When you hear "Castlevania...

[Xeogred]

Portrait of Ruin was even more level based, but it had that horrible generic anime art and overall wasn't nearly as good as Order of Ecclesia. OoE was a beast and easily my favorite of the handheld titles.

The plot in all the Metroidvania's and well, the entire series I guess is pretty damn hilarious though. The new handheld ones were about as predictable as a Mega Man game. "Okay, so this guy will betray me later, etc". Too easy.

But just like Mega Man, who cares. It's all about that epic gameplay with these games.

[Gamerforlife]

Cool to hear, I just might have to get that sometime myself.

Since you seem to know a lot on SOTN, aside from that one extra area in the Saturn version are there any other noticeable differences between that version and others? Always been pretty curious about it.

I think it actually had TWO extra areas(with new enemies) and some exclusive items. Maria was also included as a boss fight and you could play as her too(like when you use Richter Belmont in Richter mode). She was pretty overpowered though. Aside from the cool extra items, the Saturn version is frowned upon by some people for having some performance issues and weaker graphics compared to the Playstation version, which is inexcusable because the Saturn was a 2d powerhouse and should have had the best version of the game. It wasn't a well done port though

Koji Igarashi hates the Saturn version. The only thing he took from it for the PSP version was Maria as a playable character and Maria as a boss if you play as Alucard. She's completely different though as her Saturn counterpart was massively overpowered

Saturn version is still worth checking out though, some people on the forum like it

[brunoafh]

The Saturn version also features some badass remixes of classic Castlevania songs. Another thing worth noting is that you don't have to unlock Richter (or Maria), you can just pick him from the get-go. There are also a few weapons exclusive to the Saturn version, but that's nothing to fuss about. I quite like the Saturn version, despite it being a technically inferior to the PSX one.

[Ziggy]

I consider it definitive and so does Koji Igarashi

Then he should release it on a console. I just can't get into a handheld like a console. I even played it using the PSP component cables on my TV. It still kinda sucked because the picture is small and kinda blurry.

Since you seem to know a lot on SOTN, aside from that one extra area in the Saturn version are there any other noticeable differences between that version and others? Always been pretty curious about it.

There's 2 extra areas (4, if you wanna count the inverted castle as well). One area has an extra boss. The extra areas also include new music, enemies, and even a few items. There's 2 more familiars (the nose demon and another useless pixie/fairy/whatever). I forget if there's more than one relic, but when you get to the inverted castle you get the ability to run. Because there's extra items, some item locations have changed. There's more slowdown issues and longer loading times. You have the ability to choose to play as Alucard, Richter, or Maria from the start. Some of the visual effects on the PS1 aren't as good on the Saturn. I think it's the transparencies of the waterfall that stand out the most. I'm sure there's more, this is just off the top of my head.

If you love SotN and have a Saturn, go for it! A lot of people give this version shit, but I enjoy it. The only thing that really sucks is all the items are in Japanese. But if you know the game enough, you'll be able tell what's what by looking at the sprites of the items. The menus are mostly in English though.

Oh, the map pisses me off. Because of a lack of buttons on the Saturn pad, you have to press start then L (I think) to see the map. Problem is, when you press start there's a slight delay before the menu pops up. This can get annoying if you look at the map often (which I do because I like to fill the map out 100%).

[Gamerforlife]

Portrait of Ruin was even more level based, but it had that horrible generic anime art and overall wasn't nearly as good as Order of Ecclesia. OoE was a beast and easily my favorite of the handheld titles.

The plot in all the Metroidvania's and well, the entire series I guess is pretty damn hilarious though. The new handheld ones were about as predictable as a Mega Man game. "Okay, so this guy will betray me later, etc". Too easy.

But just like Mega Man, who cares. It's all about that epic gameplay with these games.

I liked POR better. The tag team gameplay was fresh, the anime style didn't bother me as they did it in Rondo and it had more of a traditional castle structure unlike OoE. Order of Ecclesia had some great bosses though and I liked the main character. I liked getting awards for beating bosses with no damage too. The glyph system annoyed the hell out of me though. Constantly having to change what offensive abilities I'm using annoyed the hell out of me. Later in the game I settled on something strong enough for most enemy encounters and stuck with it

I was losing interest in OoE before I even beat it, but I loved POR all the way through. It had more personality than Order of Ecclesia with some very interesting new enemy types with unique personalities

[CFFJR]

Koji Igarashi hates the Saturn version.

What's his beef?

He hems and haws about it and never says anything specific, just that its not good enough for him to use anything from it and put his name on it.

He strikes me as a bit odd. I saw a quote from him in an interview where he said that American gamers want the feminine male character designs. I thought, are you sure American gamers want that? Or is it really that you want that?

[Gamerforlife]

If you love SotN and have a Saturn, go for it! A lot of people give this version shit, but I enjoy it.

Honestly, I'd say just get EVERY version

It's one of the greatest games of all time! Why not?

I have the Playstation version(black label), Dracula X:Chronicles, and the Xbox Live Arcade version. At some point, I'll probably get the Saturn version too. I'd love to get a sealed copy of Dracula X:Chronicles at some point too. I love SOTN. It's on my best of all time list

[Ziggy]

What do you mean you don't have the Saturn version yet?!

[Xeogred]

I absolutely love playing as Richter in SOTN, so that being available from the get go on the Saturn version is a little motivating to really check it out. That is silly it's inferior technically though, I was hoping maybe it performed better... the Saturn being the 2D power house and all.

I do remember looking up the new music though, good stuff.

I liked POR better. The tag team gameplay was fresh, the anime style didn't bother me as they did it in Rondo and it had more of a traditional castle structure unlike OoE. Order of Ecclesia had some great bosses though and I liked the main character. I liked getting awards for beating bosses with no damage too. The glyph system annoyed the hell out of me though. Constantly having to change what offensive abilities I'm using annoyed the hell out of me. Later in the game I settled on something strong enough for most enemy encounters and stuck with it

I was losing interest in OoE before I even beat it, but I loved POR all the way through. It had more personality than Order of Ecclesia with some very interesting new enemy types with unique personalities

Hmm, well for me I didn't quite like PoR as much because it felt strictly level based and very simplistic, whereas I felt like OoE kind of had better balance or something, and I remember the last main stage being bigger than the final stage in PoR. I guess I just remember the level design being better. I remember PoR was easy as heck in terms of difficulty and finding any hidden items, and I didn't like the characters.

Another huge plus for me with OoE was that they finally said screw it to the stylus, that was awesome. The main character was badass and the crazy difficulty I liked a lot (since all the other Metroidvania's outside of CoTM I'd say are too easy).

Still, I don't hate PoR. A good purchase indeed.

I have the Playstation version(black label), Dracula X:Chronicles, and the Xbox Live Arcade version. At some point, I'll probably get the Saturn version too. I'd love to get a sealed copy of Dracula X:Chronicles at some point too. I love SOTN. It's on my best of all time list

Not to sound like an achievement whore here, but I do like getting all of them for some games I love (got all of them for MM9-MM10, yes... Mr. Perfect ) .... but it bugged me that I could never get one last achievement in the XBLA version of SOTN, the one where you had to perform all the magic spells. I could not for the life of me pull off the final spell with that d-pad, which I know I've done before on the PSX version. lol

[brunoafh]

Definitely check out the Saturn version Xeogred, well worth your time. It's fairly expensive, but you have a modded Saturn if I'm not mistaken. You probably won't even notice the technical differences unless you're really familiar with the PSX version or just played it recently.

About POR, I really couldn't buy into the 2 character gimmick, although Charlotte is (thankfully) largely useless. I felt it was extremely easy and simple too, and yeah. I dunno. I thought it was the weakest of the DS games, but I still played through it and enjoyed it.

Order of Ecclesia just seems miles beyond any Castlevania game since SOTN to me. It's probably the last great one.