/vr/ - Retro Games

heard about that game recently from the Gaming Historian

"Retro" refers to consoles/games up to a certain console generation, rather than just "old games". It's a fixed term, rather than a fluid one subject to continuous updates. The increasing number of "old" consoles post-gen 5 requires the coining of a new term, something like "nu-retro", specifically for them.

>>6437935
This is controversial? Meaning the general consensus is it's not good? I've always liked this better than the NES ones since I played it way back on my SNES.

PS2, GameCube, and XBOX are retro

It is a good game.
The Xbox 360 is as old as the Dreamcast was when I started looking at this bord

>>6438206
Every time you try to talk about SCIV on /vr/ anons will tell you how it ruined Castlevania forever and that it's the worst shit ever

>>6437935
Banjo-Tooie is superior to Banjo-Kazooie

>>6438310
that's hilarious. 4 does a lot of what "super" sequels did at the time, and that was take the original formula and add more elements thanks to more capable hardware. I can't think of anything from the basics of the NES games that got changed. from what I remember jumping is still peaky and you can't change direction. medusa heads are still a pain in the ass. you can fall off steps and instantly die.

The 6th gen should be retro by now, specially
the handhelds.

>>6438324
the common complaint is that the 8-way whip casualized everything too much and that it was an easy game therefore worthless. Somehow "super" titles from Nintendo get a pass here despite being guilty of the same things.

2 is the second worst of the classic Mega Man series after the first one.

>>6437992
You do realize the word "retro" exists outside of the context of videogames, and that the definition this board uses is totally arbitrary right?

>>6437935
Castlevania SotN
Sonic 2
Final Fantasy 9
LttP
Yoshi’s Island

are all good games

Genesis
Dreamcast
N64

all have good games and are decent systems

PS2
GameCube
og Xbox

are all retro, you don’t need to sit and wait for 2 hours to install update patches and firmware updates and the games are complete on disc and don’t require internet to play and video output is composite out the box, you just slap the disc in the system and play

regular consumer CRTs are perfectly fine and you don’t have to do the pvmeme

>>6438332
This is a fair point. But to those I'd say, don't use it. I always took it as an optional organic difficulty adjuster. But those seem to hilariously be controversial.

>>6438353
...wtf saying symphony of the night is good is controversial? While I do like to discuss how it buried classic gameplay castlevanias, I sure as fuck wouldn't call it a bad game. not by a long shot.

>>6438359
next time a Castlevania thread pops up and everyone is sucking off 3, 4, and rondo, go ahead and say you like SotN and ready your anus for the flood of seethe

>>6438364
kek I'll do just that.

>>6438353
>FFIX
I've never seen that game being badmouthed here, it's usually insecure 6 guys shitting on 7. N64 the same, if anything too many Nintentiddies here say the lie that PSX was all quantity but not quality.
>>6438359
A lot of ppl shit on SOTN today, specially on the wasteland that is /v/. I think Zoomers now play retro games expecting super difficulty in all of them and get disappointed when they actually manage to beat a game.

>>6438375
Dark Souls ruined a generation of gamers

>>6438375
that's funny, because I'm old enough to remember those days and I have to say a lot of us were not fond of unforgiving difficulty. its a meme that has grown out of control that boggles my mind really. That somehow all of us from back then were masochistic and always appreciated having to repeat a section 9000 times before beating it only to die 9000 times on the next section to learn it. But I think it's self inflicted, because there was a time, and still is, where "hurr durr my games were a lot harder back then" comes up to gloat.

fuck super castlevania bros
fuck trashure
and most importantly,
FUCK NINTENDO!

>a few mentally ill posters(probably from /v/) hating a game = an entire board
ok

Shining Force is better than Fire Emblem

Shining Force RotDD is leaps and bounds an improvement over the original.

>>6437935
Well obviously it is. What kind of mentally ill... wait he's already here. Never mind.

>>6438415
They definitely are noisy and committed to it, like the autist obsessed about MGS and overrated games general

>>6438408
You out of meds?

>>6438443
I think that /vr/ should move to encompass PS2/Gamecube/Xbox/GBA games. Anything before 2000 should be allowed to be discussed.

Keep it locked here. Pretty much anything after will never really feel retro as it's pozzed to the brim with always online dlc horseshit

>>6438353
in the real world these are very agreeable opinions, but when surrounded by pathetic basement dwelling NEETs, all very bad.

>>6437935
You can enjoy multiple titles from a franchise
i like OOT and MM
i like Chrono Trigger and Cross
i like FF6 and 7

the degeneracy on this board is out of hand

>>6438475
>You can enjoy multiple titles from a franchise
yours truly is the most controversial opinion I've seen here. Everybody else feels the need to fanboy not just a franchise but a specific title of a franchise, and demean everything else.

>>6437992
Why not "vintage" or "modern" or "contemporary"?

You are obligated to neither participate in the bantery shitposty discussion or to hold any extremist stupid opinions you know. I try to do neither and still have plenty of pleasant conversations here, sometimes even when disagreeing with the other guys faggoty opinion.

You don't have to choose or understand anything you don't want to, it can just exist without you paying attention to it.

>>6438408
Imagine being an obsessed Australian schizo who hates CV4 because the proto-Treasure guys made some gameplay changes that you believe "ruined" the series, hates Treasure for "betraying" Sega by making games on the N64 instead of Saturn, and hates Nintendo because they're popular in the United States.

Final Fantasy 5 is not that good. The gameplay is fun and makes it replayable, but that's about it

>>6438479
this one is specially funny in 3D platformers thread, that guy preaching that you only need to play mario 64 and nothing else is guaranteed to appear.

>>6438310
egor*ptor said it wasn't good back when pretended to know anything/care about video games

>>6438562
responding to him isn't helping things any

>>6437935
Johto games suck (and are severely overrated). Especially the maingame.

>>6438567
Yeah, is not like gameplay matters in jrpgs.

>>6438430
If I wanna get into the legacy games is there a specific place to start? I'm willing to deal with very early series basic gameplay if I need to. Helps me appreciate the progress of a series usually.

>>6437935

>Widely considered to be the top teir of the series and one of the greatest 2D platformers of all time.

>>6438806
times change, gramps. there are many cases of games held in great esteem yesterday that are considered trash today. Think the Sonic games

>>6438810

>False equivalency

>>6438354

I like Castlevania IV too, but: Games that force you to manually adjust them to fix things about them are badly flawed. The game could have a hard mode in which the whip was limited and you got a special extra ending stage or something. It could handle the problem in any number of other ways. And since it could, then it should. That is a computer's job. If I wanted to manually adjust my games in order to make them work right then I'd be playing Freecell with real physical cards or something. I'll do it for the sake of a game that's good enough in other respects, sure. It won't kill me to make up special "challenge run" rules for myself. But I won't give up the idea that a better game wouldn't need special extra stuff added to it that it could have included in the first place.

Mischief Makers just isn't very good. Boring level design, convoluted controls, some neat visuals and a cute protag are all it has going for it. If it wasn't for Treasure being so well loved I doubt the game would receive as much praise in retrospect as it does today.

>>6438387

I agree with this. On the other hand, I still want games to be hard so I have to work at them some... that is, I want that NOW. I didn't want it when I was a kid, because back then I had a couple of decades' less practice in these things and so I was relatively unskilled at them; and also I was fresher and easier to satisfy with superficially appealing game elements. I haven't ever even gotten around to playing Symphony of the Night yet, but based on what I've heard about it, I think it's safe to expect that if I play it now I'll like it but be disappointed with its challenge level, and that if I'd played it as a kid, I would have LOVED it.

I don't know or care about that "Nintendo hard" concept. I just want hard games because I've outgrown the easy ones and my brain can't be forced to enjoy them properly anymore, which in my opinion is a flaw in me that should not be blamed on Konami or whatever.

>>6438310
>anons
It's mainly just 1 guy and maybe a few other contrarians, but nah, for every IV hater, there's at least 5 people who like it. So even if /vr/ is highly contrarian, this is not the case with Castlevania IV.

>>6438408
At this point, you're just a parody of yourself, old man.
Long live Super Castlevania IV
Long live Treasure
And Nintendo is OK, especially back in the day.

>>6438310
i feel like this is bait to start the SCIV vs Dracula X war. that war then sparks a separate war when it degenerates into original cart (because it's expensive) vs just get a flashcart. every time.

>>6438238
So you’ve been here for six years, newfag

>>6438957
It's not his fault 75% of /vr/ is easily triggered and baited into shit-flinging about the same thing over and over again, it's too easy. Like yeah I'd love for a nuanced discussion comparing the mechanics of the Castlevania games and their flow/pacing, but that never happens, and it's always the same posters going "REEEEEEEEE!" at each other, every time.

>>6438957
Dracula X is fine and all but it's a fangame. The cartoony-looking Saturday Morning Cartoon assets completely clashes with the reused pixel art. It does not look professional at all. For the record, I also dislike Metroid Zero Mission on the GBA for the same reason. Lazy comicbook shit is not a substitute for detailed pixel art.

>>6438972
I sometimes try to actually discuss Castlevania, but I never seem to find anyone who's too interested in discussing it. Everyone seem to be too invested in agendas pertaining console wars rather than the actual Castlevania games.

>>6438973
>The cartoony-looking Saturday Morning Cartoon assets
What's cartoony about the Dracula X assets?
If you mean the cutscenes... they remind me more of western comic books, actually kind of give me a Sandman sort of vibe, not satAM cartoons.
But if we're talking about cutscenes, Rondo of Blood has the anime cutscenes which.. also don't really clash very well with the style of Castlevania, but I still like both Rondo and Dracula X for being different than previous entries.
The actual in-game graphics, though, look fine in both games. I actually like Dracula X's backgrounds more than Rondo's. More detailed.

>>6438973
I know exactly what you mean with Zero Mission cause I agree but it doesn't apply at all with Dracula X. Have you even pressed start and seen how the first stage looks, anon? The game looks fucking great, there's no hideous ZM type backgrounds there, they look really fitting and detailed, it's a gorgeous looking SNES game imo.

T. someone who likes SCIV more

>>6438994
I think he might be talking about the cutscenes, but still, they don't really look cartoony. So I dunno what he meant.

>>6438986
You're right about Rondo, and both SC4 and Rondo vary in detail from area to area. For art style, I s'pose it's just preference, but for me, highly detailed pixel art is the gold standard and comic book stuff with lots of large flat-shaded areas is a far lesser presentation.

>>6438998
Dracula looks better there than the pretty-boy fop take in Rondo of Blood. For all of Ayame Kojima's frilly, feminine takes on the characters, her Dracula is generally a very good take on the character, more regal and masculine than other versions.

>>6438694

>>6439006
For CV4, it's like the devs were inclined to use every "shit and puke coloured" tone and shades all over the game.

Refined pixel art my ass, literally.

Pic related, Dracula's grave standing on a big pile of dookie. Sets the tone for the entire game.

>>6440542
Brown is mood. I guess you think Metroid Fusion actually has an appropriate horror game palette. I bet you don't like Quake and think it has shit art design, too. In all cases your opinion is shit unlike the brown art which is earthy and mysterious.

>>6440542
>earth is brown colored
WOW!
Also, the original Castlevania also had darker color palettes with lots of brown. Simon himself is brown in CV1 and also on X68000. Also Trevor in CVIII.

>>6437935
A disgrace to the Castlevania franchise.

>>6440548
it's not the just earth though, it's everywhere in the game, more so than any other CV, and with tones that make it look disgusting.

It was probably intentional from the devs to make it look dark and unsettling but instead it just looks like shit.

>>6440549
Maybe if you repeat it enough times, it will become true one day.

>>6438353
>Final Fantasy 9
>good
Anon, I...

>>6440550
>and with tones that make it look disgusting.
Most people think the game looks fantastic, so you just have an unpopular opinion.

>>6440560
16-bit Castlevania are uneven visually and usually start off with some really strong cohesive sections while entering the castle, and then have some embarrassingly weak sections in the middle. Rondo of Blood is especially guilty of this with some areas being a bunch of drab copy pasted blocks on a black background. Like WTF, where did the cool burning town go?

>>6437935
One of the most retarded walking animations I've ever seen on a 16bit game

>>6440563
PC Engine is an 8-bit system, so it's not surprising to see black backgrounds or simple tilesets in the backgrounds.
I don't think IV or Bloodlines look bad though, they have consistently nice backgrounds from beginning to end. Same with X68K.

>>6440567
Simon always had a funny walk animation, but I don't think it looks retarded, he just look very committed to it.
The one time he looked retarded was on Haunted Castle though, that looks like he's holding a turd in his ass, ready to let it go.

You could wipe all 16-bit vanias from existence (8-bit Rondo doesn't count), and not only would the series be better off, we wouldn't have so many retarded Castlevania threads.

There was a Castlevania poll in 2015 on /vr/, and IV came out 2nd place, after SOTN.
No matter how much 1 or 2 guys try to force their shit in, liking IV is not controversial here.
As for Castlevania fans in general, IV came out number 1 on CV Dungeon forums poll.

>>6440570
>>6440590
But two of the PC Engines three chips are 16-bit therefore it is 16-bit.

>>6440602
Either way, Rondo is the only one worth playing. A direct evolution of the NES titles that ties right into SOTN and beyond.
The other 16-bit vania were experimental trash.

>>6440641
>A direct evolution of the NES titles
LOL no.
>no whip upgrades
>no numeral rank multiplier
>can jump on stairs
>backflip
>exploration is given a priority over platforming
>bosses with long ass phases, have to wait a lot to actually attack them
>item crashes
>bible subweapon trivializes everything in the game
It's a good game, but if anything, Rondo is the experimental one.

>>6440656
It's the perfect bridge between 8-bit and SOTN.
Look up the definition of evolution sometime.

Anyone saying the whip trivializes CV4 ignores how the game has some of the toughest platforming in the series.
On the other hand, X68k's difficulty is way overrated (it's tough, but not that tough).

Pic related is retro

I wouldn't be surprised if we'd eventually find out that most of the game was designed without the 8 directional whipping and it was ended very late in development as an afterthought.

In comparison, check the 2 level beta of Bloodlines. You can't jump from stairs in that one, so that mechanic was added late in development.
Yet, it trivializes that one scroll full of stairs and the bone heads, as you can jump from stair to stair to the top bypassing the entire scroll.
That is a direct consequence of allowing jumping from stairs late in dev.

CV4 is like that too but with the whipping, but instead of trivializing one scroll and two bits like in Bloodlines, it's most of the game. It's like most of the level design, enemy placement and enemy AI are designed for another game's mechanics.

Also you're fooling yourself if you think only one australian anon would think that. It should be obvious to anyone who's played CV4, other CVs, other games, and who is able to think just a little bit about game design.
But instead, instead of challenging your opinion, it's easier to just go "lol it's just one retarded guy who thinks that"


>>6440667
> X68k's difficulty is way overrated (it's tough, but not that tough).

You've only played the Chronicles port haven't you.

>>6437935
That's not controversial. That particular game just has dedicated shitposters,the most prominent of which lives in Australia.

>>6438567
>The gameplay is fun and makes it replayable, but that's about it

How does this not meet your standards of a "good" game?

>>6440691
>You've only played the Chronicles port haven't you.
Good old strawman shitposting.
CV3 is way harder unless you cheese it with Sypha.

>>6440698
X68K has some of the hardest bosses to learn in the entire franchise. For instance the Fake Belmont adapts his moves according to what the player does, unless you've only played the Chronicles version which butchered that fight, and to the point it's almost like a fighting game AI.
So do the She-wolf and Medusa to a lesser extent, and it's something few bosses in the entire series do. Most of them just go about their businesses doing their patterns which is infinitely easier to learn.

>unless you cheese it with Sypha.

That's the thing though. CV3 has cheese, and not just Sypha, Grant and Alucard also offer their fair share of cheese. You're free not to take the options, sure, but the cheese is there, meanwhile in X68K the cheese option is just not there at all and you're forced to take it like a man.

>>6440691
Also, even the "diagonal bats", which one anon kept raving about as proof the game is designed with the diagonal whipping in mind, aren't an argument at all.
The way they're designed, if you just keep walking as they spawn and move diagonally towards you, they won't hit you and they'll end up passing you in the back. You can turn back then and whip straight to hit them (or don't hit them at all).

You can also backtrack a little, whip straight as they arrive.
You can also wait as you see them, jump and whip straight.

They're not designed with the diagonal whipping in mind at all. In fact, all 3 options above are more akin to what other CV games would require of the player with flying enemies with odd patterns; while again, using the 8 directional whipping bypasses all that.

>>6440736
Well, there's one way to resolve this, and that's for someone to make a romhack that removes the 8-way and spinfu and see how it plays.

>>6440739
Well there is an issue with that: the hang thingey, , they're pretty much the only thing that truly require of the same player to whip up

>>6440739
But ideally, i'd make it just like the X68K version, that is to say only take out whipping up and diagonally up, but keep the possibility to whip down when jumping.

>>6440710
I'll give you the Doppelganger, I hate this motherfucker. Other bosses are not that tough, the werewolf is not hard to beat.
And stop talking about Chronicles, it's a shit port.
>CV3 has cheese, and not just Sypha, Grant and Alucard also offer their fair share of cheese.
Grant is shit in the inferior US version (but very good in the original one), Alucard is useless and forces you to go through the worst part of the game.
You're supposed to be able to solo the game with Trevor anyway.

>>6440748
In the US version Grant can throw up to 3 knifes at once which he can't in the Jap verison. He can also bypass a lot of platforming.
Alucard can shoot diagonally which helps to kill many enemies while being out of their reach and can bypass any platforming.

>You're supposed to be able to solo the game with Trevor anyway.
That'd be a self imposed challenge though

>3/10 for effort

>>6441227
Nice.
Now do the same for the stair jumping mechanic and how they trivialized them on Rondo, Bloodlines and subsequent games.

>>6441227
If you REALLY want to get anal about it, you can cheese enemies while climbing up stairs in every Castlevania. You just have to walk up ever so slightly, so as to reach the enemy above, but not enough for them to touch you. It requires a bit of waiting but you can safely defeat most of them that way without risk.
I'm impressed you took the time to do this, I assume these are your own screenshots, but as the other anon said, you could do similar comparison pics with any Castlevania and find different ways to trivialize gameplay. 4's multiwhip is hardly the worst offender in this regard.

I actually enjoy Secret of Evermore. I totally love the second and third regions, Antiqua and Gothica

>>6440691
>Also you're fooling yourself if you think only one australian anon would think that.
People criticizing 4's whip isn't just australia-kun, that's for sure. Australia's thing is that he's completely OBSESSED with it, or at least used to be, but he's still around, see: >>6438408
inb4 that's not him, nobody cares to save his shitty meme pic, he's the only one posting it.
As for the whip, the thing is, even if there is a number of times you can cheese enemies with it, the game still provides a good variety of situations, so it's not like the full game is whipping enemies above you. On the other hand, the sub-weapons don't have any broken mechanic, holy water no longer causes stun-lock on bosses like it did in CV1, and while triple cross makes you an unstoppable monster, you lose it when you lose a life, or if you accidentally take another sub-weapon. You will be relying on sub-weapons less so, but they still come handy to have, especially the cross... same as in CV1 (unless you count the holy water). I never really used the axe in the other games. I mean if I had it, I used it, but if I could get the cross, I didn't think twice about it. And the knife was useless in all CV games.
Another thing about the whip in IV is that it has different reach and strength depending on the timing, so if you don't time your hits well, it will deal less damage to enemies, a common way to die, getting knocked back to pits or just running out of life by getting hit repeatedly.
It's not hard to get the timing down, but if you're not careful you can fuck up in the worst moment.
IV also has a 2nd loop, which has more enemies in all levels, so I think if they wanted, they could have rearranged them in order to make them unreachable with Simon's whip, but I don't think that was their main concern. I think what you consider to be a flaw, they probably thought it was fun. And remember, it's possible to cheat enemies on stairs in the other games too, it just took more time, so whatever

>>6440656
>no whip upgrades
whip upgrades were a worthless feature because you could be fully powered up in two screens tops.
>no numeral rank multiplier
oh noez no i haz to use strategy instead of button mashing.
>can jump on stairs
>backflip
>item crashes
what's wrong with that?
>exploration is given a priority over platforming
you have no idea what you're talking about
>bosses with long ass phases, have to wait a lot to actually attack them
as opposed to bosses that could often be killed with mindless button mashing.
>bible subweapon trivializes everything in the game
so did weapon multipliers

>>6441379
>whip upgrades were a worthless feature because you could be fully powered up in two screens tops.
And yet some anon in a previous thread was bitching because you lose the full upgraded whip in certain situations if you lose and there's not an immediate candle to get the upgrade from. It also gives the player an optional extra challenge: do a no-whip upgrade run if you want, the game allows that. Not on Rondo, which is already an easy game.
>oh noez no i haz to use strategy instead of button mashing.
What buttonmashing? You can still spam subweapons in Rondo, the difference is they don't require multipliers so you can do it from the start.
>what's wrong with that?
In the case of the backflip, I don't really think it's a problem, although it sort of acts like a double-jump (or reverse double jump, specifically), which may trivialize dodging stuff mid-air. But to be fair, they at least made some enemies designed around this mechanic (the charging knights).
As for item crash, it's not really the attack itself that's a problem, it's the fact you have i-frames anytime you want. An enemy is about to fuck you up? Use the item crash.
>you have no idea what you're talking about
The game doesn't have a lot of pits, and some of them even take you to hidden rooms if you fall. Rondo has a lot of exploration, which isn't bad per-se, but it deviates from the CV formula. It works as a bridge between classic and metroidvania, but don't get surprised if people who prefer classic style criticize this.
>as opposed to bosses that could often be killed with mindless button mashing.
What can I say, Castlevania staple. Bosses weren't that important in CV1. And that's fine. I don't dislike Rondo's boss fights as a whole, but sometimes waiting for their animations can drag a bit, and make the fight less engaging (ie, the water serpent).
>so did weapon multipliers
No sub-weapon on previous CV games covered the whole screen. Even if you had rank 3 multiplier.

>>6440601
>most people are low-iq tards with shit taste
Wow, you don't say. What other nuggets of enlightenment can you impart upon us.

>>6441453
>thread about opinions that are controversial
Try to make any mental gymnastics you want anon.
I would say anyone who likes Classicvanias isn't that low IQ though.

>>6440697
Well it's still like a 25 hour RPG, and if the characters and world and story and locations and music aren't that good, then what's the point? I can play games that are more fun than a turn-based JRPG

>>6441401
>Rondo has a lot of exploration, which isn't bad per-se, but it deviates from the CV formula.
Not him, but if we ignore CV2, the series was already going in that direction with CV3. That's not deviation, that's pure evolution.

>>6441227
>comic sans
OOF

>>6437992
>parrot the same arbitrary non-definition of retro /vr/ uses
>controversial
>The increasing number of "old" consoles post-gen 5 requires the coining of a new term, something like "nu-retro", specifically for them.
Unironically kill yourself.
>>6438492
>20 year old consoles
>modern
>contemporary
You too

>>6441737
CV3 has branching paths where you can choose the next level's path, but the level design is still 100% action-focused. Rondo has secret paths within the levels themselves.
>That's not deviations, that's pure evolution
I guess it's subjective, as I said, fans of the classic formula will prefer action over exploration. Still, Rondo has a lot of good action, but in some cases it does suffer in its level design due to the exploration elements, good chunks of levels may simply be empty halls where you need to find some hidden path through a wall, etc.
So, for people who already like the direction CV1 went, and just want more of that, III, IV and X68000 feel more like proper evolution, while for people who wanted more exploration and adventure elements, Rondo is a nice in-between, and SOTN is the final "evolution" (I actually consider it a total spinoff of Castlevania)

>>6440736
>They're not designed with the diagonal whipping in mind at all
I just went and played the game, it's been a while since I've played it so it was nice to revisit it, and had this diagonal bat attacks thing in mind.
I tried to play as fast as possible, without stopping, to see if the bats hit me or not.
You're right that some of them come a little after you pass by, so if you don't stop, they won't touch you, but many of the other ones actually do hit you if you don't whip diagonally. For example, climbing up the stairs on the way to the castle, on the final section of stage 5. That one is unavoidable, can't even jump over him, you have to whip it, and use the diagonal input as well.
There's many others as well. Got up to stage 8 and got a game over though, but so far I've encountered more bats that do hit you, than ones who don't.
Also, I'm pretty sure the second loop added a lot more bats, but I haven't played that in a while, might do it next and see how it goes.
But yeah, I think the bats in this game were designed with the diagonal whip in mind. At least I don't remember other Castlevania games where bats attacked you this way.

>>6442613
It's not like other CV games didn't have fuck you enemy placements that pretty much require of you to know of them beforehand

But even then that'd still only be a couple of examples in favour of the upward whipping vs 30 examples against it

>>6438313
If it wasn't for the performance issues with Tooie then I would agree.

component is equivalent in quality to rgb andit's mostly retards who are only capable of parroting youtubers that would disagree

>>6437992
i like to use the term "good games era"

>>6443351
Yeah but it's still a lie that all bats bypass you, majority of them do fly straight at you, and IV is the only one who has these diagonal flying bats.

>>6442613
>>6443720
>For example, climbing up the stairs on the way to the castle, on the final section of stage 5. That one is unavoidable, can't even jump over him, you have to whip it, and use the diagonal input as well.

You mean this one?

>>6443875
also these ones as well, which can be super tricky, there are several other ways to dispose of them. Backtrack a little when they start moving so that you can whip them when they get to your level, wait to get them one by one, etc

And those enemy placement or ways to deal with them aren't any different from what the player is asked to do in CV1/3


Like I said there is pretty much always another way. As far as whipping upwards is concerned, the only instance of otherwise i've found in the game skull boss which spawn rocks from the ceiling, AFAIK sometimes you have no choice but to hit the rocks to destroy them, but I never really went back to try otherwise so I could be wrong.

Of course there are instances where you're expected to whip downards, but considering the game level design, layouts, scroll directions and enemy patterns, whipping downwards isn't game breaking at all, not like upwards is.
Okay, yes, if you're not fast enough and especially on first encounters, those bats are going to hit you (while an upward whip attack would save you at the last split second). However, the same can be said of MANY enemies and situations in other CV games where the upward whipping does not exist. They're mean enemy placements that almost ask of the player to know of them beforehand, but these kinds of mean enemy placements already existed before so I don't think it's enough to say the game was designed with the upward whip attacks in mind, not when I have provided a sample of 30 examples where that move denies the entire game design that's supposed to happen.

It's like boss room with platforms. Take Gaibon as an example. Most of the times you just don't use those platforms because with the upward whipping you don't need the higher ground. But if suddenly you prevent yourself from using that move, the platforms and the entire boss fight makes a lot more sense.

>>6443913
Even bosses without the platforms it's often the same, like against Death.
Without the upward whipping, you need to alternate between dodging the scythe, waiting for them to come on your level to whip them; while also waiting for Death to come down to be in reach of your whip.
Does that ring a bell? It should, that'd be just like the Death fight in CV1.

However, bring the upward whipping into play, and a good part of the dynamic is gone, all you have to do is time your whipping so that it matches the scythe spawns, and Death (or Gaibon) dies much too quickly and easily for late game bosses.

>>6443875
Yes, that one.
I also just replayed that level. I noticed you had to try several times in order to be able to hit that bat with a horizontal whip. See the timer, and your energy left. I also noticed that bat respanws, so the same happened to me, hehe.
It could be done, but it's not the intended way. Obviously that bat is there to dispose of it quickly using diagonal-up, without having to stop walking. Also IIRC this segment on the 2nd loop has a couple more of these bats.
>>6443913
I remember some other enemies that play around with the idea of multi-directional whipping, for example on stage 6, these ghosts and ecto-plasma things that bounce around the screen on random patterns.
I mean, sure the game IS still designed like the older CV, it's still one of the most classic ones, but it still clearly does have elements to accommodate to the new gameplay. Could it be tougher? Sure! all games can, but for all the shit IV gets for being easy... I don't really think it's that easy past the first 3 levels. And, like CV1, most of the challenge doesn't come from stopping to fight touch enemies or mini-bosses, it's about walking and never stopping, keep hitting shit while going forward.
I'd have more complaints to make about game changes+ways to cheapen the difficulty in other games of the series more than in IV.

>>6438349
Oh honey, you do know "retro gaming magazines" and "retro gaming conventions" are thing, don't you? And that they're all about gaming in the 80s and 90s, right? There's this thing called doing basic research sweetie, maybe try that before hitting the post button. :^)

>>6441817
>Unironically kill yourself.
Ha ha, oh you kids... *rumples hair* run along now.

>>6443919
Are you really fighting CV1 Death with the whip?

>>6443919
>waiting for them to come on your level to whip them; while also waiting for Death to come down to be in reach of your whip.
Does that ring a bell? It should, that'd be just like the Death fight in CV1.
But this is not how that fight is. Death in CV has random scythes spawning all around the screen, a lot of the times it's really hard to dodge them if they happen to spawn right besides you and you can't make a quick enough turn to hit them, or something like that. It's why Death on CV1 is infamous and most people use the holy water stunlock, they don't want to deal with the RNG. Otherwise, the best strategy is to use triple cross to cover a big portion of the screen and hope for the best with the RNG. Whip-only is mostly luck, good reflexes too, but huge luck.
Death on IV is completely different, he will throw diagonal scythes at Simon's sprite, as long as Simon is on the middle parts of the screen. If Simon is more leaning toward the left side, Death will throw scythes from above, and if Simon is leaning on the right side of the screen, Death will come down and throw its big scythe at him, while also trying to attract him. The fastest and most efficient way to deal with it is by standing in the middle, parry all the scythes with the diagonal/upward whip, and jump+whip up when Death flies above yoy, or take the chance when he does the diving attack.
As for Gaibon, I also think the intended way to fight him is by using diagonal whip when he passes by flying, there's a certain rhythm to that fight. I used the platforms to avoid the horizontal fire attacks he does sometimes.
Also what about the golden bat boss?

>>6443938
>See the timer, and your energy left. I also noticed that bat respanws, so the same happened to me, hehe.

Yes I fucked around to try it several times, to make sure I didn't get lucky and also try other ways. I don't see what it proves, it certainly doesn't prove there is "one intended way" to dipose of them and that way is an upward diagonal whip use, not when I just showed there are other ways, which again are similar to what would be expected of you in CV games without the upward whipping

>these ghosts and ecto-plasma things that bounce around the screen on random patterns.

They're not random at all, they're very predictable, in fact more so than the crows in CV3 for instance.
You can wait, dodge, backtrack or go foward under them, until they're at such a level that you can whip them horizontally. If you do that the dynamic is very similar to the ghosts or crows in CV1/3 that tend to fly on the upper side of the screen and come down on top of you.

>>6443951
>But this is not how that fight is.
>holy water stunlock
>triple cross
> Whip-only is mostly luck, good reflexes too, but huge luck.

If your vision of that fight is to spam the cheapest tricks the game has and call the rest luck I don't think you're in a good position to tell "how the fight is".

>>6443978
>Yes I fucked around to try it several times, to make sure I didn't get lucky
I tried several times too, and like 3 out of 4 times, the bat fucked me up. I had the same amount of HP left as you did.
I guess we're not going to agree anyway. But I don't think this also proves anything against the diagonal bats. They were programmed to fly in a clear diagonal pattern to accommodate to Simon's diagonal whip, and there's many other instances in the game where enemies are clearly designed to use diagonal or upward whipping. Your theory about developers adding diagonal whip at the last minute of the game is not really solid.

>>6443978
>If your vision of that fight is to spam the cheapest tricks the game has and call the rest luck I don't think you're in a good position to tell "how the fight is".
your copy of the game doesn't have RNG scythes?

>>6440550
>that screenshot.
Wait. Are you the same anon who was saying that the saw in the last level moves at different speeds and you're intended to go slower than faster or something like that some weeks ago?

>>6443989
> They were programmed to fly in a clear diagonal pattern to accommodate to Simon's diagonal whip

They also fly horizontally and stay that way when they reach Simon's level. You know, so that you can whip them horizontally when they're about to hit you, or when you walked past them. You can even trick them into flying horizontally above you if you jump at the right time, that is if you didn't kill them with an horizontal whip attack when jumping which is also possible; and again all of that is similar to what you'd do in other CV games

>Your theory about developers adding diagonal whip at the last minute of the game is not really solid.

I said "I wouldn't surprised if", but I don't really believe that. The point is, the devs added the upward whip attacks, but for the most part, in 99% of cases, didn't accomodate level design, enemy placement or enemy patterns to it, simply doing with those the same thing you could find in CV1/3; which results in a design dichotomy between the two.

For the most part it does feel just as if someone romhacked the upper whip attacks into CV3

>>6438802
If you want only the SRPG experience go Shining Force I -> II -> then you can do Gaiden/CD - > III -> then the remake of 1

Castlevania was never good.

>>6444150
Finally someone had to say it.
Also, video games were never good and you all suck!

>>6438567
Holy shit this.

>>6438567
>Final Fantasy 5 is not that good. The gameplay is fun and makes it replayable,
>The gameplay is fun and makes it replayable,
so you're saying it's good?

storyfags deserve the rope

>>6444150
this but unironically

>>6437935
I thought literally all normies loved this babby's first platformer shit, along with super-easy metroid.

>>6444480
Why would you say something was never good ironically?

>>6443939

cringiest post on here. jesus christ, anon.

>>6444506
People love IV yes, but the illusion that it's "easy" only comes from the fact it's one of the longest Classicvania games and the first half of the game isn't as punishing as stuff in CV1 or 3. But the other half of the game is up to standards.
Rondo is the real babby's first classicvania.
I'd place IV in the same tier of difficulty as CV1, maybe even a bit more difficult.

>>6444043
Thanks bro. I'm gonna give these a try