What the fuck is this: Castlevania SOTN is now going for like $70?!!

Do what I did, emulate it long after the fact

Just remember that at the end of game, it IS supposed to be like that ;)

Yeah im emulating a Genesis, playing games i never got to play. Also had a friend try out Splatterhouse 3 last night, which was also pretty damn cool.

I meant it's like buying a Beatles because i like the Beatles and i remember buying my first Beatles record and liking it and every record after that, I didn't know what new stuff would be added, or how orchestration or production had changed, but I always knew i would enjoy it from beginning to end.

Maybe i'm missing out on the crappy Castlevania entries. Never played 2 much.

lately i've been regretting giving my GBA SP away (years ago), mostly so i could play Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow again.

http://www.vizzed.com/vizzedboard/retro/user_screenshots/saves8/81983/Castlevania%20%20Bloodlines_Jun23%209_14_13.png
OK so i beat it last night, on Easy, but using Quick Saves to rather cheap effect a few times. Like any old game this is HARD. Final boss was pretty awesome, if seemingly never-ending at the time. First the Grim Reaper deals out tarot cards and you have to knock through each one. Some of them are re-fighting old bosses, some of them give you food, some of them just shoot fireballs at you. Then the green haired evil witch from the opening cinematic splits into 5 different duplicates and then summons a bunch of floating spheres that all align in a pentagram. You have to hit her before they all combine or else dodge a lightning strike, or wheel of fire that looks like a dragon, or circle of knives flying at you, etc. That part was pretty cool and I just figured it out on my own.

She also changes into a green half-man half-worm demon and then finally the above grotesque monster with a horrible face for a crotch that spits out streams of fire. The end of the game was extremely anti-climatic, at least it was for me, with simply a cool-looking full-screen loop of your character watching the castle crumble into dust in the distance, hair waving in the wind, standing on top of a mountain or something over endlessly swirling clouds or water or who the hell knows but it looks cool. It was fine w me tho because the game seemed to really go on and on for a LONG time.

It never slowed down, and while yeah there were only 2 or 3 bad guys on the screen at once, it usually felt like more. Plenty of really cool graphic tricks in this, neat water reflections, cool rotating floors and things that deliver a real 3d illusion. At one point *** SPOILER *** you enter a room where the screen is split into 4 parts and each part is horizontally offset in some effed up way, as if you are playing the game through a funhouse mirror or something. It's the most mind-blowing part of the game. At least until a stage or two later when you revisit it, only the distorted view is gone and THE ENTIRE STAGE IS UPSIDE DOWN. Thank God there are no enemies in these parts.

I almost feel like this was better than the Super NES one, it seems to control a little easier (even on an GENS) and the graphics are just jaw-dropping! There's the Genesis version of Contra waiting for me but something tells me it can't possibly be this good.

No doubt it was better than Super IV IMO. i don't remember Hard Corps being at the same level, but still pretty good? Alien Wars on SNES was more to live up to

The end of the game was extremely anti-climatic, at least it was for me, with simply a cool-looking full-screen loop of your character watching the castle crumble into dust in the distance, hair waving in the wind, standing on top of a mountain or something over endlessly swirling clouds or water or who the hell knows but it looks cool.

Hah maybe i've blocked them all out cos getting to the ending is always such a treat!

IV, Bloodlines/New Generation, and Rondo of Blood/Dracula X - those are the only 16-bit Castlevanias, right? Or are there more?

I purchased the Dracula X disc for psp just to get SOTN as a playable game

THE ENTIRE STAGE IS UPSIDE DOWN. Thank God there are no enemies in these parts.

I mis-remembered this. There are enemies during this part. This game is hard! And so good! I've played it through 3 times now.

i found my long, long-neglected DS and started playing through Aria of Sorrow again. this game is perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SahSabf2-0s

Hah I've been playing through "Rondo" again, trying to find all the secrets and rescue all the anime damsels. Level 6 is just an incredible presentation. An evil necromancer stands in front of magical symbols and conjures a bunch of bosses from the first Castlevania game: the giant bat, the Medusa, the Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster, etc. and you have to fight them all with a single health bar while a blazing hot evil organ arpeggio runs up and down the scales.

awesome.

Um I've been playing Symphony of the Night. It's really sad that they didn't make another 2D console Castlevania after this one, it really is the peak of the form. I love the use of 3D, which is usually deployed to render doors or other box-shaped objects (flying novels! secret-entrance-concealing bookshelves!) but last night I ended up underground in some vast cavern system where the 3D started being used to render molten lava bubbling up from the earth.

This game looks fantastic, and my only criticism is that back-tracking, eventually I start going through the same areas I've been through dozens of times, which gets tiring. But this is a convention of the genre (and one that usually turns me off to Metroid & Super Metroid after I sink a half dozen hours into it) and when you DO reach a new area, it is that much more special.

Again, it's a travesty that this is was the last 2D console Castlevania. Imagine what they could've done on the N64! Imagine an HD Castlevania for PS2! I'm sure plenty have. I've just completed the first castle and intend on getting the best ending (I've gotten the inverted castle before but never stuck w it). The RPG elements in this are brilliantly seamless, and the fact that you can switch capes or equip a new weapon and the in-game sprite actually changes appearance to reflect this is wonderful! I would say this is the number one Castlevania (and objectively for western players it is, since Rondo didn't get an original release here) but the backtracking is just not my cup of tea. So personally I still think Rondo is the best, seconded by this, with Bloodlines a very very close third. But ask me tomorrow and I may think Bloodlines is the best (it has the best music and level design imo).

SNES version is just too muddy for me, both video and audio. It's like a Castlevania talking through a pillow. SOTN and Rondo both have this romantic, baroque, Rococo aesthetic to them, something that takes monster movies as a jumping off point to explore a heavily stylized compendium of historical European fantasy.

http://fantasyanime.com/valhalla/castlevaniasotn/screenshots/large/15-AbandonedMine06.png

Also, Salem Witches in the Abandoned Mines. So cool!

Kind of kicking myself because I'm playing the PSX version and apparently the Saturn one has a playable Maria and a few extra areas. On the other hand, here's an excuse to play this game all over again!

Great game! Loved/hated scouring the entire castle for weird zircons and stuff. Loved Legion, what a boss. Loved the floating clock-sword. Don't remember the final boss.

Super Castlevania IV is really great though, my second favourite in the series, best graphics of all the first-wave of SNES games and one of my favourite soundtracks. Love the intro to this cue, damn hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtEn0f5CWQo

SOTN: there's one or two weird boards in the colosseum where the difficulty is suddenly through the roof, memories of sailing through the game to come crashing to a halt, reloading reloading etc.

I can't think about this game without thinking of when it first came out and I was playing it, with a friend looking on who only played TBS games and held side-scrollers in great contempt. He was complaining for about 10 minutes at how stupid the logic of video games is, and how he couldn't understand how I could put up with it, etc. etc. I told him to shut up. After a couple of minutes in silence while I was going through one of those underground cavern areas, he said in this loud and indignant voice:

"THAT FROG HAD TWENTY DOLLARS."

Love those underground caverns, especially the sound design as you get closer to the waterfall.

adam, i love your retro revives. have you played the GBA ones, like Aria of Sorrow/Dawn of Sorrow? because those are brilliant 16-bit-style sequels.

Thanks... No I have not played them! I am super looking forward to them!

they're dope man. do 'em all

they're not very good!!

i mean i played ecclesia and the portrait one and the sci fi one, one of them. something about the level design in them all was just. Did You Like That Burger? Have Another Burger. Have Two More Burgers. Here Are Some More Burgers For You.

lol. i thought aria/dawn had good level design, but are mostly great because of the 'soul' system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania:_Aria_of_Sorrow#Tactical_Soul

lol thomp

I like the painting one, some good boss fights in it

Aria of Sorrow was great. Haven't tried the other GBA ones, but would be willing to after playing that one.

I mean sotn is a really broken feeling game mechanically -- taking away the whip but keeping inertia and acceleration at castelvania-standard levels makes everything feel really somehow off. then there's like a fighting game move set and rpg stats and then the three transformations, none of which three play very well. but i think the really broken collection of ~ludic possibilities~ really works against the sort of cosy horror aesthetic, the sense of entrenchment the player feels in the world. and all the fragments of castle really neatly incorporate distinct, er, forms of spatial awareness.

compare and contrast super metroid: you have like 2% of alucards total moveset but everything feels more tightly constructed around it. -- everything expands the map for you.

i want to claim that the small format games try and improve on sotn without noticing it works because broken. the soul system, hm, I think I spent 25 mins killing the one enemy type to get through a particular door, so fuck that, frankly

I played a little Aria of Sorrow last night and WOW YES MOAR PLZ! Somehow I completely slept on the Gameboy Advance and now it feels like I missed out on SNES 2.0. Aria is pretty amazing, though I have no idea how to use the soul system yet.

Konami is easily my favorite game company of all time.

yup, GBA was fuckin' boss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahsiMTd82bU

Castlevania Chronicles for Playstation is pretty cool! The Belmont kinda looks like Danzig. And on the last level you get to fight panthers and knife-throwing maids on your way up Dracula's castle.

IGA (the main Castlevania oroducer since Chronicles) left Konami a month ago. Loved his portable Castlevanias. Hopefully he can make more of those types of games now, since Konami only makes Monster Hunter and Metal Gear now.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-03-17-castlevania-developer-koji-igarashi-leaves-konami

I thought that had already happened! PLEASE do a Mighty No. 9-style Kickstarter.

I played some more "Aria of Sorrow". DAMN it is sweet! I think I like it even more than "Symphony of the Night" at the moment. Controls and animation is smoooooth. Music is great. The song in the Study really reminds me of "Conan the Barbarian" OST. This game is a little on the easy side but that is fine if you don't mind not losing the 15+ minutes of game time and exploration you did since you last saved. The monsters are really wonderfully drawn and varied. I feel like every 2 screens it's a new set of bad guys!

Yeah, "Aria of Sorrow" rules.

it totally does. have you gotten any of the shape-changing souls? those stick out in my memory.

I am playing Rondo of Blood for the first time and I'm dying and dying and dying and dying

yeah, Rondo is OG Castlevania difficulty

Rondo is the best one!

My top 5

1. Rondo of Blood
2. Bloodlines
3. Aria of Sorrow
4. Castlevania 3
5. Symphony of the Night

rondo is really satisfying, tough but fair. also had a sweet ost. (but I guess most of em do)

Yeah, some of the best in gaming! Sometimes it really sounds like Goblin.

It's the first Castlevania I've played that's level designed for secondary weapon use. I... love it so far. I can't beat the minotaur but I beat the sea snake

Sea snake is super tough! Make sure you find all the secrets, if you think the level design is good now just wait.

Yeah, some of the best in gaming! Sometimes it really sounds like Goblin.
--▴▲ ▴TH3CR()$BY$H()W▴▲ ▴ (Adam Bruneau)

hah, yes! sometimes it's like a tough but sentimental scene in a hk action movie too iirc

I must play Bloodlines some time. And get past the initial stages of Dracula's Curse -- I always went for the clock tower path and got stuck.

since Konami only makes Monster Hunter and Metal Gear now.

Monster Hunter is Capcom of course. Can't believe I messed that up.

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

I am playing "Order of Ecclesias" on an emulator, projected. This is my favorite Castlevania game, and is objectively the best one yet. Sadly it is also the last 2D one. The best thing about this game is that it takes place outside the castle, unlike the previous god knows how many games. It's an awesome thing to be fighting monsters in a graveyard, I can't believe it's not something that has been really done before in the series! The graphics are AMAZING and this is one of the very few games where you play as a female hero! Overall it is a breath of fresh air! Lots of new sprites and enemies. AMAZING soundtrack. The bass and drums sound like crisp 70's studio rock like Steely Dan or something, and the songs are all 4 tracks or less.

This is may be better than Rondo of Blood! I loved the alternate character in that game, Maria. She played differently than Richter and the more open-ended and freer play style is in "Order of Ecclesias", only tenfold. Like "Megaman", you can defeat enemies and gain their powers, so there are literally hundreds ofways to play this game. It is very open world! Yet the maps are usually compact and simple. The graveyard is just 3 or 4 screens horizontally spaced. The overall aesthetic of the game is 70's Prog Jazz Rock Occult-Themed Dungeons 'n' Dragons Concept EP. You will leap from tree to tree, a raven haired witch with RPG memory loss and a very particular set of skills, slashing flying skulls with batwings with a pickaxe, the graveyard around you blue in the moonlight.