Castlevania Appreciation Thread

[Xeogred]

Beat Bloodlines! Had to do it on Easy with 5 lives though haha, did it with TEXAN John Morris haha. Most of my first runs were on Normal though, I couldn't really tell what the difference was. It was still brutal and this one only gives you 2 continues, unlike most of the others that are infinite.

Stage 6 was incredible, probably one of the coolest CV levels out there. It was so weird and caught me off guard, then half the level was an insane boss rush, but a doable one. I think this game really excelled with the bosses... some of the best bosses in the series for me, it was riddled with awesome bosses and mini bosses. Fantastic music, really cool levels and visuals that felt different than most, so this one definitely has an awesome unique flavor to it.

Favorite music track:

Damn this level was tough though!

I think this is how I'd rank the traditional CV's:

Rondo of Blood
Super Castlevania IV
Bloodlines
Castlevania
Castlevania Adventure Rebirth
Castlevania III
Dracula X

I predict Chronicles being somewhere in the middle there. Videos I've watched make it look really cool, outside of the main characters looks haha.

Harmony of Dissonance is the only one of the Metroidvania's I need to beat, so I might check that one out soon as well to polish that off. I know I played a chunk and didn't like it much, but it can't be too bad. Maybe I'll appreciate it more now.

I don't have much nostalgia attached to CV, so while I did like the first game a bit, I do think there's a big gap after that one for the rankings above. I'm a bigger fan of the 16bit games and the Metroidvania's by a good bit.

Dracula X and some of the others, as frustrating or bad as they got sometimes, they're still pretty good compared to other games. It's just a great formula that works well.

I think it's funny to see how heavily this series probably influenced Ghosts n' Goblins too. That series is a bit too brutal for my liking, but I am a huge fan of Super Ghouls n' Ghosts and would place that towards the top tier of the list there up against some of those Castlevania's. I think I might replay that one soon too.

Perhaps this is where Demon's and Dark Souls got their roots... but yeah, they're nothing compared to how insane some of these CV games were. They don't mess around.

[Gunstar Green]

Rondo of Blood
Super Castlevania IV
Bloodlines
Castlevania
Castlevania Adventure Rebirth
Castlevania III
Dracula X

That's close to where I am though I'm still a little lukewarm on Castlevania IV and I never played Adventure Rebirth. I have a love/hate relationship with Castlevania III so where that sits on the list depends on how pissed I am at it the day I'm talking about it.

Also that's not the first time I've heard someone say Dark Souls feels like a true modernization of classic Castlevania. I've never touched that series so I'll have to someday.

[Xeogred]

Yeah I made that comparison because I heard someone else say once that Castlevania was an influence for Bloodborne which is going for the Victorian thing and all. Dark Souls feels like everything a modern Castlevania game should have been. Unlike Lords of Shadow. Dark Souls is hard, gothic, and some of the best representation of 3D Metroidvania ever.

I don't want to knock on Castlevania III too much... but I can't really say I liked the level design too much in that one.

[Ack]

Yeah I made that comparison because I heard someone else say once that Castlevania was an influence for Bloodborne which is going for the Victorian thing and all. Dark Souls feels like everything a modern Castlevania game should have been. Unlike Lords of Shadow. Dark Souls is hard, gothic, and some of the best representation of 3D Metroidvania ever.

*ahem* Thank you.

[Xeogred]

I went into that one pretty open minded, but yeah. Couldn't do it, insanely boring stuff.

[Xeogred]

Chronicles is awesome! Taking the easy route out and jumped into the arranged mode. Got up to the clocktower stage though and yikes... difficulty ramping up for sure. I really dig the looks and music though.

[Ack]

I went into that one pretty open minded, but yeah. Couldn't do it, insanely boring stuff.

I thought it was ok for what it was, but it wasn't a Castlevania game.

[Anapan]

Played through the Saturn Castlevania NITM again during the downtime. With better video hardware everything's way more acutely badly scaled. I wished for a blur filter on the XRGB, and the possibility of a Saturn overclock. Still, the dash boots and new familiars were pretty cool.
Decided to look it up on TCRF
https://tcrf.net/Akumajou_Dracula_X:_Ge ... oper_Notes
I'ts cool to understand what the developers were saying in a better translation, but it lost some of it's charm from my earlier 2002 machine translation which included
"the fact that it is not possible is regret, but (even then it inhaled and the ぶ it is was late (the tear)"
and "tolerable it is not"

I also tried to play through Castlevania 1 again, and I gotta say I'm so frickin rusty, I had to finish it on an emulator (Only beat it legit once and that was 17 years ago). Maan I feel old and feeble. I can't throw my NES controller at the TV anymore - it's a plasma and it'd break.

I'm gonna go to my friend's house, force him to dig out his Turbo Duo and finish off the RGB mod. I wanna play Rondo for real, and he's had it sitting in a cardboard box for a few years unfinished.

Also, my Winamp playlist just played some of the Castlevania Resurrection music as I typed this (Edit: gone?!? Hmm, I'll mirror it somewhere...). Lots of nostalgia - I was deep into this series when that soundtrack got released, and I was finding stuff in the roms nobody knew about (even still TCRF doesn't have a lot of the stuff I found).

[Xeogred]

Does the Saturn version look or run differently? Since it supposedly did 2D the best. I know it has an extra area and I think Maria was playable, but not in the PSX version?

I beat Chronicles and thought it was awesome. The arranged music was fantastic too.

[Ziggy]

Sadly, the Saturn version doesn't play as smooth as the PS1 version and doesn't look as nice in some instances. IIRC, loading times are a tad longer. Bring up the map is also a PITA because you have to go to the pause menu then press L, so it takes longer.

It actually has 2 extra areas (4 if you count the inverted castle) and 2 extra boss fights. It has a few more items, the extra familiars, and a couple new enemies. It also has the dash boots (or whatever they're called) you can run. And yeah, you can play as Alucard, Ritcher or Maria from the start (no need to beat the game once as Alucard).

All in all, if you liked SotN enough, it's worth at least one play through for all the extras. I wish some one would translate it. That'd be nice.