Castlevania Series

[TimeToPerish]

Hmm, i wanted to know your opinion about these series, i like the whole vampirish style of it, but i dunno, i have 3 castlevania's for my ds and i got surprised that it is not as i thought, it has some shitty bright colours and some not-funny-while-trying-to-be-funny jokes and pics.
i seriously got disapointed.

[Ultimecia]

Play the NES ones kid. They seriously rock (but be ready to hate the Belmont's jumping skills)

[Rosencrantz]

Castlevania 1 was really goddamn hard and it annoys me that I can't beat Dracula's stage

don't have CV2, but I intend on playing it sometime

CV3 is a must for me to play

loved all the GBA and DS games (although Order of Ecclesia could have had a bit more done to it for it to be an amazing game, ie. more weapon combo crashes, more endings, etc.)

loved SotN and Dracula X Chronicles

and Curse of Darkness was a pretty good game, but I just never found time to play it :<

[Helmo]

I have C64 and it sucks. SCIV is mediocre, my brother is getting RoB which looks amazing, and I want to get SotN.

[Ultimecia]

Symphony of the Night (PS1, Saturn) is the best IMO, followed by CV3 (NES). The GBA and DS titles are very good too, the only not so great was Harmony of Dissonance. But all NES games are pretty good. The DS one lost some of the "touch" the old games had, becoming more "anime-like" and "kids-friendly" (in visual identity terms)

The N64 and the PS2 games are horrible, only Legacy of Darkness (N64) is so-so.

[Gold]

I never got into the series, didn't enjoy any of the games I tried, but Simon Belmont was my favourite Captain N character.

[Rosencrantz]

hey

I personally think that Harmony of Dissonance built up an atmosphere that the other games lacked

combining the simplified art-style based on SotN with a soundtrack that sounded older-gen (even NES-generation), along with the fact that you're mostly alone in that game, just gave it a nice, eerie kick to it and I enjoyed playing it

plus it was the double pack sooooooooo

[Helmo]

Rondo of Blood looks so worth the price, the music is excellent, and it looks a lot funner than the other games I played.

[Ultimecia]

Harmony of Dissonance did built a good atmosphere, but it was much more a SotN rip-off than a title of it's own right. If you change the names of Juste for Alucard, Maxim for Ritcher and the girl for Maria you get almost the same script as SotN, except that Maria wasn't kidnapped. I don't know, I got a bad impression of this game. The sprites could have been better too, even Circle of the Moon got better sprites IMO.

[PrettyNier]

Love the series.
My favorites are:
Symphony of the Night
Harmony of Dissonance
Order of Ecclesia
Super Castlevania IV
Aria of Sorrow
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Castlevania
Dawn of Sorrow/Portrait of Ruin
Curse of Darkness/Lament of Innocence
Castlevania: Bloodlines
Circle of the Moon

combining the simplified art-style based on SotN with a soundtrack that sounded older-gen (even NES-generation), along with the fact that you're mostly alone in that game, just gave it a nice, eerie kick to it and I enjoyed playing it

I agree, HoD had an amazing atmosphere.

but it was much more a SotN rip-off than a title of it's own right.

Hardly. What little similarities exist between HoD and Sotn are minor at best. Juste is nothing like Alucard, Maxim is nothing like Richter and Maria and Lydie are blonde.

Water hurts you. You sell jewels and can't sell items. progressive experience system. unrefined menu style. save points. central cave final boss. That's... pretty much it.

It's mostly called a SOTN rip-off due to the fact that it came out after Circle and brought back Kojima and the elegant style of sotn.

circle has horrible sprites.

[GrooveMan.exe]

I only own Dawn of Sorrow, but iu loved it so fucking much. I never really got into Portrait or Ecclesia, though.

[Ultimecia]

Like I said, it was one impression, maybe re-playing it after all those years I might get another. I enjoy re-playing some of the games I didn't like to see if I change my opinion. It usually don't changes, through, but playing a game I don't like can give me one more insight

Juste and Alucard's personalities are totally different, I agree, their styles are also very different. But it obvious that Maxim was being controlled by Dracula's wraith, as Ritcher was being controlled by Shaft. And like I said, Maria and Lydie's roles are different (VERY different, and I'm not being sarcastic) but both drives the protagonists onwards in a way or another. Two castles. Rings. The endings are almost essentially the same. The story progresses in similar ways but with different characters with different personalities.
Yeah, Kojima got the beautiful art of SotN back, and I wish the DS games got the same art too but we can't have everything :/
Circle of the Moon's sprites aren't the best ever, in fact I agree with you they are horrible, but they got a good definition (specially for a game back at that time), while HoD got dubious color choices and questionable overall design (not they are bad, but it could have been better, specially being inspirited by Kojima's beautiful style. Sure, GBA got it's limitations and it's palette isn't quite the most adequate but it was too..."Colorful".
If you ask me, the best GBA title is Aria, without any doubt. HoD is good, but not as good as the other two titles, in my opinion.

[PrettyNier]

But it obvious that Maxim was being controlled by Dracula's wraith, as Ritcher was being controlled by Shaft.

Maxim's personality split as a result of the taint of Dracula's power, which fed his jealousy towards Juste. The "Dracula wraith" evolved out of the evil Maxim, represented in Castle B - whereas normal Maxim was in Castle A.

Two castles.

The similarity is that there is a different Castle - everything beyond that however is entirely different; it's execution, style, reasoning, etc.

Sure, GBA got it's limitations and it's palette isn't quite the most adequate but it was too..."Colorful".

That was completely intentional, because the GBA SP hadn't been released so there was no backlight. People constantly complained about how Circle's graphics were too dark, so they remedied it - and for the time being, it was a godsend. As of right now, the visual helps to accentuate it's intended dissonance.

[Ultimecia]

Yeah, I remember the split personality. But I don't recall if they explain if as existing, created or just feed by Dracula's power. Did they? It have been 4 or 5 years since I've last played it (I'll put it on my list to play after Persona 2 anyway).

Yup, both Castle's execution and motive are different. I recall back then I thought that it was a similar plot device (even unrelated) to Silent Hill: some elements were directly drawn from a character's mental state (insanity, 'evil possession', whatever, all related to some sort of unbalance of a psyche) than something from the castle itself. But as startled in SotN the Castle is a living creature and can take many forms, I guessed it was merely reacting to Maxim. Not sure if I'm right. And it was really a plot device, while SotN I must admit it was a good idea, but at same time poorly implemented (maybe due to technical reasons) and in a sense didn't really made any sense. HoD got something that DID make sense, and I enjoyed it back then and I still think it was a great idea.

About the colors, now I know that there wasn't GBA SP at the time makes more sense to me. I first played it on PC and then played it again on a GBA SP. I'm not sure about the dissonance part, but I haven't thought of this and it can really be used to explain some of the graphics. Thx

[PrettyNier]

Yeah, no problem. Give the game a shot again sometime (if you play it on the computer, fullscreen it and lower the brightness a little), you might like it a bit more this time around.