/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.9893307]

Sick game but I don't know why you can't aim your whip

[Anonymous No.9893358]

>>9893307
Isn't 4 the only CV game where you can? Been a while since I played em

[Anonymous No.9893360]

It doesn't have a beginner mode, only easy

[Anonymous No.9893408]

>>9893307
Not enough buttons.

[Anonymous No.9893430]

>>9893358
You can in some games like Bloodlines or Chronicles, but it's much more limited than in IV and doesn't break the game.

[Anonymous No.9893445]

>>9893307
You got all those new moves:

>backflip
>moonwalking
>item crash
>dropping from stairs

and still you complain

Besides considering how the level design is 90% straight line, and that the enemy design isn't much more than in the previous games, directional whips won't help much

[Anonymous No.9893470]

>>9893307
because you're supposed to find ways to work around the limited moveset, like in all the previous games
CV4 letting you whip in all 8 directions just made players lazy and made the sub weapons completely pointless

[Anonymous No.9893546]

>>9893445
>dropping from stairs
This, there's nothing more satisfying than jumping on and off the stairs in this game

[Anonymous No.9893604]

>>9893307
>Sick game but I don't know why you can't aim your whip
whip aiming sucks. if I wanted waggle around a long iron rod I'd jack off or find a fem boy

[Anonymous No.9893650]

>>9893604

[Anonymous No.9893676]

At least it got rid of the stupid whip upgrades. Seriously how did such a pointless mechanic survive for so long? Oh wow I died so I gotta hit the first few candles to power up the whip again... just why?

[Anonymous No.9894369]

>>9893307
>>9893358
Super Castlevania IV is overrated

[Anonymous No.9894457]

>>9893307
It is good you can't aim the whip. CV was not supposed to be about normal type of combat you might see out of any other sword user character from other games. It was supposed to be about keeping distance and timing your strikes. Whenever you were presented with a threat where the whip wasn't going to get you by you then resorted to using the magic, items, or whatever you call them.

This is why I like Rondo the best. He controls perfectly for the classic style gameplay.

[Anonymous No.9894482]

You can use it as a shield though, Richter used different whipping techniques than his relatives. Simon developed the whirling method for whip control, was it? Anyway I still feel like the statement "I beat the lord of darkness' ass with a whip" to be a weird-ish flex. Like, chad Alucard just goes in focused with a seriously varied arsenal, which is part of the game that is popular to shit on's strength. Anyway this duology in gaming is a definite pillar. Sad to see it fall from view so far. LoD staked Drac and all the Belmonts with it.

[Anonymous No.9894549]

>>9893445
>You got all those new moves:
>>backflip
>>moonwalking

those 2 are extremely useless because they are too slow.

[Anonymous No.9894698]

>>9893676
There are situations where you're forced to fight quite a few rooms without a fully upgraded whip, especially in 3. Bloodlines is the one that got the upgrades right though, as you only get to keep the best upgrade if you get good and don't get hit and it even upgrades the subweapons.

[Anonymous No.9894707]

>>9894482
Richter didn't get that until SotN. In Rondo the only thing he could do with the whip is slightly extend the reach by tapping forward at just the right moment, ultimately useless but satisfying to do.

[Anonymous No.9894713]

>>9893307
Controls fucking suck dicks on this how even is this referred to as top tier

Oh i forgot im dealing angry little toads on this board

[Anonymous No.9894806]

>>9894713
>angry little toads on this board

Well this brings to mind all of the squashed Goomba's little cousins! Did they ever have a problem with Mario stomping on their family I wonder...

Anyway yeah. Don't tell me you're new here for fuck's sake. The qualities of anger and childishness are something that this digital realm will probably never leave behind, if past trends and mission statements are accurate and continual. Best wishes to you anyway.

[Anonymous No.9894863]

>>9894713
Acquire proficience.

[Anonymous No.9894967]

>>9894713
It's about the same as the other classic strut n whips, though Richter can SLIGHTLY adjust his trajectory in the air compared to the NES games, for example.
Maybe you just don't like games with commited jumps.

[Anonymous No.9895121]

Good game and contains best CV girl.

[Anonymous No.9895147]

>>9893676

>Been playing RoB for years now

>Never noticed the whip upgrades were removed

[Anonymous No.9895168]

>>9895121
I unironically love playing Maria in RoB, even if she makes the game too easy.

[Anonymous No.9895171]

>>9893445
>>dropping from stairs
That was in Castlevania IV already, what Rondo added was being able to jump while on stairs, which actually makes the whole stair mechanic kinda obsolete.

[Anonymous No.9895334]

>>9893307
There was a major German game magazine back in the 90's that used to complain about not being able to shoot upwards/diagonally in every single mega man review, every single installment, including the X series. It's like: you're a bunch of adults making a living out of writing about childrens' games and you still can't wrap your head around the basics of game design such as building around intentional limitations? Shit drove me nuts, even as a kid. It's like saying: "fucking chess, it's been around for how long now and my bishop still can't do round-house-kicks, laaaaame."

Same with people who complain about the "stiff" controls in Castlevania, not being able to change direction in mid-air etc. If you're not just trolling but find this genuinely puzzling, for the love of god please consider a vasectomy!

[Anonymous No.9895353]

you can make whip aiming work but you'd need to design every enemy to either throw an arced projectile, fly, or jump around the screen. traditional horizontal enemies wouldn't cut it.

[Anonymous No.9895360]

>>9895171
The stairs were always the worst part of NES Castlevania anyway, mechanic way too stiff even for the series' standards.

[Anonymous No.9895373]

>>9895171
Right, thanks for the correction. I knew it was something about stairs.

>>9894707
>In Rondo the only thing he could do with the whip is slightly extend the reach by tapping forward at just the right moment, ultimately useless but satisfying to do.

I didn't remember that, and now I wonder if that made it in Dracula XX

[Anonymous No.9895375]

>>9895360
It's one of the series' staples, but yeah anyway Castlevania always kept changing. People act like Bloodlines or Rondo are more "classic" than IV, yet they are even more different than CV1, what with not having upgrades, being able to jump on stairs, etc.
CV III already was very different with the new characters introduced too, although it can be a very classic experience if you stick only to Trevor.

[Anonymous No.9895381]

>>9895375
>what with not having upgrades,

Bloodlines have upgrades, and it's an improved take on the original upgrades imo. I like how you only keep the last upgrade if you don't get hit, it rewards getting good.

[Anonymous No.9895503]

>>9894967
>strut n whips

Like and subscribe if you ever walked up stairs like Richter/Simon/The other guy who's name escapes me

[Anonymous No.9895506]

>>9895168
>>9895121

Awesome and did she not have the legendary triple jump at some point? Seems like that was Rondo but not in her later appearance in SotN

[Anonymous No.9895509]

>>9895334
>fucking chess, it's been around for how long now and my bishop still can't do round-house-kicks, laaaaame

lolllllll

[Anonymous No.9895975]

>>9895373
The whip extenstion thing was only in Rondo. I don't even know why they put it in, but it's cool.

>>9895503
Trevor?

[Anonymous No.9896045]

>>9894713
>Angry little toads
Thats a really weird insult

[Anonymous No.9896076]

>>9896045
He's just being thematically appropriate.

[Anonymous No.9897119]

>>9895975
Thanks for recalling, yeah Trevor. Oh wow so I can think of at least 2 vidya characters with that name. There are surely others. Anyway, Trevor is the Belmont rep in CVIII(US)? Chilled with Alucard! Cool...

[Anonymous No.9897159]

>>9896076
Accurate anon is accurate

[Anonymous No.9897831]

>>9894713
skill issue

[sage No.9897862]

>>9893307
>I don't know why you can't aim your whip
You can aim to the left and right.
>>9893676
>At least it got rid of the stupid whip upgrades.
The game lost some of its arcade-like appeal because of it.

[Anonymous No.9897879]

>another daily "Dracula X was actually underrated and not complete shit!" bait thread

[Anonymous No.9897934]

>>9893650
hot

[Anonymous No.9898161]

>>9897879
What are you talking about? Don't most people consider Dracula X to be one of the best games in the series?

[Anonymous No.9898301]

>>9898161
no most people consider it to be an embarrassing knock off.

[Anonymous No.9898345]

>>9898301
>>9897879
You got the wrong game here kiddo. This is what happens when you repeat meme opinion without knowing the games.

[Anonymous No.9898432]

>>9894713
The controls are deliberate. I hate that every game has to be like Mario or something and you have full control over your momentum and trajectory at all times. That's fun and all, but I like how Castlevania punishes you for not thinking about your inputs.

[Anonymous No.9898445]

>>9894713
WHY ISN'T IT LIKE KHANTRA???????
FUCK SHIT DAMN FUCK

[Anonymous No.9898564]

>>9898345
>>9897879
Even Dracula X shits on IV and Bloodlines.

[Anonymous No.9900307]

>>9898161
You're probably confusing it with Rondo of Blood. Dracula X has the same characters and premise as Rondo but is a completely different game. Dracula X is usually considered inferior because Richter moves more slowly and the level design is much more obnoxious, not to mention the music/visuals aren't on the same level as Rondo.

However, people on /vr/ like to make threads saying that Dracula X is secretly really good and way better than Rondo. I don't really get it but there's no accounting for taste (or lack thereof)

[Anonymous No.9900745]

>>9895334
this mentality has been getting more and more common though, and that's probably because all modern games control the fucking same. Now zoomers even complain about the controls in SMB3 like jesus chris

[Anonymous No.9902364]

>>9900307
It's probably mostly contrarianism, since Dracula XX is known as the shoddy bootleg version of Rondo. But I really do like the game over Rondo and will stick up for it.

That being said, I think it's a little silly to compare the games at all. There's probably no helping it since the games use the same assets and are AUs of each other, but Rondo was trying to be this big flashy experience with animated cutscenes and amazing visuals, while XX was just trying to be a tough-as-nails platformer. They appeal to two entirely different crowds. For example I fully acknowledge that XX is packed to the brims with gotchas and screw yous, but I don't mind. It's a very short game, and the whole point is to keep playing until you get good enough to beat it. There's a real joy to slowly getting farther and farther in a hard game and picking up tricks along the way to make things easier, like walking backwards to avoid the bat gauntlets or figuring out exactly the right distance to deal with the spear knights. X86000 offers something similar, but it's SO bullshit hard that I bounce off of it most of the time. Dracula XX in comparison is much more approachable.

Meanwhile if I go from XX to Rondo then I'm immediately greeted with a 4 minute unskippable cutscene sequence before I can actually start playing the game. Once I do, stages 1-3 are practically straight lines with the only difficult parts being bulky enemies. Compare XX, where stage 1 has the medusa head and behemoth sections, stage 2 has that fucking spear knight hallway, stage 3 has medusa heads AND a floating platform over a pit while bats and mermans try to kill you AND THEN a series of jumps you have to nail or you go to 4'. At least things pick up by stage 4, but stuff like backtracking to save all the maidens annoys me more than the entire completely bullshit no death no-subweapon-for-stage-4 gauntlet from stage 3 to 5 XX forces you through. Because at least there I'm always going forward.

[Anonymous No.9902373]

>>9902364
I was dunking on Rondo for most of that post, but I actually do like it just fine. It just doesn't scratch the same itch XX does for me. And of course, if I'm in the mood for a more casual platforming experience than obviously Rondo is way better to play through than XX. Sometimes I wish XX had the Bible, even if I know it would completely destroy the game even harder than the cross.

That being said I gotta question anyone who says Rondo's musical experience is better than XX's. Not because of the songs, don't get me wrong, because of the mixing. Maybe it was just my emulator fucking things up but whenever I play Rondo the BGM is way too loud and I can barely hear any of the SFX. And I can't just turn up the SFX either because the enemy death screams are super loud to make up for the low SFX volume and I don't think I'd like X86000 "go deaf whenever you kill the boss" for an entire game.

[Anonymous No.9902413]

>>9902364
>For example I fully acknowledge that XX is packed to the brims with gotchas and screw yous
I mean there's nothing worse than what you could find in the NES games. In fact it's much less evil than 3 in this regard. Except for the final boss maybe. Possibly people didn't like the original games that much and that's why Dracula X, that out of the 16 bit games is the most faithful to that game design philosophy, is the most disliked.

[Anonymous No.9902424]

>>9893307
>Sick game but I don't know why you can't aim your whip
Truth.
this nukka says what i was always thinking in the 90s
CV4 set a trend that was just too cool to beat.

[Anonymous No.9902474]

>>9902413
>there's nothing worse than what you could find in the NES games
I disagree, Dracula X does a very specific thing that even C3 doesn't, which is that it baits you. Richter moves much more quickly if you jump forward, but for this reason jumping forward will almost always result in you jumping into an enemy and taking damage.

In level 2 of DX, the collapsing bridge/merman section is literal trial and error to find out when you can jump. If you walk the whole way and stop to whip the mermen, you fall off the bridge, so you have to jump at some point. But if you jump at the wrong time, a merman jumps up into you and knocks you back and you die. C3 has sections that punish you for jumping into mermen (6-2 and 9-4), but in those stages they're on a consistent spawning cycle, meaning that if you've just killed one then you have a safe window to execute at least one jump. DX level 2 is, like I said, pure trial and error. And that's the first room of the second level.

That being said, I still obviously think C3 is harder overall. It just doesn't fuck with you in the same way DX does. C3 constantly throws haymakers, but DX sucker-punches you.

[Anonymous No.9902489]

>>9902474
Anon 3 has a bunch of vertical autoscrolling level where enemies can spawn on top of you if you go too fast. Same with the frogs that will jump from under you if you stroll at a normal pace. There's no shortage of stuff like this.

[Anonymous No.9902515]

>>9902489
It's pretty hard to "go too fast" on the autoscrollers unless you're using Grant and if you're using Grant there's no reason to rush in the first place. As for the frogs, fair enough but Alucard 4 is pretty easy overall and if you get hit by the frogs in the first room of 4-1 there's meat in the very next room. Getting ambushed by mermen in DX 2 and 5' usually means getting knocked back into a pit.

[Anonymous No.9902524]

>>9893650
Just realised the rocks on the left is a bat. All I saw was the skull

[Anonymous No.9902607]

>>9902515
>It's pretty hard to "go too fast" on the autoscrollers unless you're using Grant
It's fairly easy even as Trevor.
Honestly I don't think the games are much different, 3 also has a falling bridge with a series of birds waiting for you on the way, and if weren't expecting them or aren't playing as Sypha with the wind spell you're most likely fucked (likewise you might survive the mermen in Dracula X if you happen to have the cross with you).

[Anonymous No.9902634]

>>9902515
Or still speaking about vertical autoscrollers, there are those where you have to drop down and some platforms just crumble under your weight in a couple of seconds. Playing the first time you have to way of knowing that you have to wait until the last moment to have an escape route ready, and you most likely won't on your own since there are also Medusa heads coming for you from both sides.

[Anonymous No.9903463]

>>9902474
The merman in the sewers of the second stage of Rondo are worse than anything DXX throws at you, because those are 100% randomized and can not be learned. They could jump on you while you're in the middle of jumping a pit and there is nothing you can do, it's pure luck, and there are a fuck ton of them, and nobody complains about that.

>>9902413
This 1000%

[Anonymous No.9903528]

>>9894713 pretty sure he's an IGN game reviewer trying to get plagiarize an apt description of the game to make a shit article about how he loves rondo.

[Anonymous No.9904352]

>>9902474
>In level 2 of DX, the collapsing bridge/merman section is literal trial and error to find out when you can jump. If you walk the whole way and stop to whip the mermen
You already messed up as soon as you thought about using the whip. There's a reason the game places the cross in a candle right before the bridge, you are absolutely supposed to use it. It'll deal with all of the mermen for you and let you jump across the bridge freely. Now if you don't want to use subweapons then that's your choice, but Dracula X isn't friendly to whip-only runs.

Also I don't understand your point about jumping. Yes, you move faster when you jump. But you're also more at risk because of how you have to commit to jumps. It's the usual speed vs safety trade-off, you start off just walking as you try to beat the stage and then you can start jumping once you're really familiar with the stages. It's like how in Megaman Zero you probably shouldn't spam dashes until you know the stage.

[Anonymous No.9904358]

Actually on that note, if there was one thing I'd criticize Dracula X for as a guy who really likes it, it's that the subweapon balance is garbage. The cross is so much better than everything else to the point they may as well be traps, and a lot of parts of the game feel like you were intended to have it. Hell, stage 5 lets you instant kill the boss with the cross item crash if you do it right, and if you fuck up it puts you back at the start of an enemy gauntlet where you can pick up the cross and get enough hearts to try again.

The axe is the only other subweapon I'd even think of taking, and that's just to help through the stairway sections of stage 1. And maybe to deal with Dracula at the end, it's technically the optimal subweapon if you're good enough.

[Anonymous No.9904835]

>>9904358
>t's that the subweapon balance is garbage. The cross is so much better than everything else to the point they may as well be traps

I've beaten the game only getting hit 1-2 times throughout the entire game, in both main paths, and that is just not true.

This is the optimal subweapon use:
>stage 1 boss: cross
>Minotaur and Death: knife
>everything else in the ENTIRE fucking game: axe

[Anonymous No.9904847]

>you can't cross the collapsing bridge without jumping

DEBUNKED
E
B
U
N
K
E
D

[Anonymous No.9904890]

>>9904835
The axe even has a special thing where the serpent boss (the water Stage 5 one) seems to be weak to it, taking more damage from both it's normal attack and the item crash, along with making it go down early if you hit it with the axe in certain attacks.

[Anonymous No.9904936]

>>9904890
If you don't only use Axe for every CV then we are not friends

[Anonymous No.9904987]

>>9904835
I'll have to try using the axe more my next playthrough then. I know stuff like the fish head pillars in the last bit of stage 3 are designed so the axe can kill them all in two throws, but it always seemed way easier to item crash with the cross.

[Anonymous No.9904993]

>>9904987
I honestly always forget that item crash is in the game and never use it.

[Anonymous No.9905004]

>>9904993
only time I use item crash is to avoid certain damage coming my way, like against the werewolf. That or with the key because it's fun to use something that seems unintended and it's free

[Anonymous No.9905217]

>>9904847
Damn, I guess I was wrong, I could've sworn the bridge collapsed too fast. Nice work anon.
>>9903463
Nobody complains about them because the sewers in stage 2 are completely optional, even if you want to go to 3' you can just fall down the last pit and skip all the merman/bat/floating eye nonsense that comes before it.
>>9904352
My issue with the jumping stems from Richter's low movement speed. I played DX coming off of SC4 and Rondo and immediately noticed how much slower Richter was, which made me want to jump pretty much all the time to go faster. Yes, I understand the risk/reward tradeoff, but it was very annoying to me that they slowed Richter down, gave you a tool to make him go faster, then punished you for actually using it. It required an adjustment in mentality like the one you described, but I resented having to make that adjustment when they could have just made him move at a normal speed and avoided the issue entirely.

[Anonymous No.9905234]

>>9905217
>Damn, I guess I was wrong, I could've sworn the bridge collapsed too fast. Nice work anon.

I admit I used what could be considered an exploit: normally when you land from high distance like this, there is a dead time when Richter lands and he remains crouched for a split second to recover. But, if you whip while landing, you can bypass the recovering animation and save a lot of time.
It is an exploit, however, the placement of the candle with the money bag in it is just perfect so that if you whip it while jumping onto the bridge, chances are you'll still have the whip out when landing, which makes me think the devs did that on purpose.

The other thing to save time is not to rush to whip the merman: you can hit them two at once for the first three sets.

[Anonymous No.9905879]

>>9905234
Does using the whip to cancel landing lag count as an exploit at this point? I feel like it's in every single Castlevania I've ever played. The first screen of Stage 1 even has a bit I think is supposed to clue you in on that, with this platform after the first staircase being low enough it forces you to see that Richter has a lot of landing lag.

[Anonymous No.9905889]

>>9904993
I think it's the easiest way to make it through the spearmen hallway in stage 2. You just have to land one hit on the bottom one and then item crash to immediately nuke both. Then you handle the solo bottom one with the whip, and item crash the second pair. Easy-peasey. You can do it in stage 3 right before the floating platform section too.

The key item crash is also a very handy way to deal with stage 4's bullshit. It's free, you get invincibility frames out the ass, and it even rises you in the air. I use it to climb the staircase safely in that one long horizontal screen, dodge the angry axe knight if I screw up, and as a panic button during the rotating bucket lift part to deal with ghosts.

[Anonymous No.9906060]

>>9897879
>>9898301
I thought that's what people think of the Snes version. Most people consider the PC-engine version to be one of the better games.