So I'm still trying to finish Dissidia Duodecim but I have yet to formulate a FULL opinion of it. So I decided I would do a rather lengthy review (in pretty colors I might add) Of what I have played of the Castlevania series.
*INHALES BIG BREATH*
Castlevania:
Many reviewers such as AVGN and Egoraptor have played the original when they were young, during the ACTUAL NES days. Me, not really. I actually didn't really even try it until a friend of mine hacked my psp and gave me an iso that had a bunch of NES games on it. So I tried it then. It was fun. ALOT of fun. But FUCK that game is hard. Super hard. Like, god dammit! Somehow I was able to play through to the end, and made it all the way to Dracula, only to get my balls rocked. My theory is I am doing it wrong, but who knows. I liked the game, walking around and whipping shit was alot of fun, the sounds were cool and the music was fun. The game is not only notoriously difficult, but jumping was hard too. All in all, a castlevania game I never beat, just too hard...
Awesome:
- To quote egoraptor: "Whippin dudes yeahuh!"
- Music was cool
- Enemy range was very interesting for its time
- Feels accomplishing that you get anywhere in that game.
Ass:
- Fucking hard.... TOO frustrating
- Bosses were strong, and some (DEATH) were nearly impossible.
- Dracula gets his own mention, just cuz he's hard as shit
- Hated the jump mechanic most of all. It's like you jump a little bit, and drop like a stone. Realistic yes, but nothing else about the game was. Also, you can't change direction DURING your jump, you basically made a choice and had to live with it. Bullshit.
Castlevania 2 - Simons Quest:
This game technically(chronologically) can't even apply to me, as the beginning states Simon beat Dracula. I didn't. I gave up.
ANYWAYS... there has also been a copious amount of reviews on this game, and really, I don't know too much about it. I just started it and didn't really like it.
Awesome:
- Nothing, really.
Ass:
- All of it?
Castlevania III:
No Idea, this thing wouldn't even load on my iso dealy.
Super Castlevania IV:
Didn't really play this either, although after seeing AVGN's review, I'd like to try it. I've considered looking to see how much a cartridge fetches for. I dunno...
Rondo of Blood:
I did play this, in it's various incarnations. My favorite was the PSP remake, namely cuz the awesome overhaul in graphics. I liked how it wasn't TOTALLY straightforward, you could take different paths based on finding a hidden area, etc. Another of the games I never beat, the iso for my psp was giving me grief. Or my psp is dying. No idea.
Awesome:
- RICHTER BELMONT!!!
- Very colorful
- Music is cool
Ass:
- My biggest complaint is the controls, still clunky as shit.
- Difficulty was pretty high too
Here's the intermission, when the HUGE change in castlevania occurred
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
When I first played this, I was driving my friend home from work, and he said something about it. I said I never played it, and he said we'd have to change that. So I played the first part of the game, which picks up at the end of Rondo of Blood. So I started, and liked it. Really liked it. It was like.... a vast improvement of what I played at the time. The friend who hooked me up with the NES iso was able to get me the PSX version of SotN, and boy did I play it. The hell out of it. Beat it several times. Then bought it on XBLA and beat the shit out of there too.
Awesome:
- New, "Castleroid/MetroidVania" gameplay
- Level up, if an enemy is too strong, level up and come back. It's also an indicator of places you shouldn't be at yet.
- Customize weapon/armor, increase stats or just make it easier, with a long range/short range weapon
- Lots to play and explore, game doesn't end too quickly.
- Design was really cool
- Music was great
- Sound effects spectacular
- Character design cool
- Alternate "Richter" mode, really cool.
Ass:
- Voice acting was hideous. So much so it's actually pretty funny.
- Making the castle upside down for the second half is sort of redundant. Could've changed the layout
- Some enemies are too hard
- Dracula too easy
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
The follow up for me, to SotN. Not a bad game, the idea of taking enemies souls and using them as abilities and weapons was cool. Not as good as Symphony though, and more to the point, the design was fairly bland. I didn't like the sound Soma(Main character guy) makes when he gets hit. Or when he dies (DWAHHHHHHH). Fucking stupid. The story was meh, and the final boss was challenging.
Awesome:
- Being able to fuse enemy souls with weapons to make new ones
Ass:
- Bland design
- Sounds annoying
- Music meh
- Story was ok, just ok
- Enemies were gay
- Dying sound REALLY annoying
- Game just felt redundant
- Julies/Yoko mode. God was it terrible. Julius looks like a tree trunk with arms, legs and a head.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
An interesting game, because at first I didn't like it and rushed through to beat it. Upon playing it recently though, I really like it. Essentially you play as 2 characters, Charlotte Aulin, a descendant of the Belnades clan(Featured originally in Castlevania III, and referenced in DoS) and Jonathan Morris, son of John Morris from castlevania bloodlines. It's the Castleroid setup again, but whats interesting is that the story is quite a twist. A vampire has used a power to seal Dracula within a different space in his own castle, thus making his power available to the vampire. He then seals the rest of the power within paintings, and it's your job to go through each one and kill the master of it to break each extra chain. There were alot of things I liked about it, because of the different paintings(portals) you get to see a diverse set of backgrounds, as opposed to moving in JUST Dracula's castle. The choice of playing JUST as Jonathan or Charlotte, or having both together made it interesting too. Some enemies are weak to magic, others, weak to physical attacks. It branches further by different elemental magics, and different weapon types(Holy, sword, Axe, Whip). Also cool is the quest mode, which has you go from killing enemies to picking stuff up. A wide variety, none of it too difficult.
Awesome:
- More or less everything...
- Story was good
- Choice to play as Spell master or Weapon user
- Depth of strategy involved by alternating the two to effectively defeat enemies
- Hidden dungeon, "The Nest of Evil"
- Cool Weapons
- Can unleash the true power of Vampire Killer, which is EXTREMELY effective
- A 2 on 2 battle between Death, Dracula, Jonathan and Charlotte
- Dual Crush, an ability that combines the strength of two for an awesome attack
- "Greatest Five" dual crush, summoning the power of 5 of the strongest Belmonts.
- New Game+
- 2 different alternate modes, Vampire Sisters/Richter + Maria
Ass:
- Some enemies are stupid hard
- Leveling up becomes difficult
- Some Fetch quests
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
This is the most recent in the Castlevania DS franchise, and very...interesting. I have to give Konami credit, they don't make you play the same damn game over and over, they at least add twists. The twist to this one, other than the more Gothic painting art style(Overtaking the anime style prevalent from the previous DS titles) is that this game has the 'glyph' system. Essentially you play as Shanoa, a member of the order of ecclesia(hence the title) who basically are there to kick Dracula's ass, should he ever come back. Where are the Belmonts? In most Castlevania games(until lately) you play as a Belmont, or at least directly interact with them, Such as Richter in SotN, or Julius in DoS, or Richter again in PoR. In this one it's said that the villagers you're setting out to save are descendants of Belmonts. What? No Belmonts...?
Anyways... So yeah it's Ecclesia's job to make sure these power glyphs, the Dominus Glyphs, do not fall into the hands of evil, who can resurrect Dracula with it. Well, a close friend named Albus takes the Glyphs and runs away, and you lose your memory. I don't really remember the explanation. So, the boss of Ecclesia tells you Albus wants to resurrect Dracula, and you gotta stop him. So after you save all of the villagers, you eventually recover the glyphs, and fight Albus, who reveals to you that using Dominus comes at the price of her life, and that you should talk to Leader Jerk to find out what the deal is.
You fight him, and he resurrects Dracula, then you go into the castle and fight Dracula, the end.
Awesome:
- Glyph system allows you to use weapons for each arm, plus a third on your back, which allows you to cast enhancement spells, and things of the like.
- One of the big things that AVGN hated is how the WHOLE Castlevania game took place in the castle, where it used to be outside, then going in. This game is like that, the first half of the game is in random locales, and the second is in Dracula's Castle. A perfect mix.
- Design was pretty cool
- Bonus Dungeons to gain special items
- Albus mode
The Ass:
- Truly hate how EVERYTHING kills you in this game. You have to save often, cuz if you're like "Oh I'll just do this real quick and then save" no. No then you're gonna get killed by something insignificant and STUPID.
- I hate how when you die, you levitate a second, let out this stupid "ahhhh" sound, and blood flies out of you for like 5 to 10 seconds. Doesn't sound like much, but it takes FOREVER
- Bosses are too hard
- Too many fetch quests, some of which can take 5 seconds or 5 hours
- You shouldn't base a quest on Luck, there are some quests that require enemy drops, and it takes for fucking ever for the enemy to drop what you want. I actually had to beat EVERYTHING about the game FIRST(Bonus Dungeons too, just didn't fight Dracula) then come back and do those last ones
- Dracula laughs WAY too much, like every time he disappears he laughs. I know you think it's funny you dick, I don't WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT SO FREAKING MUCH!!!!
- Music was meh.
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair
What do you get if you went out and bought SotN, DoS, PoR, Castlevania 1, and OoE? Well you'd have half the library of games in the castlevania series. What you need to do is find a way to pile them up, and smash them with a sledge hammer, until it becomes a sweet, digital goo.
Didn't make sense? Ok basically the games I listed in the paragraph above were taken and made into an XBLA game that has maps and characters from the games. The story is that some Grimoire summons Heroes and villains from various time periods in the timeline of castlevania, and pits them together in an epic battle. I've only gotten to like, level 3...
The awesome:
- I like how it's so many characters for 11 levels(total). It spans from the first Castlevania(1986) all the way to OoE(2011).
- Music is pretty good
- Design was also good
- Another Double edged sword is the level system is somewhat... awkward Based on the character you are using is how they level up. For instance, for the Belmonts, it's their subweapon. For every hit you get on an enemy, the subweapon gets EXP. Eventually it levels up, and so forth. Thats just weird to me.
- Liked the various locales from a variety of games
- Loved the idea of the 10th level, origins. It's the whole of the original castlevania, with no real changes.
- Boasts up to 5 partners(6 players total) although it's Live only.
- Cool equipment options, such as boots that speed up your running ability.
- The name is a play on words, "Castlevania: HD", a play on words because the game is High Def.
The Ass:
- VERY difficult
- Origins is stupid hard.
- Seems to lack originality. There isn't anything new, no new characters or new locales
- Like PoR's Nest of Evil, too much is based off of Dawn of Sorrow. I mean, at least 4 of the default levels were DoS. Alot of SotN's levels were DLC.
- Speaking of DLC, why is so much of the features DLC? WTF Konami? My friend says that Konami likes to microcharge up the ass, and I'd say he's right. You start with 5 characters and 6 levels, and you can purchase and additional 5 Levels, and 6 extra characters to buy.
- Disliked how you have to play on Live to play with friends, I would've liked it if you could do Co-op on a console. It makes sense why you can't though.
That's just about it for all that I've played. There were others, like "Castlevania: Judgement" that I wouldn't touch with a stick, and others like Bloodlines, that I've never really gotten a chance to play. Over all I'd say the series is REALLY quite good, and maintains it notoriety of difficulty. If I could get J to play along on HD I may finish faster, as well as getting my friend to help me. My favorite titles would be SotN, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia, in that order. I call it my previous addiction because I was playing it for a long ass time, and didn't touch anything else. It's fizzled a little, because I've beaten the hell out of PoR and OoE, and don't want to play DoS. I still aim to play HD, just don't know when.
Anyways, it's been quite a write on this one, and I don't know when I'll do a review next. Maybe later today, I dunno. I heard J was going to be doing a review soon, so keep a lookout for that! Peace!
M
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