• Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:

    1. The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
    2. Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration

    Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.

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

R.R. Bigman

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
That makes sense. Not a wellspring of story potential for Christopher or Simon.

I am very curious how we’re going to get more Castlevania when Dracula is happily traveling the world with Lisa.
 
Phantoon

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
ShakeWell said:
I've been reading a lot of magazines from that time for video research lately, and honestly, the fact that the press of the day largely shit on the best-looking pixel art that's ever existed while simultaneously lauding the worst 3D is a fuckin' headscratcher. I mean, I know that 3D was the new hotness, I was there, I was also in love with 3D, but I definitely was not shitting on SotN or Mega Man X4 in their day because "lol, 2D."

Also of note: this is the same publication that in the same issue they reviewed SotN, they said it was the 12th best game of all-time.
Click to expand...
I remember this with a Dreamcast magazine review of Street Fighter III, and I fully lost my patience with it. Street Fighter V is only now approaching the quality of that animation. The idea of anything 3D on Dreamcast looking better than that is ridiculous.
 
Mightyblue

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Make Shaft the main villain, have him draw both Drac and Simon back to Drac's castle due to the threat of some potential apocalpyse buried underneath or whatever, then have Simon get tricked into killing Drac thus prompting the events of SOTN?
 
Super Megaman X

Super Megaman X

dead eyes
(He/Him)
Just finished the fourth season. Pretty solid ending, although the last little bit doesn't really make sense, especially with today's announcement of "Season 5/Spinoff/Whatever". Fights were incredible, and it was nice to have a hint of Castlevania music again, even if that hint was only like, 6 seconds long. Also, I feel
Saint Germain went through a bit of character assassination in this season, with him legit becoming a villain. It just feels....off.
 
Peklo

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
They're additionally the only two Belmonts in the series who onscreen or through sideways mentions were demonstrated to have interacted with their living family and relatives--Christopher has an entire game about his son Soleiyu, while Juste's relationship to grandpa Simon comes up a few times in Harmony. These aren't really hooks I hope they follow up with, because I'm already dreading this crew's treatment of an upstanding twelve-year-old in a billowy pink dress wielding the power of the Four Chinese Symbols, shaming Dracula by yelling at him for being a bad man.
 
ShakeWell

ShakeWell

Slam Master
(he, etc.)
Peklo said:
They're additionally the only two Belmonts in the series who onscreen or through sideways mentions were demonstrated to have interacted with their living family and relatives--Christopher has an entire game about his son Soleiyu, while Juste's relationship to grandpa Simon comes up a few times in Harmony. These aren't really hooks I hope they follow up with, because I'm already dreading this crew's treatment of an upstanding twelve-year-old in a billowy pink dress wielding the power of the Four Chinese Symbols, shaming Dracula by yelling at him for being a bad man.
Click to expand...

Do we know who's taking over for Ellis as head writer? That feels like it could make quite a difference.
 
LBD_Nytetrayn

LBD_Nytetrayn

..and his little cat, too
(He/him)
ShakeWell said:
Yeah, same. Simon's "I destroyed Dracula, but with his dying breath he cursed me, so now I have to resurrect him and kill him again to rid myself of the curse" feels like it could do well when fleshed out.
Click to expand...

Precisely. Story potential isn't the problem for these guys, but the need of a supporting cast to join them on their adventures is.
 
ArugulaZ

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
I'd be down for that. It'd be even better if the three DS games were in there, but the series kinda lost its edge after Dawn of Sorrow.
 
Gaer

Gaer

chat.exe a cessé de fonctionner
Staff member
Moderator
Ecclesia is one of the best in the series and I will fight everyone on it.
 
Peklo

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection has provided a model for how inter-platform collections of disparate handheld standards could be done, so it'd be nice if that was in the cards for the Castlevania contingent too. The touchscreen functionality in the DS games isn't too integral in many cases, but still enough to pose a hurdle to overcome, so that might deter from that eventuality coming to pass.
 
Voncaster

Voncaster

Super Megaman X said:
Looks like we're gonna get a Castlevania Anniversary Collection Volume 2...
Click to expand...
Very exciting news. I have not played any of the handheld Castlevanias and would like to.

Additionally I hope this is a sign that the anniversary collection has done well for Konami and the series will get new games.

***
I'm playing through Castlevania Bloodlines right now on the collection. Super Castlevania is probably my favorite game on the collection (possibly my favorite Castlevania game), but Bloodlines is a close second.
 
ghosttaster

ghosttaster

I will say that, as a set, the GBA games are the most solid run of 'Vanias since the originals... but also, I've played them all to death. I hope we see a "Dracula X" collection or somesuch down the line.
 
madhair60

madhair60

Video games
Ecclesia is way too fiddly (fucking around with glyphs is tiresome and seems to offer little build variety) but it's also pretty far from a bad time. I could do without the areas that are just a straight line, mind. And that fucking Mandragora sidequest.
 
Peklo

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
One of the most distinct breaks from convention Ecclesia made was to streamline the process of play and diversify larger portions of the available equipment than before. The glyphs numbered less numerous (and superfluous) than any central equipment system since... you know, basically ever, since a game like Symphony justifies itself through maximalism exempt of practical concerns, while something like Harmony is in turn focused and doesn't play the collectathon game; the systems established by Aria are the ones informing the paradigm shift undertaken here, and in that context the difference is significant. The only straight upgrades are the central melee lines of glyphs, but the other, more magically aligned attacks always retain their relevance even after ostensible improvements with the "Vol" prefix are attained: the importance is not in damage output, but in the pattern of the attack utilized and the strategies and playstyle one can rely on with it. Creating one's own glyph lineups to thus cover all potential means and angles of attack acts in concert with the highly emphasized enemy weaknesses and strengths, which are no longer a flavourful curiosity in how the RPG stats operate but a necessity for survival, and so encourages an arsenal that's both fluid and efficient, preventing stagnation in how the world is interacted with.

One must approach Ecclesia almost like a fighting game (probably why those direct nods to the genre exist in the game, too) to an extent that it impresses upon the player the need to learn patterns and how to punish the opponent with the tools given, and the depth of the systems provide enough grist for that mentality in that they can support the game even when the level design appears to falter, like in those flat plains of areas--it remains engaging even in a "neutral" space where the only modifiers are the push and pull of oneself and their opponent's abilities. I think it did a lot to rectify the design bloat of the series that had left it at that point stagnant, and landed upon an identity that no other game in the series can claim to possess. Too little, too late perhaps, but many of those ideas remained in the minds of the designers and informed Bloodstained a decade later--a game that lacks Ecclesia's focus as it's primarily a chimeric alchemy of all previous works in the lineage, but still redolent of the cogent evolutions to the formula innovated here.
 
chud_666

chud_666

madhair60 said:
Ecclesia is way too fiddly (fucking around with glyphs is tiresome and seems to offer little build variety) but it's also pretty far from a bad time. I could do without the areas that are just a straight line, mind. And that fucking Mandragora sidequest.
Click to expand...

I just hate that if you are not using the most optimal glyphs, you are basically doing chip damage. Best thing in bloodstained is that it dropped that.
 
Tomm Guycot

Tomm Guycot

(he/him)
Peklo said:
Too little, too late perhaps, but many of those ideas remained in the minds of the designers and informed Bloodstained a decade later--a game that lacks Ecclesia's focus as it's primarily a chimeric alchemy of all previous works in the lineage, but still redolent of the cogent evolutions to the formula innovated here.
Click to expand...

Echoing the "blue girl fights ex-friend who seems to be bad now?" energy.

I would have liked a little more of Ecclesia's challenge in RotN to be honest. Just a little.
 
Peklo

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Me too, and that's part of why I found Bloodless's mode, played on Nightmare difficulty, the most compelling expression of that kind of mastery-through-adversity type of design that usually doesn't broach the post-Symphony games--Ecclesia again remains an outlier as its Level 1 Hard Mode is a ludicrous but fascinating stretching of the systems to their limits and finding that they can actually support play that demanding and become ever more interesting for it.
 
ShakeWell

ShakeWell

Slam Master
(he, etc.)
Peklo said:
One of the most distinct breaks from convention Ecclesia made was to streamline the process of play and diversify larger portions of the available equipment than before. The glyphs numbered less numerous (and superfluous) than any central equipment system since... you know, basically ever, since a game like Symphony justifies itself through maximalism exempt of practical concerns, while something like Harmony is in turn focused and doesn't play the collectathon game; the systems established by Aria are the ones informing the paradigm shift undertaken here, and in that context the difference is significant.
Click to expand...

Circle of the Moon also has an extremely streamlined central equipment system. The cards make it a little complex, but it's still even more minimalist than Order. It's the sole non-IGA helmed metroidvania entry (unless we go back to Simon's Quest, I suppose), so that explains it, but still. (I also think Order is better than Circle.)
 
Sarge

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
Dawn of Sorrow is my favorite on DS, but Order is right there, and even the "weaker" Portrait is still great.

The GBA games are a little more uneven, but I will still vouch for all of 'em.
 
figcube

figcube

I have never beaten Circle without using the DDS glitch. If my friends back in high school never told me about that bug, (I probably would have read it in magazine actually) I never would have beaten the game. Luckily they also told me about the motions for the summon spells. It was also my first one so I really enjoyed it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top