Castlevania Miscellanies

[NYN]

I read that the Vania Advance Collection via LRG are now available?

Anyone here who can share facts concerning messed-up production? Or is it all good? (Soma cover ftw!)

[Sumez]

Objective evaluation of every Castlevania game based on how many directions you can whip, and whether your character knocks back (ie. cheap difficulty)

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

[sky-13]

I must be in the minority but I truly think 4 is on the weaker end. The 8 way whip and sub items on R allow you to plow through enemies in a very un-Castlevania way.

I’d personally say:

Rondo > 1 > 3 > X68000 > Bloodlines > 4 > 2 > MSX >>>> Dracula X.

Comparing these to the Igavania is apples to oranges. Definitely don’t agree with Richter mode being the best vintagevania.

[Mortificator]

I must be in the minority but I truly think 4 is on the weaker end. The 8 way whip and sub items on R allow you to plow through enemies in a very un-Castlevania way.

I’d personally say:

Rondo > 1 > 3 > X68000 > Bloodlines > 4 > 2 > MSX >>>> Dracula X.

Comparing these to the Igavania is apples to oranges. Definitely don’t agree with Richter mode being the best vintagevania.

You're not amazed by dangling in place while the room spins around you!?!? Sumez' post says the opposite of what a literal reading tells you. He shared a vid where someone says "I beat Chronicles in less than three hours on easiest so it's a nice confined experience" and whines about the alternate exits in Rondo of Blood for medical reasons, as a doctor may call over others to look at the horse dildo he found in a patient's stomach.

Your ranking is much more rational.

[SuperDeadite]

AVGN has always been rather bad at games. There was a vid of him honestly playing Mario 3, and it was very painful to watch.

Personally I used to hate 4. I have learned to enjoy it, but its very much a game for just chillin and no fucks givin. When I want to play "Castlevania" I don't play 4...

As for me I remembered I had an XSelect-D4 in my closet, so now I've got the Wii hooked up to my arcade monitor (480p component to 31khz rgb) and Adventure Rebirth looks glorious now.

[copy-paster]

CV4 is one of the good examples of "casual and chill" game with forgiving checkpoints, infinite continues and the relatively moderate difficulty (not so much on dungeon stage, or clocktower+Slogra). I wouldn't recommend do hard gaming (i.e Nomiss/1CC/Speedruns) on it because there's so much instakill spikes on later stages.

It also has probably the best cinematic setup leading to Drac in all CV imo. You start fighting his 3 guards back to back in a seamless room, then the candles turned on as you walk in when you defeat Death leading to his throne with "Dracula Battle" playing and Theme of Simon on the second phase.

[BIL]

CV4 is one of the good examples of "casual and chill" game with forgiving checkpoints, infinite continues and the relatively moderate difficulty (not so much on dungeon stage, or clocktower+Slogra). I wouldn't recommend do hard gaming (i.e Nomiss/1CC/Speedruns) on it because there's so much instakill spikes on later stages.

It also has probably the best cinematic setup leading to Drac in all CV imo. You start fighting his 3 guards back to back in a seamless room, then the candles turned on as you walk in when you defeat Death leading to his throne with "Dracula Battle" playing and Theme of Simon on the second phase.

Nailed it. (staked it? )

It's a milder Dracula, for hardcore Treachery Platforming. X68k, Rondo, Vampire Killer, and even troubled XX all comfortably outclass it. Long, ambling, and low-pressure until the last two stages. But it's winningly macabre longform horror, with a haunted gloaming air, and its maturely mellow, brooding OST. The bleak overgrown estate, the indifferently lethal wilderness, the ghoulishly sardonic welcome to the castle proper, with all its fallen splendour and grotesequerie... and of course, "Room of Close Associates" bringing the trek to a roiling evil climax, before Dracula's theme subsumes all in transcendent funereal grace.

Not as extreme, but it reminds me of the relation between Daimakaimura and Demon's Blazon. I'm not gonna put chilled-out eccentric DB in the ring with rippling killer Dai, but I'll sure replay it every couple winters with the fireplace on. Them feels.

I'll break my own back trying to bite my own dick off before watching another of homie's CV nostalgia tourisms. (˘w˘) Funny dude, always liked him, but that also describes my dog, who's a much better judge of moving objects. ;3

[Sumez]

I must be in the minority but I truly think 4 is on the weaker end. The 8 way whip and sub items on R allow you to plow through enemies in a very un-Castlevania way.

I’d personally say:

Rondo > 1 > 3 > X68000 > Bloodlines > 4 > 2 > MSX >>>> Dracula X.

Comparing these to the Igavania is apples to oranges. Definitely don’t agree with Richter mode being the best vintagevania.

You're not amazed by dangling in place while the room spins around you!?!? Sumez' post says the opposite of what a literal reading tells you. He shared a vid where someone says "I beat Chronicles in less than three hours on easiest so it's a nice confined experience" and whines about the alternate exits in Rondo of Blood for medical reasons, as a doctor may call over others to look at the horse dildo he found in a patient's stomach.

Your ranking is much more rational.

Oh yeah, I guess my usual sarcasm could be lost on some people.
CV4 is a fine game, but definitely in the weaker end of the spectrum. I'd put Dracula XX cleanly above 4 as well. I'd wager that to put even the MSX game above it, you probably didn't give it much of a chance.

Agreed with CPS on the final boss leadup, that one is fantastic, and a high point of the game. My primary issues with CV4 is that it's a bit too long, has too much instakill BS, view is a bit too zoomed in for the genre, which upsets the pace of the game - and I really, really dislike the whip swinging, which always felt clunky to me, as do a lot of the jumps in the game. I also generally prefer one-directional whips, it's always felt like a series staple for me.

What's kinda interesting is how the game by a general AVGN-adjacent public seems to be commonly perceived as an easy Castlevania game, with the others often mistakingly blamed for "cheap" difficulty. To me, CV4 is definitely harder than CV1 and Rondo, and much harder than Bloodlines. I find it more challenging than at least the Japanese version of CV3 as well, though I may be biased due to my experience with it.
But that's based on how long the game is compared to how many extra lives you get to work with. I don't factor in forgiving checkpoints and unlimited continues at all, because if I saw a "Game Over" screen on my way to the end, I certainly can't claim to have beaten the game, and extra lives would have served no purpose.

[it290]

CV4 is definitely more difficult than CV1, 3, and Rondo in the sense that it's difficult to complete while remaining conscious

[Austin]

Whatever you guys are smoking, I don’t think I want any of it. 4 being harder than 1 or 3? Haha. No way in hell.

[Sumez]

Castlevania 1 is a nice casual 1LC once you've played it a couple of times. You gotta route out the final stage, but otherwise there's nothing really too threatening as long as we're allowing holy water spam. The VS-version is pretty challenging, but the regular NES first loop is definitely much easier.

CV4 is three times as long, but doesn't give you any more lives to deal with it. The start is pretty casual for sure, but there's a ton of one-hit kill traps towards the end. I don't think I've ever played the game without losing at least two lives to that stupid bridge right before Frankenstein's monster.

[Steven]

It's always funny to see complaints online about Rondo lacking the 8-way whip. Like come on dude, you've never seen a PC Engine controller? The regular one doesn't have enough buttons to have both a separate sub-weapon button and item crash, so there's no way it would work without assigning sub-weapon to d-pad + attack, so at the very least you're not going to be able to attack in the assigned sub-weapon direction (up). I don't know what year the Avenue Pad 6 released, but I suppose there is nothing stopping you from reprogramming the game to do it with that controller. Besides, I don't think the game would actually be better if it had the 8-way whip anyway.

It's been a while since I have played Rondo, but does the sub-weapon still come out with diagonal inputs? I really don't remember at all. I do consider Rondo to be the easiest out of all of them by far (except the Game Boy games; those are pretty unknown to me), even using Richter.

[Sumez]

I don't think the game would actually be better if it had the 8-way whip anyway.

It would absolutely be worse.
It's like complaining that Mega Man can't shoot up. Or duck. It's just the mechanics the game was designed around.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

I would put CV4 above the original game and possibly Rondo in terms of 1CC difficulty, too - it took me longer to get that clear in 4 than getting even a no-miss in 1 or Rondo, at least. I wouldn't rate it above Japanese 3 though.

Most of 4 is outright easy but it does have some hard stuff at the end, and most of its most dangerous moments are awkward to learn - scaling the grappling points up the clock tower while in danger of being one-hit killed, the final tower ascent before the boss rush and its weird spike platforming at the end, even the little bit with the collapsing platforms halfway through the treasure vault stage (where if you don't make the right call on how to deal with the skeleton enemy as soon as he appears, he knocks you down into the pit) are all more dangerous than any individual moment in the original Castlevania short of maybe getting unlucky patterns with the stage 6 bat bridge. I wouldn't call it a harder game on the whole, but it does have some nasty traps right at the end that are pretty easy to lose momentum to.

[Steven]

Do any games get harder after loop 2 or is loop 2 the hardest one? I don't remember much about any of the games' loop 2s, but I remember 4's loop 2 is much better than loop 1. Rondo, why do you not have a loop 2? You desperately need it and you're like the only game that doesn't have it.

I don't think the game would actually be better if it had the 8-way whip anyway.

It would absolutely be worse.
It's like complaining that Mega Man can't shoot up. Or duck. It's just the mechanics the game was designed around.

The game was clearly designed specifically for only the forward whip and it works perfectly, much like how Symphony of the Night is built for Alucard and is awkward to play as Richter and slightly less awkward to play as Maria.

[Sumez]

I would put CV4 above the original game and possibly Rondo in terms of 1CC difficulty, too - it took me longer to get that clear in 4 than getting even a no-miss in 1 or Rondo, at least. I wouldn't rate it above Japanese 3 though.

Most of 4 is outright easy but it does have some hard stuff at the end, and most of its most dangerous moments are awkward to learn - scaling the grappling points up the clock tower while in danger of being one-hit killed, the final tower ascent before the boss rush and its weird spike platforming at the end, even the little bit with the collapsing platforms halfway through the treasure vault stage (where if you don't make the right call on how to deal with the skeleton enemy as soon as he appears, he knocks you down into the pit) are all more dangerous than any individual moment in the original Castlevania short of maybe getting unlucky patterns with the stage 6 bat bridge. I wouldn't call it a harder game on the whole, but it does have some nasty traps right at the end that are pretty easy to lose momentum to.

This is precisely my experience in terms of the game's difficulty.
I admitted the comparison with Japanese CV3 was definitely more of a "me" thing. That game's gameplay just clicks with me better, and I have a special place for it in my heart. But CV1 is a lot more chill than it tends to get credit for.

Do any games get harder after loop 2 or is loop 2 the hardest one? I don't remember much about any of the games' loop 2s, but I remember 4's loop 2 is much better than loop 1. Rondo, why do you not have a loop 2? You desperately need it and you're like the only game that doesn't have it.

Wow, I completely forgot that CV4 has a loop 2. I don't remember if I played it, but I probably didn't. Now I have a reason to return to that game.

[Steven]

Wow, I completely forgot that CV4 has a loop 2. I don't remember if I played it, but I probably didn't. Now I have a reason to return to that game.

Loop 2 is definitely worth playing. I find 4 is way too easy on loop 1 (still harder than Rondo lol), so sometimes I'll use a password to skip to loop 2 and start there. I have never 1CCed a 2-ALL (as far as I can remember, anyway), but I have 1CCed both the first loop and the second loop all by itself after starting there and I much prefer it over loop 1.

I just remembered that Vampire Killer/Bloodlines also lacks a loop 2, but if you really want that I guess you can consider Vampire Killer normal mode loop 1 and Bloodlines expert mode loop 2.

[BIL]

I just remembered that Vampire Killer/Bloodlines also lacks a loop 2, but if you really want that I guess you can consider Vampire Killer normal mode loop 1 and Bloodlines expert mode loop 2.

VK and Bloodlines both unlock Expert mode after a Normal 1CC, so yeah, I'd definitely consider it their de facto second loop. (you can unlock Expert on a fresh bootup via Konami code, at the title menu )

VK Expert isn't too far off Bloodlines Expert, tbh. If someone can comfortably one-life VKE, they'll do fine at BLE.

I've never actually played Vampire Killer on Normal; must've been decades since I played Bloodlines at it, either. I'm the same with CV4, which I came to much later; I always password start at Loop 2 Stage 1. Same with Castlevania III (US), now I think about it.

CV1 has no way to start at Loop 2, unless you're playing the FDS rev (or its GBA Mini port), which I don't, but I pretty much play VS exclusively lately, anyway.

Doesn't X68k have higher loops, beyond the second? I remember it adding a bird to the entrance of Stage 3's underground area for each. It's the Dracula I've played the least of all these, though, and even then it was mostly via the inaccurate PS1 port.

[SuperDeadite]

X68K requires you to do 6 loops to see the final easter egg.

The Japanese version of Haunted Castle will spawn bats faster and faster on every loop. Though I usually quit after I hit the counter-stop on loop 4 or so.

[BIL]

Ah yeah, I remember that now. Always thought it was cool how they brought back the Name Entry system from the FDS debut, and actually gave an incentive to play higher loops, at that. Floppy recognise floppy.

Interestingly, while VS. Castlevania is generally a damage/timer tweak, it does have at least one original feature; it adds bats to the second loop's very first area, outside the castle. I sometimes wonder if that happens in some far-flung loop of the console versions, but I don't seem to recall ever seeing it. Definitely doesn't happen in their own second loop.

Totally forgot about the arcade game!

[Sumez]

Oh wow, that's interesting. Last few times I've seen CV1's loop 2 have been the VS version, which is always running in my friend's backyard arcade. I didn't realise those bats weren't on NES.

It could very easily be a variable tweak somewhere, because it seems like a really odd thing to add manually for that specific version.

[BIL]

Oh wow, that's interesting. Last few times I've seen CV1's loop 2 have been the VS version, which is always running in my friend's backyard arcade. I didn't realise those bats weren't on NES.

It could very easily be a variable tweak somewhere, because it seems like a really odd thing to add manually for that specific version.

Exactly what I'm thinking; maybe there's a global flag, "Bats Y/N." (pardon my non-technical language )

[Sumez]

That's most likely exactly what the game has. What I'm wondering is what caused it to be checked on the 2nd loop of one version but not the other

But to figure it out I would have to get a Mesen savestate on the 2nd loop of both versions, which requires playing both of them through - which isn't bad, enjoyable even. But doing it on an emulator on a PC is a chore to me