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Lamnet seemed alright, amazing music, but I couldn't finish it. Good lord those recycled environments, it was like worse than Dark Cloud. I haven't tried Curse yet.

I never tried the 3D Castlevanias on N64 or PS2. Are they any good, considering the mixed response?

Reprise wrote:I never tried the 3D Castlevanias on N64 or PS2. Are they any good, considering the mixed response?

I haven't tried any of the PS2/Xbox ones, but Curse of Darkness is quite a good game! Fixes just about everything wrong with the original Castlevania 64. Plus, if you have the RAM expansion on your 64, you can turn on a hi-rez textures mode and make the game run at an absolutely glacial framerate, so that's always a fun feature

PartridgeSenpai wrote:

Reprise wrote:I never tried the 3D Castlevanias on N64 or PS2. Are they any good, considering the mixed response?

I haven't tried any of the PS2/Xbox ones, but Curse of Darkness is quite a good game! Fixes just about everything wrong with the original Castlevania 64. Plus, if you have the RAM expansion on your 64, you can turn on a hi-rez textures mode and make the game run at an absolutely glacial framerate, so that's always a fun feature

Yeah, Curse of Darkness is the one I've been keeping my eye on on Ebay. I heard it's a weird hybrid as a half sequel, half remaster of the original Castlevania 64.

Are there any N64 games that run a high res mode without dropping to 2fps? Haha.

Do you guys mean Legacy of Darkness on the N64, where you play as a werewolf? Because Curse of Darkness was on the PS2 and Xbox.

As for me, they're not that bad. The platforming in the first is pretty rough since Konami was figuring out 3D at the same time everyone else was. But by the time Lament comes along, they were pretty solid. Yes, the music and areas could be repetitive, but the games had some interesting secrets, cool fights, and fun features. I particularly liked getting to play as one of the bosses in Lament. I think the 3D PS2 games are worth a look. 64...your mileage may vary.

Right, Curse is the one starring Hector that has a great soundtrack but pretty meh combat and traversal (seriously, why are those areas so big?). I much preferred Lament to it.

Legacy of Darkness is the one on N64 that's basically a bug-fixed/expanded version of the original N64 game. I've actually played that one (as opposed to the original) to completion, and it's pretty good, despite all sorts of jank involved.

Oh, and Curse of Darkness is also a song in Dragonforce's album Reaching Into Infinity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_l8HlRGWx4

Legacy has an interesting back story to it I dug out of an old print magazine 20 years back when I had it then.

Castlevania 64 is the product of meeting an end of a fiscal year/japanese board necessity to be finished to get money on the books. The game originally had been what came out just 10mo after the fact, but they were having such dire problems with delays and bugs the game just lagged bad. The head office forced them to get something well working enough out, so that bug infested pos Castlevania 64 was born. Then the team went and took their original plans and finally got them working, completed, then re-did/tweaked/bugfixed the existing Castlevania 64 part as well and threw it on the back end of the game where it was intended in the first place as an earned reward.

That's why you play as the wolf, and if you do the sequence, then get the knight games (saving the kid), and in that if you in the time frame do what is required there it unlocks Castlevania64 to finally really slam the door shut on the Count.

I can't stand that I wasted $50 in the day on CV64 with the broken camera(that threw you into pits or off ledges), the busted jump mechanic that didn't land the same place twice, random crush spots where you shouldn't die, holes, you name it. The true game fixed it all and it's one of the best 3rd party games on the system.

I remember Legacy had some cool unlocks. I don't remember what you get in CV64 for beating it with both characters though. I have only finished it with the guy.

I played one of the N64 Castlevania games and liked it at the time, but I'm pretty sure it's best left in the past very much like Quest 64...

I liked CV64 at the time just because it was 3D and fully exploring a haunted mansion and castles in 3D at the time was a novelty for me. Don't think I could go back to it now. Still had some good music tho. Great title screen.