Castlevania Miscellanies

[BIL]

I know now firsthand what Dracula's Curse is... That final stage's atrocious bgm loop.
I have to mute it, it grinds my intestines. Not even kidding.
The horroaah.

Yeah, "(Intestinal) Pressure" ain't great! It's used THRILLING ESCAPE BGM elsewhere and just about scrapes by, but a full (albeit brief) stage? Fuck outta heeyah. A rare soundtrack mishap for this series. This is clearly the superior final stage BGM, fire it up during the clock tower descent and tell me it ain't.

[NYN]

You're inimitable, BIL. Music savvy, obviously on point, and a meijin.
I expect now all uploaded replays with exactly that tune and nothing less. It works beautifully.

[BIL]

;3 I do harbour minor aspirations of reviving the good ol' AMV days...

[Blinge]

Word, Ronyn.. the amount of fucking times I had to repeat that stage in muh Grant play.
Jesus H christ
also BIL.. just..... okay i'll try it someday

[NYN]

When you sped your Grant replay up, the Pressure section became audiably bearable Go figure.
Grats for your Dora domination.
And thanks for the best castlevania player ever. That Super Konami Special MGR x Vania mesh vfx is delightful.

Am I right in supposing Super IV is the last Vania for Blinge to cc?

[Blinge]

<3
Oh I cleared that years ago, have it recorded too just haven't uploaded because.. well I don't know really. I don't see it to be of much interest.

The last console classicvania would be 68k. I'm making inroads into learning it, though I haven't touched it for a few days.

Only gameboy title worth going for a 1cc for would be Belmont's Revenge I think.

[BIL]

Only gameboy title worth going for a 1cc for would be Belmont's Revenge I think.

Yup. CVA1 is alright as a curio, but it's just too goddamn sludgy to recommend genuinely. Hilariously/horrifyingly, its staff boasts a bonafide triple crown of JP action legends - Nobuya Nakazato (CONTRA SPIRITS), Masato Maegawa (ALIEN SOLDIER), and Norio "NON" Hanzawa (ALL KINDA GOOD SHIT).

Dark Night Prelude puts me to motherfucking sleep, and has so far proven most useful as an analogue to the FC's similarly dishwater-dull Castlevania-ish Youkai Club by perennial middlers Jaleco (in its scant defense, Youkai's got a decent OST with at least one helluva fan arrangement).

FUCK ME OLD BOOTS! THAT SHOULDA BEEN CVIII'S FINAL STAGE BGM!!! (if Shabba was unwilling, obv)

"When posting about crap games, endeavour to provide some recompense for the sapping of good vibes" - Abraham Lincoln

TBH I don't consider the CVA duo especially Castlevania-ish, to start with, though CVA2 is close. They're a bit like Haunted Castle in that way, down to their contributing utterly killer OSTs in spite of faults elsewhere, only they're not as bad, broken or misbegotten as that one.

I highly suggest this walk speedup hack for CVA2, btw. Turns a decent game into a very good one. Havin ONE RIFE CLEARED DESU both the cart and TEH HAX ROMZ back-to-back, the latter sacrifices only the cart's negative difficulties (dreary corridor trudges, and a brutally rote-mandating final boss, who's still a bit of a motherfucker even without the cement boots!).

[SuperDeadite]

I actually quite like Castlevania Adventure 1. Its slow, but only 4 stages. Good challenge, great music, and the spikes of doom stage is fantastic, nothing else like it in the series.

Adventure 2 is good fun but way too easy.

[BrianC]

CV Adventure has that strict platformer thing to it kind of like the original Pitfall. Despite actually fitting the misconception of the series having super strict jumps, it's part of the reason I like the game. I don't recommend using the speed hack for that game. It messes up the jump timing and edits some of the graphics for the worse in an attempt to make them more like the NES CV games.

Edit: IIRC, CV2 GB speedup hack is fine.

[Blinge]

I swer 2 Christ if you're mashing your jump inputs in a tight situation like trying to get across platforms, it drops the directional input on your jump sometimes. so you just neutral jump, and go down like a sack o' shite

[BIL]

It does drop inputs, yeah. 3; Similar to Holy Diver Syndrome, where simultaneous dpad + button inputs can cause issues.

Edit: IIRC, CV2 GB speedup hack is fine.

Yep - an earlier version was a bit too quick, which made it impossible to drop into the Plant Castle's boss area without taking damage. The version I cleared was no-hittable, exactly like the original cart.

[BrianC]

It does drop inputs, yeah. 3; Similar to Holy Diver Syndrome, where simultaneous dpad + button inputs can cause issues.

Edit: IIRC, CV2 GB speedup hack is fine.

Yep - an earlier version was a bit too quick, which made it impossible to drop into the Plant Castle's boss area without taking damage. The version I cleared was no-hittable, exactly like the original cart.

I didn't know about that. I had no problems with the CVA2 hack. It was a hack for the first CVA that gave me problems with controls. It was not done by the same person.

[BIL]

I actually quite like Castlevania Adventure 1. Its slow, but only 4 stages. Good challenge, great music, and the spikes of doom stage is fantastic, nothing else like it in the series.

I'd compare CVA1's third stage to CV4's Block C, the vertical climb with disintegrating stairs, flying platforms, ceiling spikes and most of all, a great big sawblade with a murderous hankering for BERUMONDO asscheeks. Not autoscrolling, but if you stops scrolling, you gon die! Some hate it but I rove it.

Also roly polys <3

DEATH FAIR a muhfuckin jam. Joins the rarefied company of other "sup motherfuckers?" CV tunes like Rondo's OPUS 13, CV64-referencing DRACULA'S TEARS and the unfortunately shit-named but very jaunty STREAM. Let's chuck in this superb Dracula XX-styled cover of JJBA's BLOODY STREAM so this paragraph doesn't end on a downer. Avoid teh evil blade & find an opening 2 strike ♫

Just to correct myself - Holy Diver WILL, not "can," eat A/B inputs that occur on the same frame as dpad activity. I guarantee it! CVA1's input drops aren't as uniformly bad, and it's nowhere as hard a game besides, but they do happen.

[Dochartaigh]

After beating SotN 3 or 4 times I finally put the hours into getting the Duplicator...

My question is: have I really lost the Power of Sire if I found and used all three of them BEFORE knowing you can NOT -it seems- get these anywhere else and once gone, they're gone forever?

Kinda put a major crink in enjoying the duplicator when I seem to have lost the most powerful item to use it with in the game... which really sucks as I just spent 20ish hours getting nearly every single weapon, shield, equipment, etc...

[Leader Bee]

How the hell do you deal with the infinitely spawning mummies that reappear the moment you kill the last one in Castlevania 3????

[BIL]

Been ages since I played CVIII's low route, but I seem to recall GTFOing ASAP, with either Grant's ceiling run or Alucard's bat being my go-to moves. I never used Sypha back then, not sure if she has something useful (she usually does).

[Leader Bee]

Obviously Trevor is frozen in place until his attack animation is done and they've already respawned by then so I can't make any progress past them without taking damage.

[BIL]

Yeah, I never fought them with Trevor. Unless you've got a Stopwatch.

[bottino]

Holy Water shuts them down temporarily, which gives you a small window to escape their pincer attack (plus, you can easily score a x2 and x3 by doing it); with Sypha, you can use her Ice Spell and jump over them - they can't respawn if they're all frozen guy_pointing_at_his_head.gif.

But yeah, using Grant and Dracula-kun skills are the safest choices.

I believe you can also jump over them as they appear(?), but the timing seems very strict.

[FinalBaton]

for the first mummy platform as soon as I get on it I use drac, transform into bat and fly over that whole screen.

on the next screen, if you walk right asap and jump you'll evade the mummy preojectile every time since it always starts at same time.

[BIL]

with Sypha, you can use her Ice Spell and jump over them - they can't respawn if they're all frozen guy_pointing_at_his_head.gif.

Haha, I figured!



I've always found it a mark of well-designed action games, when you can theorycraft on their basic principles and have it play out on-screen.

[FinalBaton]

BIG BRAIN

[BIL]

Wizard Scrolling Action / Big INTin'

[Blinge]

Cross spam (might need double or triple) with Trevor works for that section I think.

Been a long time since I trevor'd it

[Leader Bee]

Managing to get past it now...although somewhat inconsistently - got to the falling blocks where the gargoles fly at you and thought "hey this doens't look so hard, i'll just save my hearst and not use drac" Died, didnt i?

[BIL]

CVIII low route. It's hilarious!



Second Loop, even moreso!

Spoiler

[Klatrymadon]

Castlevania IV prototype soundtrack. This is really fascinating to listen to if you're familiar with the finished soundtrack. You can hear a lot of the same instruments being used, but they often have different roles, and the arrangements in some cases are completely unexpected - check out Forest of Monsters!

[Blinge]

scv4 promo vid

https://youtu.be/2Fa4qSyDAHw

THROUGH A ROOM!!

[Sumez]

Through a room!

[Marc]

So I thought I'd make an attempt to go through these in order. Started with the original last night. 90 minutes play saw me through to Death, who has now whupped my ass every single time I've fount him.