Castlevania General

Well either way, I'd still recommendkeeping a PS 3 around. HD is still a rockin' good time once you get a nice big party of, like, 3 or more.

And yeah I dunno why Sara's being all pissy with non-Belmonts. It was always a stupid plot point.

Here's a hot take, Legends isn't really a good game.

Seriously though, why's everyone getting so hung up about one game when Sypha, Maria, Charlotte, Stella, Loretta, Shanoa, and Yoko exist and are playable?

Because for the longest time, Sonia was the only female lead character the Castlevania series ever had. The fact that she wasn't just a female Belmont that's as badass as the other Belmonts, but also the progenitor of the Belmont clan, was huge, especially for female Castlevania fans.

While Video Game company executives are comfortable with secondary female characters, they're averse to having a lead female character in their big franchises. To have a company seemingly declare that one of their Long-Running franchise's family of heroes all began when a brave woman decided to pick up a whip to stop the Big Bad was a very pleasant surprise at the time, and for a short while, it also seemed to be leading to even more Castlevania games with female leads.

But then the retcon happened, Castlevania: Resurrection was cancelled, and the IGA interview squashed any hopes of more Castlevania games with female leads from happening in the near future. It would be more than a decade after Castlevania Legends before we got another Castlevania game with a female lead character, and then nothing after that.

So yeah, there's a reason why Sonia still continues to be a sore subject for older Castlevania fans, and why I'm personally rooting for Bloodstained to be successful.

Edited by Servbot on Aug 27th 2018 at 5:55:56 AM

Sounds about right. And as pointed out, it didn't really seem necessary to complete strike it from Continuity. And the way he explained it was just so needlessly sexist.

I am curious: how did the game play exactly? The video I watched (that I also posted) said it wasn't bad, but I'd like to hear opinions from anyone who actually tried it.

Well said.

I actually think it was really decent. It was the third Castlevania game on the Game Boy, and thus they where able to smooth the formula out and add a few new wrinkles by paying lip service to the Metroidvania aspect that was all the craze in the franchise suddenly. It wasn't anything spectacular honestly, but it was a solid little adventure with all the strengths and weaknesses of a game from that time on that platform. The script, such as it was, is well translated.

It's been awhile since I've played it. Should pop it back in.

I've been thinking about Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku again. You know, the IGA-approved post-Sorrow light novel that brought us the characters of Curtis Lang and Michelle Danasty.

It's been brought up in this topic before, as well as multiple Castlevania pages on this site, but it was at a time before anyone had translated it into English. I don't even know if a page about it would be filed under Fanfic, Literature or Video Game at this point.

Though to be honest, the main reason I keep thinking about it is that many of the plot twists in the story are similar to a fanfic I had written around the same time...

Legends had really good music and cutscene art too! Sonia reminds me a lot of Samus design-wise.

Castlevania 64 had Carrie and Portrait of Ruin had Charlotte, too, plus Rondo of Blood had Maria who completely broke the game.

Carrie, Charlotte and Maria were all secondary characters alongside the main hero.

What sets Sonia apart from them is that she's the main protagonist. Not to say that the other three aren't good mind you.

I only ever played as Carrie cause I couldn't work Reinhardt, and for a similar reason I didn't use Jonathan much until I got the Vampire Killer.

Charlotte also gets the Ice Needle spell, an early game spell that will still see you through the game.

Also check out Richter mode in that game, its so much fun

Maria was also pretty cool in the PSP port of Symphony, she was sort of a hard mode with good item crashes. Fun fact, her new set of animations were done by the animators of Portrait.

...Hard mode? I played that game to the last drop and I can say that little girl breaks the game like a fucking twig.

Oh, you meant the PSP SotN. Rondo of Blood was going through my mind here.

Edited by ZeroDozer on Sep 1st 2018 at 12:57:46 PM

funnily enough tho Zero, your description also matches the frankly absolutely batshit insane Saturn port Maria.

yanno, where she had things like a lightning knuckle, a triple jump, a Mega Man charge shot, a fire blast from her hands move, a heal spell and the Liu Kang flying kick.

seriously what the shit was konami nagoya on

Edited by MightyKombat on Sep 1st 2018 at 7:07:50 PM

...funny thing, I used to like that version of Maria (never played any version of SOTN, just saw clips of it on youtube), but once I saw what a massive departure it was from her Rondo self, I realized it was good they toned her tone...though I do wish they'd kept Guardian Knuckle.

Po R Maria is balanced to be good but not gamebreaking tier, she even still has the garden knuckle.

Actually, PSP SOTN Maria does have Guardian Knuckle only now its sort of the Item Crash of the Maria doll subweapon you can find. And it costs hearts. Bit of a nerf there.

Besides, after seeing how Saturn Maria was a fuckin Super Saiyan, I can't find myself going back to PSP Maria.

Took me a while to recognize you there Mighty. I see you've abandoned Rondoline for Rydia. I thought your loyalty to your Waifu was stronger than that.

And making Guardian Knuckle an Item Crash makes sense. I know IGA went on a bit of a purge of things that didn't fit his vision, but there's no need to get rid of something that can still have a place in the mythology (....hint hint, female belmont who got screwed).

Speaking of the Item Crashes, is Richter the only Belmont who used them? I read that was the case somewhere.

Saturn Maria is flat out hilarious, when even her Rondo self isn't as stupidly broken by comparison.

And yeah, Guardian Fist is a lot weaker in the PSP version, it doesn't have the ridiculous I Frames for one.

Call it disillusionment with Tales. Also Rydia has REALLY saved me so many times in FFIV especailly that one time with Golbez. And she's gorgeous as hell in her adult form.

Oh and Juste could sorta use them if he had the right spell book. I think. Julius had Grand Cross as a separate item sort of and Simon didn't need that shit

Crazy anachronistic magical martial arts Maria is best Maria.

Hated seeing her in HD and she just freakin' threw birds at people.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Sep 1st 2018 at 2:52:26 PM

Throwing animals is a more unique fighting style. Besides, you have Cornell for all your fancy martial arts stuff anyway.

Also having animal companions was always her thing. I always found it fun how she gets an unlimited air dash in Symphony in the PSP version, she can reach places extremely quickly, guess that's always why she's bumping into Alucard before he gets there.

It'd be funny if in the PSX, Xboxand PSP versions you could get a hidden Maria scene where you glitch into the Underground Garden and just find her chillaxin in the glitched save screen and she's like "whoa what the fuck i locked that grate alucard you rude git"

EDIT as of today: I forgot how fucking aggressively horrible Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance was to play. Fuck this game, its a miracle Aria of Sorrow even happened in retrospect

Edited by MightyKombat on Sep 7th 2018 at 11:37:22 AM

So I plugged in Lament of Innocence again (It's been years) because it's always been the Castlevania game that eludes me the most.

God-DAMN does this game frustrate me. And not because the actual gameplay is frustrating (Although it occasionally is) it's just that it has so much potential it goes nowhere with. Like, it does that thing where MP and hearts are different resources. That always bugged me even if it's present in games I really like like Order of Ecclesia... But dammit.

They both have different ways of recharging. Hearts you get from breaking candles as usual, MP you get from guarding attacks. That's not so bad, aside from the fact that they're both tedious as hell. You get so little hearts from each individual candle that you'll spend an inordinate percentage of your time trying to refill your supply. And guarding attacks isn't good enough, oh no, you have to guard magical attacks. And what counts as a magical attack is very arbitrary. Who knew swinging a mace around your head was magical? Both hearts and MP deplete so fast and are so tedious to restore you start to wonder why bother.

And despite being a game with multiple levels of inventory you can still only carry one sub-weapon at a time. Want to switch from your knife to an axe? Better backtrack across half the castle! ARRGH.

Add awkward jumping and your guard being an invincibility button and you have a lot of problems. And yet it's still kinda fun tearing apart legions of mooks, and a lot of the special attacks you can unlock are freaking sweet. Plus the character and environment design are on point hell yeah.

I think I'll actually finish it this time though. October's coming, let's do this.

Wonder if Curse of Darkness is better.