Why the others don't fit the bill in your opinion? Ninja Senki for example, looks the part. Do you think they took too many liberties with color palette?Sumez wrote:Wow, that's a really tough definition. Of the ones you mentioned, I'd say only Megaman 9 and 10, Shovel Knight and Curse of Issyos are actually created with NES aesthetics in mind.
I don't care about trophies, but I want to beat every challenge built into the game as it is.Turrican wrote:The game starts easy but believe me, trying to get some trophies will make things tricky well before approaching Ultimate mode.
Yeah.Sumez wrote:Bosses are absurdly good looking. Especially a fan of the coin themed one.
even mean, though?!Perhaps a good way of reasoning is trying to imagine a proper NES demake of such titles. There are very few instances of this actually happening, the only one that comes to mind is Retro City Rampage -> Rom City Rampage.Sumez wrote:Maybe it's more obvious when you'vee actually been working with the NES and are familiar with it's abilities, but I really think those games look vastly out of scope. Bar the occasional parallax, they could probably work on a PC Engine.
Not sure, I've never tried the casual and I'm glad, since the first "normal" playthrough felt casual enough even on veteran. I suppose trophies aren't affect by it though.Turrican wrote:I don't care about trophies, but I want to beat every challenge built into the game as it is.
However, I'm curious - do the trophies care if you play at Veteran mode at all? The game claims that there is no penalty to using Casual mode, but reading the description of what it does, it sounds a lot like cheating to me. Kind of dumb if the game compromises its own challenges by allowing players to cop out like that.
Didn't that game begin development as a homebrew title though?Turrican wrote:There are very few instances of this actually happening, the only one that comes to mind is Retro City Rampage -> Rom City Rampage.
Branching paths will also play against you, as you'll be often denied access to the fastest or easier routes. Devious Inti! By the time you go for the Nightmare's End trophy, you're not playing Akumajo Densetsu anymore, but Akumajo Dracula.The way to get to Ultimate boss rush is to hold down L than select boss rush.Turrican wrote:Don't misunderstand me though; I'm aware all these have too many frames, effects and stuff to be impossible, in their actual form, on the NES. What I'm interested about is the pure graphical side of things, ie how many of these adhere to NES graphical conventions, and how far their fidelity extends to. In this sense, Ninja Senki may lose point for a too vibrant palette, but gain some for being true to 4:3 ratio, and so on. It'd be obviously insane to really code the game "on the metal" and not release for the grey wonder. That's why I'm anticipating Xenocrisis and Tanglewood so much: no better proof of hardware fidelty than being able to run on it
Regarding my CotM progress:
Spoiler
Finished Boss Rush Mode, and it didn't unlock an "ultimate" version of Boss Rush. I wonder if it's there at all, maybe unlocked by completing Ultimate proper. Also, the trophies basically require you to play Normal several times, and I thought it was a nice touch that they wrote eding blurbs slightly different for every companion you bring with you. Nice touch. However, trying to get to the last boss without recruting anyone, *and* without getting Getsu's abilities will prove aggravating. It's really a reverse metroidvania, when you start free to explore and get all the powerup stuff, and then gradually you are meant to go alone and weak...
May I suggest taking a different approach? After all, SotN's menu font aren't exaclty top class either, and the game was loaded with crummy fmvs, hilarious voice acting and yet it became bigger than the sum of its parts.8BA wrote:Ugh... I just watched the e3 demo & it's pretty rough. Repetitively heaving generic character models sort of melt as they exchange drawn out dialogue for ages, iOS font for menus & damage indicators, a cartoon shader that recalls nothing of SotN's visuals. It feels cheap & messy...
This will never live up to SotN without a lot of work.
Am I happy that I get to see another one? Yes.I feel that's the reason why MGSV had so much backlash,since it didn't lived up to the fanfiction most of the fanbase wrote in their minds. I really dislike the meme among certain MGS fans that MGS1-3 was a perfect trilogy or that the story didn't need to continue beyond MGS2 (which I call bullshit on) when MGS1 and 2 were rather flawed games to begin with.Turrican wrote:Anyway, two things to keep in mind: as Ron Gilbert once said "If I make another point and click adventure people will complain it's not on par with Monkey Island. But what they really mean is it's not on par with their nostalgia of Monkey Island"
This is really cool! I had no idea!! It seems on PC you achieve this affect by holding own the keys I, N, T, C rather than using the gamepad.sky-13 wrote:The way to get to Ultimate boss rush is to hold down L than select boss rush.
Holding R, X and Y also have varying effects on Boss Rush such as full power Zangetsu or the Sub-Weapons reappearing after each round.
You can even mix and match combinations so have a blast!
Wait, what?Turrican wrote: While I would agree in general, I disagree on this particular case, and for two reasons. The majority of Iga's career has been revolved into getting people to acknoledge how much Dracula's Curse rocks, and how much one is missing out if he doesn't get to play it.
I guess. For my part however I played DoS first then SoTN later in 2013 or so. I've since finished all the castletroids and none of them do it for me quite like sotn does. I've played it more than any of the others and I could happily start a new playthrough tonight.Turrican wrote: Anyway, two things to keep in mind: as Ron Gilbert once said "If I make another point and click adventure people will complain it's not on par with Monkey Island. But what they really mean is it's not on par with their nostalgia of Monkey Island"
Well, in 1997 Alucard was brought back as protagonist. In 2001, Iga candidly elects Drac's Curse as his favorite (in the Chronicles in-game interview). In 2005, Dawn of Sorrow has the alternate "Julius mode" which is basically a metroidvania retelling of Drac's Curse with the switching characters. Later in 2005, Iga also attempted a sort of "sequel" to Dracula's Curse, for his ambitious 3D outing (Curse of Darkness), that among the other things, brings back Ralph/Trevor as a playable character. That's focusing on the big stuff, leaving alone all the homages that littered his production, so basically there wasn't a Iga production without at least one musical nod to this particular episode: Portrait has Overture, Ecclesia has Riddle, Dracula X Chronicles has Demon Seed...Blinge wrote:Wait, what?
Is there anything more to this other than he brought Alucard back.
oh, I'm with you there. That the game hit all the spots and became magical is true. That you probably cannot recreate the magic with some alchemy of ingredients is also true, but the original alchemy wasn't made of pure perfection:Blinge wrote:I guess. For my part however I played DoS first then SoTN later in 2013 or so. I've since finished all the castletroids and none of them do it for me quite like sotn does. I've played it more than any of the others and I could happily start a new playthrough tonight.
This holds true to me even if there's parts of the later games that are clearly superior. I don't know how to explain it. Magical vacation Dracula, that's it.
True, by the time Ecclesia came out, Iga had poured so much of his own stuff into the scenario writing that the game was already a sort of reboot, straying quite a bit from the original source. It makes only sense that he brought that template back for his Kickstarter project. In a way, Iga's not doing Konami's Castlevania, but his own Igavania.Weak Boson wrote:It seems to me that they're more interested in making a big screen version of Order of Ecclesia than making another attempt at SotN. And I think that's the smart move. Certainly more achievable than making a game that's better than all the fans' favorite game of all time ever.
I'm not even sure what point you are trying to make here, but SOTN blew me away the first time I saw it, and it still does every time I see it. It's definitely not a nostalgia thing, the game isn't that old to me.Turrican wrote: May I suggest taking a different approach? After all, SotN's menu font aren't exaclty top class either, and the game was loaded with crummy fmvs, hilarious voice acting and yet it became bigger than the sum of its parts.
Anyway, two things to keep in mind: as Ron Gilbert once said "If I make another point and click adventure people will complain it's not on par with Monkey Island. But what they really mean is it's not on par with their nostalgia of Monkey Island"
Ergh. The story absolutely did not need to continue beyond MGS2.Jonny2x4 wrote: I really dislike the meme among certain MGS fans that MGS1-3 was a perfect trilogy or that the story didn't need to continue beyond MGS2 (which I call bullshit on) when MGS1 and 2 were rather flawed games to begin with.
There was no way to go from there aside from a messy attempt to tie up everything, and MGS4 is living proof how terrible that can be.
Interesting! The code seems like a nod to Inti Creates.Weak Boson wrote:It seems to me that they're more interested in making a big screen version of Order of Ecclesia than making another attempt at SotN. And I think that's the smart move. Certainly more achievable than making a game that's better than all the fans' favorite game of all time ever.
This is really cool! I had no idea!! It seems on PC you achieve this affect by holding own the keys I, N, T, C rather than using the gamepad.sky-13 wrote:The way to get to Ultimate boss rush is to hold down L than select boss rush.
Holding R, X and Y also have varying effects on Boss Rush such as full power Zangetsu or the Sub-Weapons reappearing after each round.
You can even mix and match combinations so have a blast!
MGS2 definitely ended with a deliberate cliffhanger the way I see it. Whether Kojima himself actually intended to follow it up on that at some point or leave it to his successor to explore seems to be the debate. At any rate, I don't think MGS4 was the trainwreck it was made out to be and in retrospect, I think the only reason the story turned out the way it was due to Kojima trying to tone down the Anti-Americanism of the previous games by making the conflict more personal, going as far as retconning the identity of The Patriots from being a shadowy cabal within the U.S. government to Big Boss's former support crew.Sumez wrote: Ergh. The story absolutely did not need to continue beyond MGS2.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is... Look, I'm old. I didn't even approach SotN the way most others did, I guess: a lot of people were probably taken by surprise by the unxepected greatness of it, but I was already anticipating it. In 1995, I had tracked down one of the few local stores that had a copy of Castlevania Vampire's Kiss for the Super Nintendo: when everyone else was fond of Ridge Racer or Doom, or Donkey Kong Country, Castlevania was already one of the last few things I cared about coming from the medium. The Playstation had gotten an amazing 1996, with the likes of Tomb Raider, Wipeout 2097, Residen Evil, Command & Conquer, yet I only drooled over magazine previews of "Dracula X".Sumez wrote:I'm not even sure what point you are trying to make here, but SOTN blew me away the first time I saw it, and it still does every time I see it. It's definitely not a nostalgia thing, the game isn't that old to me.
that couldn't be more far removed from my experience: I liked what this team was doing. They were doing their thing, and the games were constantly good, and they were the only ones around doing this (unlike today where one indie game out of four is a non-linear action adventure). And they kept improving on a number of key issues, striving for excellence despite being rerouted on the portables market, until Konami plugged the cord.Sumez wrote:For every new metroidvania we were all hoping for a worthy successor to SOTN that never came fully realised
There are two ways to look at SotN. If you look at its hand-drawn 2D aesthetics, it can't be matched. Probably the best thing you can do if you want a match in that department, is to go get Alundra or even better Suikoden II. If you only look for a tapestry of godlike pixelart, you're out of luck here.Sumez wrote:Bloodstained does not look good, and will never blow anyone anywhere.
Again, I think Iga, Curry the Kid, Yamane, Kojima Ayami and all the other talents involved in Bloodstained but also in the previous Igavania did their best and cared. It's a conundrum: even if you ask me, SotN is always on the first place of the pedestal, but I've come to terms that this doesn't detract from the following ones / doesn't imply that they rushed things or cared less. Quite the contrary, in fact.Sumez wrote:I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never see a new console Castlevania with every detail as incredibly cared for as they were in SOTN, and I wouldn't recommend anyone expecting that from Bloodstained either. That's the only approach I can recommend, and a successor to Ecclesia is more than I could have hoped for anyway.
Now I'm even less certain what your point is.Turrican wrote:I guess the point I'm trying to make is... [etc.]
Let's stay on focus here. The talk was entirely about the presentation of the game, as no one at this time has any idea if the game will be an improvement over the isssues SOTN did have. But what is clear from the demonstration was that the game looked cheap and unimpressive, which was the subject I was commenting on.SotN has achieved the enviable status of perfectly crystallized classic, so everyone gets back to it no matter what, but fans of -vania episodes that followed have to try to put things into perspective. I've done this, and I found out that I kept enjoying the formula after the blueprint, and that Iga did outdo himself five times out of six at least in pure gameplay terms. Circle (no Iga involvement), Aria, Dawn, Portrait and Ecclesia all feature substantial improvements in what was SotN's soft underbelly: the challenge factor. With time, boss battles have been made more satisfying, gimmicky powerup items such as Crissaegrim have been removed or made rarer, the games have been balanced for the better; alternate modes have been added and so on.
So you see, when you saythat couldn't be more far removed from my experience: I liked what this team was doing. They were doing their thing, and the games were constantly good, and they were the only ones around doing this (unlike today where one indie game out of four is a non-linear action adventure). And they kept improving on a number of key issues, striving for excellence despite being rerouted on the portables market, until Konami plugged the cord.Sumez wrote:For every new metroidvania we were all hoping for a worthy successor to SOTN that never came fully realised
Circle is actually the best of the GBA games as far as I care. However, it's a very different approach to the genre than SOTN, so it's easy to underestimate it when you first see it, since it originally looked like they were trying to recreate that experience.Marc wrote:It's been years since I played them, but of the GBA games, Circle was the only one I remember as being a step down in quality, the other two were just as good as Symphony.
Fuck. He really just said Harmony of Dissonance is as good as SoTN.Marc wrote:It's been years since I played them, but of the GBA games, Circle was the only one I remember as being a step down in quality, the other two were just as good as Symphony.
(A WRONG MEMORY 
)The Bale Baron BIRUFORDO VON BEAST FUCK wrote:"He runs like he's shat himself. He jumps like he's shat himself. He even walks like he's shat himself."
I did this today as well and it's definitely the best challenge the game has to offer. I did run into trouble in the last few stages but for the most part everything up to that point was fine. The game tends to give you the items that are best suited for any given screen, so as long as you are playing smart it's not too bad.Sumez wrote:Most fun playthrough was definitely vanilla Zangetsu. As much as I've praised the game for making each character's playstyle fit into the stage design, the true intentions of the game come out when you play Zangetsu's "Ninja Gaiden" style without any of the upgrades (as far as I can tell, all of them are impossible to pick up without the help of recruiting or sacrificies the other characters). I really love the dynamic of increasing the game's difficulty through this design and (the lack of) character abilities, rather than just having a difficulty selection. And starting out playing the other "modes" with more means to overcome the challenges definitely schools you for the tougher "versions" of the same stages.
Is it not? Genuine question, I don't really follow critical opinion, so have no idea on how the various games are rated. I just remember not being particularly disappointed with any of them, taking into consideration they were handheld titles.Blinge wrote:Fuck. He really just said Harmony of Dissonance is as good as SoTN.Marc wrote:It's been years since I played them, but of the GBA games, Circle was the only one I remember as being a step down in quality, the other two were just as good as Symphony.
It depends on what you are thinking of. In Harmony, you walk around with a chain whip. In Dawn (the first DS game), it's much more like Symphony both visually and gameplay-wise (an arsenal based heavily around swords). I can see the comparison if you are thinking of the later.Marc wrote:I've just realised I played the first DS game as well, maybe I'm getting this mixed up with Harmony? I dunno, long time ago. I only realised I'd played this reading its description on Wiki and being reminded of the stupid stylus boss battle thing.
