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It's insane that Castlevania: SOTN isn't available on PC

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pkScary

Member
Am I the only one who thinks it's insane that Castlevania: Symphony of the Night isn't available on PC? Sure, you can run it on an emulator pretty easily, but I'm talking about an official Steam release with achievements and trading cards. I feel like Konami is leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table here by not making this classic game available on PC. There is a huge group of people that would be more than willing to spend $10 for a faithful version of it, with just minimal modifications (compatibility with most popular gamepads used on PC, e.g. Xbone controller, PS4, Steam controller).

What's the matter, Konami - do you not like free money?
 
konami is sitting on a nice library of classics and even Husdson soft games. They do not really give a shit, they're doing fine financially last I saw.
 
That's a game that I have spent way too many hours on since I was little. Gone thru it atleast 10 times. Well damn, I may have to go thru it again now.
 
Fox Mulder said:
konami is sitting on a nice library of classics and even Husdson soft games. They do not really give a shit, they're doing fine financially last I saw.
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Sorta like Valve. They could probably get away with never developing another game, as they're already sitting pretty.
 
You can always buy the game and DS4, fire up an emulator and play the game just fine on PC. That is exactly how I did it.
 
I made the mistake of playing this as my first metroidvania game. Every other game in genre has been a disappointment since. :(
 
Fox Mulder said:
konami is sitting on a nice library of classics and even Husdson soft games. They do not really give a shit, they're doing fine financially last I saw.
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I'm lucky to have the black label in pretty mint condition. I've recently ripped my own copy for the 3rd time to play on emulator and upsize the resolution and apply graphics enhancements without any lines or distortion to the pixels.
 
same can be said with a lot of games, and it's Konami so you should know they wouldn't throw us a bone like that
 
Not SotN but here is a PC fan port of Castlevania HD made with Unity from one guy in Japan. It's free and it even has online play.

 
the same could be said for nearly every Castlevania game but SOTN needs to come to PC.
 
Crownjo said:
Not SotN but here is a PC fan port of Castlevania HD made with Unity from one guy in Japan. It's free and it even has online play.

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WHAT?!
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iconmasterX said:
Even more insane: Super Metroid isn't on Nintendo Switch.
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Or any SNES game, really. Outside of one-off stuff like the Seiken Densetsu collection.

Absolutely a missed opportunity.
 
Trying to think of all the platforms it's available on, and can only think of PS1, PSP, and Xbox 360, if my memory is correct. It needs more love! I would love for this game to release remastered or whatever on PS4 and PC, personally!
 
I want Harmony of Despair too. The multiplayer was insane and it would fit perfectly with 4K screens, while you cant see anything in PS3 (the only version with local coop) when players are far from each other.

Fox Mulder said:
konami is sitting on a nice library of classics and even Husdson soft games. They do not really give a shit, they're doing fine financially last I saw.
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HUDSON already developed a PC Engine CD emulator for Playstation Portable and it was pretty damn good back in the day.
 
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The same can be said for a slew of classics. Some stuff would make its way to the Nintendo consoles via things like the Virtual Console, but that's about it. I really wish more companies would do like Sega and put massive classic collections on the PC. The Genesis Collection is decent for making legitimate means for people to get these old games. Sitting on their libraries doing nothing just pushes people towards ROMs and emulation.

The part that bugs me the most is that companies like Capcom, Namco, Konami, and Taito all have released classic compilations in the past. I can't imagine it would be terribly difficult to just port the things to PC and be done with it. I have a bunch of them on my PS2 but would love to see PC versions.
 
Onchi said:
Trying to think of all the platforms it's available on, and can only think of PS1, PSP, and Xbox 360, if my memory is correct. It needs more love! I would love for this game to release remastered or whatever on PS4 and PC, personally!
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It was on PS3 as a ps1 classic.

The 360 version ripped out cutscenes and had lower quality audio because MS had that stupid game size restriction on the 360 early on. But it's BC on xb1 now.
 
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JimboJones said:
When did you emulate it? 10 years ago?
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More like 10 days ago, and a year before that. Even tried a few emulators, background elements move stuttery. You can see in the videos below at 6:25 on real hardware.-



vs. emulator at 6:41.-



It´s nowhere near as smooth.
 
JimboJones said:
Yeah the video encoded at 30fps is gonna be a little more choppy than the 60fps one lol
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I just watched them both at 360p 30fps in the small player, it's kinda hard to tell the differences right away, but the real hardware versions do seem to be slightly smoother. Not that the emulated version is unplayable by any means, it looked fine to me. But it does feel a bit different watching the two versions side by side (or top and bottom in this case).
 
I don't recall a difference with the emulated version and it played on a PS1 years ago. There are multiple emulators each with multiple video plugins. Could just that specific config that had issues.
 
I keep hoping Konami will pull it's head out of its ass and release a compilation with all the 2D metroidvanias (SoTN + GBA + DS games). Kinda like how Capcom released the Megaman and Megaman X collections (except without the greedy splitting of them into two compliations each).
 
Pejo said:
I keep hoping Konami will pull it's head out of its ass and release a compilation with all the 2D metroidvanias (SoTN + GBA + DS games). Kinda like how Capcom released the Megaman and Megaman X collections (except without the greedy splitting of them into two compliations each).
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I keep hoping Konami will pull its head out of its ass in general. They've made so many strange decisions the past few years, I don't even know what to say anymore. I used to love Konami as a publisher. But now.... I dunno man. All I can say is that I hope Konami makes the right choices for the gamers and becomes great again.
 
I would have wanted a 3DS port done by the guys who did all the Sega 3D classics. Pop in/out 3D would have worked well for it.
 
JimboJones said:
Just tried it out in retroarch. Smooth as a babies bottom.
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Other than your testimony, you might be one of those guys that can´t notice stuttering or can´t see 60fps, who knows.

Ps.- That must be the mednafen core right?. Same thing, very noticeable by the first stairs 17:26.-



There is no comparison to real hardware, at 14:48.-

 
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I haven't kept up to date on developments, but I'm not aware of a thoroughly accuracy-focused PS1 emulator on any platform.
 
stranno said:
I want Harmony of Despair too. The multiplayer was insane and it would fit perfectly with 4K screens, while you cant see anything in PS3 (the only version with local coop) when players are far from each other.


HUDSON already developed a PC Engine CD emulator for Playstation Portable and it was pretty damn good back in the day.
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The closest thing to enjoy Harmony of Despair is the PC fan port.
 
I want not just a port of SOTN but re-releases of the DS Castlevanias too, just single screen and with no touch mechanics, which were gimmicky anyway (and I think only in Dawn of Sorrow at all)

But you have to remember, Konami is basically not a video game company anymore, it's a highly secondary thing to them.

TheExorzist said:
I made the mistake of playing this as my first metroidvania game. Every other game in genre has been a disappointment since. :(
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It was the opposite for me, I played SOTN last.

And I'm glad because yeah, it really is the best, I love all the others too though, especially Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow.
 
And by the way... The menu music of this game is one of the most memorable ever. I can't be the only one who heard this and was immediately like "This game is going to be special."
No shit, I still remember just listening to the music for a couple of minutes before I booted the game.



Still getting them goosebumps.
 
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Im no game developer or publisher but a lot of these decisions seem so arbitrary.

How much work would it take to get a NES collection on PC (CV 1-3)? I know that would sell. Same with SOTN. I just cant imagine that it woudl take so much effort. Surely they would make money?
 
I woudl pay legit 25 bucks for a SOTN which was graphically identical to the playstation version (not even HD) and included the missing areas added in the Saturn Version and had all 5 familiars.
 
Trogdor1123 said:
It should be on every platform. Period. It's an amazing game.
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I agree. Konami needs to spread the love far and wide.

Onchi said:
Trying to think of all the platforms it's available on, and can only think of PS1, PSP, and Xbox 360, if my memory is correct. It needs more love! I would love for this game to release remastered or whatever on PS4 and PC, personally!
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Almost every major Sony system aside from PlayStation 4 can play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The original PlayStation CD can be played on PlayStation (of course), PS2, and PS3. The downloadable PS1 game can be played on PS3, PSP, PS Vita, and PSTV. There was also an enhanced version of the game included with Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, which could be played on PSP (as a UMD or downloadable) or PS Vita (downloadable).

They need to find a way to get this game on PS4, as well as on PC and other modern platforms such as Switch and mobile phones/tablets.

Chinbo37 said:
How much work would it take to get a NES collection on PC (CV 1-3)? I know that would sell.
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Konami released a compilation for PC aboout 15 years ago, which contained (if I recall correctly) the first three Castlevania games and the first two Contra games, all emulated from the NES versions.
 
lukilladog said:
Other than your testimony, you might be one of those guys that can´t notice stuttering or can´t see 60fps, who knows.
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Pretty darn smooth if i do say so myself.

I had to use pSX in the end up as retroarch wasn't playing nice with the screen capture and was actually introducing stutters in the video that wasn't present in the actual gameplay.
 
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Agent X said:
.



Konami released a compilation for PC aboout 15 years ago, which contained (if I recall correctly) the first three Castlevania games and the first two Contra games, all emulated from the NES versions.
Click to expand...


Wow I had no idea. So no excuses then, rerelease that shit!
 
JimboJones said:


Pretty darn smooth if i do say so myself.

I had to use pSX in the end up as retroarch wasn't playing nice with the screen capture and was actually introducing stutters in the video that wasn't present in the actual gameplay.
Click to expand...


All right that is smooth, can you give details or upload your configuration?.
 
JimboJones said:


Pretty darn smooth if i do say so myself.

I had to use pSX in the end up as retroarch wasn't playing nice with the screen capture and was actually introducing stutters in the video that wasn't present in the actual gameplay.
Click to expand...

pSX is an underrated emulator. It's my go-to when testing out PS1 games. Not a great playing experience compared to hardware, but simple to use and works well.

Another point about the scrolling is that unless you're using strobing or black frame insertion, even on a CRT PC monitor or OLED it won't scroll as smoothly as it does on a 15khz CRT because of how we perceive motion. Retroarch has a black frame option that people without strobing monitors can use if they're curious to see the difference.
 
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