Castlevania Miscellanies

[Blinge]

Bloodlines on its default difficulty is downright easy. Not as much of a cakewalk as IV, but it can't even begin to compare to 1, 3, or even parts of Rondo. It has so much more flexibility than those thanks to the special attacks and air whipping, so if someone is really having a harder time with it than the others, they are doing something wrong.

I just used the special spell to murder a boss save my ass from a 1-hit death, so you're right about that I guess. What's air whipping.. just an upwards attack?

I still think it's in the same tier as 1 in terms of difficulty though if we're talking "anything goes."
Versailles to me is brutal to endure, is there health anywhere on that stage?
Pisa taxes some lives off me too, with the enemies swarming in quickly and cheap deaths on the outdoor climbing section.

Ultra-easy game.

I assume when people say stuff like this they mean ultra easy compared to the harder vanias & with the whole game roughly memorised.
Is everyone here a badass 2D action gamer who's beaten the best of 'em?
I had a friend try CV4 and his credit ended on stage 2..

So I've got a new tradition starting now. Upon finishing a 'vania for the first time I'll go watch 'james and mike' get everything wrong about the game..

[Squire Grooktook]

Is everyone here a badass 2D action gamer who's beaten the best of 'em?

Well, I am, but you've probably got a lot harder clears than Obscura under your belt at this point ^_^

[Blinge]

Hahah.
1. Doubtful.
2. Oh jeez what have you done!?

[Squire Grooktook]

*stokes the fires of conflict*

[BIL]

Both Rondo and Bloodlines are more about "authoritative" (as the above poster would put it) play than pure survival. I don't have much trouble 1cc'ing or even 1lc'ing either games on revisits, but I thoroughly enjoy returning to both every now and then to attempt increasingly snazzy and flawless speedkills and no-damage runs. Bloodlines particularly shines in this regard, as learning to put maximum offensive pressure on the games beasties with your full moveset is a blast.

Fuuucking exactly. Bloodlines isn't hard to survive, but its enormous destructive potential make it a blast to master and a balls-out blast to thrash with authority. Stuff is collapsing in grisly heaps and exploding in gouts of flame, constantly.

I find Rondo takes on a similar sustained intensity, one close in tone to the original game, if played for 1LC. A couple mishandled pests can leave Richter easy pickings for the nastier bosses. Neither of these games are brutal survivalist ordeals ala CVIII's loop, but they hugely reward mastery regardless.

Versailles to me is brutal to endure, is there health anywhere on that stage?

st5 is pretty rough, yeah - almost certainly the game's hardest for survival (st6 is a glorified boss alley, really). There's at least one meat, but I think it might be John's route only. It's

Spoiler

right after making the whip-swing into the wine cellar.

The hooded bombers on John's route will occasionally chuck meat, too, but it's risky hanging around them.

Pisa taxes some lives off me too, with the enemies swarming in quickly and cheap deaths on the outdoor climbing section.

The gargoyles? Just pick them off as they appear - only one will spawn at a time. Can get a bit nervy if one goes offscreen, haha... chuck a subweapon in their general direction while keeping an eye out for further spawns.

Is everyone here a badass 2D action gamer who's beaten the best of 'em?
I had a friend try CV4 and his credit ended on stage 2..

A disclaimer "by traditional CV standards" is probably warranted on most of the last page or so. ;3 Dunno about badasses but such series inevitably breed...

Spoiler

HARD MEN FOR A HARD TIME.

So I've got a new tradition starting now. Upon finishing a 'vania for the first time I'll go watch 'james and mike' get everything wrong about the game..

I genuinely like James & co, but I can't bear their "serious" gaming vids. Painful ineptitude. Some great moments over the years though... I still laugh at one particular bit from Super C:

Spoiler

*stokes the fires of conflict*

[Skykid]

It's really interesting how everyone's difficulty grading is completely different. I think it's true that certain games and game-types are more easily broached and dispatched by experience, approach and comfort. For me I click really easily with anything 'arcade', and for that reason Bloodlines just feels like a walk in the park. I picked it up the other day and went all the way to stage 5 on first attempt, and only obtained one 1up on stage one's boss approach. That said I remember when I first played the game many moons ago and had trouble figuring out you just need distance on that teleporting necromancer midboss.

But if you examine it, I agree with Blinge that it might be the easiest of the Classicvanias, but we find difficulty in different places: I find the Pisa stage really easy for example, but keep messing up stage 5 by being too reckless.

For me:

but I would put Bloodlines (any difficulty setting) below CV1

Yes, because the last few stages of CV1 will test you. Memory and reflex required. Plus bosses step it up. (And we need to take 1ups out of the equation here. We're talking about difficulty, not difficulty of the 1CC).

However, Rondo is much easier than Bloodlines to me

Can't be. I never bothered with Annette, but with Richter the actual 'learning' of Rondo is more taxing. The bosses are less forgiving in later stages (at least until you get the meths down) and there are a few tough stages toward the end. You can't bulldoze it like you can Bloodlines, where being brash and exercising reflex will still clear a stage even if you're down to the last fibres of your energy. The ghost ship stage in Rondo, for instance, requires a lot of measurement to reach Death without dying or with a decent chunk of health.

It's altogether a little more requiring of your attention, whereas a lot of Bloodlines will fall into place naturally on the first attempt.

I suppose my difficulty ranking from experience would be, from hardest to easiest (in terms of 1st loop difficulty, not 1CC difficulty):

CV3 (only played JP)
X68K Original
X68K Arrange
CV1 (It's really just the last fucking stage).
XX (It's really just the last fucking stage again, although the alternate routes take some work and you have to deal with Richter's lead boots)
Rondo
CVIV (The last few stages put you to work. IMO they're harder to learn well than the last few stages of Bloodlines).
Bloodlines

[Blinge]

But if you examine it, I agree with Blinge that it might be the easiest of the Classicvanias

Didn't say that, I meant it was the easiest drac fight in the series.

4 is easiest from what I've seen of series so far.
As an aside, at least you don't run out of credits in 4!

[BIL]

Are you playing Vampire Killer or Bloodlines, Skykid? VK's Normal setting is roughly equivalent to Bloodlines' Easy. Expert's difficulty gap is much less pronounced (VK has 99% of BL's new Expert spawns, just a marginally lower damage scale).

(And we need to take 1ups out of the equation here. We're talking about difficulty, not difficulty of the 1CC).

IV would still be trivial with a more normal extend rate - the candlemeats are plenty of help on their own, and stages 1-7 are essentially harmless. Were it played sans 1UPs entirely, it'd probably be known as a long, easy CV with a sudden endgame spike via instakill hazards. These will merely skim the froth off a decent player's 1UP reserve as it is.

[Squire Grooktook]

We're talking about difficulty, not difficulty of the 1CC).

Hmmm, I'm more thinking overall 1cc/1lc difficulty. Difficulty, in a broader sense, is always variable by the amount of resources it gives you. Otherwise we have to assume everything is being played with 1hp, no hearts, etc. etc.

Can't be. I never bothered with Annette, but with Richter the actual 'learning' of Rondo is more taxing. The bosses are less forgiving in later stages (at least until you get the meths down) and there are a few tough stages toward the end. You can't bulldoze it like you can Bloodlines, where being brash and exercising reflex will still clear a stage even if you're down to the last fibres of your energy. The ghost ship stage in Rondo, for instance, requires a lot of measurement to reach Death without dying or with a decent chunk of health.

It's altogether a little more requiring of your attention, whereas a lot of Bloodlines will fall into place naturally on the first attempt.

You're describing my experience of Rondo in that last sentence there :3

For me it boils down to the game only having 2 (maybe 3) punishing bosses, and the actual stages being even easier than those in Bloodlines. There's very few instant deaths, very few lengthy trouble spots than can rob more than a life, and a lot of resources...not to mention the invincible item crash being a wonderful get out of jail card. Death can steal a life or two (I think the ghost ship is a great stage, but I don't find it too hard to make it to Death with a solid life reserve), and the boss rush is genuinely nervy, but the rest of the bosses "snap into place" with little effort (as far as simply beating them goes) and the stages rarely kill outside of a particularly bad jump. Bloodlines is largely the same, but there are a few more enemy guarded pits to fall into, a few more spots where hp can begin to run dry if not played carefully, and versailles is a harder stage design than any of those in Rondo IMO.

It may be more accurate to say the games are roughly equal though. Bloodlines has Versailles and a few instant deaths to survive. Rondo has the tricky boss rush and a few tight spots. I personally took much less time to 1cc Rondo (a borderline blind clear, if not for the boss rush. Got it the very next attempt) than Bloodlines (at least 3-4 attempts, I think), playing them one after another. But again, that's just me.

But like I said, where both games shine is flawless play. Rondo has a great footsies game dueling with its many diverse opponents when played optimally. And Bloodlines speedkills are a thing of beauty. They're challenging there, but I can't say either requires a great deal of effort to 1cc.

[Skykid]

Fair enough. I sort of get the feeling that we're all on a very similar page despite not being identical. I mean, we actually give these games the respect they deserve, and therefore understand them.

Unlike

Upon finishing a 'vania for the first time I'll go watch 'james and mike' get everything wrong about the game..

Yeah. I'm always a little disappointed to watch James Rolfe being weak when it comes to video games, because I enjoyed the better aspects of AVGN. Mike was shit since day one though.

They basically fail to give Bloodlines any of its dues and the criticisms are moot in the face of lrn2play. The only note that has some credibility is that the whip and hit detection in Bloodlines is definitely less tactile than some of the CV predecessors; it's ever so slightly muffled. There are times where you're not quite sure about where the whip hit box is catching the enemy hit box (enemy dependent - things like the Pisa Gargoyles burn up nicely if you so much as sneeze in their vicinity). I don't like it when Morris takes a muffled hit though - sometimes the knockback just doesn't register properly and he's kind of inert. If it wasn't for the pause and life deduction, you occasionally might not know. Thinking about it I'm not even sure if there's an audio queue when you take a hit.

[Austin]

3's second loop is nastier than X86K's, IMO. Those fucking skulls that replace the Medusa Heads, holy goddamn shit. I've never tried going beyond loop 2 in X86K.

I still haven't managed to complete a second loop on III because of those damn skulls. They make a massive difference in the difficulty.

Come to think of it, I never bothered with X68K's second loop. For a bit of perspective, I think I need to try that.

Castlevania IV 1st loop 1cc is a joke, Skykid. Try it some time. One time, as a test, I tried playing the game with a self-imposed "no 8-way whip unless absolutely necessary to hit a hook" restriction (that is, only left/right whipping allowed), and despite having not played it in years, still 1cc'd easily. Ultra-easy game.

I think the way to make IV hard(er) is to implement a self-imposed rule on secondary weapons. The eight way whip is no doubt great, but I think the biggest game breaker is the cross, especially at 2X or 3X use.

I'm not sure how many of you have tried it, but if you want a legitimate challenge, play the second loop with no secondary weapons and no whip upgrades (i.e., leather whip all the way through). It completely changes the dynamic of the game and you actually have to learn to deal with boss patterns. I wanted to do a video of it last year but couldn't get through the game consistently enough to warrant a recording. Maybe this year.

[Austin]

I just used the special spell to murder a boss save my ass from a 1-hit death, so you're right about that I guess. What's air whipping.. just an upwards attack?

The special spell is great but you might not always have it. The secondary weapons as-is are excellent, and they have two forms of attack (just press C to activate, then up+C for the alternate). The boomerang in particular can be wildly useful.

For air whipping (or attacking I should say, since the game only has one whip character), John can attack upwards diagonally while airborne both left and right, giving him a lot of vertical reach. Eric can aim diagonally and directly up from the ground, making it more like Castlevania IV where you find yourself having to jump to take care of enemies a whole lot less. If you are not using these consistently, do so more.

I still think it's in the same tier as 1 in terms of difficulty though if we're talking "anything goes."
Versailles to me is brutal to endure, is there health anywhere on that stage? Pisa taxes some lives off me too, with the enemies swarming in quickly and cheap deaths on the outdoor climbing section.

The thing about Bloodlines as it doesn't really ever get overwhelming like the first one can. For instance, there's nothing in the game that compares to the last stretch leading up to Death in the first Castlevania, or even anything matching CV1's final stage. For instance, in Bloodlines you are rarely ever dealing with normal enemies and medusa heads at the same time (maybe one small section near the end of the game, but that's it, and they aren't as aggressive). Enemies are typically laid out in a way where it's just one or two here and there directly in front of you, or if there is more they are always small "popcorn" enemies that die if you sneeze at them. More unique enemies that might act differently (like some of the plant-based enemies in Versailles) usually don't require much work to dispatch as long as you follow their movements/patterns. In the rare moments you might get overwhelmed, use the secondary weapons, they are ridiculously good in this game (really, you should be using them a lot; boomerang and axe especially).

I think the Versailles palace with the knights is one of the tougher parts, but again, learn how to deal with them and you should get through it nearly 100% of the time without issue. Use those special weapons, be aggressive while being aware of the enemy patterns and attacks.

Also, I might be getting ahead of myself and you might already know this, but if you aren't using it, be sure to hold out your whip at the end of each attack. Just hold the button and the whip or lance will stay out for a few more frames and do a little bit of extra damage. Always attack like this and you will find you will take out enemies faster, notably the knights at Versailles.

I assume when people say stuff like this they mean ultra easy compared to the harder vanias & with the whole game roughly memorised.
Is everyone here a badass 2D action gamer who's beaten the best of 'em?
I had a friend try CV4 and his credit ended on stage 2..[/url]

This is absolutely true. A lot of us have been playing this franchise a good portion of our lives, so we have the ability of comparing these from the perspective of having several (or dozens) of completions on each. So, the experience difference is no doubt a factor. Even the easiest in the franchise (Castlevania IV) will provide a challenge for someone new to it.

[Perikles]

1. CVIII (Akumajou Densetsu is marginally easier)

I actually think Akumajou Densetsu is considerably easier. The main reason for that lies in the candle allocation. More specifically: it's not a problem to have Sypha's most powerful spells in Akumajou at all times even after some untimely demises whereas you're out of luck in Castlevania III's later stages. The same applies for the other characters, of course, but since Sypha can utterly destroy bosses I think it's fairly important for the overall difficulty. I also hate the sea serpents in Castlevania III, they are almost harmless in Akumajou Densetsu. The other changes (like lesser damage output from the enemies if I recall correctly) are nice, but not that important in the grand scheme of things.

[BIL]

True, true. I always forget about Sypha's much easier powerup distribution in AD... I only started using her in that version, in CVIII I was all Grant all the time. Grant's technically much easier in AD too, but I almost find him harder to use, or at least punishingly boring. Losing his high-risk, high-yield stabbing flurries for snail-paced distance sniping is a drag. Little acrobat dude parkouring up to a hulking knight, dodging an axe-cleaving to jam a dagger in his spine - hell yeah motherfucker, that's what I wanna see!

The damage scale difference is slightly nuanced. In AD enemies do varying amounts of damage; in CVIII it's global, and escalates over the game's course. So AD deals more damage in its earlier stages, less overall later on.

Checkpoints are another fairly big difference, at least where Dracula is concerned. AD puts you back at the foot of the stairs, as per series SOP. CVIII chucks you back to the pendulums, which can quickly polish off your credit and leave you restarting the stage.

It's probably more accurate to say AD's second loop is roughly even with CVIII's first.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Ultra-easy game.

I assume when people say stuff like this they mean ultra easy compared to the harder vanias & with the whole game roughly memorised.

The first credit I ever played in Castlevania IV made it to stage 7, and only ended there because I was bored and shut the game off. Compared to games of that genre/time in general I think that is very easy, even if I discount the first two stages of CVIV as "tutorial" most games are able to kill me before stage 5 if I go in knowing nothing. That includes Rondo, the other very easy classicvania.

Dracula heals you for fuck's sake.

Similarly, Bloodlines has a pretty good chance to kill a newbie even in the second stage, whereas CV1 takes significantly longer to get difficult provided you are smart enough to stick to the cross.

[BIL]

For the longest while I thought that KFC surprise was some kind of glitch, lmao. There is roughly 100% excess fried chicken in that Dracula battle.

[Squire Grooktook]

I don't think I've played CV4 since childhood. Maybe a decade+ now. Maybe I should boot it up real quick and see how far I go on first credit.

[Blinge]

Pfft you just got lucky Jack. I didn't make it that far and I'm the greatest gamer who's ever lived....

Actually, probs wouldn't have gotten muh 1cc without surprise KFC. I really sucked at dodging lightning in that battle. It'd probably be an 8 life massacre every time.

[Squire Grooktook]

Okay just got done.

Credit ended at Death. Got him on the next life after continuing, then took one extra life to kill Dracula.

Anorexic Dinosaur Bird only took one life to figure out his pattern. Rest of the bosses were first try clears (cept the dancing couple who I made to with 1 hp and no cross lol).

Only reason this wasn't a "blind" (if you don't count childhood memories) clear, was because I lost a ton of lives super early to silly stuff (getting weirded out by the timing on the flipping platforms and falling to my death 2-3 times, scrolling the camera up in a vertical section and then attempting to drop back down for a candle I missed, only to plummet into a now bottomless abyss, etc.)

So yeah, probably a good deal easier than Bloodlines or Rondo. Not a bad game though. Outside of a few specific moments (The Slogra battle, even though he's more static and manipulatable then he looks), the gameplay mostly gives me that "tech demo" feel that Thunder Force III gave me the other day. I'm not sensing a ton of spacing or footsies (like Rondo), or rng to keep you on your toes (CV1, x86, rondo and bloodlines to some extent), or distinctive mechanics (Bloodlines). It's got nice atmosphere, and tense platforming when you don't know what's coming, but I don't think it'd hold up for many play sessions after clearing.

One thing I will say is that the whole "8 way whipping ruins CV4" feels like kind of a meme. The game frequently does let you whip enemies through walls or on platforms above you, but honestly, that's more a result of mediocre enemy placement than anything else. 8 way whipping of this kind could easily have been made to work with smarter level designs.

It's good though. Not a bad game. Not too easy. Overall okay.

[BIL]

I was going to mention that, KFC bonus bucket aside, I really like the finesse aspect of Dracula's fire options. You can't just batter them down like most of the game's hard targets, they take some thought to dispatch effectively.

Slogra's similar, now you mention it. Simple concept, but in a game without the strongest boss roster, that dosie-do hit n' run is memorable. The atmosphere throughout the entire "room of close associates" is killer too, one of those instances where the game avoids garish colour or gaudy effects and really shines. Place looks plush, evil, and very very high-up. <333 that dusky red sky and the silver blanket of clouds under a glaring moon.

I was thinking on recent sessions that a lot of the deflating whip antics could've been solved by making certain blocks impenetrable (Metal Storm does this, to prevent the player from leisurely sanitising st5's laser gates).

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah probably worth the journey for the room of close associations (<--I prefer that bad translation, heh).

Also I hearby declare that CV4 Drac shall henceforth be known as Kount Fried Chicken.

[BIL]

Artist's impression tbh:

Spoiler

Still from documentary "The Last Temptation of Simon Berumondo" Konami 1991

[Shoryukev]

Also I hearby declare that CV4 Drac shall henceforth be known as Kount Fried Chicken.

Time for my mspaint skills to shine LOL

[Obscura]

I'm really surprised that people have so much trouble with CV4 Death. He's a joke; sit in the lower-right corner, whip up repeatedly to destroy his scythes. His "come down to the ground" attacks are all very telegraphed, and give you the opportunity to hit him about 50 times.

CV4 Dracula would be arguably the best in the series were it not for his fried chicken* antics. WHY KONAMI WHY.

*Note, according to the CV4 US manual, those are actually pork chops, not chicken/turkey legs. They don't look like any pork chops I've ever seen, but who am I to argue with the localization team? They've created so many things that I consider canon even though they aren't canonical at all, such as the CV3 wallmeats being WEREWOLF MEAT (not to mention the amazing stage names!) and renaming Bill and Lance as the much cooler MAD DOG and SCORPION, that I really just can't tell them "no".

[Durandal]

CV4 Dracula would be arguably the best in the series were it not for his fried chicken* antics. WHY KONAMI WHY.

Someone mistook Gradius tradition for Konami tradition.
And Dracula's second form, while cool with Simon's Theme kicking in, is still too easy in practice as Drac only does that rather easily-telegraphed sky beam attack.

[Squire Grooktook]

Okay put in another run of CV4 and got the 1cc.

Still was closer than I expected. I feel like the game has some tense platforming, it's just the enemies are all kind one dimensional and the bosses are mostly dps races. It was actually pretty exciting at the end with the boss rush difficulty spike. Time well spent.

As for preferred Drac's I'll always take CV1's first form of all others for its elegant, rng mayhem.

[Blinge]

And Dracula's second form, while cool with Simon's Theme kicking in, is still too easy in practice as Drac only does that rather easily-telegraphed sky beam attack.

Eh, it hit me quite a bit. Bear in mind I didn't fight him longer than perhaps two play sessions ever, so the fight isn't hard-baked in my mind.
The hitboxes are bigger than they look and I'd often panic dodge right back into one.
They don't just hit the same area every time, either.

Just got the Bloodlines 1cc with Eric. Lost two lives to awful noisy sky boss. Also did the final boss rush no damage before losing my cool and getting slapped about for 2 lives by Dracula. That'll teach me to call him easy....
Footage coming never.

[Volteccer_Jack]

IIRC Eric can basically no-damage Dracula just by spamming his invulnerable superjump attack.

My personal favorite Drac fight is Portrait of Ruin, although CVIII's was pretty great too.

[FinalBaton]

CVIII's

Dammit that's one though fight. (the 2nd form, I mean).
But I don't have much practice with this one yet, so that's probably why it's especially jarring to me. And since a gameover puts you quite far, getting practice on this fight is very much energy draining in itself. I mean : my energy, not the character's

I think this is a case of using a cheat/savestate and practice, practice practice.

I've beaten it before, but I'm not at a point where I can systematically beat it each and every time I face him. Far from it actually(for now). But I'm sure I'll be able to do it with some practice

[BIL]

As for preferred Drac's I'll always take CV1's first form of all others for its elegant, rng mayhem.

Same - no other traditional Drac has such a sense of inescapable showdown. Its simplicity is not primitive but primeval; elemental and ageless. Pure reaction and adaptation. Be quick, or be dead.

Because I dislike what could've been talk (especially when I know I'll never make it more than that!), I'll spoiler JIGOKU_BIRUZAEMON_DREAMHACKZ for CV1 ;3

Spoiler

talking in purely mechanical terms: I'd have shuffled the second phase's ROMPER_STOMPER.EXE to st5, and put Death last (with speedkills tweaked out). Taking on a second, more elaborate but equally volatile RNG maelstrom on the same lifebar would be diabolical fun.

Aesthetically... I'd kinda like it if Death were to burst out of the coffin actually! The real power behind the throne! Probably a bit theatrical for the game's Universal Movie Monsters tone, though.

*Dorakyura's head flies off, body burns*

Dorakyura's head: "FUUUCK"

Berumondo: "At last, it's truly over. O Death, where is thy sting?"

Death: "Right... HERE!" *REAPER W/ BURNING RED EYES EXPLODES FROM COFFIN AS THE KEEP DERANGES UNDER DIMENSION-WARPING POWER, CONVENIENTLY REPLICATING ST5's BOSS ROOM*

Berumondo: "What!!!"