the series.

 However, I love how Order of Ecclesia puts a new spin on simply attacking enemies, as well as having the best soundtrack in the series.

 

 As for the worst? Castlevania: The Adventure. That's not an opinion. It's a fact that the game is a broken, unplayable dumpster fire.

 

Which is why it got remade, but Konami being useless, didnt port it to anything so the remake is lost forever :|