Topic: Gigantor Thread of Bigass Castlevania Hugeness

[Quemaqua]

So I'm on the biggest Castlevania kick ever, right now.  Belmont got me Dracula X Chronicles on PSP for my birthday during the OWmeet this year, as detailed in this thread, and that just got me going completely.  I started trying to throw some other Castlevania stuff on my PSP for fun, and ended up getting all three NES ROMs, Super Castlevania 4 for SNES, and all three GBA titles on there, eventually even downloading Castlevania Chronicles from the PSN store and throwing that on there as well.  Sadly, Simon's Quest and Dracula's Curse don't want to work on the NES emu, which makes me sad, but it seems the first one and all the GBA games work without issue, which means I've got 8 Castlevania games to play all on one little memory stick.  That's fucking fantastic.

I tried to bid on a copy of Portrait of Ruin with the 20th anniversary preorder bonus just before the meet ended, and didn't manage to get it (such a shame... it went for $45 with the game and bonuses, when usually you see the bonuses alone for $60-$80), but I ended up finding another deal a bit ago that had the game and bonuses for around $65, so that counts as my "big" game for the month (I'm budgeted for one new current-gen console game a month).  I also started playing through Circle of the Moon again because I got most of the way through it and never finished, and it was so nice to play on the PSP screen and not the tiny, poorly-lit SP screen.  Come to think of it, I originally played it on a non-backlit GBA with a wormlight.  Ugh.  So yes, big improvement.

Anyway, today it just got worse.  I'd finished the things I needed to do, and since I have the rest of this week off, I decided that I'd had enough pain and suffering due to recent family issues and I was going to enjoy the damned day.  So I went out, bought a case of beer, got some Taco Bell, and a copy of Order of Ecclesia.  I really couldn't justify buying the game, but after watching the Gametrailers video review, there was pretty much no way I could avoid it.  I just had to try it.

So I came home, had some food, drank some beer, and played a good chunk more of Circle of the Moon while I charged my DS.  Then I started Ecclesia, and enjoyed having my mind gradually blown.  It's like... I don't know what.  A cross between the more modern Symphony-style gameplay and the old-school, more linear level-based stuff, but with superb art and animation.  This chick's video review goes into more detail about everything, if you're curious.

I was going to put some more links and junk in here, but I really need to get some sleep, so I'll just throw a few random things in for fun.

Short, entertaining interview with IGA
Short interview with some X footage
An article on... uh, Castlevania porn?
Homebrew Castlevania III for Windows

So I guess this counts as my first bunch of games on my backlog list for Pyro's backlog-playing idea.  I never played any of the DS games, and never finished any of the GBA ones since I lost Circle of the Moon and never picked up Aria of Sorrow.  So if anyone wants to join in the insanity with me and catch up on some spooky vampire-killing goodness, feel free.

[Cobra951]

You know how I love the series myself.  Curse my poorness for not being able to buy Order of Ecclesia at the moment.

III on the NES is well known for failing on emulators until they became more sophisticated.  It doesn't surprise me too much that the portable emulator you're using can't handle it.  The surprise is the problem with II.  The fancy mapper came in with III, not II.

Any GBA entries you missed need to be played.  There isn't a single dud among them.

Here's a link to my thread on CotM.  We went on to talk about other Castlevania-related things too.  The short take on my first post is that I was pleasantly surprised about how good the game was, after finally playing through it.

[TheOtherBelmont]

Awesome, glad to hear you are catching up on your Castlevania backlog.  Make sure you stick with Ecclesia, the first part of the game can move a little slow for some people, but it picks up pretty quickly.  I really need to get the 3 GBA games because I played and beat them all on emulators because I was a poor and broke as hell college student when they came out and didn't even have a GBA for the longest time.

I love watching interviews with IGA, he never fails to have his hat or whip with him.  I still don't get why he is so hard on himself about the two PS2 Castlevania games, yeah they weren't nearly as good as the 2D titles but they were still fairly solid games, especially Lament of Innocence.

[Quemaqua]

I remember that thread, Cobra.  I was thinking about it when playing through Circle again, and how you were saying you liked it so much better when you gave it another chance.  I liked it right off the bat, though I agree that you don't really see the depth and such right away.  I really want to play through it again with the Thief setup.  That sounds really fun.

Had some stuff to do today, but now I can hopefully settle into some Ecclesia.  It kind of sucks, since I'll be moving this month and will have tons of packing to do, but it's probably good that right now I'm on a Castlevania kick, because that means I have tons of portable stuff to play, which will make it hurt less when all the other games are in boxes.

I never tried the 3D ones, so that's another step I'll be taking soon.  Gonna' try to win an auction on ebay for both the PS2 games.  I've heard enough about them that I think I'll have fun.  Twenty bucks' worth, at least.

[MysterD]

So I'm on the biggest Castlevania kick ever, right now.  Belmont got me Dracula X Chronicles on PSP for my birthday during the OWmeet this year, as detailed in this thread, and that just got me going completely.  I started trying to throw some other Castlevania stuff on my PSP for fun, and ended up getting all three NES ROMs, Super Castlevania 4 for SNES, and all three GBA titles on there, eventually even downloading Castlevania Chronicles from the PSN store and throwing that on there as well.  Sadly, Simon's Quest and Dracula's Curse don't want to work on the NES emu, which makes me sad, but it seems the first one and all the GBA games work without issue, which means I've got 8 Castlevania games to play all on one little memory stick.  That's fucking fantastic.

I have that Konami Castlevania-Contra Collection  -- Castlevania 1, Castlevania 2,Castlevania 3, Contra, Super C -- which I got for like $10, some time back. Saw it at Office Max and figured it beats dusting my NES off and blowing in my NES and cartridges to get those classics going.

Runs fine on native Win XP.

[gpw11]

OoE is fucking great.  I went on a bit of a Castlevania spree when I first got my DS.  I still need to play Portrait of Ruin and the second GBA one but Dawn of Sorrow killed my drive to play the games.  Seriously, the touch gimmicks in that are the stupidest fucking things in the world.  I got near the end of the game, couldn't replicate a certain 'seal' symbol in the heat of battle no matter how many times i could (it was actually really hit and miss) outside of battle and hit a giant roadblock.  I don't think i'm ever going back to that shit game.

[TheOtherBelmont]

I got near the end of the game, couldn't replicate a certain 'seal' symbol in the heat of battle no matter how many times i could (it was actually really hit and miss) outside of battle and hit a giant roadblock.  I don't think i'm ever going back to that shit game.

I think I know the seal you are talking about and I had some trouble there too.  I did the practice mode for it several times right before the boss fight and got it down after a few tries, but yeah that part of the game was retarded and probably why they have never put it in any of the other Castlevania DS titles.

[Quemaqua]

In one of the interviews I was watching, IGA was talking about how they didn't "have to" after they did the first, so they dropped it.  Makes it sound like they were "encouraged" to use the feature whether they wanted to or not.

[Cobra951]

That's what I was thinking, Nintendo pushing the gimmicks in their hardware, whether they have a good use or not.

[K-man]

Awesome, glad to hear you are catching up on your Castlevania backlog.  Make sure you stick with Ecclesia, the first part of the game can move a little slow for some people, but it picks up pretty quickly.  I really need to get the 3 GBA games because I played and beat them all on emulators because I was a poor and broke as hell college student when they came out and didn't even have a GBA for the longest time.

I love watching interviews with IGA, he never fails to have his hat or whip with him.  I still don't get why he is so hard on himself about the two PS2 Castlevania games, yeah they weren't nearly as good as the 2D titles but they were still fairly solid games, especially Lament of Innocence.

I thoroughly enjoyed Lament of Innocence. 

[gpw11]

Was Lament the one that hit the xbox as well?  I have a ps2 out and about and an xbox in storage.  Which 3d Castlevania game would you recommend?

[Quemaqua]

I believe Lament was PS2 only, and Curse of Darkness, the one that followed, was PS2 and Xbox.  Lament seems to be the one people prefer, though since I haven't played it I don't know if that's just for story or because it plays better.  Castlevania 64 didn't seem all that well received, and it looks *really* old now.  I've run across a few people who like it, but generally that one seems to be considered a throwaway.

[K-man]

Wouldn't bother with the N64 games.  Lament was good.  Had a throwback SotN extra boss that was fun to fight.  I haven't tried Curse of Darkness but would love to some day.

Booted up Chronicles last night because of this thread.  Apparently I stopped at level 4. 

[K-man]

I'm almost ashamed to admit how badly I'm sucking at Chronicles.

[Quemaqua]

I was surprised how good I was doing with it.  I thought I'd get my ass handed to me and give up, but I've actually been having a lot of fun with it.  I really need to get back to it, but with moving, really all I have time to play are portable games I can squeeze in here and there.

[K-man]

I've been playing the 4th level for 3 nights now, and I still haven't even made it to the boss.

Checkpoints and saves have made me soft.

[K-man]

Died 8 times at the boss last night.  This is ridiculous!

[K-man]

Made it past level 4.  Now trying to beat Death.  I forgot the sense of fulfillment you get when you work and work and work and finally get past a boss. 

[K-man]

And yeah Que, thanks for putting me into hardcore Castlevania mode.

[TheOtherBelmont]

So I finally beat and unlocked all of the bosses and levels on Dracula X Chronicles and got the good ending since I saved all the maidens.  I'm at 84% and it was driving me nuts trying to find that last 16% of stuff, which I ended up looking at an FAQ for since I swear I've checked every god damn place for sound test items and I found out I have to beat the different boss rush modes multiple times in order to get the last 16% of the items.  Boss rush mode is pretty hardcore, I made it to the last boss on normal boss rush mode last night, which is the Lady Vampire but she kicked my ass when she had like two hits left.

[K-man]

I may try and find a used copy of Curse of Darkness tonight.

[PyroMenace]

I should probably get in on this. SotN is one of the first games I bought on XBLA and I've only gotten a little ways into it. Though I suck at castlevania so I keep getting distracted by something else.

[Quemaqua]

Dude, you totally need to go through Symphony if you never have.  It's amazingly awesome.  Just give it a few good solid hours.

Glad to see everyone else is joining my insanity.  I haven't played any more of X Chronicles for a bit now, but I'm now about 3/4 done with Circle of the Moon and I'm basically right at the end of Ecclesia.  I have to say, Ecclesia has impressed the bloody hell out of me.  I absolutely can't wait to see another brand-new 2D Castlevania now.  It was so good, I'd love to see where they go from there.  Love the super-hard bosses.

Lament of Innocense showed up in the mail today.  Today was super-fucking-horrible, so I may treat myself to a long session with it tonight.  We'll see.

[K-man]

I actually put in Lament last night when I got home and tooled around with it for a few hours.  I always was humored at how much the alchemist guy in the forest reminded me of Tommy Chong

Very fun game.  If you play through, make sure you meet the requirements to fight the hidden boss.  It's super hard and super awesome.

[Quemaqua]

I usually try to find the out of the way stuff when I play any of the Castlevanias.  They're just more fun that way.

What strikes me as weird is how fucked up Leon looks.  Dude looks like a crackwhore or something.  At certain angles I can see where his face resembles the character concepts, like if he's looking up and you aren't seeing his face dead on, but mostly he just looks wrong somehow.  And that hair... what the fuck?

Still, game seems fun.  I only got to play it for a little bit, but I'll be digging in a bit more today.

Turns out Kasavin did video reviews for Lament and Curse when he was still at Gamespot.  Apparently he thought Lament had a good combat system and was mostly just a little too linear, short, and sparse with the level design, and Curse, while having a lot of depth in its systems, was a little too easy, didn't have enough enemy variety, and hadn't improved upon the level design issues.  It's interesting to know because I always just thought "Castlevania in 3D?  That could never work", and then people generally seemed to think they weren't all that hot, so I never bothered to pay them any mind.  Seems like that was a mistake, though, and they aren't so bad if you can get past the somewhat lackluster levels and the lack of actual platforming.  After seeing what I've seen on them so far, I'm pretty confident that IGA could do as he said in one of those interviews and make a quite good 3D Castlevania, and one a bit truer to the series gameplay.  Seems like the foundation is already solid, and all that's necessary is to take the action and put it in an actual platformer with better levels, more enemies, and more focus on the environment for puzzles and such.

EDIT - So is it completely wrong that I think the naked chick riding the giant skull is like the hottest sprite ever?



Getting nearer to the end of Circle, now.  Right at the end of Ecclesia.  Died on the Dracula fight once just because I wanted to see it, but I still have like 4% of the castle to explore, and 1% of the mountains that isn't revealed.  For the life of me I have no idea where any of those map reveals are.  I've wandered around a ton, and I think I'm going to have to resort to a FAQ map.

[K-man]

Yeah, so finding a copy of Curse of Darkness around here is apparently impossible now.

[Quemaqua]

Ebay has plenty of copies floating around.  It's actually much easier to find for Xbox than PS2, from what I've noticed, and the Xbox version is usually a good deal cheaper.  I'm still waiting to get it at a decent price at auction since I'm not willing to pay much for it.

[K-man]

With the help of an emulator and save states I was able to beat Castlevania 3 for the first time this weekend.  I had the game as a child and I don't think I could even remotely comprehend what the last few levels require of you at age 10.  Some of the stuff is just flat out unfair.

[Cobra951]

For a 10-year-old, perhaps.  But is was really doable.  I beat Castlevania 3 on the NES all 4 possible ways, first with Grant (which I thought was easiest), then with Alucard, Sypha, and finally solo.  Yes, you can tell all 3 companions to go away, and I did as the final and ultimate challenge.  I couldn't get enough of that game in its day.

[K-man]

I had Sypha join but didn't use him/her at all.  I love how when you originally come across her she's referred to as "him" but at the end of the game you see them embracing.  Then she's referred to as a she.  I wanted to get Alucard but obviously took a wrong turn somewhere.  It had been a long time since I played the game.

I dunno.  Game was tough even with save states.  I restarted countless times in some areas.  Course once you learn a semblance of a pattern things get a lot easier.  Some stuff just basically equates to dumb luck though. 

[Quemaqua]

I've never actually played III, so I'm pretty excited that I figured out my PSP situation and got Simon's Quest and Dracula's Curse working!  I'm super excited because I haven't played Simon's Quest in about a billion years, since I was a wee one, and never did get to try III, as I said.  And now I can play them on a handheld!  Woo!

Right at the very end of both Ecclesia and Circle.  Hell, Circle is really kicking my ass.  I decided to give that Battle Arena thing a whirl, got a few rooms in, and... holy shit.  I have no idea how in the name of hell you're supposed to get through that without leveling for 20 hours.  Eventually I got sick of trying to make the run TO the place just to try it, since there's no nearby save (which is a gigantic and painful oversight, or a very mean-spirited choice), and started save-stating at the start.  Then I realized there was no way in bloody fuck I was ever going to do it legit, so I gave up trying and decided to see how far I could get savestate-cheating my way through.  I got halfway and then hit the room with all the minotaurs.  HOLY CRAP.  WHAT THE HELL.

I spent more than an hour total on that one single room just trying to see how I could manage to get through it at a little over half health, and I did eventually manage it.  The turning point came when I realized that if you're standing *inside* one of the minotaurs, the attacks from the others don't send you flying, allowing you to continually spam your chosen subweapon (I was using the cross).  That wasn't enough, though, and over the course of maybe 20 attempts I eventually got it down to a science.  Run into the room, throw cross, jump over attacks from initial 2 minos, throw another cross, jump over the next attacks, fall in front of lead mino just as he's about to step into you, take the damage and just start chucking crosses.  Wait until lead mino explodes (he and the next one back will now be just walking back and forth on top of you), then reposition to be sure you're in good standing with the next one.  Keep chucking crosses, then when the next one explodes (the others won't be on you yet, and some will be dead), jump to avoid taking damage from the next wave, which will bounce you since you don't have the protection of one of the minos at that point.  Then just spam crosses as best you can until you're down to only a couple dudes, and if you can, take them out with the whip so as to not waste further hearts.  Then there'll be two more at the end of the hall you can take out much more easily and move on to the next segment.  Unfortunately, at the next segment, I now have something like 10HP left, which equals 1 hit from basically anything inside the arena.  I got demoralized and gave up trying to get past the next segment, as it's fucking impossible not to get hit at least a couple times when you're swarmed with succubi.

So yeah, I guess I'm just going to give up on that and try to finish off Dracula.  If I can't cheat my way through something, that's pretty sad.  Is there some kind of New Game + mode where you can go back retaining your level and gear?  I can't imagine being able to do that any other way.

If all goes as planned, I'll have that down in a day or two depending on how much I fuck around, with a 93%+ completion rate, and then I'll probably finish Ecclesia by the end of the week as well, having only missed about 1% of one map and 4% of Dracula's castle.  I liked that game a whole hell of a lot, so I think I'll try to be the uber-completionist on another run through it later.

Really haven't gotten a chance to play Lament at all yet, barring the inital couple hours I was able to get in.  It seems fairly unremarkable, though I was having fun and was enjoying seeing classic monster designs in 3D.  And the music actually seems fantastic from what I've heard.

Oh, and lastly... I finally went and read Bram Stoker's Dracula.  When I was first into the games back in the day I had no idea they were based on the book, only finding that out years later.  I love classic literature, but for some reason I had never taken the time to sit down with an unabridged copy of the book, either before or after I found out about the Castlevania connection.  So I got a very nice unabridged audiobook, which was I think a BBC production of some sort (not for radio -- a full reading) that came out in 2008, if I remember right.  Brilliantly read, and I enjoyed it much more than I was expecting to.  The first half was riveting, the third quarter dragged on a bit and suffered from many problems typical of the era, and then the last quarter was again pretty great, and it all ended with a bang.  I thought it was thoroughly fantastic, and I can see why it's held up so well and remained so popular through the years and been so frequently rehashed in various forms.  Makes me excited to try Bloodlines now, since that's supposed to be the mostly closely related game, occuring after the book, and I never had a Genesis so never got to try it.

[K-man]

Give Lament some time. 

[TheOtherBelmont]

Give Lament some time. 

I'll second this.  The first part of the game moves a little slow but it definitely picks up and yes the music for Lament is pretty awesome, some of the later tracks that are heavy with piano are awesome, especially the title track "Lament of Innocence".

[Cobra951]

The arena in Circle of the Moon is quite the bitch.  I ended up state saving whenever I had the choice to go battle some more or take the wimpy exit.  And I did level up quite a bit before attempting it.

Looking up to my shelf, I see Lament of Innocence staring back at me.  I vaguely remember trying out a Castlevania game on the PS2, but I know I didn't get far before moving up to other games I got around the same time, like the Jak's and the Ratchet's.  I'm going to have to boot it up and try it again.

Edit:  Oh, good game.  The only thing I hate is the jumping.  It's so hard to land where you want that I gave up at first trying to jump on those switches that clear door locks elsewhere.  I tried and failed so much that I thought there must be something else I needed to do to depress them.  Good thing I tried again later.  Then I had to backtrack to the others I had ignored.  The whip jumping is annoying too.  At first it seemed impossible to do twice in a row, but after much practice it's getting easier.

I cleared the House of Sacred something or other.  Not sure where to go next, so it was a good place to take a break.  Once I started, I couldn't stop for nearly 3 hours.  While sort of 3D like the N64 Castlevanias, it leaves them squarely in the dust.

[K-man]

My NES blinking for no reason on the Alucard fight in Castlevania 3 just provoked a purchase of a new 72 pin connector.

[MysterD]

Oh, man -- Castlevania 3 was pretty good. Never finished that.

You know, since I do have that Konami Castlevania/Contra Collection for the PC (that works natively on Win XP), I should play that...

[Cobra951]

My NES blinking for no reason on the Alucard fight in Castlevania 3 just provoked a purchase of a new 72 pin connector.

Every time I think of Alucard in this game, Demon Seed pops into my head.  It's a short track that repeats endlessly, but it gets my had bobbing.  It played a lot when I was learning Alucard's moves.

I got further into Lament last night.  The whip jumping is essential, and I thought that was going to end up driving me away, but finally I got the hang of doing it many times in a row.  It's still an unnecessary pain in the ass, and the game suffers because of it.

Edit:  The link is supposed to take you to 4:45 in that youtube video, but I have trouble with it for some reason.  It doesn't work every time.

Edit 2:  Yeah, it seems to have trouble if you try to go there twice in a row.  Clicking on a different video will sometimes restart the same video.  I guess they're having some sort of trouble with the new time-specifying feature.

Here's Demon Seed in the Japan release.  It has superior audio hardware (VRC6), but the funny thing is that I like many of the tracks better in the American cart.  Maybe it's just what I'm used to, but it seems that since they had to put more effort to get good music, they ended up surpassing some of the other work.

[K-man]

Haha it started playing in my head as soon as I read the title.  One of my favorite tracks in the game.

[Cobra951]

Same here.  Looking at the comments for both videos I linked (see edits above), it seems we're not alone.

[K-man]

The part of III that ultimately got me as a child was the level in which you had to climb the falling blocks.  That was pretty much how far I could make it in any given play.

I'm really falling in love with these games again.