The Castlevania Thread of Whip Whip Whipping It Good.

[Candescence]

Yeah, Lords of Shadow is basically "paint by the numbers" design at its worst. It's functionally inoffensive, but that's about it. Gameplay-wise or narrative-wise, it's entirely derivative, and lacks resemblance with the franchise's aesthetic and completely lacks uniqueness in its aesthetic. Gameplay is God of War with CV subweapons tacked on, they ripped off Shadow of the Colossus wholesale with three entire boss fights without even doing the mechanics right, ripped off the basic plot of that game as well (and the whole "protagonist is Dracula" thing could be seen coming a mile off, at least Aria of Sorrow did it with genuine subtlety), and, well, the whole thing screams of the work of a developer who thinks their story is way deeper and more meaningful than it actually is, though it's not nearly as flagrant as Ninja Theory's work on DmC, and in this case, the devs at least tried to show some genuine respect for the source material. But like that game, Lords of Shadow would've worked better as its own IP.

 

tl;dr: Western studios can't reboot Japanese franchises for crap without making something almost unrecognizable, apparently.

 

You know, I've heard that Dark Souls is basically the best 3D Castlevania that isn't actually Castlevania. And since playing through it right now, I'm inclined to agree (even if the whips are almost worthless in that game). I personally think a new Castlevania should be taking notes from Dark Souls, but also with more focus on platforming and more agile combat (and a less clunky control scheme. I like Dark Souls, but its control scheme is just plain weird). Castlevania was always more about the challenge and exploration of going through Dracula's Castle (and other environments, but mainly the castle) than combos.

Edited April 4, 2013 by Masaru Daimon

[Salamander]

So, I decided a little while ago to replay Order Of Ecclesia, and then, when I was done with that, I thought I might as well replay Portrait Of Ruin as well, going for 100% map completion and 100% enemy/drop completion while I was at it.  I figured I'd assess them from a kind of semi-antagonistic viewpoint - I like them a lot, but what are their deficiencies, and what kind of things would I attempt to change if I were magically given charge of a reboot?  Essentially it's another kind of anti-LoS viewpoint - how should a reboot have been done, rather than how it was done?  And I came to a few points.

 

Platforming / level design: There are a huge variety of enemies in the game, each with a more or less unique attacking style.  Even recolours can be highly individual.  And there's a lot of platforming, if you can call it such, around these guys - figuring out how to dodge their attacks, maybe even dodge them entirely, or know what position to attack them from.  That's great.  But there isn't much environmental platforming.  An awful lot of the level design is either basic or flat-out linear, just corridors with enemy after enemy.  And more and more I notice almost entirely copy-pasted rooms scattered about with just a different colour palette applied.  Most of the actual platforming occurs in only a handful of areas, usually Death's clock tower.  So I think it would be a good idea to have more of that.  To have more environmental obstacles instead of just enemies.  These can also become Metroidvania gates of a sort - there might be areas which are relatively easy to pass in one direction but almost impossible to pass in the other until you acquire a new ability.  And once you introduce more environmental obstacles, then you can have enemies interacting with those obstacles to alter the nature of the challenge.  That there's some of this in makes it all the more glaring when it's not in at all.  And come to think of it, why does Portrait Of Ruin have Mimics but no chests?

 

Items: The games throw huge numbers of items at you, not just in shops but especially if you bother to grind every drop, which probably very few people are going to do but which I did to see what it was like.  And frankly, the vast majority of these items are totally useless and you're never going to use them.  Sure there's an element of choice, but given that very few items have unique abilities and usually compensate for this by having no stat boosts whatsoever, the process of assessing them becomes too coldly rational, too much a matter of number-crunching, with the result that when you really look at the options available then you're never likely to take a great many of them.  I can see that there's a certain joy and flavouring in the design - someone clearly likes food from all those unique food items scattered everywhere - but they don't do anything special, and indeed the very uniqueness of the food I find is kind of a deterrent from ever using it at all.  So I think maybe there's a case for taking a narrower focus as far as items go.  Maybe having fewer in, or focus on giving them special abilities rather than stat boosts, which can be taken up just with levelling up, if you want to keep that in as well.  Or maybe, an idea I've been toying with, replace them with some kind of customisability mechanic where enemies instead drop resources that you use to upgrade your weapons/armour in a variety of different ways - metal adds defense but limits agility, etc.

 

Subweapons: Why would you use these.  They aren't very interesting or powerful but quickly drain your equivalent of "ammunition."  No wonder Order Of Ecclesia didn't have them at all.  I'd skip hearts, like Portrait Of Ruin, but have whatever bar powers them recharge much more quickly.  So essentially what Ecclesia did, really - alas, another tactic that was rendered irrelevant too soon.  I actually have a similar complaint about games in general - why would you ever use incredibly limited magic when just hitting things repeatedly with unlimited physical attacks will do the job just as well and not much slower?

 

Quests: In Portrait Of Ruin, there are sidequests, given to you by Wind as you reach various milestones in the story.  These quests are kind of terrible.  They are arbitrary and contextless (Kill Gergoth with the Blank Book!  For some reason!), and quite often depend upon you having in your inventory an item which you only get one of in the entire game and which you can't get back if you sell but which you'll acquire long before you get the quest.  So okay, these are kind of a bad idea.  Then lo and behold comes Ecclesia with its much-improved sidequests.  The different villagers ask you for different things based on their character, they are always things you can get over and over again, they are relevant, and they are diverse.  Maybe you're asked to take a picture of an enemy that either vanishes quickly or will kill you quickly, maybe you're asked for a drop that's named after the enemy it drops from, maybe they just want resources.  But they're logical and your rewards by and large make sense.  These are great and form an opportunity to develop the villager characters, too - they're still fairly irrelevant cardboard cut-outs, but not much more than anyone else in the game.  The sidequests are a real improvement here on Portrait Of Ruin and were going in the right direction.  They're something I'd like to have in another game, but I'd use them both as a way of providing the player with useful materials and as a way of inducing the player to go and do useful things in the environment.

 

Bosses and Item Crashes: It pretty quickly becomes easy to cheese every boss once you have decent Dual Crushes / whatever they were called in Ecclesia.  These attacks are meant to be powerful and rare, sure, but I think they're too good - that there are times when you can barely spend any time in a boss fight because the boss falls so quickly.  Cleopatra can be one-shotted with 1000 Blades (well, fifty-shotted, I guess).  I beat True Dracula in PoR about ten minutes ago and found only the first phase difficult, because I was saving my Dual Crushes for the second.  Once you get Nitesco in Ecclesia, the fusion of that plus a weapon glyph cheeses every boss in seconds, including Dracula.  Add to that the fact of the existence of the boss medals in Order Of Ecclesia, which you acquire for beating a boss without taking damage - a fact which required them to make the bosses too fair, such that it was too easy to avoid taking damage in a lot of them.  Essentially, I think there are too many ways to make bosses easy.  But, and here I'm thinking of Lords Of Shadow, is there a way to make bosses more cinematic - without resorting to quicktime events?  I think so, and I wonder if it would be feasible to make every boss sort of multi-phase - where damaging them in a particular area disables that area and changes their attack pattern, or where they just plain change their attack pattern in some way once you've done enough damage, to show that progress is being made.  If there's a sense that the public want glamour and for something other than hitting bosses dozens of times until they arbitrarily die - don't resort to the cheap tactic of making the game an interactive movie in which you occasionally are given about a second to press play or else it automatically rewinds.  Find ways of making more interesting things happen within the existing formula.  Castlevania seems well-suited to this, given that the vast majority of the bosses are going to be magic demons who can be blown to bits without suffering particular trouble.  Is not Legion a good example of this - you knock it to bits piece by piece and then it gains a new way of attacking?  All bosses should be like that.

 

I'd like a future Castlevania game to maybe take heed of some of these points.  I absolutely think the games should remain Metroidvania-styled - the premise, which at its most basic is that of entering a vast fortress-castle in search of its dark lord, is absolutely suited to it.  Secret passages, labyrinthine structure.  But there are a lot of ways to approach that - and a lot of ways within the traditions, recent and classic, of Castlevania.  Mirror Of Fate hasn't sold well, which I hope will be a message to Konami not to squander the handheld fanbase they built, but rather to provide them with a game that's something they want.  A style of Castlevania that's suited to the big consoles is all very well for those, if nothing's quite hit the mark before, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater will only damage the franchise - and, as those MoF sales show, clearly has.

[Semi-colon e]

Using subweapons is useful because not only does the mana regenerate anyway, but because they have different angles and advantages. The Shuriken in Portrait of Ruin really wrecks a lot of stuff, and the Axe has a fantastic high arc that can snipe enemies on platforms above or hit those annoying flying bastards. The holy water has the holy element and allows you not to get too close to enemies. Subweapons often solve the range issue, and honestly saying they're bad because they're limited is kind of silly.

 

And while I tend not to bother with the heart combos in Ecclesia, in other games the Magic can be powerful and the RPG element thing can help a little with certain bosses or to keep the sting off attacks by at least making enemies die faster when you're in a pinch, or you need to hit multiple targets at the same time.

Edited April 25, 2013 by Semi-colon e

[Tornado]

Subweapons in PoR only become moot when you get the Nebula, because at that point the main advantage to the them (which is the huge ranges they give) is pretty much moot. And even then, something like the javelin absolutely fucks up some enemies way faster than anything short of a couple of the whips and the... I think it was the King's Sword or whatever; and the crazy fast recover time on the shurikens make them always deadly (plus Cream Pies in Richter's face). I even massively prefer the subweapon mana system to the old hearts system, because it makes subweapons infinitely more useful (whereas in SotN I really only ever used the clock because everything else seemed like a waste of hearts).

 

The main problem with the quests in PoR was that they were vague to the point of nonsensical; and sometimes you could finish them, before you start them, but then use up the items you needed for the quest before the quest came up.

 

And the dual arts usually weren't that unbalanced. Certainly not to the level of HYDRO STORM! You could one shot a few bosses with them (and their usefulness against the giant armor made power leveling a breeze), but Thousand Blades (as the example you brought up) left you wide open to take massive damage and not all bosses had a hit stun when you used it on them. Perhaps that particular one should have chewed up more mana, but even then using Charlotte's partner magic instead was often the better option.

 

 

 

Also gonna disagree on the items boiling down to pure stats. Maybe for the potions and foods and whatnot, but there were still massive bonuses and advantages to using and finding other weapons besides just the ones with the best stats, especially early in the game where the high stat weapons were those very slow swinging swords. I'm on my third playthrough of PoR (it's my favorite of the Metroidvanias besides SotN), and I regularly switch between the Medusa whip, Nebula and one of the big swords depending on my location in the castle. Charlotte's weapons were entirely stats, though, I agree; and the way they were distributed was pretty annoying.

[Salamander]

Seeing that my disdain for subweapons has taken the most criticism, I'll admit that maybe I'm falling into the trap of my disdain for how magic is executed in the vast majority of games, but I would always rather use an unlimited resource than a limited one that's also more awkward to use.  But Charlotte in general was too obviously a support character, and the whole quasi-two-player gimmick fell off far too quickly.  I mean, there were, what, two places with two-player "puzzles" in the entire game (Edit: Well, one and a lot of block-pushing)?  And it wasn't really viable to play as her, which I think is regrettable.

 

But then, Portrait's a bit of an odd game in general - the portrait aesthetics are just so... well, I'm having trouble seeing how they chose them.  The Egypt one is totally legitimate, but then two cities?  And a "Forest of Doom" whose only forest element is the kind of enemies placed there?  Probably they actually made the Dark Academy first, and Forest Of Doom is the recolour rather than vice-versa.  I kind of wonder if they originally planned something not dissimilar to Ecclesia's world map system where you have multiple important locations outside of the castle, but then they rejigged it to work within the usual formula.

Edited April 26, 2013 by FFWF

[Carbo]

I just noticed Rondo of Blood is on the Virtual Console. Is it a faithful port? It's the only Castlevania classic I've yet to play and I want to experience it in all it's glory.

[Candescence]

I just noticed Rondo of Blood is on the Virtual Console. Is it a faithful port? It's the only Castlevania classic I've yet to play and I want to experience it in all it's glory.

It's the original, alright, not the SNES version. Hell, it's faithful to a fault - it hasn't even been translated, everything's in Japanese (not that it matters any, you don't need to understand any of the text or dialogue to enjoy it).

Edited April 26, 2013 by Shirou Emiya

[Lady Soniko]

I know you guys are mostly against the LoS arc, but I've just finished the 3DS title, Mirror of Fate and it was fantastic, the stories of the 4 characters (Simon, Alucard, Trevor and Gabriel) fit together perfectly and it was a great story, very clever and it definitely pieces together the story from LoS fantastically, that and it's clearly a prequel to LoS2 because you don't kill Gabriel in it, so I'm guessing LoS picks up where MoF left off.

 

Was a pretty lengthy game for a handheld title, very satisfying combat, tight controls, branching paths that encourage exploration, amazing graphics (albeit a few bad textures when up close to the camera) and the 3D feature is actually fantastic and really effective in this game, bringing the background to life and in scripted scenes, really bringing out faces and terrifying monsters with incredible detail that just pops right out of your screen. I really loved how they did the cutscenes too, cell shaded and it looks utterly fantastic, you can tell a great deal of work went into making this game, and it's seriously got me pumped for LoS2 :3

[Salamander]

I do quite like the idea of the multiple playable characters in a Castlevania game each having a story role of actual substance rather than, as has been the case with the last few titles at any rate, just being non-canon (or scarcely canon) bonus modes.  I gather you occasionally get glimpses of other characters' story roles in the background, or bosses show the damage from battles with other characters - that I think all Castlevania games could benefit from.  Although strictly speaking you can do that with a single-player scenario, too.

[Lady Soniko]

I do quite like the idea of the multiple playable characters in a Castlevania game each having a story role of actual substance rather than, as has been the case with the last few titles at any rate, just being non-canon (or scarcely canon) bonus modes.  I gather you occasionally get glimpses of other characters' story roles in the background, or bosses show the damage from battles with other characters - that I think all Castlevania games could benefit from.  Although strictly speaking you can do that with a single-player scenario, too.

 

Very much so the case in Mirror of fate, basically you start playing as Gabriel for the prologue, then as Simon, then the story flicks to Alucard and then finally Trevor the thing is, the game is set out where you're literally playing the ending first as Simon, as he's present day but the final chapter and character is set 30 years before the events of MoF where Trevor faces off against Gabriel and that is when the bombshell hits and it throws the stories into sync and it all makes perfect sense.

 

 

Spoilers for story!

In short, after LoS Gabriel becomes Dracula and starts to bring darkness upon the world because he couldn't bring back Marie like Pan and Zobek promised with the God Mask, so he actively is pissed and angry and wants the world to suffer because of his fate, but anyway... Trevor Belmont is actually Gabriel and Marie's son that he had no idea was born, he was taken by the brotherhood of light to be trained to defeat his father (unbeknownst to him of course) so he sets out to kill Gabriel, and has a huge battle with him in which he steaks him through the heart... Or so he thinks, Gabriel actually warps behind him and impales Trevor with his own Combat Cross steak when the Mirror of Fate in Dracula's throne room shines and Marie basically tells him that Trevor is his son, so Gabriel gets pissed and breaks down, his only Son and lineage is dying in his arms, so he gives him some of his blood... Skip to the previous chapter before the final and it's 30 years in the future back to present day.

 

Alucard is awakened by the lost soul (part of the mirror of fate) and is basically told to help out Simon in his quest to slaying Gabriel, so you help Simon through the castle from the shadows, disabling traps for him and meeting a few times although never disclosing who you are to him, then you get to the final battle where you both basically double team Gabriel, until Simon is possessed and is turned against you, however you WON'T fight him, you have to block his attacks and grab him to seep the evil energy from him, so he goes back to normal and Simon finishes Dracula/Gabriel off with the combat cross steak that Trevor used 30 years ago, Gabriel vanishes albeit not like a normal vampire does according to Alucard (Probably just sealed in the shadow plain till LoS2) and you have a moment with Simon, and he asks who you are, but you can't bring yourself to tell him and simply walk away. (The reason why he can't bring himself to tell him, is because Alucard is actually TREVOR from 30 years ago, turned vampire by Gabriel to save him from dying, Simon is TREVOR'S SON, so he can't bring himself to tell him that he became the very thing he set out to stop 30 years ago.

 

Then as Simon you play through the traps and stuff whilst Alucard shuts them down for you etc.

 

Also there is more, do you remember Daemon from LoS DLC? Basically he's the demon that submits to Gabriel after he gets the Lords of shadow power after defeating the unbeatable one, well in MoF he comes back to deceive Gabriel and steal his power, Gabriel takes his eye out and seals him in the Shadow plain realm, in Trevor's story witches open a portal for Daemon to come back and Trevor pretty much intervenes and fuck's Daemon's shit up even though Daemon was only after Gabriel, you like cut his arms off and cut him in half, then the toy maker (kinda like Frankenstein from LoS) takes him and rebuilds him part demon part machine, Daemon is already pissed off because he was owned by someone that wasn't his target, and coincidentally is rather sore and therefore he chases and tries to kill Simon for no reason because of what Trevor did when he ignored him, in Alucard's chapter you pretty much drop in on Daemon and you're all "S'up, remember me?" and you pretty much finish Daemon off then.

 

TL;DR - Gabriel plays the prologue for 10 minutes, Simon is Trevor's Son and Gabriel's Nephew, Trevor is Alucard, Gabriel's son AND Simon is HIS son, and you play the majority of the game as Trevor/Alucard and he seriously is a beast.

[Semi-colon e]

That's all of the Classicvanias out of the way. Metroidvanias to follow... eventually (don't hold your breath. This post took me 4 hours to write, and I like Metroidvanias a lot more in general, so...)

 

I'm still waiting for this post, btw

 

I think Order of Ecclesia did the items best, basically because it streamlined it and got rid of a lot of the fluff, so while you have less choice in items and glyph weapons, a higher percentage of them are at least useful and not completely redundant (until you get the better versions of some of the weapon glyphs, but other than that, no). You also really had to figure out how to deal good damage to enemies, which typically boiled down to slash or strike, and if neither, an elemental. Nitesico was a real game breaker though, I now actively don't use it except against Death (who seems not so much easier, but more par for the course in this game) or Dracula (who is a bitch in this game).

[Dantemustdie00]

I liked Circle of the Moon mainly cause of it's difficulty, they did this game right with the lesser enemies and bosses. I liked that they would replace weaker enemies in the area with much stronger ones after a while, like in the Catacombs, the weak Skeletons and Poison Worms get replaced by the stronger Arachne and Grizzles, and the main area of the audience room get's two annoying Succubi in the area. Bosses like Adramalech, the Dragon Zombie duo and Dracula himself were top notch.

 

Order of Ecclesia also buffed up the difficulty for the DS era which get's my props.

[Salamander]

So, I've recently (more or less) finished my playthrough of Dawn Of Sorrow, the first of the DS Castlevania titles but the last I've played.  Time for another of my trademark enormous reviews.

 

It's very visibly an early DS title with its rather shoehorned-in touch-screen interaction.  It suffers from the problems of a few DS games in that it essentially requires you to play with three hands, in the case of the ice blocks that shatter on touch; while the idea of carving your own path through them is a nice one, it's awkward to keep on start-stopping the platforming around them so you can grab your stylus and clear out the next few that have appeared on-screen.  For the magical seals, I like the idea of the boss regaining health after a failed finishing move, and I kind of just like the idea of the seals altogether, but they do break the gameplay flow and are kind of awkward anyway.  I liked the use of the seals to lock away a boss door in the early game until near the endgame, but they didn't do it often enough; they should've turned them into a proper Metroidvania gate, an insurmountable challenge encountered regularly and to be returned to later.  Two is too few.

 

As to the gameplay itself, it's true that it's grindy.  It's not true that you actually need nine of every soul, as quite a few only require one to max out, and of course you're going to specialise.  I cheesed most of the game with a high-ranking Axe Armor soul - finally, a game that can make me appreciate sub-weapons.  Perhaps that's part of the problem.  A lot of the souls aren't really that useful, and as in Pokemon, there's a kind of bias against late-game souls as they're so rare to drop and you won't be used to them.  Then there is the grinding.  In a sense, the game expects you to grind for souls rather than settling for just getting them by luck now and then, but the result of that is great tedium to the player and a hugely inflated level from having killed so many enemies.  I was at nearly level ninety when I beat the game.  Only the final boss was ever a challenge.  In a sense, I think that having a level-up system rewards grinding, because even if you don't get the rare drop, you do get something - but it also makes the game too easy.  I think I reflected on this before, but the games really needed to find some way of reducing the necessity of grinding for completion and perhaps making the game less exploitable.

 

But fundamentally, I did really enjoy the soul system. I really liked the idea of every single enemy having a specialised soul with a relevant ability, but the trouble with that is that many of them weren't relevant (just stat boosts that have nothing to do with anything, sometimes).  It's the "too many items" problem again; the game gives you a lot of options but you're unlikely to use most and many of them aren't that good anyway.  I did kind of like the fact that weapon synthesis was the only way to get most of the weapons, though; it created a sense of progress and evolution and made acquiring new weapons seem more elegant than just getting a lucky drop.  But I actually wanted to use the souls and powers, and I think it's a shame, for that reason, that some weren't useful.  I never really needed anything other than Axe Armor as an attacking soul, the first you get in the game, simply because nothing else ever attacked upwards.  And then everything that isn't upwards you just beat to death with a sword.  But I think there were strong roots there, and I think Ecclesia developed this idea well, the idea of having a plausible range of magic attacks.

 

Visually, the game is pretty enjoyable.  Only pretty enjoyable.  The snowy opening is fantastic and somehow really convincingly snowy just on a visual level; everything's so pale.  There doesn't seem to be much snow in Castlevania, but on the basis of this, I'd play an ice-gimmick one.  There should've been more of this - more of the castle frozen-over, the impact of ice.  Because as it is, the opening is really the most original area, and nothing after it stands out - certainly not the Wizardry Lab, which just appears to be a perfectly ordinary dingy basement, and as for the Abyss, these kinds of areas are always trying too hard with their random, disconnected imagery.  Everything else is passable, but I just wish it felt more purposeful.  I think that the character sprites outside of Soma and maybe Julius were quite weak, though; Yoko and Arikado in particular felt way too 2D, and others just didn't seem very expressive, just a mess of colours.

 

As for the narrative - well, I haven't played Aria, but I know enough about it.  I think this was the right direction for a follow-up, assuming you thought it needed one, but I don't think it was executed very well.  There's never really a convincing reason offered for why the game has to take place in a totally unexplained Castlevania replica or why Dmitrii and Dario shouldn't just try and kill Soma on the spot.  The philosophy of Celia's cult isn't really delved into very much, and where exactly are the other members of the cult?  All they needed was a cutscene in the second room with a bunch of cultists being possessed by demons and turning into zombies and skeletons due to a ritual by Celia.  Also, we kind of guess how the game is going to conclude, or rather how it doesn't, because Dmitrii and Dario are thoroughly unconvincing as potential Dark Lords.  Their powers, sure, but their personalities are pathetic - Dario's just a dumb thug, and Dmitrii's motives hold as much interest as they do sense, which is none at all.  Rewriting them such that you could genuinely believe they might become future dark lords - that they had something sublime about their characters - would've made the game far more effective.  Celia just needed to do more, though.  Incidentally, I wonder if the powerful demon Dmitrii tried to dominate at the end was Legion... it would explain the decor of the Menace boss chamber, as well as the subsequent effect of all the demon souls fusing together within him.  Hmm.

 

As for Julius Mode, making Soma the final boss was an excellent idea, and I'm glad they had the guts to do it.  It's really satisfying, even if Julius Mode altogether doesn't have enough plot or enough that makes sense (if this is after Soma's bad ending, why are Dario and Dmitrii refought?  Soma just about saves it, and it is fun to play through with an alternative set of powers and no necessity of grinding, and I took it upon myself to do things in as non-linear an order as possible - accessing Rahab from the reverse side of its boss room, for instance.  Should've tried harder, as that was immense fun.

 

So.  My overall conclusion?  Order Of Ecclesia is still my favourite DS title, but I'm not sure if I prefer DoS to PoR or not.  Quite possibly.  It's a flawed title, but PoR is, I think, a bit plain, and I didn't like the splitting up of the castle into the portraits.  Aesthetically I still think Ecclesia nailed it.  Still, though.  More snow would be a plus.

[Salamander]

Watch out, Koji Igarashi and Bloodstained.  Konami have thrown down the gauntlet with, yes, a new Castlevania game in the works!

...For pachinko machines!

EROTIC
VIOLENCE

[Tailikku]

Finally we have a Pachislot without Trevor Belmont.  And it looks like it's based on the bad ending from Dracula X Chronicles where Richter is forced to kill Annette.

[Semi-colon e]

Massive bump because I'm a Castlevania addict and hey, it's Castlevania's 30th anniversary this year!

To be on topic, I've actually been playing a lot more of the Classicvanias since I posted last. I was mainly into the Metroidvanias other than Rondo of Blood (which, even after the other Classicvanias I've played, this is still my favourite) and to a lesser extent Super Castlevania 4 which I guess I'm not as fond of as everyone else is, so I decided to go back to the past with my 3DS Virtual Console.

 

I started with the original gangster Castlevania 1 for the NES. What surprised me the most about this game was that it's got a really good atmosphere for a NES game, and almost everything looks like something. In the NES days, barely anything looked like anything, so I was really pleased to see that. Other than that, it's really short but an absolute classic. Hard as balls though, holy fuck. Most of it's getting used to the controls and the slow whip speed compared to other games (even Castlevania 3 has a faster whipping speed, makes bone pillars less awful). I think Stage 4 is the worst. Bats knock you into pits and then after the fleaman section you have the white dragons and Franky paired with Igor, easily the worst designed part of the game, because if you die you're stuck with the knife which is useless. Death is also nigh impossible without a triple shot holy water (thankfully Stage 5 isn't that hard despite dying in four hits, but it's really creepy if you look closely). Dracula is really hard because you basically can't make ANY mistakes on the first form or his second phase will kill you. The clock tower section is also really weird, it's best just to bum rush it. You get infinite tries from the stairs anyway, which is really generous. Overall, great game, really well designed with your limitations in mind as well.

 

I decided to then move straight on to Castlevania 3. It's like the original, but much improved in terms of size and scope. The atmosphere and the graphics are even better and things really look like places a hell of a lot, like mountains in the background, loads of gears in the clock towers, or the chapel in Stage 1. The alternate characters are really good too. Grant having jumping control is great and he moves so fast, but his ceiling climbing requires utmost precision with the d-pad, or you're going down straight into a pit. Grant is awesome. Then, there's Sypha, who admittedly I didn't like much at first because I kept dying and couldn't keep her with spells long enough. Get the electric spell though, and it's gg. Even Death doesn't stand a chance. Finally, there's Alucard, who's actually kind of shit, but his bat form can be insanely useful.

Unfortunately, Castlevania 3 suffers from being way too hard. Most of it isn't that bad individually, but it really begins to wear off. Some levels are just merciless, and when you skip a boss to go to a different stage, you don't get healed, which makes sense but is absolute bullshit gameplay wise. Then you've got that arduour block dropping area in the mountains which is the entire reason you want Alucard so you can skip it, or the stingy checkpoints. I save scummed my way through this one. It is fantastic and a really great game with lots of replay value and good design, but in places it's just way too mean. Once I got the hang of it though, I was loving it. Some of these stages are amazing, like the clock tower where you rescue Grant, or the courtyard, or the castle entrance which is nostalgic to the first game. Even the ridiculously hard penultimate stage is a lot of fun aside from the fucking stairs. Actually, the stairs are the worst thing about this game. There's too many sections where you're required to go up long stairways and avoid loads of annoying bullshit.

 

After that, I was a bit stuck. Don't have a PS1 so no Chronicles, no longer have a Mega Drive so no Bloodlines (really want to play both though but emulating them and playing with keyboard seems shit), and so I pulled out my Wii, and after replaying Rondo and 4, purchased Adventure Rebirth. It's incredibly short and I feel like it should have had more stages that are shorter rather than longer but fewer. It's also very derivative of older games and some of the levels get quite samey. Honestly though, I have had a blast. Some parts of it are really annoying and it's incredibly stingy with wall meat, but after a few; playthroughs and exploring all the alternate paths, I can honestly say I love it. Considering how hard but fun the clock tower is in this game (4 hit deaths! Woo!), Death himself wasn't too tough. Dracula, however, took me loads of tries, and it was all on his last phase. I absolutely loved it though, that fight is probably one of my favourite Dracula fights next to Super Castlevania 4's or Portrait of Ruin's. I also really appreciated Rebirth for remixing obscure tracks for the most part, and making enemies we haven't seen as bosses either much or at all into mid-bosses. I don't like being unable to jump on and off stairs, but the game isn't designed with stair spamming in mind. Or bottomless pits for the most part, actually, which I don't have a problem with either. It's like Rondo in that way. Overall, I didn't find it as good as the older games or as ball bustingly difficult, but maybe every other Castlevania feels easy after the NES games.

 

I've also played the Metroidvanias again, I've grown really fond of Aria of Sorrow, even more than before, I think it's the best one next to Symphony. It's got a great atmosphere and the soul system is really fun. People complain about Soma being a schoolkid in Japan, but I think the castle has a great feel, combining both gothic and almost oriental (Floating Garden mainly) styles well, and I think the story is one of the best with a good cast of characters. It just does a lot right for me.

 

Funny how clock towers tend to almost always be my favourite levels in Castlevania games. I love the motions and the platforming I think.

 

Anyway, just thought I'd put my thoughts here as I wanted to talk about it but don't really know anyone else into Castlevania honestly. And on the 30th anniversary, where better a topic!

[Tailikku]

Likewise, I've recently began playing Curse of Darkness on PS2 (my first M-rated Christmas gift).  So far, I have demolished the Crazy Armor (Bloodlines'/New Gen's Armor Battler's older brother), summoned Kiki and Gaias, and met Zead Death and Julia.

While watching the opening text, I took note of the fact that the game is set in 1479, which is the same year that Steven V Bathory and Pal Kinizski defeated the Ottoman Turks in Transylvania.  Likewise, the Bubonic Plague had just hit Florence, as the text alludes to a plague hitting Europe.  And for that matter, Konami had already done the research about the date when Trevor killed Dracula in CV3: November 26th, 1476, the day that the real Dracula was killed by the Turks.

Most people are going to rat me out on this, but so far the game is as close as we can get to a Castlevania Beat'em Up, with your Innocent Devil being a computer-controlled player 2.