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Playing the Castlevania Advance collection make me miss Igavania

SantaC

Member
It has been 20 years since CotM, but the GBA castlevanias are as solid as ever. They're pretty much timeless gameplay experiences, and the best part is that the three DS games are even better. Hopefully they get ported also.

IGA needs to come back and finish up the 1999 Castlevania story.
Bloodstained with all due respect isnt as exciting as the original IP.
 
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Saber

Gold Member
Is good that those games are appreciated for what they are, Castlevanias not "metroidvanias".
I for one loved that time. Can't say much about Circle of Moon(I think its a bad Castlevania game), but the rest is pretty damn solid.
When you move to Dawn of Sorrow and Order of Ecclesiva, things scales to another level.
 
Don't we all?

It's especially disheartening that Konami has not even tried a new Castlevania game since Lords of Shadow 2. Sure, without Iga it probably won't turn out good, but at least with Metal Gear they tried. Castlevania's now basically only used in legacy compilations, cameos, and guest appearances in other games.
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
A new 2D Castlevania should have Vanillaware level of visual quality

dragons-crown-pro-review-1526033398.jpg


word, but bigger tiddies for sonia belmont
 

trikster40

Member
I finally picked it up today. Was hoping for it to go on sale for Halloween but couldn’t hold out any longer. Can’t wait to dive back in!
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
The ones that already exist will be good forever. There really isn’t a bad one in the bunch.

Still, after seven servings of the same dish in 11 years, Igavanias had more than scratched the itch. And Bloodstained is but a pale imitation of the real thing.
 

SantaC

Member
The ones that already exist will be good forever. There really isn’t a bad one in the bunch.

Still, after seven servings of the same dish in 11 years, Igavanias had more than scratched the itch. And Bloodstained is but a pale imitation of the real thing.
I was disappointed in bloodstained. Iga promised the biggest castle yet, but it wasnt. Hell i spent more time with circle of the moon right now.
 

clem84

Gold Member
I thought Bloodstained RotN was amazing. I wasn't disappointed. Yeah I really hope Iga will eventually come back, at least for one game, the battle of 1999 one.
 
I was disappointed in bloodstained. Iga promised the biggest castle yet, but it wasnt. Hell i spent more time with circle of the moon right now.
That's because CoTM had bosses that were PiTA grinds to kill with their absurd HP and Defense stats, and the DSS card items - which would be the only real useful tool to make bosses easier - had RNG drop rates that are among the lowest in the entire franchise. Not only that but even the regular enemies frequently took like 10x the amount of damage to die they would in any of the Igavanias, and none of them even did anything much interesting with those HP spikes, they were just the Metroidvania equivalent of bullet-sponges. I mean, CoTM's still alright, but it's easily the biggest slog of the entire bunch. I bet if you nerfed the enemy stats, the castle would feel a heck of a lot smaller.

Also, Castle size is easily one of the more irrelevant gauges of a Metroidvania CV entry's quality, EPSPECIALLY when you remember that the usual method for expanding the size was literal asset flipping.
 

TexMex

Member
I'm with you, but I thought Bloodstained was fucking awesome. I was shocked at how much I loved it actually.
 

Astral Dog

Member
That's because CoTM had bosses that were PiTA grinds to kill with their absurd HP and Defense stats, and the DSS card items - which would be the only real useful tool to make bosses easier - had RNG drop rates that are among the lowest in the entire franchise. Not only that but even the regular enemies frequently took like 10x the amount of damage to die they would in any of the Igavanias, and none of them even did anything much interesting with those HP spikes, they were just the Metroidvania equivalent of bullet-sponges. I mean, CoTM's still alright, but it's easily the biggest slog of the entire bunch. I bet if you nerfed the enemy stats, the castle would feel a heck of a lot smaller.

Also, Castle size is easily one of the more irrelevant gauges of a Metroidvania CV entry's quality, EPSPECIALLY when you remember that the usual method for expanding the size was literal asset flipping.
Its a weird complaint since Bloodstained is quite big and full of content, including free DLC. i thought what lacked was the freshness that Aria of Sorrow had, and that chaotic presentation and lame character/enemy design in Bloodstained

I mean, just compare the zombie blobs in Bloodstained to the zombies in Aria or other Castlevanias, ones are super creepy and amazingly animated, the others are goofy oil blobs with big shiny eyes
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
That's because CoTM had bosses that were PiTA grinds to kill with their absurd HP and Defense stats, and the DSS card items - which would be the only real useful tool to make bosses easier - had RNG drop rates that are among the lowest in the entire franchise. Not only that but even the regular enemies frequently took like 10x the amount of damage to die they would in any of the Igavanias, and none of them even did anything much interesting with those HP spikes, they were just the Metroidvania equivalent of bullet-sponges. I mean, CoTM's still alright, but it's easily the biggest slog of the entire bunch. I bet if you nerfed the enemy stats, the castle would feel a heck of a lot smaller.
True to a point. Not even cards can really make most bosses much easier. The later parts of the castle with the bullet-sponge enemies can be made quite easier if you have the Holy Cross, at least. Holding on to any other subweapon doesn’t make much sense, lol.
But COTM’s castle design is excellent.
 

BlackTron

Member
I agree, and have to say Bloodstained really didn't do it for me.

It was an example of a beautiful sprites-based game turned fugly and tacky with 3D graphics.

Go back to nice spritework or take some notes from Metroid Dread and try again, IGA.
 

daveonezero

Banned
I agree, and have to say Bloodstained really didn't do it for me.

It was an example of a beautiful sprites-based game turned fugly and tacky with 3D graphics.

Go back to nice spritework or take some notes from Metroid Dread and try again, IGA.
If Dread is anything to go by I’d say try again with 3D. Bloodstained was serviceable in my mind and I’d like to see a decent gothic themed 2.5d game added to the genre.

to me it just came up short.

If it’s 3D models I want equipment to show in game. I want a lot of visual cues to tamp Leah stuff. That’s where I wasn’t very pleased with Bloodstained. I still think it’s decent. But it wasn’t really up there with Steamworlds, Oris and now Dread.
 
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