/vr/ - Retro Games

Maybe it was.
Maybe it wasn't.

It was always a good game, it just came out too late, during an era people were expecting 3D or at least some kind of nivel graphical effect. Then in the 2000s posers were all "Bad port of Rondo!"
Real CV fans know it's a good entry.

>>9845464
Its the last "classic" style 2D vania up until that Wiiware one so its got neat relevancy for that.

Yeah, so kino they used an image of the castle you're supposedly inside of as the background.

>>9845464
I don’t think I’ve played a bad castlevania game. Sure maybe the gameboy games aren’t great, but perfectly castlevania… I mean the DMG not GBA. GBA castlevania is lit

>>9845464
no, it never was, you're nuts

No, it's not. If it wasn't a Castlevania game, it could be considered be "fine", but it actually ruined the perfect run the series was on since the third episode (3/Belmont's Revenge/Super/X68000/Rondo/Bloodlines, all released in like 5 years and made by different team).

>>9845464
It's a fine game. It doesn't hold a candle to Rondo of Blood but it doesn't have to, it's not a port despite all the memes. It looks and sounds nice despite it being obvious that it's an amalgamation of recycled sprites and shit from other games. Dracula fight is pretty gay though.

>>9845618
creature of chaos

>>9845464
It's a good game, but not the best. It's think it's better than Bloodlines, but the fight against Dracula here is boring.

>>9845618
The presentation is lazy but the game is solid.

It's good but it's not the hidden best Castlevania game that some autists like to claim. It plays well, it looks good in some places, and the arrangements for the soundtrack are well-made for SNES. It lacks the same level of polish that most other Castlevania games have, and it's hard not to compare it to aspects of Rondo despite not being a port.

I was surprised when they used the map music from this game for the opening of Adventure Rebirth.

it's the best one

It's better than SCIV but that's not saying much.

>>9845464
Of course, you're just finding this out now?

>>9845464
This was always my favorite non-metroidvania CV

>>9845618

>>9845464
This game has been shilled here for a long time now. Because it was always considered kind of bad, now of course it's the best game ever according to certain contrarians here.
It lacks polish, but it's a fun game. No need to get histrionic about it in any direction.

>>9846889
To be fair, the strong point of IV was how immersive the presentation was, the organic environmental progression and the strong atmosphere, so something real sloppy like that is a massive downgrade.

>>9846505
Sprite rotation on lance look kino

>>9845464
It's not terrible up until Dracula fight which is unfair as fuck. Pretty mid CV game wuthout any fresh ideas.
I just don't get why people say it isn't a Rondo port.

>>9845464
It’s shovelware garbage.

>>9846976
Get good

Learn which spots and position won't knock you down a pit if you get hit.

Learn to crouch. Getting hit while crouching won't knock you back, unless you attack at the same time.

Who's idea was it to add a Dungeons & Dragons Displacer Beast as the first boss?

>>9846976
>I just don't get why people say it isn't a Rondo port.

Because it literally is not

>Akujamou Dracula X: Chi no Rondo
versus
>Akumajou Dracula XX

You can call it a "retelling" of the same story though, just like 4 and the X68K game are retellings of 1 or how Adventure Rebirth is a retelling of Adventure

The music was kind of cool, but this always felt like some weird off-brand eurojank version of Castlevania after the masterpiece that was Kinovania 4.
Years later, the allure of hip jazzy remix stuff has faded and I appreciate 4's soundtrack more too.

>>9847010
>the masterpiece that was Kinovania 4

>>9845618
You're supposed to be in the righthand side battlement, which is why that part isn't seen in the background.

>>9846994
Or he could waste his time beating a good game

>>9847029
The staircase you walk up is in the background though. You're in the keep like in every game's final level.

>>9845618
That supposed to be the castle from Rondo, it's off there in the distance to taunt you.

Whether it was intended or not, the game was presented as a port of Rondo, at least in the US. Even the Nintendo Power preview of the game used screenshots of the PCE version.

I didn't play it until 1997 when a new rental store came into town and they happened to have a copy of this game. It doesn't do anything especially interesting but it's solid enough and fun to play.

>>9845464
Yes. The last level is bullshit holy hell.

>>9845464
All of the Castlevania games before SotN are garbage. They only get propped up by contrarian fags.
The gameplay is trash. There's often exactly 1 way to move through the level and you either perform it with robotic determinism or you die. There's zero actual gameplay, just trial and error figuring out the exact path the developers intended you to take and then doing it.

>>9846505
Is the key the best subweapon? Being able to go invincible and hit directly above you for zero hearts is OP.

>>9847023
Seethe. Castlevania 4 is easily the most fun of the series.

>>9847547
it's underrated yes

>>9845464
>video game
>kino
Anon, I . . .

i like all the 16-bit castlevania games except this one

>>9847553
That's pretty cool.
Love the animated backgrounds too.

>>9845618
just uninstalled thanks

>>9847551
This was me >>9846960
IV has amazing presentation, but the gameplay is subpar and weakest in the classic series if we ignore 2, Haunted Castle and Vampire Killer. Dracula X isn't anything amazing and yet just by playing it a bit you can see that, unlike in IV, you actually need to seriously consider what subweapon to carry to make up for the shortcomings of your whip, that here isn't ridiculously overpowered. And approaching enemies actually has an element of risk to it, where to hit them you have to put yourself in danger first, instead of consisting mostly of glorified busywork where you whip the enemies to death from a safe spot where you can't be reached.

>>9848609
All castlevania games on non nintendo consoles are garbage

Dracula X
Rondo
Bloodlines
All reddit trash

>it's this bait thread again

>>9848714
>>9848718
>this obvious brainlet attempt at a falseflag
Auster it's so obvious when you're online:
>>9848743

>>9848749
>forgetting this retard>>9848609

>>9847551
If you're a troglodyte, sure

>>9845464
Apparently it was doing to be a brand-new game, but development got messed up because the 1995 Kobe earthquake and it ended up being rushed out with assets from Rondo. https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php?topic=9849.0

>>9849359
lol and people believe this pile of crap?

>>9849359
Also, that pile of crap about stage transitions "not making sense". Which is also true in all other CV games, and it's Rondo which has it the worst.

There is ONE little thing that is incoherent about the game design, and they failed to point that one out.

And if there is one classic CV game that was rushed and feels unfinished, it's precisely Rondo.

>several dead-end secret areas with nothing in them that lead to nothing
>senseless level multi-path transition, for instance in stage 2b (the bridge level), you have an exit at the very start of the stage that leads to the same thing as the other alt exit at the end of the stage, despite going in the opposite direction, and making going through the entire stage pointless
>that one area in 5b which background is the same brown brick repeated over and over ... This same background appeared in 3a in the prototype version of the game, but they changed it for something more detailed in the final version. But not here, probably didn't have the time.
>the entirety of 5b, which is just a mix-match of several other areas of the game, and no bosses.

And meanwhile "Dracula X on SNES is unfinished because of the earthquake! The devs didn't say so but trust me bro!"
The hateboner people over this game simply due to sheep mentality is astonishing.

>>9845464
I would've preferred straight up Castlevania V or an earlier SotN like they were planning with Bloodletting on 32X. Rondo barely deserved a remake to begin with imo

>>9849409
I don't even understand supposed rondo fans hating on XX.
Like, if you liked Rondo of Blood, you should like XX too, it plays virtually the same, but it's all different levels, more challenging, and has new bosses, and old bosses return in different ways too. It performs better too (example, the water serpent boss, which is riddled with slowdown on Rondo of Blood, is slowdown-free on XX).
So yeah, I agree it's sheep mentality, it makes no sense to be a fan of one of these games and hate the other.

>>9849428
I guess it's sort of like the debate between Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World or Sonic 2 and Sonic CD

>>9849428
I think it has a lot to do with the marketing stunt for the US version. In the US, "Dracula X: Chi No Rondo" was hyped as fuck in magazines, but obviously it was never released.
Then when releasing XX, they renamed it to "Dracula X" and instead of using the game's dedicated art, they took art from Rondo instead for the cover and manual.
Note that only the US did this, in Japand in the Europe, the game has its own name and its own art, as it should be.

I feel like the idea was "here is the Rondo you've been wanting all this time!", but obviously it wasn't, so the marketing backfired, and in a way, rightfully so, I'd be pissed if it I was lied to as well, wanting a game and being given another game disguised as that game in an attempt to take my money. It was a shitty move.

>>9849428
>virtually
this small difference in how richter feels is enough to make me vastly prefer rondo.
still like xx, though.

>>9849438
Those threads are usually just trolls and falseflag.
In the case of Rondo and XX, it's not the same as Mario or Sonic because Castlevania was never as popular as these 2 franchise to begin with, and unlike SMB3 and SMW, Rondo was japan-only when it came out, and Dracula X(X) on SNES was a late SNES release that not many people played when it came out.
As for Sonic, I think it's more Sonic 2 vs Sonic 3&K, but yeah same principle, it's usually just falseflag shitposting.
With Rondo vs XX, it's less about falseflag (unless it's auster) and more about people posing as "hardcore" fans or whatever, without actually having played the games. Which would explain the notion that XX is a "port" of Rondo.

>>9846505
>>9847553
Is Dracula X, dare I say, keyed?

>>9848975
>says the one who defends Dracula X

>>9845618
This castle is a creature of chaos. Cool that they show it trying to trick Richter into stopping his momentum and turning around and find a new path to the top.
(I know it's just a mistake, but honestly the lore supports it)

>>9845618
>>9849492
It's just warming up the idea of reverse/mirror castle for SotN and HoD.

>>9849409
>harping on about 5' that much
Holy crap dude, it was never a main level, it's a postgame extra whose asset-reuse is explained by it being a guest design by someone who wasn't part of the core development team and was probably owed some favor, you might as well complain about the Peke gag.

>>9847023
I don't understand this mental illness. Why did you WANT me to know how angry that post made you? Do you enjoy public embarrassment or something? Why do people do this?

>>9849549
>complain about the Peke gag.

The difference is one is in the game, the other is hidden easter egg.

If anything the fact that 5' is only accessible after defeating Dracula tells of how unfinished it is. Why do the alt exits not lead to that level, unless you've already beaten the game? It all feels like they felt bad about that stage being in the state it was.

>>9849428
>it plays virtually the same
Am I seriously the only person in these threads who has actually played both Rondo and DX? in DX they shit Richter's pants, he can barely fucking move. It's practically Belmont's Revenge-tier, but BR softballs you the whole game (sans Soleil/Dracula) while DX throws Rondo+-level challenge at you while Richter's in a fucking wheelchair. It's literally night and day difference and kneecaps the entire game.

That being said, credit where credit is due, the DX Dracula fight is awesome. Definitely better than Rondo's, but that's the absolute only category where it wins.

>>9849949
I think you're being exaggerated about it. If anything, it feels more like the NES Belmonts, definitely not as slow as BR.

>>9849439
This is it. XX is a functioning and fun game in it's own right, but in the US, Konami did everything it could to say that it's a port of Rondo when it was not. I think it even says that it's a port of the PC Engine game either on the back of the box or somewhere else, but I am not sure.

>>9849426
>I would've preferred straight up Castlevania V or an earlier SotN like they were planning with Bloodletting on 32X.
Biggest misconception of the franchise. There never WAS a Castlevania game called "The Bloodletting" for 32X; this was most likely an early localized title for Symphony of the Night, back when it was still a sequel to Bloodlines. IGA himself came from the 32X project, and he remembers that it was canceled before it even got a title. If gaming mags back then are to be believed, the 32X game was another alternate version of Rondo of Blood or Dracula X. Yeah, from the few sprites we got of the 32X game, Maria looks older, but that was probably just a redesign like SNES Maria since IGA vaguely said something about reworking characters to fit western tastes. All in all, no indication whatsoever that the 32X game was intended to be a full-fledged sequel, maybe just what Dracula X was supposed to be before they had to focus on one platform. The fact that people are STILL TO THIS DAY imagining a 32X sequel called "The Bpoodletting" just goes to show you wikis' power of suggestibility. They know they're wrong, fucking correct it already you gatekeeping fucks.
>Rondo barely deserved a remake to begin with imo
This is true. I think IGA wanted to do a Dracula's Curse remake. Oh well, 'least we got Curse of the Moon out of it.

>>9851650
What does it say on the left about Dracula X?

>>9845618
kek, never noticed

>>9849949
>in DX they shit Richter's pants, he can barely fucking move.

That is an exageration, you have all the moves same as Rondo, backflip, moonwalking, item crash, crouching, without mentionning combinations like whipping while backflipping or whipping just before crouching to hit on both Y axis levels at the same time. You always have time to react to an enemy attack as it happens (not counting unlucky bats spawning in your face which can happen in at least one instance in the gears room at the clock tower), the only real difference is the walk speed is a bit slower but it's not a big difference when compared with CV4 or NES CV games (which have the same resolution on the X axis so the walk speed is comparable). This slower speed however was compensated by giving the jump a greater speed, having jumps be faster than walking is a common mechanic in action games and it's something Rondo also had, but the difference between walk speed and jump speed is greater in DXX. When you master the jump, you'll realize that its speed brings higher skill play and makes gameplay more leniant as you can quickly jump out of harm, and there is a higher risk/reward ratio as you'll want to jump to be faster, but obviously jumping makes you vulnerable.

The one main issue is that the walk animation is too fast, which makes the player *feel* like he's struggling, like he's going slower than he should be. There is a romhack that slows down the animation and it makes it feel much better, it was applied in this video

>>9851683
original for comparison

>>9851654
>Super NES
Well crap, good eye. So it could be the brochure was printed after the 32X Dracula X was canceled and before the game that became Symphony focused mainly on PlayStation (Saturn became a post-release port by a different team). Or it could be that the gaming media misreported 32X Dracula X, or that the 32X had -two- Castlevania games at one point. Whatever the case, what remains a fact is that it was never The Bloodletting. Wonder if IGA can spill the beans on whatever his 32X project now that he years estranged from Konami and they mostly fucked off from gaming.

>>9851693
Does this have a better scan somewhere? The screenshot on the right looks like a zombie in red dress, something the game does not have, but it's hard to tell.

>>9849958
This. Dracula X actually feels like a regular Classicvania unlike Rondo because of this.

>>9851696
That Dracula X screenshot? It's just one of the ghouls in the first stage

>>9851734
That screenshot looks like the very start of the game, there is no ghoul in that area in the final version of the game. They only appear later on, during the beast chase, which has no tree and rubble in the background.

If I had a higher res scan I'd add it to TCRF

>>9851650
Wikipedia is the worst for fixing shit because the people there will refuse to change anything based on new evidence. "Here's a magazine scan from the era." "That's not good enough." Well then what is good enough?

>>9849549
>it's a postgame extra whose asset-reuse is explained by it being a guest design by someone who wasn't part of the core development team
Source on this bullshit?

>>9849949
>he can barely fucking move
iirc, someone did a little hack that made Richter just as fast as SCIV Simon, the difference was just a tiny bit between both vanilla DX Richter and SCIV Simon (like going from 08 to 0A, something like that, i could be misremembering things)

>>9851827
Wikipedia can be the absolute fucking worst for gaming coverage. The regular editors there are clueless and a lot of times you have to kiss their braindead ass to remotely fix anything, and god help you if you fix too much at once because then they will hit the magic undo button over one petty subjective thing that takes more effort to explain in an edit summary than it does to touch up manually. I know fan-wikis get a bad rep sometimes, but a lot of the gaming regulars at Wikipedia are literally their rejects. And then since Wikipedia is a naturally bigger site and often is the first search result, journos often hit it up and regurgitate bile from them, somehow validating their subpar attempts in their eyes and making them more resistant to change in a brutal vicious cycle. You can be totally correct in every minute detail and actually contribute meaningfully, but if you ruffle the slightest feather they will arbitrarily wiki-lawyer and even last-word you with inane bullshit arguments that make no sense in any reality but their own. TL;DR centralized wiki is kill, decentralized wikis are the future.
>>9851849
IGA confirmed it in the official Dracula X Chronicles guidebook. Shingo Takasuka, who made the original stage, apparently went on to become the producer/programmer for the Winning Eleven (Pro Evolution Soccer) series of all things, which is like the only other thing he's known for.

>>9851683
The faster jump doesn't work to compensate the slower walk speed when jumping forward is so immensely risky. In fact, jumping being faster actually makes the risk even worse, since you're moving further into unknown space. Go to the water temple level where Anette is and try jumping forward at any point. There's a fishman waiting to walk in from the side of the screen almost everywhere and you will land on them at an angle that your whip swing doesn't cover. Dracula X loves doing this. It nerfs your ability to move and then punishes you for trying to move faster.

>>9851916
Wikipedia's editors have a weird chip on their shoulder once something is on there for long enough. They have a grandfather clause style sensibility, which is fucking absurd for an encyclopedia. It goes beyond specific games, even. The Colecovision very specifically identifies itself as a third generation system but Wikipedia lumps everything "pre-crash" into the Second gen despite the crash of 83 having nothing to do with console generations. This has the side effect of weird shit like the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200 being lumped together and systems that aren't really that different hardware-wise being split up depending on which side of the crash they fell, and sometimes even which country they came from. It's a mess but try bringing it up on the discussion pages and see how far you get. You can show whatever evidence you want and they'll just "meh" you to death and revert your changes. If it were just a random fan wiki then it wouldn't be a big deal. But this is the kind of thing people nowadays rely on for actual information. So you get lies perpetuated by virtue of being on Wikipedia.

And I don't think there's any higher authority to appeal to when the page's editors are acting like retards. I half suspect the reason they don't want to change things is because of the work involved. If you accurately move consoles to the 3rd Gen then you have to systematically wikiwalk through dozens and dozens of pages updating the information. These people would rather just lie than be bothered.

>>9852030
A little off topic but this kind of stuff just makes me wonder how little we know about History. People are people, I expect the same kind of shit to happen in things not related to video games.
Did you know that the whole idea that "female viking warriors" were a thing is entirely based on a single sword found in one tomb?

>>9852030
>Wikipedia's editors have a weird chip on their shoulder once something is on there for long enough. They have a grandfather clause style sensibility, which is fucking absurd for an encyclopedia.
Are you telling me that if I became a wiki editor like five or so years ago some of this could've been mitigated? Hindsight really is 20/20.

>>9852287
It's something about the human brain that it takes WAY more effort to unlearn an incorrect thing than it takes to learn something new in the first place. It's literally better to just start from a blank slate than to deal with having to undo mistakes because when something gets entrenched it takes monumental effort to change people's minds.

https://youtu.be/r1BhsWsmjco

Doctors were relying on "facts" from a Roman named Galen for centuries. And trying to get them to update was like pulling teeth. They'd stick to Galen's work because "it's Galen!" And these are DOCTORS. With Wikipedia editors? You stand no chance.

>>9852307
https://youtu.be/OL6-x0modwY

This is why the scientific method exists in the first place. It's an acknowledgement that our lizard brains are absolutely terrible at this.

>>9850407
What the fuck is XX?
How many versions of this dogshit game are there?
>Rondo of Blood - shit
>Dracula X - shit
>Vampire's Kiss - shit

>>9852819
Akumajo Dracula XX is what it's called in Japan. It's an awkward way to confirm that it's a remix of sorts to Dracula X on PC-Engine.

>>9852030
Here's the thing you need to understand about the regular Wikipedian - humanity has been stripped from them. They were once wide-eyed, intrepid editors like you yearn to be. But they inadvertantly sacrificed their life's dreams to a virtual space that vaguely makes them feel like they belong. Their goals and loves and would-could-have-beens have harshly slipped them by so. At the same tme, the pages they hawk-watch, they do so out of a self-destructive, inescapable impulse. They trigger primitive neurons in their slug-person mushes that were once intelligent god-given brains that remind them of a time when they were young and human, feeding their gross sense of ego and entitlement. You see, these joyless husks see the living like you with envy. Upstarts come along and dare attempt to outshine them, after they've nested in this spot for so long? You do that, and it tells them just how meaningless their now-purposeless existence is. We can't have that; instead, better to rationalize you as the problem. The encyclopedia that anyone can edit? Don't be silly. There is nothing left to improve in the wasteful minds of the wiki-establishment. You are natural-born enemies with them. They will judge, jury, and execute your suggestions, just like a bad boss would in the absolute drudgery that is their off-site world. Abandon all logic ye who enter here: the only hope to "win" is to play the long game and outlive these poor souls as they inevitably succumb to their cheeto-induced heart attacks that grant them the release of death. Ah, relief. But be sharp, because other monsters are lying in wait for opportunities to do the same thing and snag your chance, allowing them to get kicks out of shaping the next impressional generation. That's right. You must become them to overcome them. Words on the Internet are a powerful tool indeed, for they can mask the true qualifications of the empty lot of socalled experts.
These sad creatures deserve your sympathy, not your scorn.

>>9845464

I was BARELY able to defeat the last boss of this game even with save stating. Do I just suck at video games? All those fucking pits, Jesus.

>>9846505
>>9847553
Truly KEYno

>>9851916
>>9852030
>>9852306
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Home_video_game_console_generations#Add_extra_generation,_circa_1982

>>9854790
It's easy. Just stand on the lowest platform and throw axes. The demonic form is marginally more difficult, but you can negate his fireballs with a well timed whip.

>>9847553
Damn, whenever I see cell bars like this I can only think of Hound Dog from Forest of the Blue Skin

>>9849549
the jumping in peke is dumb and the whipping feels bad.

>>9845618
that's just a painting of the castle. look at how small it is. it's barely any bigger than richter. even the moon is bigger.

>>9856583
complete and utter coomer brain

>>9845464
Belmont's Revenge is unironically more enjoyable to play than this steaming pile of shit.
Imagine getting mogged by a Gameboy game.

>>9861080
To be fair, the OTHER two Game Boy games are trash. Adventure in particular is probably the worst game in the series besides Haunted Castle.

>>9845464
It's the best Castlevania on SNES, I'll give you that.

Almost as good as Bloodlines.

>>9861080
>>9861139
>>9862346
>>9863720
samefag
Reminder that the only Bad classicvania game (not counting western computer ports) is Haunted Castle. Cry all you want

>>9863729
Western computer ports are alright though.
Weird and clunky, but charming.

>>9863720
Bloodlines sucks and is bullshit just like all "classic" vanias.
Consider the last part of the game. You need to go through an entire stage, beat Death, who has two phases, the first of which is a 3 phase boss rush, then beat Carmella, who has 2 phases, then beat Dracula, who has 3 phases, all doing this without any heals.
The only possible way to do this is by dying over and over again until you have everything memorized and perfectly execute every single pixel without getting hit. That isn't challenging or rewarding gameplay, it's just trial and error. At that point you might as well just set up a TAS and watch it play the game, it's the same exact thing.

>>9863754
Sounds like a skill problem.

No it's shit
4 is fucking basic

Sotn got too easy too fast but you can accommodate that with specialised runs

Megadrive castlevania is an adequate challenge

>>9863754
>the game is bullshit because you have to play the game to figure out how to beat it
???
do you want it to just roll credits as soon as you press start? what a bizarre post

Reminder, you share this shithole with "people" like this >>9863754

>>9854808
>Truly KEYno

>>9863754
Bloodlines is one of the easiest Castlevania and all those bosses patterns are super easy to learn and achieve, you barely even need to die

Get good

>>9864982
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F3OzgGccD8