/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.3914145]

I can't get into this game. It feels so clunky compared to the Nintendo DS Castlevanias. How do I get into it?

[Anonymous No.3914171]

Don't know what you're talking about because the DS ones are rigid and clunky af

[Anonymous No.3914189]

>>3914145
it is exactly the opposite, you flamboyant homosexual

how young are you?

[Anonymous No.3914216]

>>3914145

It was the first game in the Metroid-vania series. Later titles are more polished from a gameplay standpoint. But that's because they had 6 titles, and 10 years to work on it.

[Anonymous No.3914229]

IGA thread?

[Anonymous No.3914230]

>>3914145
What's with all the SOTN threads?

[Anonymous No.3914236]

>>3914230
Either a youtuber did a video on it or Bloodstained is getting PR people working on hype online.

[Anonymous No.3914243]

>>3914236
I learned about it from Pewdiepie

[Anonymous No.3914264]

>>3914216
I don't know that they are, they seem to be even bloatier and more rushed each game.

[Anonymous No.3914352]

>>3914264

Their budgets were slashed each time since they were never big sellers. Order of Ecclessia was made for 500,000 dollars, which is a huge step down from the regular 1 million of the rest.

>>3914145

Alucard just moves slower, that's it. Once you get some more relics, he moves so much better. Double jump, mist and wolf and he's zipping around well.

[Anonymous No.3914463]

>clunky

Post ignored.

Fucking meme word.

[Anonymous No.3914475]

>>3914145
The movement in SotN is amazingly smooth and the castle is way more interesting than the DS ones until you get to the inverted portion.

[Anonymous No.3914481]

Who here reconfigures the right and left hand buttons to R1 and L1 respectively?

[Anonymous No.3914486]

>>3914352
>Order of Ecclessia was made for 500,000 dollars, which is a huge step down from the regular 1 million of the rest.

That certainly explains the more linear level design and lack of exploring one big castle until the end that is then. Personally I think that actually helped OoE because by the time Dawn of Sorrow came out I was sick of the typical Igavania styled game no matter what cool new gameplay mechanic they tried to add to spice things up.

[Anonymous No.3914504]

For me, SotN was so easy I just never finished it.

[Anonymous No.3914559]

>>3914145
Once you realize that using the backdash is the best way to move forward, getting around the game is a lot easier

[Anonymous No.3914575]

>>3914559
>Once you realize that using the backdash is the most annoying way to move forward, you will never use it again
Hate watching speedrunners do sotn. SSSHHT SSSHHT SSSHHT SSSHHT SSSHHT SSSHHT SSSHHT SSSHHT SSSHHT for freaking forever. I know it's faster but ffs, it's annoying.

[babbage's gramps !RATGzMALLY No.3914612]

>>3914189
This. This is literally a russian double reverso bait thread. OP took something that usually gets /vr/ arguing and said the exact opposite of it.

[Anonymous No.3914702]

؜>>3914145
>How do I get into it?
You play Rondo of Blood instead.

[Anonymous No.3914745]

>>3914504
>For me, SotN was so easy I just never finished it.

[Anonymous No.3914774]

>>3914145
have your wife do foreplay like licking your anus

[Anonymous No.3914984]

>>3914745

Something wrong?

[Anonymous No.3915041]

>>3914145
It's a glorified castlevania 2.

[Anonymous No.3915087]

>>3914145
>How do I get into it?
You stop being a retard that has his definitions for smooth and clunky mixed up.

[NESfag No.3915104]

The GBA and DS CVs are probably more solid overall, and the good thing about them is that some of them have actual interesting hard or challenging gameplay modes.

But honestly? SotN is still the most magical of them all. Best atmosphere, graphics, animations, musics, and TONS of secrets to find.

Once I 100%'d all the GBA and DS ones, and played them in hard etc, I don't feel like replaying them again, but SOTN I could replay.

Protip: the DS ones play amazingly on emulation with a widescreen set in portrait mode. I could not go back to playing them on DS after trying that.

[Anonymous No.3915187]

>>3915104
>The GBA and DS CVs are probably more solid overall

With the exception of HoD, those games were designed around action instead of bloat.

[Anonymous No.3915210]

>>3915104
>Protip: the DS ones play amazingly on emulation with a widescreen set in portrait mode. I could not go back to playing them on DS after trying that.

YMMV, I felt the opposite. Finishing Portrait of Ruin on emulator was nice, but 100%-ing Dawn Of Sorrow on the real hardware felt much more fulfilling.

[Anonymous No.3915221]

>>3914575
Then ou reach Harmony of Dissonance, aka Dash: The Game the Sequel.

[Anonymous No.3915568]

>>3915221
>Harmony of Dissonance
>Dash
Surely you mean Slide.

[Anonymous No.3915571]

Order of Ecclesia is a vastly superior game to SOTN, and all your nostalgia is irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.3915620]

>>3915571

It plays better, is totally gorgeous, and has the best battle system. Turning MP into a stamina bar, and Hearts for special attacks just seems like a natural step.

But the levels are super linear. Just one line to the next. Little exploration.

[Anonymous No.3915649]

>>3915571
I wish the levels weren't so boring. Only the bonus dungeon has any interesting platforming and overall it feels really grindy if you try to collect most of the glyphs. OoC was a disappointment for me.

[NESfag No.3915683]

>>3915571
Pic related

[Anonymous No.3915924]

>>3915571
OoE focused on quality rather than quantity.

[Anonymous No.3915935]

>>3914145
i feel the same way anon.

[Anonymous No.3916208]

>>3914745
You've never got bored with a game because it was incredibly easy before?

[Anonymous No.3916597]

>>3915571
I was really turned off by OoE's boring levels.

Until I unlocked hard mode and realized that that was the only mode they meant players to play the game with. Much better game.

[Anonymous No.3916996]

>>3916208
Kirby Dreamland 3.

[Anonymous No.3917029]

>>3914145
>SoTN
>Clunky
I might be old but I dropped every DS and GBA Castlevania (other than Aria of Sorrow) because they tried too hard to be SOtN yet removed everything that made the game actually good and kept only the memes.

The non-linear map is nice but not a necessity, a well-designed linear map with some secrets here and there could be even better.

Whatever fucking possesed Konami to drop fighter-like inputs from the franchise?

Also all of my friends and I used different weapons because they were unique enough that you can choose one or the other only because using it is so much fun, so fucking fun that it didn't matter if it took you half an hour to kill the boss instead of 1 minute, you still enjoyed every single one of those 30 minutes.

And finally, not every fucking MC has to be a fucking pretty bishonen, in Alucard it is justified because he got immortality plus the woman Dracula raped was probably a 10/10.

[Anonymous No.3918119]

>>3914702

[Anonymous No.3918124]

>>3915187
>With the exception of HoD
Wtf happened with this game? After CotM, I was stoked when HoD came out. Terrible let down. At least AoS was bad ass.

[Anonymous No.3918152]

>>3914145

can anyone explain to me why this game is so expensive?

i had no idea.. looked online to pick up a legit copy (cuz i fucking love this game) and prices are through the roof.

is it actually rare?

[Anonymous No.3918173]

>>3918152
$30 is standard for first-party titles.

[Anonymous No.3918226]

I like it but playimg aria of sorrow before it did spoil me though.

>>3918152
What are you talking about? I got one for like $20, it was greatest hits so theres that I guess though. Even then if you need a physical version just get the dracula x chronicles port on psp.

[Anonymous No.3918314]

>>3918173
>>3918226

wtf... maybe it's just expensive in europe.

i'm looking on ebay right now. best price is 75 euro for the greatest hits version, standard version 150eu, special edition 260-340eu.

even the japanese version is going for around 50eu for just the disc.

[Anonymous No.3918551]

>>3914229

There was really a photoshoot with Mana & Iga?

[Anonymous No.3919068]

>clunky

[Anonymous No.3920181]

>>3918124
>Wtf happened with this game?
It was designed with the same general idea as SotN except that it fucked up the things people liked about this game.

[Anonymous No.3920185]

>>3920181
>>3918124

Circle was made by the N64 team.

Harmony was made by Iga and his team. It tried to mimic Symphony in handheld form, and man it was a mess. Aria was the next one and they learned their lessons from it.

[Anonymous No.3920274]

>>3920185
>>3920181
SotN is a mixed bag. It manages to be fun, but only by the nature of the genre, the source material, and the artistic flair. The game design is terrible on many, many, many different levels.

SotN is the kind of game that friends around a lunchroom table would make in grade school, in the sense that it has all these neat little features and cool secrets and weird flavor, but from a mechanics and level design point of view, it was made by complete amateurs. A single post wouldn't begin to scratch the surface of all the objectively bad mechanical aspects about this game.

Still, it somehow perseveres and is still fun. It's just not polished, which seems like the wrong word to use because the art is very polished.

Yeah, AoS was SotN with good design principles applied. Also, thank god it didn't have some sort of stupid second castle gimmick.

I've never played the 64 vania. I need to check it out sometime.

[Anonymous No.3920284]

>>3920274

care to name some of the terrible mechanics of the game??

it's definitely not as tight as, say, super metroid.. but overall i always thought it was really well put together.

[Anonymous No.3920536]

>>3920284
>care to name some of the terrible mechanics of the game??

like everything? it's a mess.

[Anonymous No.3920543]

>>3920274

SotN is way better than super metroid. There's just so much more variety in weapons, and tools.

[Anonymous No.3920716]

>>3920543
More variety doesn't matter too much when the actual gameplay in Super Metroid shits all over SotN in every conceivable way.

[Anonymous No.3920748]

SotN's main problem is that the balance is so far off. Even if you don't grind or know exactly what to look for you tend to just get way too powerful by the middle third of the game. It's still a great game, but more for the "experience" and its appealing sense of control than the challenge.

[Anonymous No.3920754]

What a way to start a thread.

That's how the majority of the series plays

Welcome to the Castlevania series, new friend.

[Anonymous No.3920756]

>>3920754

eat shit data.

[Anonymous No.3922112]

>>3920284

Not him, but dash is overpowered and even if it didn't even exist in the game, you'd still never die once while playing through the game.

There's a boss you can beat without it delivering a single attack, no matter which weapon you are using.

[Anonymous No.3922114]

>>3914189
>>3914475
The inverted portion is half the game and SotN is by far the easiest of the metroidvanias

[Anonymous No.3922118]

>>3917029
>Only MY pretty bishounen counts!
>Not liking Shonoa
>Fighter inputs aren't a meme but everything else is

I disagree with your opinions here

[Anonymous No.3922162]

I vaguely remember a sort of NG+ mode where you're extremely gimped in all of your stats, except for luck which is impossibly high.

What exactly was the point of this build?

[Anonymous No.3922210]

>>3920284
I admit, there are not many straight up mechanical flaws. The only ones I can come up with off the top of my head are that in no game should dodge be the fastest mode of transportation (I'm looking at you too, OoT), there really needed to be a dash (fixed in the Saturn version, but to what end?), and the menu and item system is clunky.

However, the level design and it's interaction with the game mechanics awful.

Level design poorly maps to jumping ability and its upgrades
Castle neither flows topologically, nor logically
Some paths lead nowhere interesting (for example, main entrance above the rock)
Leveling balance is completely off
Enemy placement is bizarre (many instances, for example bomb armors)
Enemies are too weak to show all their neat behaviors before being slaughtered
Most bosses can be cheesed to death (good ole jump and strike)
Drop rates are too low
Cool items, but too overpowered and late coming to be of much interest
Failure to teach and engage most mechanics with appropriate challenges
Gotta wolfrise to fill the castle map in those inverted caves
etc.

Subjectively, SotN has boring level design. Pretty, but boring level design.

Overall the game is very unpolished, but it crammed with creativity, which makes it notable. Also, it's got the simultaneously worst and best ending song possible.

[Anonymous No.3922337]

>>3914236
woff did an episode about it

Take away was that the Reverse Castle wasn't as fun/ They were glad of its existence but didn't like it in the end

[Anonymous No.3922812]

>>3922337

In universe, what the hell IS the inverse castle?

[Anonymous No.3922825]

should i play the psp or ps1 version, and should i use the actual console or emulate i can do both for both consoles.

[Anonymous No.3922834]

>>3922114
>Half the game

Maybe in map size. But it's like a quarter of actual game time in length what with all the mobility you have when you get to it and all.

[Anonymous No.3922854]

>>3922825
PS1
PSP is a nice port but its kind of like recommending someone watch Star Wars special edition before the original though

[Anonymous No.3922860]

>>3922210

Sums it all perfectly. Also screencap will come in handy for future threads.

[Anonymous No.3922864]

>>3922162
To get the fancy drops that you'd never see in a normal playthrough, things they put all the effort in instead of working on interesting level design.

[Anonymous No.3922876]

>>3917029
>every DS and GBA Castlevania (other than Aria of Sorrow) because they tried too hard to be SOtN
Only HoD tried to be SotN, failing at doing anything of worth in the process. All others had much more focus on action than SotN. Ecclesia in particular.
>removed everything that made the game actually good
SotN good parts were mostly superficial aspects, the core experience was uninspired and weak.
>The non-linear map is nice but not a necessity
The non linear map of SotN is kinda pointless since you need to backtrack all the time to unlock specific zones of the castle. The reverse castle is the only true non linear part of the game which is great aside from the fact that it's annoying to navigate through due to it being reversed.

[Anonymous No.3923959]

>>3922876
>the core experience was uninspired and weak.

Kindly fuck off nigger.

[Anonymous No.3924270]

>>3922210
>>3922860
I don't even understand all these complaints. Do you want the game to be linear like World 1-1 in Mario Bros, with some optional shortcuts? For me, part of the charm of SOTN is that you have a huge castle to explore in whatever direction you want. There are only two things limiting your progress, that is any parts that require some powerup to progress, and any parts where the enemies are too strong and you have to check later. Other than that you can go in any direction, explore the castle, get more loot, level up, etc. You can grind for an hour and bitchslap all enemies if you want, that's part of the freedom the game gives you.

It doesn't have to flow in any direction, logically or otherwise. It's Dracula's Demon Castle (悪魔城ドラキュラX), and it's as alive and twisted as it should be.

About the only legit complaint is that once the paths really start branching, the bosses become way too easy. They should've at least scaled them all up to your own level, so you can't kill them all in five seconds, or so they are partially immune to the more game breaking stuff (like the Alucard gear shield magic or the soul steal). But I wouldn't even mind that if you could at least re-fight them at any time.

Reverse castle is stupid easy, yeah, but it's pretty much a bonus level at that point.

Using the wolf to cover the missing map blocks is indeed silly, but for a 2d platform game of this size in 1998, it's surprising that this is the only major bug.

Note that I played the Saturn version, which has some extra areas that you can access early, but cannot beat until later, so the nonlinear nature of the castle is more significant.

[Anonymous No.3926878]

>>3924270
>Using the wolf to cover the missing map blocks is indeed silly, but for a 2d platform game of this size in 1998, it's surprising that this is the only major bug.

Richter's flame whip power up does nothing. And there's the infamous Sword Brothers glitch used to get outside the map and get over 200 %.

Also these were fixed in the JPN re-release.