Castlevania: A Thread for the Dead

[Lord Dalek]

So since I've been streaming a lot of Castlevania (and am probably this forum's defacto expert/junkie on it) lately, I'll give you MY top 10...

10. Castlevania (NES): The original and classic. Downright brutal, but not "unfair" difficulty curve. The music is great too.

09. Castlevania II Belmont's Revenge: Proof positive that Castlevania Adventure was a victim of really bad designers/programmers. Every single thing that game does wrong, this one does right.

08. Order of Ecclesia: Shanoa's one of the dullest protagonists ever (and might have been the prototype for Lightning considering how Iga tried to shove her down our throats for a while). Game play design however is very good with its quasi-Simon's Quest throwback mission style of gameplay.

07. Circle of the Moon: If it wasn't for the goddamn DSS System (Castlevania's first fling with the Pokemon-esque "Collect 'em all" style of gameplay that would consume it beginning with Aria of Sorrow) this might have been the best ever. Ok that and the graphics really suck for a GBA game.

06. Symphony of the Night: I'm sorry its just a tad overrated. For one, its too damn easy and I'm not saying this because IGA tried to make it harder with the incredibly lame inverted castle (sticking all your overpowered canon fodder enemies in one place is both lazy AND stupid IGA...). No the fact is Konami really didn't figure out how to do an RPG-style Castlevania gameplay system properly until Aria of Sorrow. As a result, Alucard always feels way overpowered and broken (flame on fanboys). The Richter mode kinda makes up for it, but not that much (mainly because they made Richter into a fricken ubermensch for this one).

05. Portrait of Ruin: My favorite Metroidvania (go figure) is the one everybody hates for some reason. Its weird too as this one has a lot of great ideas. Multiple playable maps that ARE NOT IN THE CASTLE, two playable characters that you can switch on the fly and/or have the computer control at the same time, fighting TEAMS OF BOSSES, etc. I guess the backlash is over Johnathan Morris being a rather whiny shit protagonist, but that's kinda the point behind him. He actually grows on you, and he gets to fight Richter too! FRICKEN RICHTER!!!! btw: Richter and Maria are playable if you beat the game with the best ending. Score.

04. Bloodlines: The immediate prequel to Portrait, this in many ways feels like the end of an era being the last game to use the old big ass HUD at the top of the screen until Adventure Rebirth brought it back. The graphics really push the Genesis hardware with all the cool little scaling effects it pulls (the Leaning Tower of Pisa is a great example of this), and all that sweet blood and guts everywhere. This is, arguably, the single goriest Castlevania game ever made and it actually made it out here in the United States (Europe was a whole other story unfortunately) completely uncensored!...with a GA rating from Sega's VGRC to boot! Oh and... Eric Lecarde + Alucard Spear = pole vault.

03. Akumajou Densetsu: Dracula's Curse is a great game and all, but if you haven't played the Japanese version, you don't know what you're missing. For one the difficulty curve is far more manageable here than in its US release. This was back in the day when Konami was becoming really malevolent with American gamers when news about the Konami Code started going arround. As such, if you died on Dracula on the final stage you got sent back more than a few screens too many. Two, the graphics are actually slightly better as the NES either couldn't handle extra chips or just plain old censorship. And of course, the biggie.... THREE. THE MOTHER FUCKING V R C 6. Just click the links, I'm not gonna bother.

02. Super Castlevania IV: 6-way whipping, mode 7, DAT SOUNDTRACK, Simon's best game PERIOD. 

01. Rondo of Blood: People complain about this game being way too easy. Try playing it all the way through with Richter and get back to me on that. He's stiff as molasses but it works for this game, a unique experience which manages to bring back all the cool stuff from AkuDen/Dracula's Curse (multiple playable characters, branching paths, different endings) and expands them in ways only 16-bit (ok technically 8-bit being the PC Engine and all) could do. This was the first Castlevania game to force you to turn off your console and restart the game from scratch to get the true ending. A rather surprising move and one that added a lot more depth to a series that heretofore had no idea what a "completion rating" was. Oh yeah and Maria kills zombies with little parakeets. WIN.

[gunswordfist]

rondo has been kicking my butt. also, i love the dss system.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've only ever really played Super and SOTN, but I love both.

[gunswordfist]

sotn is my favorite.

[talonmalon333]

sotn is my favorite.

I agree. Followed by that would be a toss up between III and Rondo of Blood, and then IV.

[Spark Of Spirit]

My top 10:

1. Rondo of Blood
2. Super Castlevania IV
3. Circle of the Moon (I actually like the graphics, though. the simple art style is nice. HoD's graphics are "more impressive", but they look like garbage.)
4. The Adventure ReBirth
5. Symphony of the Night
6. Dracula's Curse
7. Aria of Sorrow
8. Castlevania
9. Bloodlines (Haven't played it in a loooong time, but I liked it when I did)
10. Belmont's Revenge (Same as Bloodlines)

Of course, I haven't played them all. But those are the ones I enjoyed the most.

[Foggle]

Cool list! I've been slowly working my way through the series and enjoying myself for the most part. Good to see that I've still yet to play most of the best ones.

Dalek convinced me to play the SNES Dracula X on a stream, and that was... something.

[Spark Of Spirit]

There are very few real clunkers in the series.

That would be one of them. 

[talonmalon333]

No Castlevania III, Spark?

[Spark Of Spirit]

No Castlevania III, Spark?

III is subtitled Dracula's Curse.

[gunswordfist]

i was wondering if that was 3's subtitle. i also like cotm's graphics. i didn't appreciate them back then but now i do.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Iga's project is apparently set to be revealed soon:

- called Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
- Kickstarter goes live May 11th
- Main character is Miriam, who is very similar to Shanoa from Order of Ecclesia
- she has rune tattoos on her body
- another character is named Gebel, who is similar to Alucard
- Castlevania composer Michiru Yamane is on board

So, we needed Mighty No. 9 to get a new Mega Man game, Yooka Laylee to get a new Banjo Kazooie, and now Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night to get a new Castlevania game.

This is pretty ridiculous.

[gunswordfist]

Michiru Yamane

TAKE ALL MY MONEY!

I was going to say, "I thought Iga left Konami" but then I saw what this was about. I'm super hyped now.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Hint: That's Iga.



I really hope there's a 3DS stretch goal. I've wanted a meaty Metroidvania on there for awhile now.

EDIT: Check out this site

[gunswordfist]

  I assumed Iga just retired.