Do You Have Any Unpopular Gaming Opinions?

[Segata]

I don't like SOTN at all and dislike what it did to future CV games.

CV4 IMO is the best. When the games were gothic and were tributes to horror icons. SOTN just made it more glam metal. I think they made it far to flashy and it became a weeb series. I love my weeb games but for Castlevania it was best as a darker horror based series. Why I loved Lords of Shadow as it returned to that idea. Well the first LOS did.


Konami mentioned bringing back other classics to Switch after Bomberman R and I really want a revival of old Casltevania. igavania can stay with Bloodstained..

[PartridgeSenpai]

In the slack channel, it was pointed out that my Castlevania ranking hierarchy contains an unpopular opinion:

CotM > SotN

That is definitely an unpopular one. That way lies madness.

(Seriously, SotN is one of my top 5 games ever. CotM doesn't get enough love, though.)

I think I've talked about it on here before, but they're both near the bottom for me. Granted, I don't rank the pre-SOTN Castlevanias with any Igavania games, given that they're SO different. SOTN is a fun innovation on the series and has fun campy voice acting, but my biggest complaint is that it is toooooooo easy. CotM on the other hand verges on just being not fun to play. For me its difficulty is more frustrating than good. Level grinding aside, given how clunky the main character feels to move, it certainly doesn't make the boss fights any easier. Not to mention having to double tap a direction to run all the time is absolute trash and I begrudge the game a LOT for that (perhaps too much, but it's my opinion so there ). CotM is my least favorite Igavania game by far, for the record.

[Xeogred]

Don't tease us Patridge, what's your order then?

Honestly I won't argue against CoTM being put over SoTN. I have issues with SoTN... it's rather bloated and insanely easy as mentioned, to the point of just being this 10 some hour long cakewalk with one hard boss. Overall I still freaking love it though. But I definitely love Circle of the Moon, Aria of Sorrow, and Order of Eclessia just as much if not more and my ranking of those four could probably switch around a lot.

I don't like comparing the Metroidvania's to the traditional ones either. For those I love Super Castlevania 4, Bloodlines, Rondo of Blood, and Chronicles.

Super Metroid destroys all of them though.

[Tanooki]

but what about The After Years

Blech ...more like The After Birth.


Throw me in (as if people didn't know already) as FF4 being the best of the 'Nintendo' series of titles from the day. Sure looking back into it fresh it would feel like it was a re-run of sorts in places, but it's not. It it what caused a lot of others to be the re-run.

Also in all fairness the game doesn't have as much going for it with story, caring about characters (other than Cecil, and cares for Rosa and Kain), plot worthy more of attention and development of character abilities don't really start swinging it until after you're a Paladin. You'll get some emotional character losses, some really not expected, self sacrifice, unrequited love, psychotic type behavior, and other interesting stuff to keep you going along. It's a good 18-20 hour ride on average if you don't stick around and level up too much at any one space, though I could see it going 30 easily enough on a first try, maybe a little more.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Don't tease us Patridge, what's your order then?

I know I've put that list on this site before, but I'm fairly sure it my Igavania marathon must've been back on the Beaten list in 2015 before I was linking each review on each of my pages, so it's effectively lost somewhere where I can't be arsed to parse through pages to look for it. I'll just have to make up a new list now:

Order of Ecclesia
Dawn of Sorrow
Aria of Sorrow
Portrait of Ruin
Harmony of Dissonance
Symphony of the Night
Circle of the Moon

Original list might've been slightly different in order (Aria and Dawn are preeeeetty close for me), but that's how I rate 'em now-a-days. A friend of mine is often shocked when I say "SotN is one of the worst Metroidvania games," but that's not because it's a bad game, but because its competition is so seriously good it can't make it up there. Circle of the Moon is the only one I'd even think of calling a "bad" game, but even then I think it's mostly just an 'okay' game that some can enjoy and some can't (more like 6/10 territory).

[Kuruwin]

I wasn't really fan of SOTN either. I can appreciate what it did but i didn't care for it personally. I had more fun with Portrait Of Ruin on the DS (the first DS entry i didn't like and i got stuck at the skeleton boss on the third)

The older Castlevanias are not something that i really enjoy. The SNES one is cool though and i need to go back and finish it at eventually (stopped on the clocktower)

[Xeogred]

Original list might've been slightly different in order (Aria and Dawn are preeeeetty close for me), but that's how I rate 'em now-a-days. A friend of mine is often shocked when I say "SotN is one of the worst Metroidvania games," but that's not because it's a bad game, but because its competition is so seriously good it can't make it up there. Circle of the Moon is the only one I'd even think of calling a "bad" game, but even then I think it's mostly just an 'okay' game that some can enjoy and some can't (more like 6/10 territory).

You weren't kidding about how you rank both CoTM and SoTN lowly haha. But I'm shocked you put Harmony above them! That one seemed like the laziest one by far to me, not to mention the bright colored sprites were odd/ugly, and the music isn't very good at all (guess they literally wanted to channel that "dissonance"?) ... this is the one I don't think I'll care to ever replay again. But even then like you're saying, I'd probably give it a very fair 6/10 myself. So it's not bad, just averagely par for the course.

Did they ever put the DS Castlevania's on the Wii U VC? I've been crossing my fingers for that to replay them that way...

@Kuruwin: Super Castlevania IV to me is the easiest and most accessible one. Definitely check it out again if you're curious.

[Sarge]

What is wrong with you people?! How dare your opinion not align to mine!

[Xeogred]

Let us hope Bloodstained will level up to the greats!

[Segata]

Let us hope Bloodstained will level up to the greats!

I hope it does turn out well because honestly these sequels/spiratual successor KS have been trash so far. Mn9 was well a dumpster fire. Yooka didn't turn out well. Shenmue III is looking to disappoint in just how bad it looks. So far the best games at getting the old school nostalgia...are new IPs that have a retro look or feel. (ftr I helped fund MN9 & SIII)