Topic: ~ Castlevania ~ The Big Thread

I'm sure we have a lot of fans around here for the 'metroidvania' games for DS, and thought we could pool our questions and appreciation for them here.

Anybody knows what exactly it is you unlock with Castlevania Judgement for the Wii when you connect it to Order of Ecclesia? And where do I get the salt in OoE?

While I still prefer the more action-oriented Castlevania titles like Castlevania, Simon's Quest, and Dracula's Curse, I do love the DS releases one and all.

I don't have many Castlevania games, but I do have Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin, although I have yet to play the latter.

As for questions, well...has anybody else had a lot of trouble doing the Magic Seals in Dawn of Sorrow? I find them nearly impossible to do, and they nearly ruined the whole game for me! I'm on the final boss, but it just isn't worth fighting him, since I know I'm just gonna screw up the seals a zillion times and keep dying time after time after f***ing time!! It's driving me crazy!>_<

And does Portrait of Ruin have those stupid seals? Please, PLEASE tell me they don't.

Portrait of Ruin did away with the gimmicky touch screen segments and went back to d-pad only, same with OoE.

That is very, VERY good to know. Thank you.

None even comes close to topping Symphony of the Night, but I enjoyed the first two. I barely played the last one. Didn't really interest me much.

What did you find was so bad about OoE? Granted it was more of a challenge, bordering on sadistic, but that's what makes it so fun!

in Dawn of Sorrow i just never figured out how to level up souls , and what the "free a soul" option at the weapon upgrade chick is good for....

That was part of it, haha, but I didn't find the levels interesting. My Castlevania bias leans heavily towards SotN-style games. I know it turns into that in the second half of the game, but I couldn't bother to get that far.

I never got around to playing SotN, I played Castlevania alot for NES and SNES, but then i kind of went away from the series until I got my DSi in april. I watched the let's play on SotN by crimeinpartner(youtube) though and it makes me wish I had a PS3 for the PSN release.

Anywho, you'r missing out if you don't complete OoE

On another note, I just hit 100% map exploration in OoE today, the large cavern was really frustrating but in the end I made it. Now if I could only find the chrysoberyl for that little girls quest..

I'm not a fan of the pre-SotN Castlevanias (though I need to give Simon's Quest another shot). If there were a way to skip the first half of OoE, I would probably love it, but alas, there isn't. Oh well, I can miss out on it.

@Adam

Two of the top 3 Castlevania games were pre-SoTN, if you ask me: Dracula's Curse and Rondo of Blood. I'd take either of those over the entire library of Castlevania games that followed SoTN.

@Adam

read: I hate difficult Castlevanias, read books about gardening, and I wear a training bra out in public

TBH, those old difficulties are brutal (and despite this strange new popular opinion, Simon's Quest is largely a sleeper. It's good for a single play, but there are no bosses to speak of and the various semi-RPG systems at play clash with each other pretty hard. While 1 and 3 are pretty unforgiving, 3 has a subtle perfection to the level design that I don't feel has been passed by any platformer since. Most of the new Castelvanias have strayed away from the traditional sub-weapon design that made Castlevania so amazing (only having one, which gets automatically replaced, so choose wisely) and any sort of death/respawn system. Plus, you gotta get familiar with pre-SotN Casltevanias to get your chops up so you can be ready to play my platformer! Another couple months and I should be able to make a formal announcement!

Are you including SotN with the games that follow it? I enjoyed the DS games, but I don't make them out to be anything more than they are, half-hearted SotN clones. I haven't played either of the games you mentioned, but I have played the original on NES, the SNES one on VC (which I enjoyed until it got too hard), and whatever the one on PSN is called (it was horrendous, and I barely played it -- I think it was a remake of the original).

I don't like the stiff controls of the old games, but I have no idea if that applies to the ones you mention. If I ever get a PSP, I'll certainly get that Rondo of Blood remake just to see what everyone is going on about.

Indeed. Well, I'm not sure that I'd go so far as to say that no platformer has passed its level of perfection, but certainly no Castlevania, and few other games.

Oh, I don't think I knew you were working on a platformer, Swerd Murd... and how did you know I read about gardening?

Is your game going to be similar to Castlevania? I'm good at platformers, but I hardly consider Castlevania to be one. The only game with worse platforming physics I can think of is Dragon's Lair on NES. I just think of it is an action game with holes that you are going to fall in, no matter when you jump.

@Adam

No, I meant that SoTN is the third in the aforementioned top tier of Castlevania games (unordered). I find the first two I referenced, on the one hand, and SoTN, on the other, to be two very different but equally valid visions of Castlevania.

The controls are quite stiff in Dracula's Curse for the most part, but that's balanced by some other elements, like the fact that there are 3 other characters besides the Belmont, who control very differently (one can fly as a bat, one can cast all manner of spells, and one can stick to walls and ceilings). Rondo of Blood has excellent controls; some of the old stiffness, but with different types of jumps, like the backflip jump, and a second playable character who can double jump and who is quite agile.

Ah, those sound more up my alley. I am trading my Club Nintendo platinum gift code for an NES game. I was thinking of getting Castlevania 2 to try it out, but I think I'll end up going with 3 instead after what you guys have said about each. I heard it's harder than Super Castlevania, which I eventually quit somewhere presumably midway through the game, but the alternate characters seem like they'd alleviate said difficulties.

Be forewarned (just so I don't mislead you): the other three playable characters in Dracula's Curse are not open from the beginning. At the end of each level, there is a branching so that you choose one path or the other, and down different paths you will eventually run into different helper characters. You can't get to them all in one playthrough, just like you can't visit anywhere near the total number of levels. Once you obtain a helper, though, you can switch between them and Trevor at any instant by hitting Select, so it's a bit more flexible than being forced to choose one or the other at the start of each level.

It's still a highly difficult game at times, with some of the usual early-Castlevania frustrations like getting knocked backwards when you get hit, so that you end up in a hole from just having a bat tap you; but it has the best music of the entire series, and some very well designed locations, quite impressively rendered for an NES game.