Best Castlevania game?

[Nicolas]

Like in topic title.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Nicolas

[Refa]

You know, you're missing like, FIFTY other options. At least put the other likely ones that people might want to answer...Like Castlevania 64

[RJWalker]

My personal favourite is Aria of Sorrow but the one I think is the most well made one is Order of Ecclisia.

[Nicolas]

You know, you're missing like, FIFTY other options. At least put the other likely ones that people might want to answer...Like Castlevania 64

WHAT?! THERE IS SOME OTHER CASTLEVANIA GAMES?!

...

No, shit. You're right, but...

WHO CARES ABOUT REST?

[Kramy]

Order of ecclesia all the way man

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Super Castlevania 4.

What a rushed poll this was.

[Ice Sage]

Symphony of the Night

Super Castlevania 4 and Rondo of blood are amazing too

[BrightBow]

WHAT?! THERE IS SOME OTHER CASTLEVANIA GAMES?!

...

No, shit. You're right, but...

WHO CARES ABOUT REST?

Well. I am not even close to choose any of them as favorite.

I mean, in my case it would probably be about the following order:

1. Legacy of Darkness

2. Castlevania 64 (maybe that counts as cheating)

3. Rondo of Blood

4. Castlevania (NES)

5. Castlevania 3

6. The Adventure Rebirth

7. Dracula X (SNES)

8. Super Castlevania

9. Order of Ecclesia

10. Circle of the Moon

11. Mirror of Fate

12. Symphony of the Night

13. Aria of Sorrow

14. Dawn of Sorrow

15. Harmony of Dissonance

16. Portrait of Ruin

17. The Adventure (just "omg, this game doesn't work")

Anyway, about Legacy of Darkness.

The game masterfully combines fun platforming with 3D graphics that really makes one appreciate what a scary, threatening place Dracula's castle is.

So the castle looks absolutely beautiful. And the soundtrack does an awesome job at being both memorable and atmospheric. Something that I think no other game in the series really pulled off.

The game also uses it's soundtrack in a cinematic manner during cutscenes. So it always goes along with what's on the screen.

The characters are great and I think they easily surpass the cast of the other games. Quite frankly, I would also vote Actrise as my favorite villain in the franchise because of her design, her chemistry with Carry and simply being the worst pile of crap in the series. And given the competition of Dracula and freaking Death, that's saying something.

While I don't particular like Dracula's personality in this game, I like that the game is more concrete about the stuff he actually does. In this case, burning down villages and kidnapping children as sacrifices.

Speaking of Carry, I also like her a lot because she totally didn't meet my expectations. Knowing Rondo Maria, Shanoa and Charlotte, I was expecting her to be either a goofy moeblob or maybe even to be creepily sexualized.

But she wasn't either of these thing, And I definitely wasn't expecting her to be a genuine badass. She still loves her adoptive mother and is kind to kids but she is also beautifully straightforward when dealing with the forces of darkness.

The demon trader was also a really cool idea. Though, not executed in the best fashion. You pretty much have to deliberately spend a lot of money in order for him to come and claim your soul.

I also love the controls. Like, I think this is the only game besides Super Castlevania where you can crawl. (Completly useless here but it gives a really nice sense of control over the character).

And I absolutely love that the character will automatically grab ledges when holding the A button, even when having the back turned to it.

Sure, it doesn't make any sense but it allows all kinds of cool maneuvers or to rescue yourself from falling. I wonder why more games don't do that. I think climbing feels really good that way.

Oh, and this game actually has vampires as regular enemies.

They are pretty cool, too. Capable of jumping high, grabbling you and drinking your blood to restore their health (and induce vampirism) and turning into a bat.

Of course, the game does have issues.

There are to many areas that aren't linear and you have to run around a lot figuring out where to go. With Castle Center being the worst. I actually think the Nitro part is the best part of the level. I mean, at least you have a straightforward objective there. And there is tons of other stuff that maeks this level particular painful. Thank god, the Clock Tower afterwards makes more then up for that.

It doesn't help that most of them are near the beginning of the game. It can really drain one's motivation. The Gardener was cool, tough.

Cornell's gameplay is also really badly executed. And dodge jumps just don't work anywhere near as good as in OoT.

Edited October 30, 2013 by BrightBow

[Jedi]

I love all the castlevania games barring Lords of Shadow, that shameless God Of War clone has no baring on the series

Favorite classic style Castlevania would be Rondo closely followed by III and IV

Favorite Metroidvania style is Symphony of the Night closely followed by Aria of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin

Favorite 3D one is Curse of Darkness

[IceBrand]

What was that one called that came on the PS3 and Xbox 360 and was multiplayer?

[Ein]

Harmony of Despair.

Aptly named too.

[Light-Heart]

Portrait of Ruin

You always love your first <3

also lol with the JONATHAN ! CHARLOTTE ! JONATHAN ! CHARLOTTE ! JONATHON ! CHARLOTTE ! JONATHON !

[BrightBow]

I love all the castlevania games barring Lords of Shadow, that shameless God Of War clone has no baring on the series

If that alone is a reason for belittling LoS, then why doesn't this reason also apply to SotN and it's successors.

Aren't those "shameless" Metroid clones?

And if nothing else, LoS got better story and atmosphere.

Not that there is much competition from the previous Castlevanias.

Edited October 31, 2013 by BrightBow

[Irysa]

Circle of the Moon.

If I'm a little more objective then Order of Ecclesia I think is a very admirable game for actually having some challenge and having great classicvania design concepts. OoE as a game is sort of like the end of the full cycle starting from Simons Quest, where the RPG mechanics and exploration were initially introduced. The entire setup if the game is really similar, what with the central village and overworld, trying to revive the count so we can kill him, and how it leads up up to the final castle with Dracula himself, but the whole thing is just executed far far better and brings in the best of both worlds from Metroidvania and Classicvania. It's like a proof of concept, that the idea from all those years ago really could work if done again.

In many ways, I also consider it proof against the common perception that metroidvanias were simply just junk abnegation games you played for familiarity and numbers going up. Most of you probably watched Egoraptor's sequelitis on Castlevania and most of his complaints against the Metrodivanias are pretty accurate, but I maintain that Circle of the Moon and Ecclesia function closer to the Classicvana school, which results in them having significantly more substance. CotM is my personal favourite for having the best magic system, the clunky movement I grew to love long ago, a selection of some of the best tracks in the entire series (and amazing original stuff), along with truckloads of replay value through the extra modes. And I like the art direction in it more than the others, although OoE is close and I don't DISLIKE Kojima's artstyle, it's just a bit too "gothic bishounen" for my taste (although it beats the crap out of the horrible anime stuff in DoS and PoR)

I honestly get bored playing SotN beacuse it's far too easy and the only fun in it is just breaking the game. There's so little interactivity in fighting most of the enemies and bosses in the game, you just spam overpowered magic or do broken combinations of gear and try to skip as much as possible. About 90% of Aria souls are all really boring and a waste, although its a fairly solid game outside of that, and the premise/twist is cool (Dawn of Sorrow is so blegh though)

Oh yeah, and I unintentionally sequence broke CotM when I first played it by missing the water purifier. I've done that before with super metroid and zero mission (as in, blind playthrough, skipped parts of the game I wasn't supposed to without realising), thats cool.

[spoiler=Castlevania Tierlist]

God Tier

Circle of the Moon

Order of Ecclesia

Top Tier

Castlevania

Castlevania 3

Dracula X Chronicles

Chronicles

Bloodlines

High Tier

Aria of Sorrow (Julius mode for high tier if he had a proper mode that he wasn't a god in)

Portrait of Ruin

Harmony of Dissonance (fix Juste's shitty jump and some of the awful music and this would be a top tier game)

Curse of Darkness

Okay Tier

Symphony of the Night

Lament of Innocence

Blegh Tier

Dawn of Sorrow

Simon's Quest

Castlevania 4 (so many things that don't well sit with me about this remake...)

Rondo of Blood (the original has so many problems)

Not Castlevania Tier

Lords of Shadow

Try-to-forget-it-ever-happened Tier

Mirror of Fate

Haven't played Tier

64/Legacy

Adventure/Legacy/Rebirth

Arcade

Harmony of Despair

Judgement

Edited October 31, 2013 by Irysa

[Refa]

W-what?! Please elaborate!!

[deleted35362]

Circle of the Moon.

CotM is my personal favourite for having the best magic system, the clunky movement I grew to love long ago, a selection of some of the best tracks in the entire series (and amazing original stuff), along with truckloads of replay value through the extra modes.

i've only played a bit of this game and though i really liked it, something bothered me...so you had to kill certain enemies over and over until you get cards out of them. how are you supposed to figure out which enemies drop cards? it's not like aria of sorrow where you just suddenly get a new ability out of every single enemy. i do know about the pause glitch to use any spells you want at any time, but i'd rather not cheat when playing games.

[Irysa]

A lot of them correspond to the type of monster, but you don't have to get any of those cards to beat the game. Subweapons and the whip alone are fine enough as it is, Aria's souls ARE subweapons, so they have to be more available. Simply playing the game and making use of what random cards you get on your first playthrough is fine as it is, and adds some more dynamic replay value.

On second playthroughs they also have different modes, like Magician Mode where you start with all 20 cards and have drastically reduced physical stats, meaning you have to make extensive use of the magic to beat the game. Other modes include Fighter mode; which has no cards, but your physical stats get buffed, shooter mode; nerfs your physical stats and buffs your subweapons, adds unique subweapons and reduces subweapon heart usage, and thief mode nerfs all your stats except for luck, which is massively boosted, which means you get tons of drops from enemies non stop.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Irysa

[Esau of Isaac]

Symphony of the Night was glorious and thus is my favorite in the series. Everything about it was magical, even the voice acting.

If Aria of Sorrow were expanded into a console title then I probably would have liked it more. It's still my second favorite in the series and one of my absolute favorite handheld games, but when I think of how much more content could have been included by being put on a console I salivate.

[Refa]

Maybe they would have put more effort into the translation too. Curly. Ronginus. Seriously?

[RJWalker]

Curly makes me cry. They got Durga right but messed this up.

Also, Lubicant lol.

[Esau of Isaac]

It's a common transliteration error because Curly and Kaali are both possible translations of the name カーリ. Same with Ronginus. Though you would expect more people to be familiar with Longinus than Kaali.

[Refa]

Oh god, Lubicant. That's the best/worst one!

EDIT

It's a common transliteration error because Curly and Kaali are both possible translations of the name カーリ. Same with Ronginus. Though you would expect more people to be familiar with Longinus than Kaali.

Fair enough, but I think that's more of an argument against transliteration than anything. They need to americanize localize those names! I mean if Square can do it (even if they made Shiva a chick), I don't see why Konami couldn't.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Refa

[Batter the Beast]

Where all the Classicvanias be?

Anywho, my favorite Castlevania would have to be Castlevania 3: Draculas Curse since NES Castlevanias not named Simon's Quest are fantastic

[RJWalker]

Oh god, Lubicant. That's the best/worst one!

EDIT

Fair enough, but I think that's more of an argument against transliteration than anything. They need to americanize localize those names! I mean if Square can do it (even if they made Shiva a chick), I don't see why Konami couldn't.

Oh man what?

[Esau of Isaac]

Fair enough, but I think that's more of an argument against transliteration than anything. They need to americanize localize those names! I mean if Square can do it (even if they made Shiva a chick), I don't see why Konami couldn't.

Localization generally involves the substitution of themes that don't exist. It would be like renaming characters named "Junpei" into "Frank." While this has had great success when applied extremely well such as in Pokemon's case it has also led to some remarkably bad translations or eerily pointless changes. Transliteration isn't necessarily a problem, it is simply difficult when moving from a syllabary such as Japanese to an alphabet like English. When you look at a word such as "computer" in English you are aware that it is a combination of "compute," and "er," referring to something that computes. Japanese katakana on the other hand is a simple syllabary, where each symbol simply operates as a sound. More importantly, the Japanese syllabary is very limited compared to our alphabet. Since each symbol operates as its own distinct sound there have to be a smaller number of symbols or it would be impossible to learn the language. Could you imagine learning a different "o" for a long and short version of the vowel? And so on and forth.

It can be very difficult to understand what the person/thing's name is supposed to be unless you have the thoughts of the person who created them working closely with you. This is the reason why you have such weird translations as these.