/vr/ - Retro Games

I played the game on the normal difficulty and got all the way to the Duel Towers, a level near the end. In the level there was a jump I just couldn't pull off. I must have tried it a few hundred times. In the end I learned that the jump is the most mathematically improbable to make but still possible jump. I had to order a replacement joystick for my N64 on Amazon and then replace the one in my controller (which wasn't even in bad condition and worked fine for ever other game) to make that one jump. After that I beat the level and saved. Next time I turned on my system the save was gone. Well shit, the fucking watch battery in my memory card that had been alive for the past decade died in a day. So I replace the battery in my memory and started the game again. This time I played in easy mode instead of normal because I had already played most of the game and just needed to catch up to where I was. But after I go though the most tedious part of the game it turns out that you can only play on easy mode until about half way through the game. At which point the game tells you that you can't go any further and that you must start again on normal.
This is undoubtably the worst game I've ever encountered. Worse than Superman 64 by a longshot.

I don't even have the motivation to keep going in the series anymore. Are there any other good Castlevania games after this one, or did they all go to shit after Symphony of the Night?

>>2110785
>Are there any other good Castlevania games after this one, or did they all go to shit after Symphony of the Night?
Yeah but they're all Metroidvania. If you want classic style just stop there.

I recommend Circle of the Moon. I think it's actually better than SotN.

>>2110790
Besides the Metroidvania ones, there are some 3D ones right? The Lords of Shadow games and the PS2 games? Are those bad too?

>>2110806
They're okay, don't expect anything great and you should enjoy them for what they are.

They're not very Castlevania-ish to me though. Feels like there's this huge disconnect when it comes to what Konami thinks the fans want and what the fans actually want.

Some people love this game, some hate it.

I think it's a decent game but it has issues (mainly the camera).

It's definitely different from all the other Castlevanias released before it, certainly since it was the first 3D Castlevania, but I also think, out of all the 3D Castlevanias, it's the one that feels the most "Vania" of them all.

>>2110806
Lament of Innocence is a pretty good game. Definitely worth playing.
Curse of Darkness is also pretty good, although some areas tend to be a bit bland and drag on.

Legacy of Darkness exists for a reason, pleb.

>>2110783
I love this game a lot, so I'm going to address some of your points as a fan.

>The colorful and creative environments have been replaced by dull, dreary, boring, bland, uninspired levels.
They're more gothic environments but they're still creative here. I love the environments. The villa is my favourite, it's creepy as hell.

>The gameplay is slow and broken. Combat is a chore.
Disagree. It takes time to get into the swing of the controls but the gameplay is well paced between the linear levels and open world ones. And the combat is really satisfying.

>The variety of neat enemies now consists of variations of skeletons, werewolves, and vampires.
There's a fair variety of enemies in the game. Not a ton but I never considered this much of an issue.

>Bosses are few and in between, and all of them are either incredibly easy or down-right impossible without abusing health restoring items.
There's plenty of bosses and sub-bosses in the game, one of Reinhardt's levels even has a few in it.

>Remember the badass belmonts? Forget about him, you get to choose between the boring vampire hunter in the series and a little girl.
The Belmonts were never 'badass' characters with any characteristics to even speak of before this game anyway. Reinhardt is supposed to be a descendant of some sort I think, to fit in with the timeline, and Carrie is a fairly interesting character with an actual backstory.

>Remember the frightening Count Dracula? He's now an eight-year old.
Malus ends up being more scary than any other iteration of Dracula imo. And you play against more a traditional Dracula at the end, obviously.

>None of the other characters are even worth mentioning.
Vincent, Rosa, Actrise

>>2111174
(cont.)

>Castlevania is famous for it's fast-paced and exciting soundtrack. Here's quiet ambience and one or two songs that you'll want to kill yourself after hearing loop for the ten-thousandth time.
It's different, but not bad. An upbeat soundtrack would have ruined it. The thing is they were clearly going for atmosphere in this game. And the soundtrack delivered in spades. As a fan of ambient music anyway I think the ost is pretty excellent and no tracks here are really grinding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlo9kJheG0w

>>2110785
I don't recall any particularly tricky jump on Duel Tower. Can be a tough level, but yeah... You got stung by the Easy Mode. That's a bitch, but what can you do. Doesn't take too long when you know what you're doing to get back there...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LikMwS23POQ

I like the feel of the game but the execution is not great.

>>2110783

Castlevania didn't know how to transition to 3D.

Gun based games I've noticed transition a bit better, than platforming melee weapon ones. I think Devil May Cry was one of the first melee combat games that felt really good. And that was 2001.

>N64 games

Not good as you've mentioned.

>Two PS2 games

Not terrible. An improvement. But not good either. They feel really low budget too.

>GBA trilogy

Circle of the Moon is neat. Harmony of Dispair is um, a bit of a mess of a game. Graphically as well. Aria of Sorrow is Symphony of the Night 2.

>NDS trilogy

All fall in "worth checking out" at least tier. I liked them, but they do feel re-hashy so you dont' need to play them all.

>Rebirth

The Wiiware game. A throwback to the original games. Wonky graphics aside it's pretty good.

>>2111329
>NDS
Dawn of Sorrow gets blown to epic proportions for no reason other than MUH JULIUS, while it adds a third layer of grinding.
Order of ecclesia gets almost equally blown because MUH SHANOA, while having PROTIP :GO RIGHT level design, and borked weapons (2x lapiste or 2x nitesco anyone ?)
Meanwhile, Portrait of Ruin get completely shit on because of BAKA ANIMU/MANGO while :
it has greater level varity thanks to portraits
addresses Eric Lecarde legacy
gives proper kudos to the Morris family
has yuzo koshiro music. FUCKIN YUZO KOSHIRO

I can't be the only one that notices that there a CV64 thread on /vr/ almost every week nowadays? I wonder why people are so interested in this game lately. I do like it, though. Just wondering

>>2111851

Dawn of Sorrow were doomed from the moment they removed Hammer shop theme from AoS. And fuck PoR art style, even though I like animu that shit was bad used. That was a shame they used the portraits twice, SOTN's inverted castle comes back, but that game is neat.

>>2111329
Harmony of Dissonance is Symphony of the Night 2, though

Also i don't get all this love /vr/ has for Circle of the Moon. It's not bad, but it's not great either. Definitely my least favorite Castlevania from portables so far.

>>2111870
A lot of people tend to cling to it with it being their first castlevania, more common than you'd think, or the fact it's 'difficult', when it's actually one of the easier games in the series. Crosses destroy everything in the game.

I'm currently fighting Dracula (didn't manage to defeat the second form yet) and I have to say:
I fucking love this game. It's been a while since the last time I thought to myself "Yeah, I'm really looking forward to playing this game when I get home!". I have this with Castlevania 64. Often. I look forward to playing through it again with Carrie and I even think about getting LoD, too, to play with even more characters. Why?
>The music and the lack of music
The music isn't as upbeat as in most Castlevanias. It's a lot creepier and fits the gothic scenery well. When you get to the hedge maze, the lack of music makes everything more intense and I got pumped with adrenaline when I heard the gardener come close.
>The enemies
I love all of them and it's definitely not all skeleton variations. Sure, there are red skeletons, normal skeletons, a giant skeleton and skeletons on motorbikes but there are also medusa heads (that don't piss ne off as much as in, for example, circle of the moon), ghosts, animated puddles of blood that came out of the eyes of an angel statue, lizard people, vampires and spider-chicks.
>The levels
Sure, the castle center is a little flawed (would have been nice to know that the sign on the cracked wall prevents me from blowing it up) but other than that I enjoyed every level a lot, my favourite being the Villa. it's basically Castlevania meets Survival Horror.
>Dracula
He actually has some presence during the game. The twist at the end was kinda obvious but I still thought it was neat.
>The characters
Renon, Rosa and Vincent were great. I can't wait to play through it with Carrie to meet the characters of her sub-storyline.

Sure, the game has its flaws, like the controls and the camera. But I got used to both pretty fast.
All in all I played the game with low expectations and got blown away. I'd probably say it's in my top 5 N64 games.

>>2111870
>Harmony of Dissonance is Symphony of the Night 2, though

It tries and fails though. It does it by just copying the game, and copying the graphics, porting them, and scaling them horribly to the GBA. Game is rather ugly too. I consider it subpar.

Aria feels like Symphony 2, and builds upon ti as a real sequel. Storyline is a sequel to it too.

>>2111948
It's just too bad Aria and Dawn have Soma. What a faggot he is.
Good games though.

>>2111948
Aria was good enough to build an unique identity for itself
Harmony of Dissonance, as you said, tried to copy SotN and failed hard. But calling it SotN too feels more like it, because it's a failed attempt. Calling Aria/Dawn "SotN 2" makes them feel like cheap copies, which is not true.

>>2111190
Huh, glad I'm not the only one who liked Castlevania 64. I remember turning the game off in terror over and ov er trying to get through that fucking rose garden without shitting myself.

>>2111870
>>2111875
I thought CotM was pretty bad and as generic a metroidvania as you'll find, I've abandoned multiple playthroughs over the years. The difficulty level is all over the place depending on what random drops you get, although the cross is just retarded.

Favorite game in the series remains the strangely undiscussed Bloodlines. I favor SNES 99% of the time but I really think it's better than Super Castlevania in pretty much every way.

>>2111190
nice! i love the game too, it had this feeling of creepiness and desolation, but in a gothic kinda way. It felt to me like an action adventure horror game. Only in some games have i gotten this kind of vibe, and is only for some scenes.

I like other castlevanias too, but compared to this, they felt more like action games, more like you are this super powerful dude that can beat dracula and demons and shit, but in here, for some reason, it just felt like i was an average guy in a huge mansion full of creepy stuff.

>>2112071
Bloodlines is a much newer game, and it really shows in the animations. 4 is really stiff and clunky in comparison. Bloodlines is really smooth and seems faster paced, though that's probably the levels, 4 has more platforming and empty areas.

>>2110806
I hated Lament of Innocence pretty much since it came out. I finally forced myself to play through it last winter and while I still didn't like it very much, I didn't absolutely hate it this time around.

Curse of Darkness though? Holy goddamn shit I love that game with every fibre of my being. I've always felt like that was 3D Castlevania done right.

>>2111190
>that tower of sorcey

My palms are sweating

>>2110783
>Remember the badass belmonts? Forget about him, you get to choose between the boring vampire hunter in the series and a little girl.

I don't why back in the day they had such a hardon for eliminating the Belmonts. It's like taking Ryu out of Breath of Fire or Link out of Zelda. Bloodlines did it, then the N64 ones, and all the DS ones. What kind of grudge does Konami have against the Belmonts?

>>2112573

John Morris is a good guy. SOTN is one of the best games in the whole series and the mc isn't a Belmont. If you consider the playthrough with Richter valid, so DoS and PoR should be considered because Juste and Richter modes, respectively.

>>2112598
John Morris is great in Bloodlines

>>2110806
I just spent 2 weeks playing LoS plus its DLC and Mirror of Fate. I don't know if people genuinely didn't like the game or if it's just a very vocal minority, but I thought they were fantastic. Probably the best representation of what CV should be. The landscapes were breathtaking and perfectly encapsulated the theme of CV. When you get to the castle it looks amazing. Gothic, dark, imposing, just what it should be. There are also so many references to previous games that I thought it was really clever how the devs used and reworked them from across so many games to fit together here.

One thing I also really liked was how there was a logical reason why enemies would be in each area. Instead of just "here's a castle full of spooky monsters", there is an order. Trolls and goblins live on the fringe of human civilization, beyond that is the lycan territories, and then you get to the land of vampires. Each area has its own hierarchy, so you get low level lycans and vampires who make up the grunts, then medium tier and finally the rulers. It makes sense how they have their own type of civilization and it's not just a free for all of monsters fighting amongst each other. The part that really stood out to me was when they explained why the vampires permit zombies to live in their castle. The vampires drain the victims of blood, then to dispose of the bodies they feed it to the undead who live near the bottom. That was pretty neat how they actually came up with a purpose and didn't just throw in zombies because CV had zombies roaming the main entrance for no reason.

If you love the CV lore and atmosphere you would love LoS, I think. The gameplay is another beast entirely. I prefer the sidescroller style, but this is okay too. At least rent it. My first time playing it took until maybe chapter 4 until I really got hooked. Fighting trolls at first didn't seem to fit CV, but once you know the layout it makes sense and I was able to love it more the second time.

>>2112637
>>2112598

The Morris family willingly sacrifice their life force to maintain the belmonts in the VK loop.
Johnny even gave his entire life.
CV players should show more respect for the Morris

>>2112678
LoS imo is alright, Harmony of Despair is a mess but fun, at least it isn't Judgement
>>2112864
John Morris is my fave char that is not a Belmont

>>2111862
Dunno. I thought /vr/ was finally starting to appreciate it more but OP must have had a different experience. To be honest, it's one of my favorites.

Can't please everyone, I guess.

>>2111954
Play too much Harmony of Despair?

>>2112473
Fuck that level so hard. Good game and all, but fuck Tower of Sorcery and the Castle Center nitro bullshit.

>>2112071

>Favorite game in the series remains the strangely undiscussed Bloodlines.

You are not alone. Bloodlines is my favourite Classicvania along with Rondo and CV3.

The only real flaw is the shitty limited lives + password system (that saved how many lives you had from your last playthrough).

>>2114349
If you want to continue, you should clear each level perfectly, get the code, and work off that. Most of the game isn't hard, but the last level is a boss rush that kind of takes you by surprise. Having a good password is definitely something you want there.

>>2114356
Eh, it took me long enough to clear it 'imperfectly' - if you reset the memory chip the lives thing goes away.

Should i get 1 - 3 on the Nintendo e-shop?

Never played the series but i actually liked Zelda II.

>>2114331

Tower of Sorcery is a pain because of the jumps and the awkward camera, but the Nitro segment on castle hall is really a piece of cake, you just have to walk from 1 point to another without jumping, that's it. It's probably one of the easiest parts of the game, AVGN ranted because it's AVGN.

>>2114653
sure

>>2114653
1 is stiff, 2 kinda suck without guide or fan retranslation, 3 kinda sucks without VRC6

>>2114653
>Nintendo e-shop
No. Emulate them if you want, don´t give those bastards more money

>>2115568

>not wanting to support classicvania sales so maybe Konami will make another good 2D game like The Adventure ReBirth

>>2115569
I don´t trust nintendo, that´s it. I´m tired of their shit in modern times. And I doubt that the money you spend on the eshop is going to konami

>>2115573

>And I doubt that the money you spend on the eshop is going to konami

Castlevania is an IP owned by konami, part of the money goes to them and they are informed on game sales, etc. So no, you're wrong.

It's the same case as Castlevania Lords of Shadows on PSN or Steam, the sales money go to Konami, even though Sony and Steam get a %.

>>2115569

Yeah, like what happenned with Bomberman.

>>2115585

Different case, Bomberman was a Hudson IP, it was acquired by Konami but I think they haven't really done anything with the Hudson IPs, did they?

>>2115569
You know that even if people spend a lot of money with the classic castlevanias, if Konami uses the money for anything related it will be for a shitty 3D game in the newest platforms anyway

>>2115589

They raped Bomberman in Sonic levels after announcing a new title, basically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaWds9VsfGQ

IIRC they created a special site for for it and the hype was huge because any sane person would expect a new installment in the series, and then announced this Candy Crush/Bejeweled/Shariki clone. It was pretty cruel with the fans.

>>2115615
I´m a conker, metroid, bomberman and megaman fun.
Kill me already.

>>2115569
modern Konami is just an IP fatcat that outsources their IPs to make games according to flavor-of-the-month genres.

>>2115626
shut the fuck up fuck off you make something better if you're so great .

>>2115615
>>2115626

I know that the chances of seeing another classicvania are basically nil, and that current Konami sucks. But money and sales is what motivates them, so if they see people are buying the old Castlevania titles, we might see another nice remake like ReBirth. It's very unlikely, but it's less unlikely if people buy the games, right?

>modern Konami is just an IP fatcat that outsources their IPs

Right, Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth wasn't made by Konami in-house, but developed by M2 (who also did all the Sega Classics 3D on 3DS, which are awesome ports).
It's not completely crazy to think about Konami hiring them again for a 3D remake of Castlevania 1 or something like that, it would be neat.

What they did to Bomberman just sucks, though. but it's not the first time they do something like that, probably nobody knows this exists, but it do (pic related).

>>2115631
>I can't criticize food if I'm not a cook

>>2115634
if you cant cook anything better than yea you have no place to criticize shit

>>2115632
That's probably the best case scenario right here, wiiware only (cheapest to license most likely), recycling assets.

But a full blown retail classicvania, nah ain't gonna happen. Not even a steam/xla/psn game should be expected, really. They just don't care.

>>2115569
>maybe Konami will make another good 2D game like The Adventure ReBirth

I want another Classicvania as much as the next guy but that's a horrible example and probably the worst of the platforming 2D ones.

I guess IGA died or something, who knows or probably even cares at this point, but I wish someone at Konami would just step up and make the game based on 1999 staring Julius and finish their old timeline once and for all. Preferably non-Metroid style too.

>>2116175

What? I really liked Adventure Rebirth, it was an awesome game, much better than the original Gameboy title, too.

IGA left Konami and he teased some kind of project he's working on but nobody knows what is it exactly, I believe it had some sort of SOTN reference in it, who knows.
Anyway, IGA makes metroidvanias, not classic.

>>2116216
The level design was awful though, all haphazard with spinning platforms just placed where ever without any sense. Also not enough enemy variety.

>four consecutive boss fights to finish Super Castlevania IV

Are most retro games like this? I'm in way over my casual head.

>>2116348
last level boss rush is a pretty common thing in the 16 bit era
PRO TIP : never play a treasure game, especially Gunstar Heroes or Radiant Silvergun. Or Alien Soldier, which is pretty much Boss Rush : the Game

>>2116348
You should try some Mega Man next

>>2116348
>can't handle four measly bosses

And you call yourself a man...

>>2116351
So, you like bosses, eh?

WELL!

Have ALL the bosses IN THE GAME!

>>2116348
Every point in the game prior to the final boss rush is designed to prepare you for said boss rush. A lot of games follow the same concept, just not with bosses.

What I don't understand about fools like OP is that many people get Castlevania 64 before they even try Legacy of Darkness; it's a MUCH improved version of the game with a new story and stuff, much less clunky controls and it's better all around. The fight with Cornell's rival (forgot his name) is one of the most fun fights I've had in a 64 game, period.

Castlevania 64 may not be the greatest but until you've tried Legacy of Darkness, you haven't experienced the true N64 Castlevania experience.

>>2116348
Bloodlines has double that many bosses in the final level.

>>2110790
>>2110785
Order of Ecclesia is only half a metroidvania and gets pretty intense

>>2116348

It's doable.

IMO the hardest thing about Castlevania IV are the last 3 or 4 levels. The cellar, the treasury, and stages A and B. The game starts off with seemingly easy levels (although stage 3 has some difficulty spikes on blocks 2 and 3), but at the end it gets some of the most challenging segments I've played on the series.

That fucking part with the chainsaw coming from below and you have to quickly walk your way up over some stairs that get broken once you step on them so there's no turn back.

>>2110785
Holy.Fucking.Shit

I beat this yesterday.
Played it for the first time when I was 10 or so, and 20 years later I finished it.
I remember thinking as a kid "man, this game sucks" but that was a kid's excuse.
Yesterday, after ending it, the first thing I thought was "man, this game sucks".

>>2117437
It's like one of the only ones I've never beaten because of the limited lives system. How hard was it and how long did it take? I feel obligated that I should beat it too.

>>2117274
I never could beat that thing but I guess I never put that much time into it. Is it considered harder than Bloodlines? I wrecked that thing with both characters on hard, but that was an addiction.

>>2116952
It's Metroidvania with more or less linear levels (from straight corridors to more twisted ones with bigger rooms and several exits) before the usual castle. The basic gameplay is still extremely similar to the earlier GBA/DS vanias; unlock abilities that let you explore further, collect weapons/armor/spells, navigate with the usual map system, save and teleport around the world and do menial side quests for special items.
I do remeber it being somewhat harder than the earlier games. I got eventually stuck at Dracula and lost interest.

>>2117274
I honestly thought CV4 was one of the easiest in the series.

>>2118045

Only the first 2 levels.

The worst thing about Symphony isn't the "metroid" aspect of it. Its the damn RPG aspect, which metroid doesn't have. The game doesn't scale for your levels, and I seriously don't remember any of the bosses beyond the first 3 because they were so easy that I beat them on the first try like a regular mook.

>>2110783
>Castlevania
>colorful environments
ahahaha

>>2115632
To be fair, it's just another installment in Taisen Puzzle Dama. Which is a Konami series.

>>2115569
The last Classicvania was released in 1995. There will never be another.

>>2120423
The NES ones were hella colorful.

>>2120456

If only gamers nowadays wanted something besides muh levels and muh items, CV could maybe go back to its roots.

But no one nowadays is gonna pay full price for a game that is 7-8 levels long and only has replay value for classicvania fans.

>>2111883
Finally found the time to beat Dracula. I thought the fight in the desert realm got pretty intense and I died lots of times. I only needed a single roastbeef on my final try and beat him pretty quickly too, though.
I liked the ending and I'm eager to play with Carrie. It's a shame LoD is so much more expensive, though.

>>2120635
Hell though, I'd be happy at the very least with a Mega Man 9 type scenario

>>2110783
It has its charm but the original release plain sucks. LoD makes it look like a beta.

>Castlevania is famous for it's fast-paced and exciting soundtrack. Here's quiet ambience and one or two songs that you'll want to kill yourself after hearing loop for the ten-thousandth time.
Yet you liked SotN?

>>2120820
SotN has one of the top 3 most rocking castlevania tracks, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuSa2k5UEXs

IIRC this play in only one part of the game, a very short zone where you fight the giant skulls

Not technically retro, but I just finished working on this remix of a song from Circle of the Moon, which in my opinion had the best soundtrack of the 3 GBA titles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bm6KbZSfiA

>>2116946
You mean The New Generation?

>>2111851
I liked Portrait of Ruin, actually.

Enough that I dressed as Jonathan on Halloween when I was 16.

>>2122047
post pics

>>2122020
>It's gonna be Awake
>Click on link
>It's Awake
It was the best theme in the game by a long shot.

>>2122070
True, but that's not to say there weren't other great ones in it as well,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpfBFq4mmDQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJI3GKYGJ0M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhqSUlQiK9w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0oTtXjYDRo

>>2110785
I bought this fucking game. It drove me absolutely insane. Also I bought into some weird article that was selling the game as something with massive atmosphere and intriguing exploration.

Tell me, if SotN really good or is it the same thing as FFVII, where it was many peoples first experience with the series so they overhype it?

>>2122731
Both. It's well made and still fun to play but does get overhyped to hell and back as babbies first Castlevania which spawned a whole group of fans who think it's the definitive Castlevania experience, ignoring the traditional platforming ones.

For the style it is it's still the best of the bunch, better than all the clones IGA poo'd out for the next decade.

>>2122076
who cares about CotM music, you pretty much only hear one music in the game