Castlevania Miscellanies

[Perikles]

Haha Perikles what's with the verbosity man?

I've been reading Steven Erikson lately whose magniloquent diction invigorated my own quill; he even described the futile struggle of chasing high scores in his inimitably stark, bleak manner:

"Kallor said: 'I walked this land when the T'lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones.
'Do you grasp the meaning of this?'
'Yes,' said Caladan Brood, 'you never learn.'"

You saying the quality completely stopped?

"Completely" is too strong a word, and I do have to admit that I only played it on default settings so far (thanks for the advice, you guys, I'll certainly check out Hard soon!). From a universal perspective, it is a competently made game. However, I don't find it particularly intriguing when considering some of the other Castlevania games. What constitutes the splendour of the series to me is the amalgamation of hermetically sound gameplay design (as well as stage layout, enemy placement etc.) and remarkable cinematic set-pieces. Some games might have some tweaks to them - MD Vampire Killer moves along much faster than its other traditional brethren -, some might be comparatively easy and moreso focused on the scenic aspects (Dracula X), others provide pure methodical bliss (X68000). What they all share, though, is the ever-present sense of variety and style. You might have a hellish clock tower or a leisure saunter on planks during an innubilious night, it's always a sight to behold, a joy to move, fight and advance.

ReBirth feels rather dry to me by comparison. There are so many skeletons, so many anorganic enemies, few yet long stages that I don't get the same sensation from this game. The esprit, flashiness is missing, it's a bit staid. There's a substantial difference to me whether you lose a life because phalanges of skeletons eventually wear you down or as a result of a worthy duel against a strategically positioned axe knight. ReBirth is prosaic where other games - despite their equally great fundamentals! - are poetry. It's not as exciting if you empty your heart stock in a snap and fight against rather goofy-looking lithic giants.

[evil_ash_xero]

I just recently played through Bloodlines and Order of Ecclesia for the first times.

I had Order when it came out, but didn't like the level design and got rid of it. I just couldn't get into Bloodlines, since it really doesn't look like a CV game.
Anyway, Bloodlines was a lot of fun (Drac was a bastard, as usual).

Eclessia is good but pretty flawed, thanks to it's level design. I think they were trying to give fans the more "straightforward old school" CV experience some were clammoring for at the time. But didn't really turn out that way, I think. The difficulty was a surprise!

[Squire Grooktook]

Perikles, you didn't answer my question

[Perikles]

Perikles, you didn't answer my question

"Completely" is too strong a word, and I do have to admit that I only played it on default settings so far (thanks for the advice, you guys, I'll certainly check out Hard soon!).

Thou hast not been reading carefully, a demotion to knave is in order, I'm afraid.

[Squire Grooktook]

I skim too much

But yeah, the complaints about level design didn't quite sync up with my experience.

^^^Probably one of my favorite stages in the saga, actually. Those trap laden platforming sequences are pure terror with the "classic mode" jump physics.

[FinalBaton]

couldn't get into Bloodlines, since it really doesn't look like a CV game

[Sumez]

I think all of Perikles' points about Rebirth are pretty valid, but it's still difficult for me to see it as a thoroughly weak game.

Throw it in among the best of the classic Castlevanias, and it doesn't really stand out much, I'll give you that. But it's difficult for me to ignore the zeitgeist of its release.
The "classicvania" was pretty much dead, no one expected anything from what was advertised as a remake of arguably the worst Castlevania game ever made. The metroidvanias were supposedly going strong with Ecclesia released the year prior, but with no other CV games in sight, it would soon turn out that the franchise as we knew it was doomed.

Then out of nothing, Rebirth turned out to be the classic tough-as-nails linear action game based around a commited jump arc, and medusa heads that would gladly knock you into bottomless pits. A game style we hadn't seen since 1995!
Sure, it has its flaws, but it could have been a lot worse off and I would probably still love it for what it is.

[Mortificator]

Enjoyed CV Adventure when I finished it on GB. Balls tough final stage and not the most creative Vania, but it has a distinct personality.

I don't hate Adventure, but the death knell to me replaying it is that there are no sub-weapons. Being stuck with one attack is just too dull.

Adventure Rebirth, I've beat on normal/classic, and hard/normal, but not hard/classic. I love committed jump arcs and am inclined to play classic exclusively because of them, but the other changes are for the worse. A Dream Hack would be if your fireball upgrade was lost on hit instead of time-out, rather than in addition to time-out, and if you weren't restricted to two sub-weapons (which, oddly, is from Belmont's Revenge).

[Blinge]

Adventure was alright. The controls are not good enough for what the game asks of you tho imo.

Aaand I just won the scrub award by realising the PSN edition of SotN that I've played most of, and the Ps1 emulation I've used were all the PAL version! There's a discernible difference it seems. Eww.

[Leandro]

Playing Castlevania Lords of Shadow. The game started out bad but it's slowly getting better, There's almost nothing in the game that reminds me of Castlevania

[soprano1]

Adventure was alright. The controls are not good enough for what the game asks of you tho imo.

Aaand I just won the scrub award by realising the PSN edition of SotN that I've played most of, and the Ps1 emulation I've used were all the PAL version! There's a discernible difference it seems. Eww.

Oh, you poor thing, must have been slow suffering, playing in 50hz.

[Blinge]

Haha. Poor all of us!
the great PAL injustice.

Nah, if it hadn't been pointed out to me I'd have remained blissfully unaware.

[soprano1]

Haha. Poor all of us!
the great PAL injustice.

Nah, if it hadn't been pointed out to me I'd have remained blissfully unaware.

Yeah, I didn't even notice it during that era, only starting with Final Fantasy X: I could stand the black borders, but fuck the moonwalk.

[Sumez]

I gotta expose myself as a scrub here. I started out playing the NTSC SOTN, then when I finally got the game myself, I played the PAL version. Agan and again. I also got the Saturn version which sucks, but is obviously NTSC. I don't know what the one I played via XBLA subsequently was like, but if it's like the PSN release, I assume that was PAL!? I'm gonna assume the PSP release was NTSC, I only got to play that one through once.

Anyway, I played this game through countless times. And apart from the obvious differences between versions, I really never noticed any differences that should be credited to NTSC/PAL timing issues...

[soprano1]

I gotta expose myself as a scrub here. I started out playing the NTSC SOTN, then when I finally got the game myself, I played the PAL version. Agan and again. I also got the Saturn version which sucks, but is obviously NTSC. I don't know what the one I played via XBLA subsequently was like, but if it's like the PSN release, I assume that was PAL!? I'm gonna assume the PSP release was NTSC, I only got to play that one through once.

Anyway, I played this game through countless times. And apart from the obvious differences between versions, I really never noticed any differences that should be credited to NTSC/PAL timing issues...

PSP doesn't have those issues because the PAL/NTSC thing is mainly related to the way TV's worked in different regions of the world. The advent of HD TVs ended that, fortunately.

[Sumez]

Whether it's a PAL or NTSC tv signal doesn't matter anyway. There are no problems with PAL signals in themselves. The issue is only when a game is timed to match the refresh rate of the TV signal, which is slower on PAL.
PAL or NTSC is not technically a thing on PSN/XBLA versions of the game either.

[Austin]

Playing Castlevania Lords of Shadow. The game started out bad but it's slowly getting better, There's almost nothing in the game that reminds me of Castlevania

That feeling is unfortunately going to remain throughout the course of the entire game. There are some memorable boss battles, but overall the game feels very little like a Castlevania game.

[Blinge]

The huge gothic castle is really cool. The snowy mountain areas leading up to Malphas and that whole mid-game arc was the standout part of the game for me. Meh to the rest.

Spoiler

shame It's not Dracula's castle eh?

Oh and, the scene with Camilla was so fucking dumb. SO DUMB.

Back in HoDiss: I've finally grabbed the super-jump and skull key. Being able to explore those areas walled off for so long gives me a sense of relief; not excitement or curiosity. I've had the same reaction to finding more warps and finally being able to move around the game with ease.

It feels like too little too late, like the game didn't drip feed me enough exploration or new shit to keep me interested and by this point I've already lost patience.
However this could be due to the fact I spent ages looking around for where to slot the floodgate key, after finding the keyhole previously then not playing for days. Swapping between the two castles doesn't help really, they're so featureless I forget which is which.
I'm not sure how much I can blame my bad memory on game design, or maybe it's harder to recall after stuffing so many metroidvania layouts into my brain. I know i didn't have this issue with Circle.

Oh okay, I can just head to this warp to switch betwee- OH. That's a different kind of warp that only functions as a portal and not to switch castles, yet looks the same on the map. Silly me!

Edit: Ahh.. the pleasure of tying up loose ends near the end of the game is getting me now. Alright Alright, It's not that bad..

[Austin]

Back in HoDiss: I've finally grabbed the super-jump and skull key. Being able to explore those areas walled off for so long gives me a sense of relief; not excitement or curiosity. I've had the same reaction to finding more warps and finally being able to move around the game with ease.

It feels like too little too late, like the game didn't drip feed me enough exploration or new shit to keep me interested and by this point I've already lost patience.
However this could be due to the fact I spent ages looking around for where to slot the floodgate key, after finding the keyhole previously then not playing for days.

This pretty much echoes my first full playthrough experience with the game. Total disinterest after a certain point with every power-up or item discovery being a sign of relief from tedium as opposed to something exciting.

Don't even get me started on the castle design, or the cryptic aspects of the game...

[Kaiser]

Well i'm joining this club, to share my first actual experience with Castlevania Bloodlines which is more of a real castlevania than lords of shadows games. And wow, coming from NES Castlevanias (yes I did play SOTN, COM, AOS, POR) this is a new level of intensity, yes I do intend to tackle Super Castlevania IV eventually but I feel to warm up to Bloodlines and beat it first. I made it to stage 3 on my first run then I got my ass handed over to it because I NEED TO LEARN TO SWING.

What sold me on Bloodlines was Stage 2, not only the music is beautiful along with the visuals but AS EARLY AS STAGE 2, they throw you into a real boss rush treasure-style, testing your whip against an interesting bunch of midbosses, I was like whoa. I just hope the rest of the game stays this good.

[Dangerous_D]

Symphony of the night for PS1 is still one of my all time favorites

[FinalBaton]

I just hope the rest of the game stays this good.

It does

[copy-paster]

Just a question of CV X68k :

How do you guys beat She-Wolf? Her attacks is fast and unpredictable.

[Obscura]

React faster!

First she always goes for the numbers, then the masonry on the outside. Try to be away from where she could end up when she throws something. Don't try to score hits in this phase unless you're a real cowboy.

Once she grabs a clock hand, the fight is basically over; just bash her.

[e_tank]

@copy-paster:

expect to take at least one or two hits. learn to recover from the checkpoint w/o taking damage, just getting to the fight w/full health will make it much easier.

she always starts by throwing pieces from the two sides of the clock before she moves on to throwing the numbers and outer edge, use this to your advantage. i don't go chasing after her, i just stick to one side of the screen, avoid the projectiles, and try to hit her as she lands nearby (jumping and diagonal whipping works well here). i've seen ppl use the axe to good effect by trying to hit her as she goes for crap to throw at you, but i usually don't even bother trying as i find it just leaves me vulnerable. if there are only a few numbers left on the clock and i've got health to spare i'll stand in front of them and try to hit her as she goes for them, it's risky though.

when she's taken enough hits she'll grab the minute hand off the clock and come after you with it. i find this part the hardest, so i try to put an end to it asap. just do your best to keep her at bay from you, if she swings and misses try to get a hit in on her while she recovers. just don't ever get too close or she'll charge in and whack ya. i usually aggressively keep jumping into and whipping her from as far away as i can, either just hitting or at least coming close to with each strike. as soon as i land from each attack i'll back up a bit to preemptively avoid her if she tries to charge at me. above all else try not to let her pin you up against one side of the screen, if that happens you're prob gonna take a hit (or two), either hope you get lucky and try and jump past her or take the hit and get in one yourself.

[Perikles]

If you have a triple cross and enough hearts you can also fill the screen with these (at different heights, of course) to preemptively take out a lot of the projectiles she'll hurl at you. This is probably by far the easiest way to dominate the fight, especially since the crosses will eventually hit her, too. This does require a solid path through the stage in order to get there with the necessary equipment, but since it's mostly memorization that's needed for this level I don't find it all that grueling.

[soprano1]

http://www.siliconera.com/2016/11/17/or ... -fan-game/
The game itself looks nice, at least the player sprite does. It seems ripe for a C&D, though.

[BulletMagnet]

It seems ripe for a C&D, though.

According to the developers, Castlevania: The Lecarde Chronicles 2 is moving forward with Konami’s blessing as long as it releases for free.

Well, at least Konami is doing something admirable these days, even if it just involves sitting on their tuchus and staying out of the way.

[copy-paster]

Thanks for the guide guys! Repeating that stage all over again is frustrate me out tbh.

Well, at least Konami is doing something admirable these days

Not really, the developers changed the name "Castlebania" in their cover art, because they will be sued if using the original name. Weird.

[BulletMagnet]

Not really, the developers changed the name "Castlebania" in their cover art, because they will be sued if using the original name. Weird.

I'm pretty sure that's just the stylized "v" from the logo, they spell the name with a V all over the site (not to mention in the files for the downloadable demo), it'd be weird if they only made the change in one place. Moreover, even if it was changed that's still a pretty small sacrifice to make if it comes with an assurance that your game won't be taken down; mind you, I'm no apologist for Konami and its behavior of late, but hopefully in this case it's at least self-aware enough to take a "benevolently absent" role.