Which Castlevania games do you like?

[Alucard]

I couldn't find a recent Castlevania thread. Any fans of the series here? Which games do you like best? I am more into the old school 2D games like the originals for NES and SNES, and I also like Symphony of the Night and the games that play with that same map style like Circle of the Moon, Aria of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia, etc. I think Lords of Shadow is ok, but I like playing the SOTN style games better, even though I know they stole the mapping idea from Metroid.

[PrettyNier]

oh my god i am the biggest fan here

My favorites are:
1.) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night / Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
2.) Super Castlevania IV
3.) Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

I also think that Castlevania III and Aria of Sorrow are fantastic games. I'm not a big fan of Circle of the Moon or Dawn and Portrait, though.

[Alucard]

oh my god i am the biggest fan here

My favorites are:
1.) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night / Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
2.) Super Castlevania IV
3.) Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

I also think that Castlevania III and Aria of Sorrow are fantastic games. I'm not a big fan of Circle of the Moon or Dawn and Portrait, though.

I also love Harmony of Dissonance. It reminds me of SOTN the most out of all those. Portrait of Ruin is ok, but I did get kinda tired of the whole switching back and forth between characters. As for Circle of the Moon, just wondering what dont you like about that one? I know a lot of people complained about it when it was first released because the colors were dark, and back then the Game Boy Advance was not back lit, but once the back lighted GBA came out it made playing COTM much better. I actually like playing the GBA games better on the Gamecube anyway. COTM was a difficult game, I remember having to level up a lot at the end because Dracula was so hard to beat, also they didnt have any shops in the game, you had to get your potions from beating enemies, but overall I liked the game. I only played it once but am considering playing it again soon.

[Shawn]

i played sotn and por

so i guess those

[DioShiba]

lords of shadows and judgement were a good castlevania games

---

but really out of all the castlevania games:
SotN
Castlevania 3
Super Castlevania 4
Harmony of dissonace

[tsr moderation staff]

the NES ones and aria of sorrow. i haven't played symphony yet

[PrettyNier]

It reminds me of SOTN the most out of all those.

In some ways I can see that, it has a similar menu system and it's save points are nearly identical (it's also the only post-sotn castleroid where water hurts you and you can't sell items to the merchant, rather you have to sell gems) but beyond those few superficial similarities Harmony strikes me as the most unique castlevania game. I can't really compare it to many of the others, not even Symphony; Aria feels more like Symphony than HoD does to me.

I don't really like Circle of the Moon because it strikes me as incredibly uninspired; most of the enemies are just furry variations on enemies from Symphony, the backgrounds are usually very filler and uninteresting compared to the other metroidvanias (either abusing pillars/archs or just having standard brickwork; there are a few exceptions, but they are far and few between (the observatory is really nice looking)), the majority of enemies have the same pattern (two steps, attack, two steps, attack) or variations on that pattern, and the game has a bad habit of repeating it's enemy placement over entire hallways. How many times have you seen the KOBOLD + BEAR combination, with that same little rise in the floor?

I also don't really like the progression of abilities; a lot of the "abilities" are fairly inane (exceptions: walljump, tackle and run), not really accomplishing much in an in-game context aside from opening up a new area. they're keys, basically, and nothing more. As far as the three abilities you get that are legitimately abilities, only one of which is really fun to use (walljumping); the tackle is a good attack and effective in going faster, but it's like the roll in ocarina of time, it's more of an excuse when you don't feel like running or whipping (it also hurts you when you use it as an attack). which is fairly often; the running in the game is overly stiff and obnoxious.

i also wish the game had more original songs, a lot of the remixes are kind of underwhelming

i will give it credit, though; it had the right idea in restricting the amount of healing items you got (giving the game much more of a survivalist approach), and it's sense of scale is fantastic - it's one of the only castles in the series that legitimately feels massive.

[TomGuycott]

My favorites are SotN, Ecclesia, and III, but I like almost all of them in some way.

I also like Curse of Darkness a lot, not especially as a Castlevania game, more as an action game. Although it had the best 3D rendition of Dracula out of any of the 3D games... unless he appears in the new one, I haven't played it yet.

[Sol]

I've only played Symphony of the Night, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia. I really enjoyed them, for the most part. Although I thought the reverse castle in SOTN was kind of stupid. :/

[Kesha]

aria of sorrow, harmony of dissonance, symphony of the night, super castlevania IV
dawn of sorrow isn't terrible but it's not a favorite
played a bit of a few others, idk didnt really care too much for them

[PrettyNier]

unless he appears in the new one, I haven't played it yet.

nope

[Cobalt Blue]

ninja gaiden

[Rosencrantz]

Harmony of Dissonance was by far my favorite in the series

also the double pack (HoD and AoS) is a literal requirement for your GBA library.

[Vipershark]

Castlevania 2, SotN, and all the GBA and DS ones

[GrooveMan.exe]

Aria/Dawn of Sorrow.

The Soul system was amazing - the Glyph system of Ecclesia just didn't feel as good (and Ecclesia's really, really hard. ).