Castlevania Advance Collection Gets Updated Rating In Taiwan, Dracula X A Surprise Addition

Oooh. Just in time for Halloween perhaps?

Finally. I'm so gonna buy this.
I only played Aria, so this is super exciting.

plleeeaaasseee!!!!

If it's priced the same as the other Konami collections I'm in!

It's coming out around Halloween calling it

I won't be buying it just yet. I've already got Aria on the WiiU, and I didn't care for Circle of the Moon personally. Harmony is the most boring Vania I've ever played.

More games that won't be on Switch Online <click snap sound>

Konami is sitting on a goldmine of classic IPs and games. I'll happily pay for any collections like this.

I wonder if the DS games could be reworked to run on single-screened systems? IMO that was the best single-system run of Castlevania games in the series' history.

Too bad we'll probably never see ports of Rondo and Symphony, though.

@Tempestryke Technically they're all butchered and blurry ports of SotN, but portable so totally 💸

YES!! As long as it is released physically I will be pre-ordering!!

would love to see symphony first since i've never played it but i'd love to get to play these too, and like everyone else here i'm willing to bet on halloween

Id love to revisit these games. Haven't played them since they came out.

@Ralizah unfortunately you are right. We probably will never get SOTN or RoB.

But I hope this collection gets announced soon. I would love to play Castlevania on my Switch. I will even get the Anniversary collection too.
Also September 26th is Castlevania's 35th anniversary. TGS is also happening around that time and a Nintendo Direct has been rumored to happen this month. Perhaps we could see this get announced at any of these events. Very likely, this month

Aria of Sorrow is the most slept on Castlevania game of all time. Everyone knows how good Dawn of Sorrow is on the DS so, now play the predecessor on the GBA and get your mind right.

I know I am in the minority, but CIRCLE OF THE MOON is my favorite Castlevania game after SYMPHONY. The castle layout, music, and bosses are all top notch. I may own all of the GBA games on WiiU, but I will certainly be picking this up.

@Ralizah I am sure they could be reworked. Didn't Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney come to Nintendo DS and yet that game came to modern PC and consoles?

We also had 3DS ports to Switch too

As much I like Castlevania, I would rather see them on Nintendo’s Online Service.

I honestly would have appreciated this at Switch's launch, but I kinda lost my hype. I MIGHT grab it for Aria, if it's more than just a rumor. I used to enjoy speedrunning that game, in the glitchless category.

Since I already own all those games on wii U, I'd rather see a Castlevania DS collection.

Can’t they throw in the DS Vania games too??? Now THAT would be sweet!

It’s the worst kept secret since “Triple H and Stephanie are actually married in real life.”

Sure hope it's real. I have two of them but only part a little of one of them. I'd love to have them all on switch

Gimme. Stick it right in my neck.

Great games
Let hope these are coming out soon if true.

@anoyonmus to be fair, Phoenix Wright had debuted on a single screen system (Advance) to begin with, DS only it marked its first localisation. But indeed, we've already had straighter examples like Rune Factory 4 - AFAIK Dawn/Portrait/Order are similar in mostly using the second screen for maps and HUDs. All of which, as Bloodstained is our witness, can work on a single screen as well.

Don't know if it's just me but I would like to see the n64 games to be released in HD
Still like them as much today

I have them on the Wii U, but all three are great so they deserve to be played by more.

@Ralizah I never played Order of Ecclesia and it still bothers me. Honestly, I would even buy those games separately at a high price just to have them on Switch, specially to play Portrait of Ruin again.

Really hope the Switch gets Rondo and Symphony at some point

@Diogmites if those are not there i probably won't even bother

A lot of people love Aria but I found it overhyped. Something about the map layout was really annoying to me.
Circle of the Moon on the other hand... I enjoyed that more than Symphony of the Night. I just hope the Switch port won't patch that famous glitch where you can unlock any cards you want. That really made it a blast.

M2 handling the release of awesome Castlevanias on Switch? Where do I sign up?!

@roy130390 Order of Ecclesia is a top three Castlevania game, IMO. It's most of the reason I want that collection, honestly, since it feels like a compelling hybrid of the old and Metroid-style games.

It's just a pity I don't still own my NDS copy, as I'd happily play it on there.

@anoyonmus Nintendo probably won't bother including this in a Direct. The localization announcement will probably just be dumped on twitter randomly one day, tbh.

Sadly, the only game that excites me here is Aria. Really never liked the slight knock-off vibe of Circle, and Harmony is... okay I guess.

I know it wouldn't be nearly as straightforward to pull off, but a Castlevania DS collection would be incredibly hype. All three main CV DS games are fantastic.

YESS!!!! I was waiting for this since the first collection. I bought my original GBA along with Castlevania: Circle of the Moon and Konami Krazy Racers.

Oh heck yeah - this collection would be most welcome!

I have all 3 of the DS Castlevania's, but never got to try and of these. Instant buy.

Will probably be announce on the next Nintendo Direct that is if Konami doesn't already reveal it at Tokyo Game Show first. Whoever does the revelation first doesn't matter, this is a win to everyone if true. Still by giving this to Sony they need to give us Rondo and Symphony in return, you can't just take our exclusives and expect us not to take yours.

That is hours and hours of top notch Metroidvania.

Me? I’ll personally break the sound barrier with my finger reaching for the BUY button.

$30 seems like a reasonable price, but if it comes to Switch, it's more likely to be $40 or $50.

Wouldn't mind an adapted-to-Switch DS collection as well. This is good news though of course (if true)

I’ve just started playing Grimoire of Souls, that came out this morning and it’s REALLY good so far.

Will add these to my existing castlevania collection on Switch.

@Tempestryke yes that would be perfect

@Ralizah I know right?
All I want to play play Order of Ecclesia!

I've played some of these for a little bit and liked them well enough. Might get this one. Didn't bother getting the original CVs as those have aged a bit too much.

I love GBA Castlevania games and will get this, I also want new Castlevanias. Today Grimoire of souls came out on Apple Arcade.

I would defo buy these as I missed out on getting the GBA games and would love to play them. I would also love the DS games also as I only played PoR and now the DS games are stupidly expensive now.

This is literally my most anticipated release right now.

Hell yes👍😀 roll on the release date.

I’ve only played Circle of the Moon from this collection (or just ‘Castlevania’ as it’s called here in Europe). I enjoyed it, except for the cards (I don’t think I ever like cards when in games) and I got to the final boss but couldn’t beat him. Really should get around to the other two at some point, I just find I can only play large Metroidvanias every so often, there are too many of them these days.

I need this now!!!

@Papichulo who cares that they're not gonna be on NSO?

I got my gba back in 2001 with two games, Mario Advance and Circle of the moon. Castlevania was the best game (along with Advance wars) i've played on gba. Took me 12 hours to complete the first time and there is some codes you get when you finish the game. Never played the others though.

I believe I've played a GBA and DS Castlevania and I remember liking it. Either way, this would be awesome. It also helps explain the lack of a VC banner. Third parties would rather sell people these compilations than piecemeal. There are obviously cons to this approach, but I'm not against it.

Gimme, gimme, GIMME!!! Ooooh I soooo want this collection!!! Can't wait to replay those games for the gazillionth time!!! 😁😁😁😁 I loooove Castlevania

These are all great games but going by the name and the obvious sales this will get, I’d bet Konami will only give us the gba games and any other portable vanias will get their own set. I’ll probably get this either way because they are so good. Rondo of Blood is the one I really need tho, since I don’t have it in any form anymore.

What is Konami? Nothing but a miserable pile of secrets!

Seriously though this is great news. Now if only we could get Rondo and Symphony as well..

Considering I own the originals on GBA, I probably will buy this collection. I'm one of those suckers born every minute.

Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if Konami leaves out Circle of the Moon. Even though it's secretly the best of the three.

@luxoricious Aria is the best of the bunch followed by circle.
Harmony is not the worst game ever but compare to the others it's lackluster.

Love these games to death, and I'll go to bat for Harmony any day too. They deserve to not be left behind on older hardware. But unless there's some extras I might pass on this since I have the original cartridges and the Wii U VC copies.

Hopefully the DS games get ported too because outside of the first one they can easily be functional on one screen. Maybe they could just ditch the drawing mechanic altogether for Dawn of Sorrow.

@Ralizah I said it is only a possibility.

Konami will be at the TGS and September 26th is Castlevania 35th anniversary. Nintendo is rumored to having a direct this month. So it could happen at any of these events

@Barbara001 well typically, ratings are ALMOST ALWAYS REAL.

Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Life is Strange True Colors have all been rated for Switch before the announcement.

@DrDaisy if it even comes at that price, I don’t think many people will mind that.

Also I think it is a bit unlikely that it will be around $50 considering the Anniversary collection was $20. But we will wait and see.

I will personally be willing to buy it at $60

Day 1, I'm a huge Castlevania fan, now who do I give money to?

@SSGodLink What? Aria is very much loved as both a Castlevania game, and a GBA game.

@joey302 I wish they would.

I have a hacked Switch I can already do this on, and my MiSTer FPGA, and I own the originals. This is cool for everyone else though. Hopefully it is priced properly.

@Tempestryke Ya I still do a playthrough every few years since I bought the thing new back when I was 17. All the GBA ones are great but Aria is by far the best. The DS sequel is even better but I hated the seal system.

@Jokerwolf I love Dawn, but I don't like the seal system either. I also don't like the weapon craft system as much. Its fine for the most part, but using one time boss souls for the best ones, was a dumb idea.

circle of the moon is most hardest castlevania game to date.

@anoyonmus right??? I was hoping Konami would announce it at gamescom and then they didn't and I was terrified (as if Dracula himself was right in front of me) that they had cancelled it. But here it is again! Now they should go and resurrect Drac... Old Castlevania games already!!! 😊😊😊

@Barbara001 well we got TGS, September 26th which is 35th anniversary for Castlevania. It could even happen in a Nintendo Direct for all we know.

And yes, ratings have almost always have been accurate

Aria of sorrow will forever hold a special place in my heart. When I was working at be games and my friend was working at GameStop we would call one another to compare how far we were on our little gba sp haha I buy all castlevanias so I will get this , but a n64 remaster would be nice

@NintendoByNature ratings tend to be real most of the time. Life is strange true colors and marvel super heroes were rated for switch before official announcement

@anoyonmus then pop the bottles, we're playing some castlevania!

I've been replaying these games again recently and I forgot how damn hard they are.

GBA sound card is always quite grating going back to the handheld. I'm interested to see if they'll do anything to update the sound effects and music. I loved Aria of Sorrow

Now that two countries have rated it, it should only be a short time before the rest do and it’s released.

I've been thinking about all these 2D games that run at 60fps on Swith. Sony and Microsoft could get them at 120fps, like Ori and Monster Boy(although I haven't been able to get Monster Boy going at 120 on my PS5...). This would be a nice perk over what Switch could offer. I've recently played Samurai Shodown and Falconeer at 120 on XSX and they are extremely responsive and beautiful! I'd like to know the analytics on use of high refresh displays. Are 10% of users playing stuff at 120fps? Maybe 20%? I wish every game had a 120fps mode. I don't care how low the resolution and graphics features have to go. On my 1080p monitor a 720p 120fps game would probably still look amazing.
I guess I'm saying it would be cool if these old Castlevanias could be boosted to 120fps on the newest consoles.

I might pick up these Castlevania games but I'd love a Metroid double pack on switch with fusion and zero.

@luxoricious thats the best one, circle of the moon Is a real torture

Yeah, I missed OoE & would love to replay DoS & PoR, @Ralizah .... Also never got to play these GBA ones, so I'm up for those, too!

If it’s physical, day 1. Hopefully the LRG one sold well enough that Konami will consider releasing it themselves.

@MitchK 3 countries

First it was Australia, then Korea, and then Taiwan

I would prefer if they added the DS games to this collection. I think it should work if they just remove the touch screen inputs, they weren't that important anyways.

Not totally related, but I hope one day they can make a 2.5d Castlevania where the game looks just like (or as close as possible) to the excellent 2d art. I’m sure it’ll take all kinds of magic with filters, texturing, etc.

@WhiteTrashGuy

I have a special place in my heart for CotM. It was the first non-level castlevania I had played, and was made available to me at a time in my life when I definitely needed it.

@Kiwi_Unlimited
That is awesome. I am so glad it was there when you needed it. It's definitely video game comfort food.

I hope this turns out to be true. It'll be day one for me, If it's physical of course. I've only recently played & finished SOTN for the first time, and I've read that the GBA titles are just as good.

@Ralizah the Australian rating is still there the last time I checked

@Hardcore_Holly the Australian rating is still there I think. It hasn’t been taken down yet.

Ratings like these tend to almost be always real. Life is strange true colors and lego Marvel Super heroes were rated for Switch before they got announced

@Ralizah PlayAsia has listed Castlevania Advance Collection too by the way. It has been taken down but there are articles of it on the internet

@anoyonmus PlayAsia likes to jump the gun a lot when it comes to "listing" physical versions of games that don't actually exist.

@Ralizah well its a maybe or maybe not for now. The 3 ratings do make it likely to happen though. We will find out in the Nintendo Direct.

Also the Australian rating of the game is still up.

Dracula X is indeed the lesser game compared to Rondo, however I am pleased to see its rumoured inclusion in a collection regardless. Because it means this collection could also contain other Castlevania games than just the GBA ones, so hopefully it could also contain Adventure ReBirth?

In Japan, Dracula X was called Dracula XX as a side-story, Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night are part of the Akumajou Dracula X subseries and they were released on PSP as part of The Dracula X Chronicles, which did not include Vampire's Kiss/Dracula XX.

Also, it would be a real disappointment if the DS games are not included in this collection. Especially since Dawn of Sorrow is a direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow, which is in this collection.

The Castlevania Advance Collection should include, in my opinion:

• Vampire Killer (1986, MSX2)
• Castlevania Chronicles (1993/2001, Sharp X68000/PSone)
• Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (Rondo of Blood/Dracula X/Symphony of the Night/Rondo of Blood Remake) (1993/1995/1997/2007, PC Engine CD/PSone/PSP)
• Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (2001, GBA)
• Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (2002, GBA)
• Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (2003, GBA)
• Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (2005, DS)
• Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (2006, DS)
• Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (2008, DS)
• Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (2010, PS3)

No 3D games but I would be open to a collection containing only the 3D games.

@Papichulo are you genuinely had a slight expectation of any GBA Castlevania at NSO?

Don't forget: Next Sunday marks the 35th anniversary of Castlevania.

@Specter_of-the_OLED Correct. And Symphony of the Night has already been released in Apple AppStore, so it is not exclusive to Sony anymore.

This’ll drop after tonight’s Direct

I REALLY wish people would stop with the 'Dracula X is a SNES conversion of the PC Engine's Rondo of Blood' nonsense. It isn't.

People should really stop comparing Dracula X to Rondo of blood. They are so different it's more like two separate games rather than different versions of the Same game. The snes one often being called inferior when in reality it's actually a pretty good game. I wish more Castlevania fans would give it a chance.

just hope they remove the annoying "double tap direction buttons to run" in Circle of the Moon. a toggle auto-running for that game would be really great.

@SpringDivorce exactly! Too many people don’t know their gaming knowledge….they just think they do.

@Ralizah LRG has already confirmed a physical copy of Castlevania Requiem (Rondo of Blood ,and Sympathy of the Night )for the PS4 ..

@Zeldafan79

It could do with a little more speed, otherwise it's a decent entry. I think these days I probably prefer it to IV.

I'm realizing how cool it is that Switch will likely have releases of Metroid and Castlevania in October. The names that name a genre are getting awesome releases close together. So awesome

Isn’t Dracula X for the SNES a pretty different game from Rondo of Blood just with some shared assets?

Aria of Sorrow is one of the top 10 best games ever made. About time this too. Years ago I spilled the beans on a Castlevania collection. 3 were in the works by M3. Classics, Evolution, Perfection. The middle one had Aria. Perfection had Dawn of Sorrow, Symphony of the Night. Classics included a bunch of rare ones though. I embarrassed myself by swearing up and down it was happening. Then they released essentially the classics as their Castlevania Collection on Switch along with Contra. You know the one. And nothing more. These ports were finished years ago. I don’t know much about the series just that Aria is phenomenally good.

I even forked over £90 for a GBA cart of it. It launched in small numbers and was a cult classic. So carts were crazy expensive. 90 quid what is this a PS1 or n64 game lol!

@roboshort Yep, and a way worse game.

@Diogmites i agree, also no Dawn of Sorrow and Symphony of the night! Which are long overdue on Switch. I Would buy this if the Castlevania Collection got complete. Not gonna but three collections for one series!

This is probably my most(or one of) anticipated games for the direct. Bring on the announcement!

Yeah, I have a feeling it's going to be the snes Dracula X, which in my opinion is not nearly as good as the TurboGrafx-16 version.

Dracula X is uh... not good. Certainly one of the worst trad Castlevania games but, hey, I'd mostly only be buying this for Aria, which is way up there amongst the very best in the series.

It's been years since I've bought anything full price. This might be the one.

Rondo of blood has been re-released ad nauseum. I'd rather see a collected re-release of the castlevania DS games.

@Znake Dawn of Sorrow is a Nintendo DS game, a sequel to the wonderful Aria of Sorrow. It would take a lot of work to put the Nintendo DS games on the Switch and other consoles.

As for SOTN, you can blame Konami and to an extent, Sony too. But since SOTN released on mobile platforms, HOPEFULLY we get that along

@Hydra_Spectre the DS games would be harder to port. Not impossible but it will require more time. While I do believe this collection does in fact exist, I don't think the DS collection will happen for a while

@EarthboundBenjy What is Dracula X exactly? I never understood what the connection is between Dracula X and Rondo Of Blood. Are they the same or different?

Also WHERE IS SOTN?

Please be the pc engine version please be the pc engine version please be the pc engine version please be the pc engine version

@anoyonmus I believe Dracula X uses a lot of the same assets as Rondo of Blood, but they're otherwise completely different games.

@OldManHermit I see

Oooh the intrigue deepens! Perhaps we'll see it mentioned in today's Direct!

I hope so, as I never owned a GBA and never got to play these titles, except Rondo of Blood a little bit on PC Engine, when I used to own one. Having that PC Engine version would be the sweetest icing on the cake for this collection!

@anoyonmus there are DS games on Switch already- like Mega Man Zero Collection along with Advent and ZX, so I do not see how DS games would be an issue

They'll give us Dracula X and Rondo of Blood but not Symphony of the Night. C'mon Konami not like you can't fit all that on an 8gb cartridge. Either Konami don't want to give or they are planning to do something with Symphony of the Night, maybe a remake or a remastered soon. Sony had nothing to do with Symphony anymore, they got the PSP port, they are satisfied just give the rest of the fans the game they wanted.

@Znake I mean it would take longer to port. You do know Switch isn't the only console in existence right? What if they have to port to the Xbox and PS platforms?

So I am not expecting the DS games to be added in this collection

That box art on playasia is awful. Hopefully it’s just a place holder. Why would there be a different logo on the box compared to the app icon (which seems legit)?

@anoyonmus Dracula X is a re-imagine version of Rondo of Blood from the perspective of another dev. It had the same story and borrow the same assets but one had a different process of the game in a different way. Just think Aladdin on Genesis and Super NES, both are based on same Disney IP, both use similar assets like throwing apples and platforming but both are not the same game.

@Specter_of-the_OLED its just a rumor. Its likely the Dracula X won't even be in there considering it is the "Advance" collection which should mean only the three GBA games. Its a bummer we do not get SOTN but one day we will get it

@Specter_of-the_OLED Ah I get it now.

@anoyonmus Yeah either way I'll buy it just for the GBA games, anything more added are just the icing then.

Oh god, if they use the SNES Dracula X that would make me very sad.

Why calling it Advance if there's Castlevania: Dracula X there too, regardless of which version ends up being? Why not just releasing a Castlevania Anniversary Collection vol. 2 with several games, of course GBA and SNES/PC Engine but also DS, Game Boy's Legends and Symphony of the Night? I'm not asking a crazy thing here.

I guess we'll never see the Nintendo 64 entries collected, though. And those would be really useful (as GBA rereleases are) due to their current market value.

@anoyonmus the Aria was the best of this bunch, but not gonna buy it for 1 game. The DS Castlevania games were great. What kind of collection is this-the other ones had a mix of games from different consoles and this one only has Advance games? A definitive NO BUY then.

@Ralizah I don’t k ow if agree if it’s the best run, it could be, but considering dawn of sorrow was decent compared to Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia well, that game hurt that trilogy a bit. The symbol drawing was silly. It’s the same thing with the advance game, I think both Circle of the Moon and Aria of sorrow blow Harmony of Dissonance out of the water.

@BloodNinja let’s forget the SNES version exists and only live in a world the PCE version exists.(I did enjoy the PSP Remake though, not a popular opinion but oh well,)

@Themagusx1 The PSP remake was pretty fresh, though I do prefer the PCE version.

Will buy if they add DS games.

I would love to see Castlevania Legends and GB Kid Dracula added as well. I know it seems as though Im a “give a mouse a cookie” kind of fan. But my bloodthirst for Castlevania is insatiable.

@BloodNinja oh yeah for sure PCE is awesome, but that package with all of the games in it including Symphony rocks cause it’s just a good package.

@Themagusx1 Definitely. I’m surprised that package hasn’t been ported to Switch in some fashion, seems like a huge oversight.

@BloodNinja agreed that package rocks. I do like the port of rondo and symphony on ps4, actually I was playing symphony on my ps4 just a little while ago.

@Hydra_Spectre why would we want the MSX port of Caslrvsnia? That port is awful and a confusing mess. And it’s badly designed with the whole exploration thing it has. Also boss battles are not done well either. It’s as bad as as haunted castle.

@Themagusx1 I had a pretty good glitchless speed run for Symphony, without using any exploits I could run the best ending in under 50 minutes.

@BloodNinja damn that’s pretty impressive. You world record that game?

@Themagusx1 No, because the any% category is dominated by exploits and glitches, I think world record is somewhere around 17 minutes with movement glitches. I just did my runs because I wanted to see if the game was runnable without any glitches what-so-sever.

@BloodNinja that’s still I,pressive. Compared to my twelve hour complete file on my ps4 lol

@Themagusx1 lmfao I was so invested in my DS2 playthrough that I missed the direct XD

@Ralizah and they announced it in the direct. Welp

@anoyonmus Yep. Happy to be wrong.

@Ralizah yup

@BloodNinja I was playing ys8 before the direct but luckily my fiancé reminded me. Or I would of missed it too.

I played briefly and the controls don't feel right. I'm thinking there's too much of a dead zone on the analog stick. It surprised me b/c it's M2 and previously older arcade games felt "alright" on with the joycon ( not as good as a D-Pad though). Anyone else have this impression?

I am happy that they included Dracula X as a bonus game but I would've been happier if this was a GBA+DS collection which also includes Harmony of Despair with all DLC while the Dracula X games (Rondo of Blood, Vampire's Kiss, Symphony of the Night) being their own collection with their own bonuses (especially if we get the Sega Saturn version of Symphony as a bonus but without the slowdown, like what some hacks do).
Even better if they even do a collection of the 3D games like Legacy of Darkness.