|
That was really my biggest problem with lords of shadow: There's almost never a reason to be in the air, and if you are the slightest touch will slap you down. It makes a decent fraction of the moves you can use pointless and breaks up the flow of combat.
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 18:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 23:05 |
|
|
Endorph posted:Super Castlevania IV being great does not prevent the original game from being good. Exactly what I was getting at. You don't see film buffs talking about how Casablanca is a lovely movie because the graphics suck and everyone talks funny, but for some reason a lot of gamers have that attitude when it comes to older games.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 18:19
|
|
|
Portrait of Ruin was my favorite and I appreciate the thread title. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 18:22
|
|
|
Richter Mode is cool. For the first time I'm having to learn how some of these enemies actually fight instead of blazing through them effortlessly. The lack of any way to restore your HP outside save rooms or life max ups is not cool. The fact that it boots you to the loving title screen every time you die is why I'm taking a break from Richter Mode. SOTN is weird in that it isn't mechanically a good action game, even though I love it, and the flaws stand a lot more when it's difficult. The enemies aren't strictly pattern-based like in the NES ones, they have a variety of attacks and poo poo like in a modern action game, but their tells and startup animations are often too short to actually react to. So you either sit and wait for them to do their moves and then clean up afterwards, or you kill them from outside their aggro range with items because gently caress it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 21:03
|
|
|
I wish Richter mode was more than just a fun bonus mode, and was actually a full Castlevania game that used an open-world castle. The difference is that all the enemies and bosses are still balanced for Alucard's abilities and level, so once you get to the second castle then Richter can take very few hits before dying. The older games had checkpoints and wall-turkey, but here you need to use save points.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2013 23:52
|
|
|
I like the bonus modes, even the kinda lame ones but I think Richter Mode and Albus Mode could support a modern game on their own.Endorph posted:Super Castlevania IV being great does not prevent the original game from being good. No, but the awful, awful controls do. Cuntellectual fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Oct 18, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2013 03:01
|
|
|
Anatharon posted:I like the bonus modes, even the kinda lame ones but I think Richter Mode and Albus Mode could support a modern game on their own. Circle of the Moon's stat rebalance extra games were actually pretty fun. I still have to beat Thief mode.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2013 06:20
|
|
|
Edit: I finally got to level 255 in OoE with Shanoa after a few years.  Discount Viscount posted:Circle of the Moon's stat rebalance extra games were actually pretty fun. I still have to beat Thief mode. I don't think I ever unlocked them, or if they're there from the start, never noticed. What else is there, and what'd they do? Alter your starting stats? Cuntellectual fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Oct 19, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2013 23:51
|
|
|
Haha the way Richter not only can but must fly through the air by performing repeated uppercuts is great.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 03:59
|
|
|
I remember when I first played the game I had no idea he could do that. Got to the broken bridge up to Dracula's lair and just kind of assumed that was the end, thanks for playing.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 04:15
|
|
|
Anatharon posted:No, but the awful, awful controls do. Castlevania has very responsive controls and the levels and challenges are designed around the way that the player's character can move and attack.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 04:23
|
|
|
Richter mode on SotN is laughably easy. Just get the holy water and 99 hearts. It can be tricky beating a path to shaft's ghost (you don't fight dracula), but he's cake. A few item crashes and the game is over. Galamoth is near impossible, though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 04:24
|
|
|
Full Battle Rattle posted:Richter mode on SotN is laughably easy. Just get the holy water and 99 hearts. It can be tricky beating a path to shaft's ghost (you don't fight dracula), but he's cake. A few item crashes and the game is over. Galamoth is near impossible, though. Just Knife Crash him in the back of the head a few times, it takes about 20 seconds. Pneub fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Oct 19, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 06:18
|
|
|
Anatharon posted:I don't think I ever unlocked them, or if they're there from the start, never noticed. What else is there, and what'd they do? Alter your starting stats? They altered your starting stats and stats gained on level ups. Each mode also had gimmicks to them. Magician gave you all the DSS cards from the start and gave you more INT and MP. Fighter vastly increased your STR and HP but removed access to the DSS cards. Shooter powered up your subweapons and gave you more hearts to use them. Thief changed your starting luck to 1000 and you gain 100 per level up, but all your other stats suffered. The extra modes were pretty fun and changed up how you played the game meaningfully.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 08:54
|
|
|
Shooter also has an exclusive subweapon, a homing dagger. You get it if you pick up 2 daggers in a row. The silly part about the extra modes is that they still use the stats the same way as the main game: since all damaging DSS runs off STR, Magician mode essentially allows you to cast spells all day but they'll be a lot weaker than they would be normally. As far as the rest of it is concerned, lighting issues aside, it's a pretty decent game and has some amusingly obscure secrets like the Bear Ring and secret item crash, although it does suffer from bullshit difficulty as times, mostly by spreading the subweapons all over the place and basically requiring you to have a specific one to have any real chance of beating some of the bosses, having all healing items come from enemy drops and not giving you the end-of-level orb thing that heals you most CVs have when you beat a boss and placing a savepoint way too far from them. AnotherGamer fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Oct 19, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 13:45
|
|
|
Adam Bowen posted:Exactly what I was getting at. You don't see film buffs talking about how Casablanca is a lovely movie because the graphics suck and everyone talks funny, but for some reason a lot of gamers have that attitude when it comes to older games. Video games are not movies. I would argue that movies are much more timeless than games due to being more evolved and non interactive.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 16:08
|
|
|
AnotherGamer posted:mostly by spreading the subweapons all over the place and basically requiring you to have a specific one to have any real chance of beating some of the bosses, That specific subweapon always being the cross, of course. I swear, as far as I'm concerned every other weapon is just a trap to make you drop the cross and have to go back to the entrance hall to get another one. blackguy32 posted:Video games are not movies. I would argue that movies are much more timeless than games due to being more evolved and non interactive. Did you come up with that on your own, or did you copy it from some kind of argument-starting template?
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 17:43
|
|
|
Full Battle Rattle posted:Richter mode on SotN is laughably easy. Just get the holy water and 99 hearts. It can be tricky beating a path to shaft's ghost (you don't fight dracula), but he's cake. A few item crashes and the game is over. Galamoth is near impossible, though. Well yeah you can have 99 hearts and press the Kill Everything button but at that point why not just watch it on youtube? The problem is that sometimes that seems like the only option, given that you don't have Alucard's movement options and invincibility in fog mode. But then again it's a bonus mode in a game that's already packed with tons of content so whatever, they couldn't fine-tune everything, it's cool that it's in there at all.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 21:10
|
|
|
swamp waste posted:Well yeah you can have 99 hearts and press the Kill Everything button but at that point why not just watch it on youtube? The problem is that sometimes that seems like the only option, given that you don't have Alucard's movement options and invincibility in fog mode. Personally, I was bored and on break at work so I tried it. I couldn't, however, figure out what the trick was for beating shaft with maria. It just seemed like she could't win the DPS race.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 21:43
|
|
|
Bonaventure posted:Castlevania has very responsive controls and the levels and challenges are designed around the way that the player's character can move and attack. To each their own I guess. I didn't play Castlevania when I was little, so I don't have the same level of nostalgiac attachment to it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 22:18
|
|
|
Anatharon posted:To each their own I guess. I didn't play Castlevania when I was little, so I don't have the same level of nostalgiac attachment to it. "This is why Castlevania is a good game" "Oh well I guess I don't have the blind simpering child attachment to it"
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 22:19
|
|
|
Mr. Maltose posted:"This is why Castlevania is a good game" "I keep dying playing this game so it must be an indication of the quality of the game rather than my lack of skill."
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2013 22:20
|
|
|
It "feels" unfair though cause Simon is really limited in his abilities and mobility compared to other player characters in 2D action games. I mean yes the game is balanced around that, but it's also loving hard, so when you suffer your two dozenth consecutive death to reaper sickles and it would be no problem if you could control your jump arc a little instead of doing the same logy-rear end half circle every time it's hard not to feel like the controls are a handicap.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 00:12
|
|
|
I think of it like Super Mario Brothers. Sure, the first games were pretty good. Now compare them to the third game in each series. No contest, right? Controls are no small part of that, actually, in both cases.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 00:27
|
|
|
Psion posted:I think of it like Super Mario Brothers. Sure, the first games were pretty good. Now compare them to the third game in each series. No contest, right? But no one is arguing that Castlevania was the best, just that it isn't a bad game that people only like for nostalgic reasons.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 00:32
|
|
|
Super Rad posted:But no one is arguing that Castlevania was the best, just that it isn't a bad game that people only like for nostalgic reasons. Its pretty terrible by today's standards and doesn't hold up nearly as well as other games from that era.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 00:56
|
|
|
Psion posted:Controls are no small part of that, actually, in both cases. You don't have air control in early Castlevanias, that doesn't make the controls bad. If anything, it's what makes them distinctive and cool.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 00:59
|
|
|
Never got to play it as a kid, only watched my brother play some Castlevania III, saw a guy turn into a bat and conan use a whip, and I kinda forgot about it. Fast forward several years later and SOTN's prologue triggered that "Holy poo poo, I've seen that before, a dude using a flail, holy gently caress" and I've been gay for castlevania since. I didn't care about Alucard, I played the gently caress out of Richter mode and had tons of fun. Who do you have to kill to get Rebirth on the loving Xbox? I want both Castlevania and Contra Rebirth!
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 01:20
|
|
|
There was a day, long ago, when I made what may have been the best win-win game trade I ever experienced: Me: Sent 49 Duo Taps (TurboDuo 5-player adapter), which the guy ended up selling for $10 apiece (I got them in bulk for a pittance) Him: Sent PC-Engine Rondo of Blood (which went for an asking price around $200 back then) This was before CD-ROM images became easily available on the net, so it was my best way to get what was reputed to be the best Castlevania game ever. IMHO it still is, and it's on my desk about five feet away from me right now.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 02:41
|
|
|
Super Rad posted:But no one is arguing that Castlevania was the best, just that it isn't a bad game that people only like for nostalgic reasons. Super Mario Bros isn't too bad, Zelda is alright, and Castlevania 3 is fantastic. Castlevania 1 just doesn't stand up as a good game. It's a similar (but not as extreme) situation to I wanna be the guy. The game is technically proficient I guess, but it's not really fun because it doesn't really feel like you're winning because you're good so much as you're winning because you know Medusa Heads are going to start coming on the next screen. There are ball bustingly hard parts of Ecclesia and Castlevania 4 I beat on the first try because they were intuitive enough that I could just work off of my own ability. It was much less common in CAstlevania. Mr. Maltose posted:"This is why Castlevania is a good game" Now you've got it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 02:49
|
|
|
Psion posted:Controls are no small part of that, actually, in both cases. Trevor in Castlevania III controls the same as Simon in Castlevania I. Sure there are other characters with different controls, but Castlevania III is also a lot harder on its later stages. Castlevania I is only six levels and is pretty simple until level 6, with the giant bats and fleamen everywhere. Castlevania III scales its difficulty much better since it's a longer game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 04:37
|
|
|
blackguy32 posted:Its pretty terrible by today's standards and doesn't hold up nearly as well as other games from that era. By today's standards any game where you can actually fail is the worst game ever and will have its Metacritic page spammed with zero-star reviews, so you're technically correct. I think the only reason that Castlevania doesn't hold up as well is because Castlevania 3 is so much better. Similarly the original Super Mario Bros. is still a great game, but it's completely overshadowed by SMB 3, which was a better game in almost every respect. The reason I used Casablanca as a film example is because by today's film standards it would be considered a terrible movie. It's black and white, there's no 3D, and the main character doesn't even get the girl or save the world from Hitler, what kind of lovely ending is that?
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 18:29
|
|
|
Adam Bowen posted:By today's standards any game where you can actually fail is the worst game ever and will have its Metacritic page spammed with zero-star reviews, so you're technically correct. I think the only reason that Castlevania doesn't hold up as well is because Castlevania 3 is so much better. Similarly the original Super Mario Bros. is still a great game, but it's completely overshadowed by SMB 3, which was a better game in almost every respect. edit: Nevermind. I have no idea what you're trying to get at or who you think you're arguing with because I don't think it's anyone in this thread.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 22:23
|
|
|
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that judging an old movie, game, book, etc. by modern standards is stupid. Today's tastes are not superior to yesterday's, they're simply different and tomorrow's will be different as well. I was arguing with the poster I quoted and indirectly with you as well, I suppose.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2013 23:15
|
|
|
Adam Bowen posted:I guess what I'm trying to get at is that judging an old movie, game, book, etc. by modern standards is stupid. Today's tastes are not superior to yesterday's, they're simply different and tomorrow's will be different as well. I was arguing with the poster I quoted and indirectly with you as well, I suppose. I'm still not sure what you're saying. Old things cannot be bad? I'll give that maybe,at the time, Castlevania was a pretty good game. Good enough at least that it could be succeeded by some of my favorite games of all time. In my tastes as a person who grew up in the 2000s, though, it's not a good NES era game. I first played Deus Ex in 2012 and I thought it was fantastic. In 2011, I played CV 1, thought it was skippable, and then played CV3 and thought it was fun, but I didn't play as Trevor a whole lot in that anyways.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 01:52
|
|
|
I'd venture that as far as things like atmosphere, music etc, Castlevania was pretty much ahead of most everything of its time. The controls...eh, it was better than Ghosts n Goblins.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 01:55
|
|
|
DeathChicken posted:I'd venture that as far as things like atmosphere, music etc, Castlevania was pretty much ahead of most everything of its time. The controls...eh, it was better than Ghosts n Goblins. The music and atmosphere is something I'll never forget. It helped form a lot of my interests as a child. Personally if a game is amazing to me then it is what it is. It doesn't matter how it fits into history or other people's views. Castlevania is classic.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 01:59
|
|
|
I tried Lord of Shadows again because of this thread. I don't think it's a great game but it's an alright one, 6/10 sort of material. I might be nicer to it if there was gurantee that the portable systems would get more Metroidvanias as they've basically gotten better every time a new one was made. DeathChicken posted:I'd venture that as far as things like atmosphere, music etc, Castlevania was pretty much ahead of most everything of its time. The controls...eh, it was better than Ghosts n Goblins. I'm not saying there's nothing good about it, just that I don't think it stands up.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 02:48
|
|
|
Adam Bowen posted:I guess what I'm trying to get at is that judging an old movie, game, book, etc. by modern standards is stupid. Today's tastes are not superior to yesterday's, they're simply different and tomorrow's will be different as well. I was arguing with the poster I quoted and indirectly with you as well, I suppose. There are good films that are in black and white and not in 3d and are pretty modern. Even still The Godfather came out in 1972 and it is still an excellent film. I wasn't around in 1972 and didn't see the film until about 2005 and I still thought it was excellent. I find Castlevania to be a lot like Metroid. The first games were good at the time, but they are horribly dated now. It feels like a chore to play and I can find quite a few games from that era that do not feel like a chore to play.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 06:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 23:05 |
|
|
It kind of just sounds like you guys aren't that great at Castlevania. It's not really that hard of a game honestly. The first few levels of the game teach you and get you used to the unconventional jumping and whatever and then it tests you on your mastery. Memorization would probably get you nowhere in CV1 (except for that lame insta-death spike hammer thing). It's really all about being careful and patient and lookin at stuff. I think sequelitis was already posted but its a good compare and contrast that better points out how Castlevania is a legitimately well designed game. I guess whether or not you have //fun// with it is a different story, but I don't really think it's dated.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2013 09:04
|
|
