Castlevania Miscellanies

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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BIL
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by BIL »

Blinge wrote:
BIL wrote:(Blinge: hump the ceiling you godless shitbird :evil: that's a tactic, not a rebuke! ;3)
w...wuh? I haven't even BEEN in this convo!
I am watching you - through a camera! (■`w´■) Apologies, did some dastardly thread necro while looking up Battle Arena stats ;3
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by Blinge »

the flow of time is always cruel..
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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time flows in reverse for my scraps of shitpost Image(^w´ )
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by BulletMagnet »

Blinge wrote:I stopped reading at "search action"
No worries, by then you'd seen all the essential stuff; the rest of the review was basically filler.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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God damn that's cold :shock: I thought you did good! Albeit, I was preoccupied glaring down a rifle scope for the dreaded "bad port of Rondo" howler to pop its head over the parapet. Image Barring that frowzy spurious varmint from the premises is more than most XX commentary can be arsed to do Image
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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Something of a red-headed step-sibling to the lauded PC Engine CD
:|

The rest of it's pretty good, but..
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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Muttfordshire counsels for peace, but will stand with Gingerstan come what may Image

Also, now that I've invoked the mouldy spectre: avoid all this by calling the game what it is. It's Dracula XX. X is not XX, and XX is not X. They're different games. It's really simple! Image "But the US/EU versions are called" The US/EU blow fucking goats! :shock: Are you going to contribute to the ongoing worldwide goat-blowing epidemic, as well? Image

Hey!
Poor Players!
LEAVE THEM GOATS ALONE
(■`W´■)
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by BrianC »

Actually, the EU version of XX is called Castlevania Vampire's Kiss
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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Very true! :O But still, the X/XX discussion is infested with disinformation - and noobs. (■`w´■)

Nuking the site from orbit is the only way to be sure. Image

Image

In all seriousness - given how Next Generation (EDGE Magazine's US imprint) put its foot square in its dumb mouth, in its contemporary review ("It's a three year-old port of a PC Engine game, and it shows" STOP BLOWING GOATS oh wait, you went out of print decades ago - lmao!), I wonder if it was a copy/paste of whatever guff their parent magazine had printed, RE: Vampire's Kiss.

(as I always say, not to be too down on EDGE - they'd majorly shaped up a few gens later, with superbly balanced reviews of Ikaruga, Psyvariar 2, DDP DOJ and Gradius V I'd be proud to call my own)
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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Blinge wrote:The rest of it's pretty good, but..
Maybe I shoulda saved it for if I ever do a review of that "Mirror of Fate" spinoff; if memory serves that one's version of Simon is fiery-haired (and sporting a Scottish brogue, to boot), so at least there I could use it literally.
Actually, the EU version of XX is called Castlevania Vampire's Kiss
Goes to show how determined that localization team was to helm an accurate translation; an unreleased sequel was reportedly titled Dracula XOXO, which most succinctly translates to "Vampire's Hugs and Kisses".
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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There was also the tragically cancelled Vampire's Fist, a gothic FMV dating sim where the series' BDSM roots would at last find expression Image Image
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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Rumor has it that GaijinPunch is in possession of the only known prototype.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by BIL »

:lol:
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by Blinge »

not enough self flagellation and apology, bullet!!
I just want to play cancel culture, when is it my turn?

(not to mention the artwork around CV Chronicles and the ingame redesign. "ahh just slap a red wig on him!)

Actually a friend of mine who knows me too well bought me a 'history of the Redhead' book for my birthday :lol:
I'm about halfway through: giving Simon the ruddy mop harkens back to classical and sometimes renaissance depictions of redhead blokes as barbarians.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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BIL wrote:There was also the tragically cancelled Vampire's Fist, a gothic FMV dating sim where the series' BDSM roots would at last find expression Image Image
Image
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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Justice for a lost classic Image
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by Sengoku Strider »

I finally got around to playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Curse of the Moon basically just being Castlevania III had set me up with a bunch of expectations going in, and...at first that was a bad thing. They nailed Miriam's whip in the 8-bit tribute, so I was excited to get my hands on it in the 'main' game, but it was utterly useless. I appreciate that they didn't ape the classic motion for it, but the timing felt wrong, it was slow & left you helpless in that first skill check hallway where you're getting mobbed by dogs, bats & ghosts. The thorn & light whips weren't any better. I'd given up on them until the flame whip dropped for me in the castle, that has enough screen persistence on its damage to be worthwhile and feels pretty good.

The other thing that has driven me up the wall is her run animation. I get what they were going for - classic CV always had a very deliberate plod to its character, while Alucard had an unearthly glide whose a speed didn't quite match the pace his feet were landing with. They appear to have gone for both here, but the result is displeasing: where Alucard moved faster than his run cycle creating a floaty vampiric disconnect with his physical reality, Miriam moves slower than hers, creating a sensation that she's slipping on ice everywhere she goes and not getting any traction. The feeling I'm left with is like I'm always struggling uphill, being sapped of movement somehow. I find myself pushing harder on the dpad, like my thumbs think the controller is malfunctioning or something.

Please tell me there's something you get later which helps with this.

But with that all said, the game started to grow on me once I got into the third hour or so. The stretch goals really helped flesh this game out, with the crafting & silly cooking etc. They also nailed the weird, random, pointless little touches (like the fairy sitting down alongside you - or just sitting on your shoulder if you idle long enough) that become not pointless because of how much depth & mystery they add to its world.

Once I found the Strider sword that was it, I was completely sold. Of course that was the next thing memento lady asked me for, lol. But they did a pretty good job with a number of the weapons in this game, so it's not unpleasant shifting around, and the loadout macros were a great touch. I really like the character customization too, just a shame they didn't make her armour changeable, but ah well.

Anyway, I'm still only about 35% of the way through, but while I can say the game certainly has a bunch of rough edges and budgetal constraints showing through the cracks, overall it's a welcome return for this particular design template.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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Going through a whirlwind of 'vania mania. First up: Harmony of Dissonance with a couple hacks to make the main character sprite and palette more palatable. Didn't do anything for the backtracking, but I was in the right frame of mind not to get aggravated. While there's occasionally a good boss (Pazuzu!) they definitely went for quantity over quality. Maxim's got a cool character concept, too bad the rival fight is sloppy af.

Next was Circle of the Moon with auto running, which makes moving around the castle feel about 3000 times better, and card mode, which changes cards from enemy drops to items placed around the world. Lack of incentive to explore is a pretty big flaw for a Metroid-style game, and where Symphony was constantly giving positive feedback with new abilities and weapons, vanilla Circle has most of your abilities come from drops, and there are no new weapons. In theory, the randomness of cards could have given more variability to each playthrough, but in practice they're often dropped solely by one enemy type in one area and you either know to farm them or just never see the card.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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Sengoku Strider wrote: Please tell me there's something you get later which helps with this.
Late reply but yes you can upgrade your character movement speed and weapons swings.

Certainly made great swords more enjoyable.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by SuperDeadite »

Also on HoD and I have to say the difficulty is meme worthy. I just fought Death, and already my defense stat was so high that all his attacks could only do me 1hp of damage....just pathetic...
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by Rastan78 »

Next was Circle of the Moon with auto running, which makes moving around the castle feel about 3000 times better,
I gotta say this would be very welcome. Constantly double tapping is so annoying. Somehow it didn't really bother me back in the day when I first played CotM, but firing it up on the new collection I was immediately like ugh. Fuck this.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by SuperDeadite »

Rastan78 wrote:
Next was Circle of the Moon with auto running, which makes moving around the castle feel about 3000 times better,
I gotta say this would be very welcome. Constantly double tapping is so annoying. Somehow it didn't really bother me back in the day when I first played CotM, but firing it up on the new collection I was immediately like ugh. Fuck this.
Don't need to double-tap. Just push the opposite direction first. Example left->right and hold right to dash. Or right->left and hold to dash left. Far less annoying than the double tap.

As for me, just finished HoD, and while the game is flawed, Juste controls well and is fun to play as. Since there are no important random drops to care about, you can just smash your way through as quickly as possible, making it a lot more fun than I was expecting. The backtracking isn't too bad either once you realize that pushing DOWN in front of the circle warps will warp you between all found warp points, yes the game does have actual fast travel.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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^ I took me a while to realize fast travel was what hint card 3 was hinting at. :oops:

I chased the GBA pair with a double-dose of stage action. Super Castlevania IV is a game that it took me a long time to warm up to, with the ways it dilutes the tight CV1 action, but that I ultimately came to enjoy quite a bit. Thick atmosphere; better to play the Japanese version so it's not diminished by censorship. There are many callbacks to the NES trilogy, like stage 1 taking you through a ruined mansion from Simon's Quest, and it occurred to me that the vertical buzz saw chase in stage B could come from the vertical spike chase in The Adventure. I think I first heard about the hard mode password on this forum... it helps keep the march to the castle interesting, and the concluding stages have some genuine challenge.

Next was the last (?) classicvania, The Adventure Rebirth. It's got easy & normal & hard difficulty settings, and separate from that, normal & classic styles. Normal / normal is very mild. Normal / classic has a hint of spicyness. Hard / normal singed my tongue, by stage 3 it's tougher than SCV4 ever gets. There's not just an increase in the damage scale, layouts are modified in that way veteran designers do when they want to screw with their audience. You're expected to know and exploit the rear hitbox when you wind up your whip. Ghosts will happily spawn where you're standing. Red skeletons reconstitute themselves in a second, are fast and can jump - there's one point where you basically have to take a couple out of play by hitting them mid-jump over pits, otherwise they'll be riding your ass the whole block. Boss patterns aren't necessarily complex, but they're tanky enough that you have to know them, there's no chance of winning a damage race. Death makes up for his weak Harmony and Circle showings with a vengeance.

I also like the exploratory elements in stages 1 through 5; 6 is just the Dracula fight. It uses the 'key in sub-weapon slot' system from the Dracula Xs, though only for routes within a level instead of exiting to new ones. Sometimes you can get goodies or bypass the miniboss. But the budget Wiiware nature shows, as stages don't have anywhere near the graphical cohesion and strong theming of its Super Famicom forefather.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Mortificator wrote:Next was the last (?) classicvania, The Adventure Rebirth. It's got easy & normal & hard difficulty settings, and separate from that, normal & classic styles. Normal / normal is very mild. Normal / classic has a hint of spicyness. Hard / normal singed my tongue, by stage 3 it's tougher than SCV4 ever gets. There's not just an increase in the damage scale, layouts are modified in that way veteran designers do when they want to screw with their audience. You're expected to know and exploit the rear hitbox when you wind up your whip. Ghosts will happily spawn where you're standing. Red skeletons reconstitute themselves in a second, are fast and can jump - there's one point where you basically have to take a couple out of play by hitting them mid-jump over pits, otherwise they'll be riding your ass the whole block. Boss patterns aren't necessarily complex, but they're tanky enough that you have to know them, there's no chance of winning a damage race. Death makes up for his weak Harmony and Circle showings with a vengeance.

I also like the exploratory elements in stages 1 through 5; 6 is just the Dracula fight. It uses the 'key in sub-weapon slot' system from the Dracula Xs, though only for routes within a level instead of exiting to new ones. Sometimes you can get goodies or bypass the miniboss. But the budget Wiiware nature shows, as stages don't have anywhere near the graphical cohesion and strong theming of its Super Famicom forefather.
As someone who kinda likes CVA1, I really wish they'd reissue this on anything. It sucks how many games vanished from the face of the non-piracy Earth when the Wii Shop was taken down. From one-offs that never seem to reappear like Gate of Thunder to entire platforms like C64 & Master System games, I never thought the Wii would be the beginning and end of it (Wii U tried, but was too good for this world of dust and ashes).
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Somebody is doing (or at least attempting) an Atari 2600 demake of Castlevania 1:

https://youtu.be/X44Za1TZFpo
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by BrianC »

Looks interesting. I remember another person working on a CV demake for 2600, but I'm not sure what came of it. Intellivision recently got a CV demake named Intellivania, which was already released on cart.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by Sengoku Strider »

"The purchaser will not, by purchasing the NFT, obtain intellectual property rights (e.g. copyrights, trademark rights) in relation to the data linked to the NFT. Thus, the purchaser may not use the data linked to the NFT (e.g. reproductions) for commercial purposes. "

"So we're gonna sell you this hamburger, but you can't eat it. Also, it's still technically our hamburger."

They've somehow managed to dupe people into trying to outbid one another for the free wallpapers everyone has been ignoring since the dawn of the internet.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

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Sengoku Strider wrote: They've somehow managed to dupe people into trying to outbid one another for the free wallpapers everyone has been ignoring since the dawn of the internet.
This is one of the best descriptions of NFTs I've come across so far.
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Re: Castlevania Miscellanies

Post by Sengoku Strider »

I just saw that Limited Run is putting out a physical edition of Castlevania Requiem, which is the dual SotN/Rondo release for PS4. Sony had a hand in initially getting it into existence, so it's PS4 only. Preorders open next Friday and run through Feb 27th.

Versions - regular, as well as a "retro style box" that is not retro-styled with soundtrack + poster edition.

And then there's this monstrosity:
Spoiler
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