11-07-2009, 01:59 AM
What makes the Castlevania series lots of fun, and at the same time harder to describe, is the fact that all the various games cover a lot of bases. The original NES title offers NES-hard, controller breaking challenge. I remember being soooo damn proud of myself for getting to Death's room, only to die in two hits on my last life. xD This style is pretty much limited to the NES games, particularly 1 and 3.
Then you have your titles that follow in Symphony of the Night's footsteps, with lots of exploration, collectables, monsters and bosses. SotN will always be my favorite just because of the intial impression it left on me, but Dawn of Sorrow is another good one I played. I never played Aria, surprisingly. Those two games offer a lot of fun abilities through Soma's Soul abilties, and eventually it just gets fun to play around with different Souls to just see what fun stuff you can do. Portrait and Eclesia, regrettably, I have yet to touch.
Then there also exist the 3D Castlevanias... the N64 versions are pretty much considered to be black sheep. If you were to play one, I might go with Legacy of Darkness, which is essentially the first N64 one with more content, including 2 new characters (although one is more of a minigame from what I understand.. never played that part). I remember the last boss of the N64 one to be haaaaaaaard! It was also one of the more ridiculous transformations of Dracula I'd ever seen.
Some of the newer 3D ones aren't THAT bad, to be honest. They are enough to retain my attention, but then again I'm the kind of guy whose attention can be retained by Dynasty Warriors titles, one of the most notoriously repetative game series ever. xD Lament of Innocence is okay, I never actually owned that one, but it was fun. You can unlock a really cool extra character in it, as well as a kickass, gigantic secret boss fight. As much as I respect the character who ends up being the final boss, though, I think he could have been cooler.
One of the other 3D titles that doesn't seem to be as well-known is Curse of Darkness (I think that's what it's called). I don't really like the storyline that much... It introduces these two characters who were apparently servants of Dracula, and apparently are his best kind of servants, despite their profession NEVER being mentioned in any game before it, or any game after. Still, there are some fun things you can do with your demon minions that you more or less cultivate... There's some busy work involved to get good weapons, involving stealing from enemies, which can be a fun challenge for completionists. The game has a very Dynasty Warriors-like combo tree, in the sense that you have light attacks, and depending on which light attack you use your heavy attack on, you do a different heavy finisher.
This is even the only reason I mentioned this game, the weapons and the attacks you can do with them. You can get the samurai sword Muramasa (the strongest combo ending with him repeatedly slashing his sword and making lightning rain down around him.. the sword is HUGE by the way), Death's Scythe (the strongest combo making mini scythes, just like Death would want!), and even a gatling gun, as anachronistic as it is.. the guy is a forge master though. You are pretty much forced to steal items to forge your weapons, though, and if you miss a boss' steal opprotunity, and they have something valuable, you won't be able to get it until Boss Rush mode is unlocked. But yeah, the game has a boss rush, unlockable character modes, including Trevor Belmont!.. who kinda has a dark-haired David Bowie look to him, if I remember correctly (which I probably don't).
Anyway, I've rambled on long enough... Hopefully their upcoming Castlevania 3D title will blow me out of the water. Otherwise, they do well enough with their handheld 2D titles. Delve into some of those.
Then you have your titles that follow in Symphony of the Night's footsteps, with lots of exploration, collectables, monsters and bosses. SotN will always be my favorite just because of the intial impression it left on me, but Dawn of Sorrow is another good one I played. I never played Aria, surprisingly. Those two games offer a lot of fun abilities through Soma's Soul abilties, and eventually it just gets fun to play around with different Souls to just see what fun stuff you can do. Portrait and Eclesia, regrettably, I have yet to touch.
Then there also exist the 3D Castlevanias... the N64 versions are pretty much considered to be black sheep. If you were to play one, I might go with Legacy of Darkness, which is essentially the first N64 one with more content, including 2 new characters (although one is more of a minigame from what I understand.. never played that part). I remember the last boss of the N64 one to be haaaaaaaard! It was also one of the more ridiculous transformations of Dracula I'd ever seen.
Some of the newer 3D ones aren't THAT bad, to be honest. They are enough to retain my attention, but then again I'm the kind of guy whose attention can be retained by Dynasty Warriors titles, one of the most notoriously repetative game series ever. xD Lament of Innocence is okay, I never actually owned that one, but it was fun. You can unlock a really cool extra character in it, as well as a kickass, gigantic secret boss fight. As much as I respect the character who ends up being the final boss, though, I think he could have been cooler.
One of the other 3D titles that doesn't seem to be as well-known is Curse of Darkness (I think that's what it's called). I don't really like the storyline that much... It introduces these two characters who were apparently servants of Dracula, and apparently are his best kind of servants, despite their profession NEVER being mentioned in any game before it, or any game after. Still, there are some fun things you can do with your demon minions that you more or less cultivate... There's some busy work involved to get good weapons, involving stealing from enemies, which can be a fun challenge for completionists. The game has a very Dynasty Warriors-like combo tree, in the sense that you have light attacks, and depending on which light attack you use your heavy attack on, you do a different heavy finisher.
This is even the only reason I mentioned this game, the weapons and the attacks you can do with them. You can get the samurai sword Muramasa (the strongest combo ending with him repeatedly slashing his sword and making lightning rain down around him.. the sword is HUGE by the way), Death's Scythe (the strongest combo making mini scythes, just like Death would want!), and even a gatling gun, as anachronistic as it is.. the guy is a forge master though. You are pretty much forced to steal items to forge your weapons, though, and if you miss a boss' steal opprotunity, and they have something valuable, you won't be able to get it until Boss Rush mode is unlocked. But yeah, the game has a boss rush, unlockable character modes, including Trevor Belmont!.. who kinda has a dark-haired David Bowie look to him, if I remember correctly (which I probably don't).
Anyway, I've rambled on long enough... Hopefully their upcoming Castlevania 3D title will blow me out of the water. Otherwise, they do well enough with their handheld 2D titles. Delve into some of those.