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Gametrailers' "The Castlevania Retrospective"

Foffy

Banned
viciouskillersquirrel said:
Will they do a timeline episode like they did with Zelda? A Castlevania one would be entertaining (and confusing as all hell).

I doubt the confusing bit if they just leave it to IGA's timeline, but some games in the series would be pretty confusing to explain if all of them exist in one solid universe.

I guess I'd like to see Gametrailers try. I know some fans have as is.
 

luka

Loves Robotech S1
Anth0ny said:
I love these retrospectives.

Although I'm embarrassed to say I've never played through a Castlevania game. I want to play the first one on NES as soon as possible.

If you only play one version of the original, play CV4 or X68000/Chronicles. If you want to play one of the NES games, CV3 is by far the best. If you can, try the Japanese version of 3, it's got a special synth chip that makes the music sound phenomenal and wasn't in the American cart.

Aside from that, make sure you play RoB and SotN at some point.
 

Foffy

Banned
luka said:
If you can, try the Japanese version of 3, it's got a special synth chip that makes the music sound phenomenal and wasn't in the American cart.

It's also actually balanced when it comes to difficulty, unlike the American version.
 

Frillen

Member
DMeisterJ said:
I love GT retrospectives... Will watch (even though I've hardly played the series).

Well there hasn't been a lot of Castlevania releases on Sony's systems really.
 
Aw, such a short fragment for Super Castlevania IV.

I really sucked at this game, but I loved it none the less because of the awesome music, scenes and atmosphere.
 
Second video reminds me why I think CV4 is my favorite. Why that's the only game to get the atmosphere right while still being cheesey and the series went anime is beyond me. Why is CV4 the only game to implement the whip the way that it does? It was obviously superior.

Do like me some SOTN though.
 
Weird retrospective that rubbed me the wrong way and reminded me how this series went off the tracks. CV4 gets a whole 3 minutes? The slobbering over SotN's "revitalizing" of the series was annoying (though I love the game, I don't love what it did to the series), and the bizarre implication that those awful PS2 Castlevanias set the 3D series straight... the N64 game was the one with the right ideas, just needed better execution.
 
I love how they blurt out all those Japanese game designer names from the 1980s that no one knows, and how they're acting like they have carefully researched it and know all these people when they really just read up on it at Wikipedia. :lol
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Will watch only for SotN!
 
revolverjgw said:
Weird retrospective that rubbed me the wrong way and reminded me how this series went off the tracks. CV4 gets a whole 3 minutes? The slobbering over SotN's "revitalizing" of the series was annoying (though I love the game, I don't love what it did to the series), and the bizarre implication that those awful PS2 Castlevanias set the 3D series straight... the N64 game was the one with the right ideas, just needed better execution.
I think the thing about Lament was referring to how Lament is supposed to be an origin story for the franchise. "Setting the story straight from the beginning".

SCIV is such a mixed bag for me. It was my first SNES game (as is my pattern with CV games) and I really loved it a lot when I played it back then. I remember missing the extra characters from Dracula's Curse, but aside from that, being floored by the graphics, music, and well, everything. When I play it these days, I find the SNES graphics gimmickry that permeates the game to be distracting and that 8-way whip really makes the game too damned easy. Still awesome, but as Actionvanias go, it's definitely on the lower half of my list.
 

drizzle

Axel Hertz
Whoever says Castlevania IV was the best original Castlevania game either didn't play Rondo of Blood or says it 100% out of nostalgia.

Clunky graphics and 8 way whip, which just made the game too easy.
 

oracrest

Member
I hope they cover the handheld versions as well. Theres the whole line of Castlevanias for gameboy that seems to have gotten glossed over?
 

dwebo

Member
They should've done these in the weeks leading up to LoS, not after it comes out. I would've actually understood some of the history before playing it!
 

Glix

Member
The original is my fav of the actionvanias.

SOTN is just an all time classic.

These videos are great.
 
Super Castlevania and Rondo are my favorites as far as Actionvanias go. I will say that SCIV gets the cake as being better though. The grfx, 8 way whip, levels, bosses and a long with the best controlling game in the series makes it a no brainer that it is the best playing CV out of the Actionvanias. And before anyone says that the 8 way whipping made the game too easy, the game was designed around it and did not break the game one bit. When I was a little kid in 2nd grade this game was hard as fuck and took me a year to beat.

My only complaint with SCIV is the lame Dracula boss. THAT was too simple and no kick ass transformation like in Rondo was a let down.
 

Dascu

Member
Host Samurai said:
Super Castlevania and Rondo are my favorites as far as Actionvanias go. I will say that SCIV gets the cake as being better though. The grfx, 8 way whip, levels, bosses and a long with the best controlling game in the series makes it a no brainer that it is the best playing CV out of the Actionvanias. And before anyone says that the 8 way whipping made the game too easy, the game was designed around it and did not break the game one bit. When I was a little kid in 2nd grade this game was hard as fuck and took me a year to beat.

My only complaint with SCIV is the lame Dracula boss. THAT was too simple and no kick ass transformation like in Rondo was a let down
.
But the music! I fell in love with that track.
 
How's the 3D remake PSP version of Rondo? This vid got me interested in Rondo and since I enjoy both the early action and the later SoTN and DS Castlevanias I'm pretty sure that I like it. But with both a PSP and a Wii I'm not sure if I should get Dracula X Chronicles or the VC version of Rondo.
 

Princess Skittles

Prince's's 'Skittle's
TheFightingFish said:
How's the 3D remake PSP version of Rondo? This vid got me interested in Rondo and since I enjoy both the early action and the later SoTN and DS Castlevanias I'm pretty sure that I like it. But with both a PSP and a Wii I'm not sure if I should get Dracula X Chronicles or the VS version of Rondo.
It's very awesome and it includes the OG (translated, unlike the VC version) and SotN.. quite an amazing package.

Though supporting imports on VC sends a good message too.
 
I wonder why they're doing this retrospective now? It would've made more sense to do it back in late December, which was the last time a new Castlevania game was released.
 

Salsa

Member
_dementia said:
It's the only game I can think of in my collection that I must play through at least once a year.

I think its the one game i played the most times too. Besides maybe SMB3.
 
dwebo said:
They should've done these in the weeks leading up to LoS, not after it comes out. I would've actually understood some of the history before playing it!

I think it was said in an interview that leading up to LOS was exactly the plan but the release date got bumped up or something.

So now they're just basically leading up to Halloween.
 
_dementia said:
So basically, the best ones.
Awesome.

Well, at least Rondo and Symphony are way up there.

Mr. B Natural said:
Second video reminds me why I think CV4 is my favorite. Why that's the only game to get the atmosphere right while still being cheesey and the series went anime is beyond me. Why is CV4 the only game to implement the whip the way that it does? It was obviously superior.

Do like me some SOTN though.

The whip is a game breaker as far as old-school CV goes, and was apparently implemented as more of an afterthought, as few enemies were designed to remain a threat around it. I also thought the atmosphere wasn't that much superior to other games, though it had its moments.


Host Samurai said:
Super Castlevania and Rondo are my favorites as far as Actionvanias go. I will say that SCIV gets the cake as being better though. The grfx, 8 way whip, levels, bosses and a long with the best controlling game in the series makes it a no brainer that it is the best playing CV out of the Actionvanias. And before anyone says that the 8 way whipping made the game too easy, the game was designed around it and did not break the game one bit. When I was a little kid in 2nd grade this game was hard as fuck and took me a year to beat.

That's a lie. Very few enemies were designed with the whip in mind. You could surprise attack most of them with the whip, reducing them moving targets that are there to momentarily impede your progress and nothing more. And your character still moves no faster than in other actionvanias. At least with the other games, the threat level of the enemies single-handedly justified your character's slow pace, since it was generally a slow, inertial and tactical advance through the premises. And as far as Rondo goes, it brought back the branched paths of Dracula's Curse and also had Maria. More importantly though, it was arguably the most balanced and yet most encouraging of tactics against enemies.

My only complaint with SCIV is the lame Dracula boss. THAT was too simple and no kick ass transformation like in Rondo was a let down.

Very anticlimactic, in spite of Simon's Theme playing in the background.
 

Kard8p3

Member
cartman414 said:
Part 3 has the handheld ones, which do vary in quality, but gave us the rather awesome Sorrow games.

Actually part 3 covers the 3D games. Part 4 will cover all the handheld games (including the original gameboy games.)
 
Oh, I see. Haven't watched part 2 yet.

I'm disappointed they didn't mention anything about the Japanese version of CV 3. That's essential stuff right there. Not to mention that the music from that version was used in the GT Top 10 NES games segment that covered it.
 
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