LGB wrote:Hmm... I'd have to disagree. Silent Hill is too much of a Resident Evil clone to start comparing Ninja Gaiden to Castlevania. To be honest, I always considered Castlevania a clone of Mario to an extent. Ninja Gaiden is a good deal different; when you find a boomerang ninja star, a fire wall, or a aerial counter weapon in a NES CV without hacking, call me.
Ninja Gaiden's three basic subweapons are obviously based around Castlevania's, but altered to require less precision and be less punishing if they whiff. Shuriken / Dagger = weak horizontal projectile. Boomerang Star / Cross = stronger returning horizontal projectile, expanded to return both ways. Firewall / Axe = diagonal upward attack, faster and more covering at the expense of no downard arc. Holy Water has no counterpart, but a game as fast as NG has little use for a "roadblock" weapon like that. The stopwatch is relegated to an instant-use item, and invincibility is present too. The Up + B use of the subweapons is another obvious connection. NG's jumping slash is obviously unique, but so are phantom clones and the diagonally-downward / vertically firing subweapons.
And the basic sword swipe is a much quicker and less whiff-punishing take on the whip. There are a lot of connections between the two if you consider NG plays like a much faster, less calculating Castlevania. It's much the same with SH and RE. SH may use RE's basic structure, but it's a far more storyline and ambience-intensive game where RE was always about horror action and jump scares.
I really don't know what to make of the Mario / Castlevania connection, at all. Why do you say that?