Matador
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2016
- Messages
- 1,639
I'm currently replaying Order of Ecclesia, and having a lot of fun. So I would like to know people's opinions about the franchise, and have a hub to discuss the franchise with other fans in the codex.
My rankings, only will post the games I played:
Classic Castlevania. (Action platformer, no RPG elements)
1. Castlevania - Rondo of Blood (PC Engine).
- Great Sprites and Beautiful backgrounds. The sprites reused in posterior games speak for the quality
- Insane bosses, and very high difficulty.
- Loyal to the classic formula with the Whip only hitting forward.
- Interesting and punishing level design, and overall progress with secret and obvious branching paths. You can complete the game using different routes with different bosses. I miss that confidence in the player missing content. Possibly the seed of the metroid level design in following games?
- That experimental aspect in the vein of Castlevania 3 can be seen also in some aspects like being able to unlock another character if you find the secrets.
- Best soundtrack in the whole franchise.
Overall it offers the more polished classic Castlevania formula game to date, and is able to experiment with some aspects with success. In my opinion a masterpiece.
2. Castlevania - Adventure rebirth (Wii).
Another very polished game and fun game, with good graphics, but without the inspiration of Rondo of Blood
3. Castlevania 3 (NES).
First game in the franchise experimenting with aspects like the switch to unconventional characters or branching paths, but not as polished or fun like Rondo of Blood, but a real landmark for its time.
4. Castlevania - Castlevania chronicles - SuperCastlevania?
I think I would chose Castlevania Chronicles, because is more fun and has better graphics being a remake.
Super Castlevania is great but the 8 direction Whip changes the formula almost completely. Before, you had to use smartly your special weapons to overcome the challenges, and that's key to the gameplay formula. Here the 8 dir. whip is very powerful in a lot of situations.
Haven't played Castlevania 2. Genesis Castlevania Bloodlines seemed fine to me but haven't played it a lot.
Metroidvanias (RPG elements like stats, level ups and gear,and level design inspired by metroid):
1. Order of Ecclesia: This game features both more linear levels and a non linear castle.
- Very hard. It's the hardest modern Castlevania, but it's manageable and is well designed. For old fans complaining about the easy metroidvania games this is the perfect game. The only thing I complain about it is the massive HP bloat for bosses. You can master the fights but they become too long. With less health they would be as punishing and less annoying
- Nice sprites and good soundtrack. Interesting Glyph mechanic, invoking the enemies weapons to use them. Although this great mechanic was introduced in Aria of sorrow.
- As bad aspects, there is level design rehashing and repetition, reusing previous areas with different colours. They should have eliminated this. It's lame and tarnish an otherwise Great game.
2. Aria of Sorrow.
I was very close to vote Symphony of the night, but overall I enjoy more this game.
- The best aspect is the ability to get the enemies abilities dropped from time to time. It's huge because they are very varied and creative, so you can have an arsenal of different unique skills with synergies ,and strengths and weakness against different enemies. For me this is the game changer aspect to vote it over SOTN.
- Interesting castle, but a little inferior to SOTN one.
- As usual in post Rondo 2D Castlevanias too much sprite recycle, but that's not a huge problem.
3. Symphony of The night.
The first Metroidvania, with a lot of sprite recycling form Rondo. But it's a compelling game, and very polished package.
- Great Soundtrack. Beautiful areas and sprites.
- More boring weapons and abilities than in Aria of sorrow. But it's natural being the first game implementing this formula.
- Better level design than in Aria of sorrow with very interesting paths...Until you get the inverted castle which I think is retarded. For me the game ends at that point. Also some boring hallways.
- One aspect better done than in Aria of sorrow, and in almost 2D game ever releasd is the sense of discovery through the level design. The secrets and mysteries are more compelling than in all the other Castlevanias, and for me that's one the key of its appeal and cult status. You don't longer get this attention to detail, love and care for the player wonder in modern games spelling absolutely everything you have to do.
It's an special game, and desserved classic status.
4. Dawn of sorrow
Good game with worse artwork adn music than the previous games. It's a good entry executing the formula well by I assume an experienced team, but without character. SOTN, Aria and Order of Ecclesia have each one their key strength making them special(Sense of wonder, mechanics, challenge), but Dawn of Sorrow lacks this.
5. Circle of moon.
Haven't played a lot of it, but it seemed good, but inferior to the formers.
Haven't played Portrait of Ruin. I hope your comments.
3D Castlevanias:
I have only played Lords of Shadow 1 and 2.
LOS1 is better but with some huge problems in the combat system design. It controls well, but the retarded decision of not being able to interrupt almost any enemy attack makes it a frustrating experience from the Action perspective. It's responsive and with good animations, but the system design is very bad. A shame.
Has great atmosphere and art, some good levels, some good bosses, decent story, but fails terribly if you know the genre and love games like Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry.
It's like al lthe team was very competent with the exception of the mechanics designers. Overall a good game, worth a try.
LOS2 is the opposite. The combat is better (not perfect) but everything else is half shit. They tried to make a 3D metroidvania instead of different levels and failed misserably. It had a troubled development with tensions and drama inside the team, and it shows:
- Some beautiful areas mixed with ugly unpolished ones.
- Some good story bits with a mayority of retarded dialogues and plot points.
- Good action mechanics with bad decisions like limiting your ability to vary the use of different weapons
- Good action sequences mixed with frustrating unorganic, lame and bad designed STEALTH segments.
Probably a lot of skillfull guys, and some retarded managers if you ask me.
Well that's it.
My rankings, only will post the games I played:
Classic Castlevania. (Action platformer, no RPG elements)
1. Castlevania - Rondo of Blood (PC Engine).
- Great Sprites and Beautiful backgrounds. The sprites reused in posterior games speak for the quality
- Insane bosses, and very high difficulty.
- Loyal to the classic formula with the Whip only hitting forward.
- Interesting and punishing level design, and overall progress with secret and obvious branching paths. You can complete the game using different routes with different bosses. I miss that confidence in the player missing content. Possibly the seed of the metroid level design in following games?
- That experimental aspect in the vein of Castlevania 3 can be seen also in some aspects like being able to unlock another character if you find the secrets.
- Best soundtrack in the whole franchise.
Overall it offers the more polished classic Castlevania formula game to date, and is able to experiment with some aspects with success. In my opinion a masterpiece.
2. Castlevania - Adventure rebirth (Wii).
Another very polished game and fun game, with good graphics, but without the inspiration of Rondo of Blood
3. Castlevania 3 (NES).
First game in the franchise experimenting with aspects like the switch to unconventional characters or branching paths, but not as polished or fun like Rondo of Blood, but a real landmark for its time.
4. Castlevania - Castlevania chronicles - SuperCastlevania?
I think I would chose Castlevania Chronicles, because is more fun and has better graphics being a remake.
Super Castlevania is great but the 8 direction Whip changes the formula almost completely. Before, you had to use smartly your special weapons to overcome the challenges, and that's key to the gameplay formula. Here the 8 dir. whip is very powerful in a lot of situations.
Haven't played Castlevania 2. Genesis Castlevania Bloodlines seemed fine to me but haven't played it a lot.
Metroidvanias (RPG elements like stats, level ups and gear,and level design inspired by metroid):
1. Order of Ecclesia: This game features both more linear levels and a non linear castle.
- Very hard. It's the hardest modern Castlevania, but it's manageable and is well designed. For old fans complaining about the easy metroidvania games this is the perfect game. The only thing I complain about it is the massive HP bloat for bosses. You can master the fights but they become too long. With less health they would be as punishing and less annoying
- Nice sprites and good soundtrack. Interesting Glyph mechanic, invoking the enemies weapons to use them. Although this great mechanic was introduced in Aria of sorrow.
- As bad aspects, there is level design rehashing and repetition, reusing previous areas with different colours. They should have eliminated this. It's lame and tarnish an otherwise Great game.
2. Aria of Sorrow.
I was very close to vote Symphony of the night, but overall I enjoy more this game.
- The best aspect is the ability to get the enemies abilities dropped from time to time. It's huge because they are very varied and creative, so you can have an arsenal of different unique skills with synergies ,and strengths and weakness against different enemies. For me this is the game changer aspect to vote it over SOTN.
- Interesting castle, but a little inferior to SOTN one.
- As usual in post Rondo 2D Castlevanias too much sprite recycle, but that's not a huge problem.
3. Symphony of The night.
The first Metroidvania, with a lot of sprite recycling form Rondo. But it's a compelling game, and very polished package.
- Great Soundtrack. Beautiful areas and sprites.
- More boring weapons and abilities than in Aria of sorrow. But it's natural being the first game implementing this formula.
- Better level design than in Aria of sorrow with very interesting paths...Until you get the inverted castle which I think is retarded. For me the game ends at that point. Also some boring hallways.
- One aspect better done than in Aria of sorrow, and in almost 2D game ever releasd is the sense of discovery through the level design. The secrets and mysteries are more compelling than in all the other Castlevanias, and for me that's one the key of its appeal and cult status. You don't longer get this attention to detail, love and care for the player wonder in modern games spelling absolutely everything you have to do.
It's an special game, and desserved classic status.
4. Dawn of sorrow
Good game with worse artwork adn music than the previous games. It's a good entry executing the formula well by I assume an experienced team, but without character. SOTN, Aria and Order of Ecclesia have each one their key strength making them special(Sense of wonder, mechanics, challenge), but Dawn of Sorrow lacks this.
5. Circle of moon.
Haven't played a lot of it, but it seemed good, but inferior to the formers.
Haven't played Portrait of Ruin. I hope your comments.
3D Castlevanias:
I have only played Lords of Shadow 1 and 2.
LOS1 is better but with some huge problems in the combat system design. It controls well, but the retarded decision of not being able to interrupt almost any enemy attack makes it a frustrating experience from the Action perspective. It's responsive and with good animations, but the system design is very bad. A shame.
Has great atmosphere and art, some good levels, some good bosses, decent story, but fails terribly if you know the genre and love games like Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry.
It's like al lthe team was very competent with the exception of the mechanics designers. Overall a good game, worth a try.
LOS2 is the opposite. The combat is better (not perfect) but everything else is half shit. They tried to make a 3D metroidvania instead of different levels and failed misserably. It had a troubled development with tensions and drama inside the team, and it shows:
- Some beautiful areas mixed with ugly unpolished ones.
- Some good story bits with a mayority of retarded dialogues and plot points.
- Good action mechanics with bad decisions like limiting your ability to vary the use of different weapons
- Good action sequences mixed with frustrating unorganic, lame and bad designed STEALTH segments.
Probably a lot of skillfull guys, and some retarded managers if you ask me.
Well that's it.
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