Whipping A Dead Mr. Hed: The Castlevania Thread Of Sacred Remains

[Peklo]

All things considered, are the fine people of this thread as unhappy with Castlevania Requiem as Diamond Feit was?

Reads far too uncharitable to me. The Dracula X Chronicles version of Symphony was then more than a decade long in the tooth and is at this point almost 15 years old, so no matter what one's opinion on the most substantial changes in the new script and voice acting (I'm not wild about them), there's been plenty of time to at least come to terms with them--the collection allows playing the game with Japanese VA which remains as is, regardless. The emulation hickups are ultimately minute and the games look far, far better on modern displays than they did on the PSP, so long as the messily implemented post-processing filter settings are left alone. Absent of some kind of original hardware and/or CRT solution, Requiem is a very good option to play both games on current platforms, unless one's affinity for Symphony is tied very strongly to Blaustein's PS1 localization and the voice acting therein. My Life in Gaming's analysis on the various options available is worth consulting, for their segment on this release in particular and otherwise.

 

[Kazin]

I'm still having a blast playing all these games (the only ones I haven't played so far are the 3D entries - currently playing Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon having beaten Ritual of the Night a few days ago) - but somebody posted an article summing up what is known about the career of the director of the first three games in the series, Hitoshi Akamatsu, that I thought was a fascinating read.

 

[YangusKhan]

Okay I do not remember Super Castlevania IV being as hard as it was last night. On a bit of a drunken whim I bought the Castlevania Anniversary Collection last night. Played through CV1 just fine, I know that game extremely well at this point, then I jumped into CV4. At this point I was mostly sobered up and it still took me a couple hours or so to beat the game, and that was with taking advantage of save states.

The game has a whole lot of instant death traps in the back half, and also not even traps on purpose, there's just a lot of quirks to the level design that can kill you. Another thing that stood out to me was how many bosses didn't have any subweapons available at all when you respawn from dying. Speaking of bosses, Slogra was the most frustrating by far. He would sometimes immediately start an attack whenever he lands on the ground, giving me no time to react at all, and I could see no pattern to when he chooses to do that. So I felt entirely at the whims of RNG.

I am wondering if this experience was correlated with playing it via the Anniversary Collection, like there were quirks of the emulation causing subtle issues, because I own the SNES cart for this game before and I've played through it enough times in the past. Or maybe I just particularly bad last night!

 

[Peklo]

Slogra has always had a really tight execution barrier, especially compared to most other bosses in the game which tend to be reckless slugfests. Few of the others immediately react and counter to being damaged in the way he does. I think it's the hardest fight of the climactic quartet as a result.

I don't know if it's still prevalent now but for a long time there was a tendency to undervalue CV4 as far as the kind of challenge it posed. Some of it was overemphasis on the game's occasional (limited to one stage, really) showcase of new hardware effects, which have been misconstrued as an attempt to disguise a lack of level design substance, which doesn't really hold true at all. Other factors would single out the multidirectional whip, which is inarguably the most powerful single tool you can have in the game for survival, rendering most of the subweapons superfluous... but it again does not negate the specific challenges that exist in the game, especially those that are trap-based and for which combat capabilities will not avail you. If this kind of rhetoric is allowed to settle in one's head, even those with prior experience with the game can easily find themselves subconsciously underestimating the level of skill it demands despite the relative leg-ups it offers to the player--at least until the game bares its fangs to remind them.

 

[Purple]

Yeah, like so many things it basically comes down to some guy with a popular youtube channel said something blatantly wrong once and it became What's Known.

 

[Exposition Owl]

Yeah, like so many things it basically comes down to some guy with a popular youtube channel said something blatantly wrong once and it became What's Known.

Ain’t that the truth.

 

[ShakeWell]

While I agree it has some tough points, I would definitely put it in the lower 50% of the Classicvanias in terms of difficulty. I think it definitely has the easiest Drac fight.

 

[Purple]

The real final boss, if I recall, is the collapsing stairs in the treasure room.

 

[YangusKhan]

Pretty much!

 

[Torzelbaum]

I thought it was the friends we mad along the way...

 

[R.R. Bigman]

Super Castlevania IV being a game that’s easier than Dracula’s Curse is a thing to be thankful for. Imagine if Konami would have taken the Fromsoft route, making each new game progressively harder to please the hardcore fans (and also spite rental stores).

 

[Peklo]

They did do that when they felt like it, such as the Sharp X68000 game which was designed to explicitly cater to superplayers who'd mastered earlier games. Since it was never intended for release in other regions, concerns relating to those markets also didn't apply to its design process and as such its famous difficulty served a deliberate entertainment and challenge purpose the developers thought others would enjoy instead of an artificial impediment. The fragmented nature of the series in those days resulted in probably its most creatively diverse short period, so it's something to be thankful for.

 

[madhair60]

Ain’t that the truth.

yep

 

[YangusKhan]

I cannot find a lot to enjoy about Castlevania The Adventure. The soundtrack is good, and at least it's only 4 stages. I don't even mind how slow Christopher walks, but it's the whole... everything else about the level design that kills it. I don't want pixel-perfect platforming in a Classicvania. And losing a whip upgrade after getting hit is just cruel and only serves to push you towards perfect-ish play, because the downgraded whip sucks a lot in a Castlevania where your horizontal distance matters even more than normal.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

I cannot find a lot to enjoy about Castlevania The Adventure. The soundtrack is good, and at least it's only 4 stages. I don't even mind how slow Christopher walks, but it's the whole... everything else about the level design that kills it. I don't want pixel-perfect platforming in a Classicvania. And losing a whip upgrade after getting hit is just cruel and only serves to push you towards perfect-ish play, because the downgraded whip sucks a lot in a Castlevania where your horizontal distance matters even more than normal.

The WiiWare version was pretty good.

...really need a ReBirth collection.

 

[Voncaster]

Agree the WiiWare version is good.

I've been playing one Castlevania game from the Advance Collection each year. I just finished Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance. I really liked it. I especially liked the metal ball racing and using the Gradius Shield power up!

I must confess that I'm disappointed that this year there appears to be no M2 Castlevania collection. Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth, Castlevania Chronicles, and Castlevania 64 are all games I would like to play on modern consoles.

But if Konami is focused on Silent Hill instead of Castlevania, I won't be too upset.

 

[MetManMas]

I must confess that I'm disappointed that this year there appears to be no M2 Castlevania collection. Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth, Castlevania Chronicles, and Castlevania 64 are all games I would like to play on modern consoles.

It's certainly a shame. The DS Castlevanias are probably too much work to get running on modern consoles (Every one had something touch-based), but even so Konami could certainly do another Castlevania compilation.

Have the Wii ReBirth and the N64 games finally escape their exclusivity, get the X68000 game out there on more platforms, rerelease Rondo and Symphony in a form not bound by either Sony licensing baggage or old Xbox 360 file limitations, throw in the Game Boy Kid Dracula and Castlevania Legends maybe, or go for a wild pull like that MSX2 Vampire Killer...

Also while not my personal favorites or anything it'd be nice if the PS2 games got remasters. No doubt that Castlevania animated series would help move some numbers on Curse of Darkness HD.

 

[Sarge]

Curse of Darkness is one that I feel would have been infinitely better if Hector moved at roughly double the speed to traverse those huge areas faster.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

It's certainly a shame. The DS Castlevanias are probably too much work to get running on modern consoles (Every one had something touch-based), but even so Konami could certainly do another Castlevania compilation.

Capcom managed with Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection, but while I think it might work for the latter two (I don't remember the full extent of how touch controls were implemented), that first one... hooo-boy. That would take some work.

 

[MetManMas]

Capcom managed with Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection, but while I think it might work for the latter two (I don't remember the full extent of how touch controls were implemented), that first one... hooo-boy. That would take some work.

Both Portrait and Order have alternate play modes which utilize the touch screen. The former's Sisters use it for all of their attacks and the latter's Albus uses it for a teleport ability that teleports him where you tap on the screen.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

Ah, that would be a problem.

You know, for as much as I love Portrait of Ruin, I don't remember ever playing the Sisters mode. I guess I meant to come back to it, but never did.

 

[Voncaster]

Super Castlevania IV being a game that’s easier than Dracula’s Curse is a thing to be thankful for. Imagine if Konami would have taken the Fromsoft route, making each new game progressively harder to please the hardcore fans (and also spite rental stores).

You mean like Mega Man X?

That's a series that I love a couple games from, and then I wonder who is this series for? The hardest of the hardcore?

 

[Tomm Guycot]

You mean like Mega Man X?

That's a series that I love a couple games from, and then I wonder who is this series for? The hardest of the hardcore?

Is this a thing? Outside of X3 and X6, it seemed like the series got easier and easier. Am I on an island here?

 

[Voncaster]

Sorry for high jacking the Castlevania thread with this aside.

X1 is one of my favorite Mega Man games. I liked X2 as well. I found X3 Kaiser Sigma to be impossibly difficult. X4 dialed back the difficulty and is one of my favorites. X5 I found to be too much for my skill level; the bosses go up in difficulty the second time I played them. And X5 Sigma, like X3 Sigma is impossibly difficult for me. After having 2 of the first 5 games being too hard for me to finish I gave up on the series. It sounds like you think X6 is pretty tough as well.

As someone who has not had difficulty with the mainline Mega Man games, I found the X series to be much harder.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

Sorry for high jacking the Castlevania thread with this aside.

X1 is one of my favorite Mega Man games. I liked X2 as well. I found X3 Kaiser Sigma to be impossibly difficult. X4 dialed back the difficulty and is one of my favorites. X5 I found to be too much for my skill level; the bosses go up in difficulty the second time I played them. And X5 Sigma, like X3 Sigma is impossibly difficult for me. After having 2 of the first 5 games being too hard for me to finish I gave up on the series. It sounds like you think X6 is pretty tough as well.

As someone who has not had difficulty with the mainline Mega Man games, I found the X series to be much harder.

This seems like a fair approximation. X3 even gives me trouble (probably owed in part to the fact I've played it the least over the years), but I didn't have that much trouble with X5. It's got all sorts of optimization going on that the previous games didn't have, maybe that's what's throwing you?

X6... is just basically broken. Rushed and broken. It's playable, it's beatable, but it's also entirely possible to screw yourself pretty good along the way if you don't know exactly what you're doing.

 

[gogglebob]

I recently replayed all of the X titles for producing this thing I will never stop linking...

I will say that X6 has a whole lot of instant death traps, and, whether through malice or poor design, X7 and X8 both have a number of instant death situations, too. And it's not like these games are hard per se, it's just that they continually throw you new situations or challenges with extremely punishing failure conditions. Or, put another way, "this is why no one likes the vehicles". That said, even basic platforming sections, like the absolute last level of X8, may contain something like 90% spikes by volume. X1's final stage (that wasn't just caterpillars) was difficult. X8's final stage is a friggen' gauntlet.

In a weird way, I feel like the later X games basically have Mortal Kombat/SNK boss syndrome. You can easily complete the main levels of any of those games, but by the time you get to the finales, you will want it on "easy mode", else Goro will stomp you flat.

 

[ShakeWell]

A "known leaker" has revealed that a new Castlevania is going to be unveiled at the Xbox TGS event. As I said on Bluesky, this is the opposite of surprising, given the success of the animated Netflix show, the recent three collections, and, though it's not a Konami game, Bloodstained. Let's just hope they put it in the hands of a capable dev.

 

[ShakeWell]

As is so often the case, the leak was bullshit.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

Ah, I was trying to remember where I saw that.

Yeah, that was disappointing.

 

[Voncaster]

The reveal at Xbox TGS was not credible. Doesn't mean Konami is not working on a Castlevania game.

A mobile phone Castlevania game or 30fps Remaster Castlevania game!