castlevania new VS old

[tannish2]

so, which system do you think had the best castlevania games, and which specific one was your favorite? i think ive gotta say game boy advance and the extra mode in dawn of sorrow... playing as alucard but with an actual challenge? YES! screw the other 2 i dont need healing or block breaking... O! also, did the 3D ones get more platformery later in the game?

EDIT: not counting backward compatability

[Mysticaloctopus]

Super CastleVania IV is my favourite, though the DS ones I also like for portability.
Of course I don't have a rom of SCV4 and SNemul running on my DS at all :smallwink: so I can't play my favourite out and about as all, nor can I play other SNES favourites like Plok or Gundam Wing: Endless Duel.

Just out of interest, which song do you prefer - Vampire Killer or Bloody Tears?

[Inigo_Carmine]

The DS is the best Castlevnia system if you count backwards compatibility ;).

However, Symphony of the Night was my favorite single game. Great gameplay, great control (<-- very important) and the best videogame soundtrack of all time. A terrific and colorful 2-d sidescroller at a time when most people were making awful drab 3d games. Only negative was the awful voice acting, which was about par for the time sadly.

[tannish2]

ok NOT counting backwards compatability, the DS would be there but.... POR was such an incredible dissapointment and yes, the only flaws with SOTN were the voice acting and the ease with which it was beaten

[Arameus]

Symphony of the Night, hands down. I've given almost all a play, aside form the newest DS one, and I keep going back to Symphony of the Night as a palate cleanser. I mean, really: Granfalloon OWNS YOU.

[tannish2]

SOTN was good, but a bit easy, o and for the latest DS one (portrait of ruin) its a novelty game, and it sucks. it will ruin your love for castlevania if it is not strong....

[UserClone]

SotN, for the simple reason that it BLEW my mind the second time I played it, when I got both the gold/silver rings...I was like, UpsidedowncastlesaysWHAT?!?

[Binary Stars]

It all depends. Which system is better for Castlevania as a series, or do you have a preference between the older, platformers and the newer Metroid-esq RPGs?

[TheBoneSplitter]

I own Circle of the Moon for GBA... and I guess it's a decent game. It's my first Castlevania that I'm seriously playing through, however.

[DreadSpoon]

Why do so many people dislike Portrait of Ruin? I really liked that one.

I'm not sure which CV is my favorie. Either CV III or one of the DS ones (maybe even POR, undecided). SOTN was good, but just way too easy. I beat the whole game the first time through without dying once, and that's just sort of disappointing. The voice acting also really didn't help things any.

The only GBA/DS Castlevania I didn't like was CotM. I did really like Harmony of Dissonance though, which is also unpopular for some reason. Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow were good, but the latter's use of the stylus was way too gimmicky and just annoying.

The 3D Castlevania's aren't terrible, but they're not great. They're way too bland and repetitive. 3D is supposed to give level designers more freedom, not less, but that's all the 3D Castlevania's have really managed. The N64 CV wasn't too bad for level design, but the controls sucked, and the PS2 3D Castlevania's are just hallway after identical hallway of identical monsters.

[tannish2]

Why do so many people dislike Portrait of Ruin? I really liked that one.
3D is supposed to give level designers more freedom, not less, but that's all the 3D Castlevania's have really managed. The N64 CV wasn't too bad for level design, but the controls sucked, and the PS2 3D Castlevania's are just hallway after identical hallway of identical monsters.

1. its because portrait of ruin was gimicky it had the bad aspects of aria of sorrow but none of the good, you had 2 characters, one of whom was basically useless, because she did not have the whip, and the boss fights got repetitive, everything had thousands of HP so it takes an hour, and it gets boring because the patterns are too predictable and easy to avoid, that and the unoriginal levels, its the one castlevania where i looked for shortcuts... nothing really original in it. and the whole pictures thing.... WTF... made the main castle kinda bland and sucky, it also had some parts where skipping entire areas was not terribly difficult, and could be done by accident, but, if you dont mind any of that at least it had decent replayability

2. i completely agree with the thing about 3D, idk what they did but they completely decided to take out the entire platformer aspect of the game in those ones! and the variety in enemies (which they also managed to significantly reduce in portrait of ruin)
3. yes, the PS2 ones felt more like soul-caliibur/mortal combat/streetfighteresque button smashing, and theres nothing wrong with that... its just not what I like to spend my money on, and the "Castlevania" on the cover of the box is a bit misleading... just lends more evidence to my "sony is synonymous with crap" theory

[Inigo_Carmine]

I didn't find SotN to be easy at all...except in the RPG aspect that if you couldn't beat a boss you could go and grind XP for 3 hours, come back and destroy him.

Then again, last time I played it was in a period of my life where I wasn't playing many videogames. My skills may have been diminished. I look forward to revisiting it when I get an xbox 360 (waiting on 65nm chipset).

[TheOtherMC]

Im going to say new school with the "Sorrow" series. The tactical soul system is what really won it for me.