Castlevania Miscellanies

[Immryr]

I haven't played XX but I definitely agree that CVIV is pretty dull in general and not nearly up to scratch with the majority of the classic series.

[Austin]

He's right, though. I've tried playing CV4 with a self-enforced "no eight way whip" policy, and it's still dull. There's about three scenes in the entire game where the level design puts any pressure on you at all (that one skeleton on the crumbling platforms in stage 9, the whip-skeleton on the "triangle" of stairs on stage A, the rising platforms in stage B), enemies do approximately zero damage, the only good boss fights even without up-whip are Puuxil, Dancing Spectres, and Slorga. Cool atmosphere, but the game is a yawn.

Do a self-enforced no sub-weapon run (8-way is fine). Then, do a no sub-weapon/no whip upgrade run, then tell us how you feel.

[Sumez]

It's not like I don't enjoy CV4, but it's like incredibly, massively overrated.

[DJ Incompetent]

I did a 1LC of Castlevania 3!

...aaand gave it a new sound chip.. -like, the kick VRC6 and MMC5 in the face version.

Tracklist:

Spoiler

Film Intro | Malcolm Robinson - Prelude (Orchestral Remix)
Menu Select | Jun Funahashi {Dracula X} - Welcome to Hell
Static Name Intro | The Higher Planes - Run Save Yourself
Cross Intro | Ozzy Osborne - Mr Crowley
Stage 1 | Nightwish - Who Brings The Night
Skull Knight | Daedric Tales - Cult of Ashes
Victory | Katy Carr - Kommander's Car
Next Path | George Sakalis - Damien Black
Stage 3 | Lindsey Stirling - Moon Trance
Next Path | The Meteors - My Daddy is a Vampire
Stage 3-03 | Kamelot - Regalis Apertura
Cyclops 1 | Moi DIx Mois - Ange ~D Side Holy Wings~
Victory | ghaleon128 - Angelic Lullaby
Invitation | The Kraken Quartet - Chance the Dog
Next Path | Antonio Vivaldi - Symphony No1 In C RV 116 - Andante
Stage 4-0A | Blutengel- Reich mir die Hand
Medusa | Eve of Destiny - Garden for a Zealot
Stage 4-0A | Gire - Nádak, Erek
Mummies 1 | Malice Mizer - Seinaru Toki Eien no Inori
Cyclops 2 | The Black Dahlia Murder - What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse
Victory | Wolfgang Mozart - 2-20 Symphony No. 40 In G Minor
Next Path | Wojciech Kilar - Retour à la Maison
Stage 5-0A | Colin Stetson - 'Reimagining' Of Gorecki's Sorrow: III ~ Lento ~ Cantabilie-Semplice
Frankenstein | Bernhard Kaun - Frankenstein (1931) Theme
Victory | Niccolo Paganini - Caprice No. 2
Next Path | Alfred Schnittke - Concerto Grosso No.1
Stage 6-0A | Unexpect - Chromatic Chimera
Twin Dragons | Helloween - Church Breaks Down
Victory | Joe Satriani - Baroque
Next Path | Luis Lastra - I'll Kill You and the Night
Stage 7-0A | Symphony X - Domination
Mummies 2 | Megadeth - Sleepwalker
Cyclops 3 | Necrophagist - Fermented Offal Discharge
Gargoyle | Blind Guardian - Weird Dreams
Victory | Frédéric Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2
Next Path | James MacMillan - Miserere
Stage 8 | Ultranomicon - Vampire Killer
Death | Lashmush - This Whip Was Made to Punish
Victory | Antonio Janigro - Symphony No. 1 in C Major, RV 719: Allegro non Troppo ~ Andante ~ Presto
Next Path | Nico Casal - Ellie Anton Coppola - Vampire Hunters
Stage 9 | Yngwie Malmsteen - Black Star / Far Beyond The Sun
Doppleganger | Terrifier - Skitzoid Embolism
Victory | Within Temptation - The Howling
Next Path | Nox Arcana - Castle Dracula
Stage A | Two Steps From Hell - Queen of The Forest / He Who Brings The Night
Final Approach | Dream Theater - Stream of Consciousness
Dracula Body | Dream Theater - Stream of Consciousness
Dracula Heads | Dream Theater - Stream of Consciousness
Dracula Statue | Dream Theater - Stream of Consciousness
Victory | Elfen Lied - King of the World
Ending | YeYe - Morning

All is sunshine!

[KAI]

WOW!

[Mortificator]

WOW!

That's just what I thought when I saw it (at least, once I saw the real trailer that starts 42 seconds in).

I did a 1LC of Castlevania 3!

Nice work on the clear, and the mixing. What an unusual... sound chip.

[Skykid]

WOW!

Looking good!

I would have preferred the character designs to be a bit more macho in-keeping with the NES era they're supposedly borrowing from, as opposed to the girly-boy designs that appeared after Symphony. But if it's good it's good. Can't complain.

[Sumez]

I honestly think it hits a pretty nice middle ground. It's not complete SOTN-style bishounenwhatever, but they manage to have characcter that take after their Japanese origins without going into wannabe-anime mode.

[soprano1]

WOW!

Dracula's US comic-style face looks bad, but the poster looks very well done. The trailer looked nice, it might be a good one.

[Sumez]

Wicked water reptiles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcsGR2aOR_I

[Blinge]

Just emulated the PSP Rondo port with the polygon graphics for curiosity's sake.

hurrrk plays horrible!

[Durandal]

It's out on Netflix
Not too bad, really

[Sumez]

I'm actually really surprised about how well done it is. Not like a "new favourite series" or anything, but the story is solid and well told, and it respects the games that it is based on, even smuggling in a couple of SotN quotes without coming across as awkward (no "What is a man"... yet)

Castlevania fans will not be disappointed. Hoping for many more episodes to come.

[Ghegs]

Whoa, it's even available on Finland's Netflix. That's really surprising.

I watched the whole thing in one go. It was good; but not quite great. Sometimes the animation was a bit stiff and the voice acting had some odd pauses here and there. Still, I was entertained, and I appreciated that the series went for a not-for-children rating. Nothing like some dead babies to drive home the point that the demons attacking the village mean serious business.

Spoiler

The fight with Alucard was pretty sweet. Even if he reminded me of Lestat for some reason.

Looking forward to more episodes.

[Sumez]

Whoa, it's even available on Finland's Netflix. That's really surprising.

It's a Netflix series, so they can do with it what they want.

Surprising it's not advertised on the app at all. It's not even in the "recently added" list. Hopefully they just have yet to update their lists. I would like to see this become succesful.

[Blinge]

It was the first thing that appeared when I opened my account today. Maybe cause I've watched other anime shows.

[Sumez]

I just really want to see this become a success as Konami watches in confusion "Oh, Lords of Shadow is NOT what the fans wanted?"

[soprano1]

I finished watching this new series. Pretty surprising they DIDN'T try to make an animated Lords of Shadow shitfest. The director seems to be a fan of CV3, which is always nice, and the SOTN small references were cool.
I hope they can maintain the quality on the next series: http://www.usgamer.net/articles/its-bee ... e-episodes

[Marc]

Listening to the vinyl soundtrack for IV. Strong case for best overall soundtrack of all time.

[z0mbie90]

Warren Ellis as the writer of the show. Well that explains all the bad language and snarky attitudes
Was entertaining atleast. But I hope they work abit more on the animations for upcoming stuff.

[Sumez]

Sure it wasn't top AAA quality, but for what they had to work with, I'm really impressed by how it turned out.

[FinalBaton]

Seen the 4 ep

I reaaaaaaaaaaally liked it.

Spoiler

I LOVED how the characters come together. and their relationship with one another. That was so interesting

I liked the base storyline a ton, with the Christian Church (bishop) being the true culprit for the murder of Drac's wife but of course the Church blames that on a scapegoat: the Speakers. (Trevor outted the Church as fuck in Gista, lol). I think this is a really cool backdrop for the series.

The initial tension between Trevor and Alucard was cool as fuck because Trevor's familly has been hunting vampires for generations, so of course he doesn't trust a vampire even though he's supposed to be his teammate. That fight was well done btw.

only thing I didn't like was that some of the swearing/profanities just seemed forced, as to make the series edgier or something.

I came in with low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Had a great time watching it and was invested in the story.

[Skykid]

Watched 10 minutes. Animation pretty horrid, voice acting even worse, dialogue weird, and Dracula completely non-threatening.

Is this really worth watching?

[Sumez]

Dracula is non-threatening. Really? What's more threatening than a huge fiery face making it rain blood on an entire city?
I really appreciated the way they presented him as a character with some kind of emotions, rather than just making him "that evil guy" straight from the get-go. It might have worked better if they took a few episodes to develop the relationship between him and Lisa, but 1. that's not really what the story is about, and 2. for a short 4-episode pilot, I think they made really good use of the limited runtime they had.

Voice acting is meh (but could be worse), animation is much better than I would have hoped for a small-time project such as this. Let's just appreciate the fact that they actually got away with producing a hand drawn 2D animated series in 2017's America.

[FinalBaton]

Dracula is non-threatening. Really? What's more threatening than a huge fiery face making it rain blood on an entire city?
I really appreciated the way they presented him as a character with some kind of emotions, rather than just making him "that evil guy" straight from the get-go. It might have worked better if they took a few episodes to develop the relationship between him and Lisa, but 1. that's not really what the story is about, and 2. for a short 4-episode pilot, I think they made really good use of the limited runtime they had.

Voice acting is meh (but could be worse), animation is much better than I would have hoped for a small-time project such as this. Let's just appreciate the fact that they actually got away with producing a hand drawn 2D animated series in 2017's America.

fully agree with all this. great post

stream I watched was actually in japanese with english subs. lol. haven't watched the original english version yet

[KAI]

Finished this.
Meh, agree with skykid, this is kinda shitty and ingenuos most of the time (ep4 was ok tho).
The japanese dub makes it more watchable, most of the dialogs don't sounds so stupid and forced.

[Sumez]

A couple of the English voice actors do a fine job, but most of the time they don't really mesh well with the animation. It would probably have been more effecient (and cheaper) to just hire people who were actually experienced as voice actors, rather than live action guys.

I gotta say I was personally hooked within the first 10 minutes. But I will admit there's a chance my opinion is biased due to my love for the games. Generally the series is getting a lot of love, but there's been some amount of criticism as well. However a lot of it has been terrible fanboy stuff like "I wish this, this, this, this, this, this, and this character also appeared", "they didn't use the music from the games", or "the monsters should have more variety". While more fanservice could be fun (for fans alone), I think the series did have quite a lot of that, and took what it needed from the game without ever disrespecting them.

Coincidentially a lot of people really seemed to like the fight at the end of the last episode, I thought it was pretty pointless.

[Skykid]

Might try again with the JP dub, because that's bound to make it less offputting. But the entire thing smacked of people with no understanding of what made the material what it was during the time period in which it was most eminent. It's amazing how young directors today have no grasp on why simplicity is often the most desirable attribute - none moreso than in a show about a guy with a whip trying to fuck up vampires and other monsters.

In modern Hollywood cinema every movie needs to have 100 characters and be bogged down with at least 20 tandem plot threads whose banality is meant to get so overshadowed by special effects that you forget they were ever there. I'm not saying this show is like that exactly, but heck yes, I want the music from the fucking games, a guy with a whip, a journey with a bunch of obstacles and gothic traps, and shit getting killed along the way in nicely animated fight sequences. Fuck your "plotting", it's not a pre-requisite to successful brain-off entertainment.

[Blinge]

Skykid only needs 10 minutes to take a grandiose ol' dump on the series

His trousers were down before he even pressed play I'd wager.

I want the music from the fucking games, a guy with a whip, a journey with a bunch of obstacles and gothic traps, and shit getting killed along the way in nicely animated fight sequences.

I get that obviously, but I don't think I could stomach another corny 90's style videogame adaptation.

There's probably a tasteful way to work the music in, I hope they do.
Personally I'm still pleased it wasn't terrible.

[opt2not]

Watched it this weekend. I'm hooked.

Now I don't care much for anime. Whether Japan made, or made in the US. I'm an animator by trade, and I've never cared for the cheapness of animation when it came to the series anime. Features and OVA's I love, but these serial shows are just a dance of corner-cutting laziness. That isn't to say the style of art and drawing quality is to be scoffed at, I actually like the drawing style. I just don't like how most anime series' try to use the minimal amount of keyframes for everything but action sequences. It's like watching robots talk during dialog scenes.

That being said, I think this series steps up from the standard corner-cutting quite a bit. The sheer number of shots per episode that were actively animated is impressive for an anime. I really dig the darker, gorier art-style of the show, it's very visceral and gritty which is something I've always wished the games to push even more towards.

I like the voice acting, for the most part. Trevor has a good blend of a pompous sounding aristocrat and a vagabond, something you'd expect a member of a great house to have after being excommunicated/exiled.
Sypha was a bit disappointing though, she sounds much too European compared to the rest of the Speakers. In fact, all the Speakers were mixed in accents.

The changes in the history I'm totally on-board with (maybe because it speaks to my own contempt with Christianity's culture), but I like conflict between religious faith and ancient beliefs that predate it. Though I would have liked to see more development between Dracula and Lisa to establish that deep love, enough for Dracula go to apeshit vindictive.
I really liked that scene when the Bishop got his. The build-up of the speaking Gargoyle and the Bishop's realization that faith wouldn't save him was a very sweet moment. "But we love you...without you we wouldn't be here. Let me give you a kisssssss". Awesome.

The scene when Trevor finds Sypha was well done. Had a good update to the encounter to from the videogame, and I'm on board with the whole Dracula's Castle entrance idea. I've always wanted more context to why Castlevania 3 started off so far from the actual Castle grounds. This kinda gave a cool idea that the prerequisite to the Castle is part of this path they're on. They changed the clock tower gear stage well, with the mechanized underground of the city and the "traveling castle" idea. Though, I wish they elaborated a bit more on the technology of the Castle.

I thought Trevor's character writing was decent. I didn't mind the swearing, like I said he holds a fine line between aristocrat and a drunken vagabond.
My only beef with him is that I would have liked Trevor to have a more introspective switch between not caring and caring for saving the people of Wallachia. More than the moments with the Speakers, or realizing his role when confronting Alucard.

All said, I really liked the short season 1. I just wish there were more development in the characters and world. Some people want to watch these things for action-action-action, but I'm more interested in the lore, specifically the translation of a game IP to a TV/Film. Lets face it, game stories are pretty shallow. The changes they made to the backstory I think were good choices for a more enriching tale.

I'm looking forward to double the amount of episodes in season 2, which apparently won't be released for a year!