/vr/ - Retro Games

>>4463617
no, i'd argue it's more fun because of that, mostly due to the 8 way whipping

/vr/ honestly thinks simon's quest was good and totally not cryptic

always do the opposite of what 4chan says

its easily the best classicvania and a strong contender for best castlevania

rondo of blood and draculas curse are both inferior

>>4463617

i don't know about the game, but it has the best box art hands down

First CastleVania is easier.

>>4463646
>it has the best box art hands down

Yep it does. It is an easy game OP but from what I remember the final level was sort of hard because stairs in these games was always a bitch and the final boss was a large power gap compared to the previous bosses. Its probably the best of the classic style games and it being on SNES had a lot to do with it. The Genesis one could have been just as great to had it had the same whip mechanics of this game and level design. I feel the Genesis one does play faster though. Most of the classic games are great to me. The Metroidvania ones are great to but probably done to death at this point. There is much more Casltevania games in this style than Metroid games. For me I always preferred Metroid for those style games.

>>4463658
Only if you never die and lose your roman numerals and subweapon.

>>4463635
Care to make an arguement why?

CV4 suffered from some level design choices that are really trivilized by the use of the 8 whip. There's so many places you can position yourself and get free hits on enemies with no real threat of retlation: hitting enemies through walls, near-blind spots in the bosses rooms. The free control of the whip also trivilized projectiles, medusas and bats, since you can whip freely and just cancel into free control if one shows up.

With such a weapon you didn't need to use the subweapons to reach enemies in off places allowing you to save your hearts to grind up the rank. That combined with the plethora of hearts meant you always had at least a rank 2 subweapon and could machine gun down bosses so fast it didn't even matter if you barely knew their pattern.

The only though parts were near the end of the game when they throw that saw blade at you or make you run through a boss gauntlet.

>>4463679
It's pretty easy even if you do a no subweapon run. Fuck a no subweapon no whip upgrade run is still easier than the NES castlevanias.

i've been learning to speedrun it lately and it's definitely the easiest to slowly play but the hardest to play fast

reasons being meat/multipliers everywhere, almost behind every wall/candle and the triple cross melts bosses

Egoraptor was right.

FUCK CV4.

>>4463617

I wouldn't even call it a "classicvania". It's a different game in it's own right. If you treat it more as a regular sidescrolling action game and less of a castlevania game it's one of the best games on the SNES.

It just lacks the precision and subtle level design elements of the 1,3,bloodlines,and rondo. In those games you have a limited jump and attack direction, but its evident they designed all the levels absolutely meticulously around the controls.

In castlevania 4 there is no real satisfaction from learning the timings of everything and learning the controls.

>>4463617

It's arguable. Maybe Simon's Quest is inferior to this, and maybe it isn't. This game is definitely too easy, yes.

>>4463617
no it's the worst Castlevania because of it's monotonous music and muddy visuals.

>>4463801
>i've been learning to speedrun it lately and it's definitely the easiest to slowly play but the hardest to play fast

This is true casually it's a breeze but the speedrun is absolutely one of the hardest out there.

>>4463726
>CV4 suffered from some level design choices that are really trivilized by the use of the 8 whip
CV4 has enemies attacking you in diagonal, it has a lot of bats that rush straight at your face in a diagonal line, that's because you have a whip that can attack diagonally. So, the whole "the game is not designed with the diagonal whip in mind" is just not true.
>There's so many places you can position yourself and get free hits on enemies with no real threat of retlation
This is true, however, it's not "so many", it happens in certain areas, mostly vertical ones since you can whip upwards. Then again, there's also a lot of cheap ways to cheese enemies in other CV games, so it's not a thing only IV is guilty of, more on that later.
>The free control of the whip also trivilized projectiles, medusas and bats, since you can whip freely and just cancel into free control if one shows up.
The free whip is a double edged weapon, because it can fuck you up if you're not precise. If you just try to cover yourself from a coming bat or medusa or whatever, and you hold the button and just "block", but don't actually hit (like when the whip waggles), you deal less damage to the enemies (like 1/2 or 1/3, or even less), this can lead to the enemy hitting you, knocking you back and sometimes causing you to fall to your death. The only enemies that die instantly are the crows (but they don't on the 2nd loop).
>With such a weapon you didn't need to use the subweapons to reach enemies in off places allowing you to save your hearts to grind up the rank. That combined with the plethora of hearts meant you always had at least a rank 2 subweapon and could machine gun down bosses so fast it didn't even matter if you barely knew their pattern.
it's true that this game makes you rely less on subweapons than others, but not completely.
(cont)

>>4463726
>>4464152
Cross is still very useful in a lot of ways. About ranks, it's not easy to maintain a subweapon on IV if you aren't really careful, or know the game by memory, because if you hit a candle and it drops another subweapon, you can't go back to the last one, and it's very easy to fuck that up if you're not very very careful. You lose the rank too, obviously.
>>4463851
>It just lacks the precision and subtle level design elements of the 1,3,bloodlines,and rondo.
If you don't want to call CV4 a "classicvania", then you shouldn't want to call 3, Bloodlines or Rondo either.
3 is a classicvania if you play with Trevor, but you also have the option to do crazy shit like flying with Alucard, but okay, III is more similar to the first game if you decide to limit yourself to Trevor.
Now let's take a look at Bloodlines: diagonal whipping (only upward), can jump while on stairs (CV4 lets you drop off stairs, but not jump while you're on a stair), doesn't have a subweapon ranking system, doesn't even have the same classic subweapons as other classicvania games, and while it's true that it has the "stiff" jump (you can't change your trajectory mid-air) you can change the direction you're facing really quickly in case you need to hit enemies coming from the other side, something you couldn't do on CV1 and 3.
Rondo, this one goes back to a more traditional whip use, but you can change your trajectory mid-jump, you can backflip, you can jump on stairs like on Bloodlines, subweapons don't have a ranking system either, and speaking of subweapons, Rondo has the most OP subweapon of all: the bible.

Now, it may seem as if I was shitting on those games, but no, I like all of them, I enjoy playing them over and over and that's why I know their differences, I just wanted to make clear that okay, if you think IV isn't a "real" classicvania, then the others aren't either. The only real Classicvania is the first one (according to your judgement of what makes a classicvania)

>>4463617
Haunted Castle is worse for the opposite reason, it's too hard and nigh unfinishable.

>>4464152
He never said that it isn't designed around the idea of the mutli-directional whip, he said it trivializes the items. He said that the level design is trivialized by the 8-way whipping as well.
Half the gameplay in the original Castlevania was centered around using your items and actually needing them to get around, instead of just whipping through everything, otherwise you were in a tough situation. The 8-directional whipping takes this out of the game, pretty much. It's not that all items are now useless, but useless for the most part.
And as for how much of a double edged sword the free whip is, it's really not that much of an issue. Saying "it can fuck you up if you're not precise" is just saying that if you missed, you get hit. The 1/2 or 1/3 damage bit is whatever.
The biggest thing is, that free-whip wasn't even the most necessary mechanic in the game seeing as the 8-way whip took care of most issues for you already. This is a non-issue and doesn't really effect your gameplay that much.

Its good. As someone who didn't actually have it for my SNES back in the day, I don't really have any particular attachment to it. I honestly like the NES ones the best, then Bloodlines and Dracula X. I just like the way they play. As someone else mentioned, CV IV feels nearly as different as SotN does from the other classics. But that doesn't make it bad.

>>4463617
It's not necessarily that it's too easy, it's that it's too boring, and it's boring because there's no challenge.

>>4464638
Enemy placement is part of level design, that's why I mentioned that.
To be fair, sub-weapons on the original Castlevania weren't that much useful unless it was rank 3 holy water or rank 3 cross, knife was never useful in CV, Rondo "casualized" the knife by making it shot 3 knifes at once, making it cover a wider range of hitboxes, but yeah knife was never really necessary. Axe is cool, but only really useful against the first boss in the game, the bat. In Rondo something similar happens, it's useful against the dragon boss on the first level, but once you get the bible on stage 3 there's not really any reason you'd want to take any other subweapon I think.
In Bloodlines axe is also kind of useless since you can whip up.
Holy water isn't even that useful in any of the games either other than for stunting bosses on CV1.
I don't think sub-weapons are half the game, I think half the game is platforming, and half combat, mostly using the whip.
>Saying "it can fuck you up if you're not precise" is just saying that if you missed, you get hit.
That's why I said it can cause you to knock back and fall to your death. It especially happens during those parts with falling floors with bats or skeletins jumping at you. A direct hit is always more efficient than covering or waggling. But if you use smart use of the waggle it can be useful too, just you can't rely on it blindly.

>>4463726
I also watched that EgoRaptor video, now come up with your own statements.

>>4463617
It's normal for a series that's not really that hard (compared to arcade standards; I'd say Classivanias on average are just moderately difficult) that an easier title could cross the line of being too easy and thus becoming boring.

For me, though, even if it's definitely easier than the other Classivanias I still find it challenging enough to be stimulating. It can still stimulate my brain when I play it even if I don't need to be on top of my game to clear it, it never becomes Kirby tier. The bosses are probably the most boring part.

>>4465183
If you think about it, bosses weren't a big deal on the first Castlevania either, it was mostly all about level design. The boss fight were a spicy stimulation at the end of the level but not the main thing.
I mean other than Death, if you don't use holy water which you shouldn't if you want a challenge, but with rank 3 cross it's pretty doable.
Dracula is just tedious and long, not that difficult, his final form can fuck you up because of his jump patterns and his gigantic hitbox, but it telegraphs his attacks with lots of anticipation.

I'm going to say it:

Castlevania II isn't as bad as people claim.

It has its flaws, sure, but it's quite interesting and tried some new things.

>>4465209
Bosses on the other games are more challenging, though secondary items with the letters could cheese them, as well as some item breaks. Here it feels like you can just wail on them like they're a regular enemy from a beat'em up but with a lot of health

>>4464638
So the free whip was an unnecessary, maybe even a harmful inclusion then? I would actually agree with that since it actually gave a defensive option in a game that should be all about offense. I do think the 8 way whip was an inevitable though since it was the most logical new mechanic they could have introduced to the series at that point. I think the items are still pretty useful for the most part even with this mechanic since they can often be thrown quicker than you can whip. They can stack damage for you to in addition to whipping. I would actually say that the free whip was unnecessary. Any part where you need to swing using that mechanic could have just been altered to work with the 8 way whip in mind. There is that one level but that could have just been altered to work without free whip in mind. Even with free whip I still think SCIV is an amazing game.

>>4465218
But the same happens with most of the bosses on the first game. Bat, Medusa, Mummies, they're all braindead. Frankie and Igor can be more tricky, I guess. Still Igor can be stunt with the whip alone.
I mean, I think bosses are a memorable part of the game, but not the main dish.
CV4 also has a few boss fights I enjoy, I like the golden bat, ghost dancers, slogra. I mean once you know the patterns they're not a threat but it's still fun to fight them, the other bosses are pretty easy but not enough for me to drop the game. Like CV1, they don't take a lot of time to kill.

>>4465235
I feel like the only retro CV that got boss fights right was Rondo/XX. They actually put up a real fight unlike all the other games.

>>4465248
I mean, as I said I don't dislike the boss fights on the other games, but I think they're not meant to be the main thing.
Rondo definitely feels less focused on non-stop action level design, and more about exploration and boss fights. Bosses in Rondo and Dracula X definitely are more well thought out.
Bloodlines is a mixed bag, I generally find the bosses on it a bit of a drag. And the problem is that there's too many mini-bosses that break the level design's pacing.
Honestly though, they're just nitpicks, I enjoy them all. Each CV game has its high and lows, generally the highs are more numerous.

I couldn't get into this after playing Rondo.

Its not really because its too easy its more that it misses the point of CV which is precise timing and rhythm both of which are undermined by the godlike whipping. They tried to compensate by giving all enemies more health than they had in older games but all that does is make the whipping feel unsatifying. Not to mention the terrible level design where you can hide behind walls or under the floor and whip enemies without fear of retaliation. At least to cheese enemies in older games you had to put some thought into item use and such, now thats all gone. Its telling that the game has the most instant death traps out of any game in the series. They simply couldnt design challenging enemies and encounters for the new whipping system. X68k will always be what 4 should have been to me. It has a lot of 4s control improvements while staying true to the spirit of the series.

>>4463624
>/vr/ honestly thinks simon's quest was good and totally not cryptic
No, they don't. That's a bullshit act they put on trying to be the most totally special snowflake who totally didn't need any help to figure it out all by themselves. They also did all this when the game was new and relevant, an even more amazing feat as they wouldn't even be born for another twenty years or so.

>>4465268
I disagree, I think level design is overall pretty good, has some issues, but it's a minimum part of the whole game. Whipping feels pretty satisfactory to me, timing is still required especially on the 2nd loop.
X68K is really good though, I think both are good as far as reimaginations of the original, but neither really are like it. X68K has some elements from IV though, I noticed that as well, it has downward whipping, which is pretty cool, I love killing enemies while jumping over.

>>4463617
i thought it was pretty hard desu

>>4465302
Gyatto Gyuddo!

>>4463646
>your face when you find the frog
Old Konami western boxart was 10/10.

>>4465235
Notice how you mention the first three bosses as being easier but they start to become tricky on the second half.

And you mention bosses from the latter half of IV's as the better ones. Of course, buddy.

The thing is, IV is longer and so there are more bosses that are very easy, and I'd say they're even easier han I's first three.

>>4465302
You must not be used to play 2D action games then. It's ok, but you'll struggle with a lot of other games if this was pretty hard for you.

>>4465297
Id say the level design sorts itself out a bit in the last third of the game, almost like the developers finally understood what kind of game they were making. But before that the game has a lot of those easily cheesed scenarios. I like to bring up the wall snakes as an example because I honestly cant remember if you ever have to fight those things directly in the game. 4 does have some good ideas but imo the 8 way whipping is a dead end and it seems the devs admitted that aswell

I wish more Castlevania games had used the whip swing idea before SotN/Iga killed the series.

>>4465874
is Iga the Aonuma of the Castlevania series?