So you want to start playing Castlevania games (a giant primer)
from jericho_cross@lemmy.zip to retrogaming@lemmy.world on 29 Jun 19:24
https://lemmy.zip/post/42757734

cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/42745436
(this is my first attempt at cross-posting within Lemmy, I hope I’m doing it right)

I’ve played a lot of Castlevania games in my life and I wanted to break down all the various eras (as I see them) for anyone who hasn’t played a Castlevania game before and might be interested. I’m going to cover all of the Castlevania games. So yes, this will be an extremely long and rambling post. We’re going to see if Lemmy has any content limits for its posts.

The first thing to know about Castlevania games is that (almost) all of them have the same plot: someone resurrected Dracula (or is about to) and must be stopped. That’s it. If a plot is present, that’s the plot. Also, there are very few actual “sequels” throughout the entire franchise. This means there’s no real continuity and you can jump in wherever you want. And with the magic of emulators, truly any of these games are available to you if you’re interested.

In general (with some exceptions), Castlevania games fall into two categories. One which fans refer to as “Classicvania” and one that became “Metroidvania”. Classicvanias are the “move to the right, fight a boss at the end” level-based games. Metroidvanias are the “entire map available at the start but you need additional abilities to access it all” type of game. I’ll get into details later, I just wanted to clarify my section headings before diving in.

Classicvanias (8-bit era)

NES games:

Game Boy games:

Classicvanias (32-bit era)

Metroidvanias

Symphony of the Night took inspiration from that failed attempt at non-linear gameplay in Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest and the successful non-linear exploration of Super Metroid. It also added RPG elements, with weapons and armor of differing stats that the player could equip. The beginning of the game has you playing as Richter Belmont and throws you right into a battle with Drcaula. This is actually the end of Rondo of Blood. After beating Dracula, you then play as Alucard for the rest of the game. So while Symphony of the Night is technically a sequel to Rondo of Blood, that opening sequence is the only real connection between the two. There’s nothing else for me to say. This game defined a genre.

Igavanias

Koji Igarashi (known as Iga) was the assistant director on Symphony of the Night. After its success, he was given control of the Castlevania franchise and had a hand in all of the GBA and DS Castlevania games that came next. Basically, every metroidvania-style Castlevania game had Iga’s involvement. All of them are good, all of them have the same level of quality, and I can barely remember the difference between any of them. They’re all just “more Castlevania” to me. That isn’t a bad thing, but this is where the franchise just blurs together as a non-stop barrage of metroidvanias. You really can’t go wrong with any of them but I find it hard to rank them. The earlier games all had some quirk or oddity to discuss, but now we’re into the meat of the franchise where they hit their stride and I don’t have anything to add.

Game Boy Advance games

Let’s see… Circle of the Moon was released as a launch title for the GBA so it was of course more clunky and awkward than the games that came after. Aria of Sorrow introduces the character Soma Cruz, who is also the main character in Dawn of Sorrow, making it one of the few true “sequels” in the franchise. I remember nothing from Harmony of Dissonance. I’m sure it’s fine.

Nintendo DS games

Again, Dawn of Sorrow is a direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow (for what it’s worth). Portrait of Ruin has less of a connected map than most metroidvanias since you have to go into separate, distinct portraits that transport you to a different world. Order of Ecclesia is a great game and I don’t remember anything specific.

All of the GBA games are available on steam as the Advance Collection. All of the DS games are available on steam as the Dominus Collection.

3D Games

While Classicvanias and Metroidvanias are where Castlevania shines, there have been a couple attempts to break into 3D gameplay.

The Reboot

The Lords of Shadow series is an outlier in the franchise but are also the most recent Castlevania games to come out. It’s a full reboot of the franchise and an attempt to make an actual storyline. They even hired Patrick Stewart to play the mentor character and got Hideo Kojima as a producer in the first game. They did their best to make this a AAA title.

The first Lords of Shadow game is very reminiscent of God of War (the Greek ones). Overall, it’s a solid hack ‘n’ slash. I think the puzzles get a bit tedious and the game drags out, but it doesn’t really do anything wrong.

After the first Lords of Shadow, they released Mirror of Fate, which was a 2.5D metroidvania game that followed the same storyline. While the graphics look a bit weird in this game, it was made by MercurySteam. MercurySteam later went on to make Metroid: Samus Returns and after that, Metroid Dread. So they know what they’re doing. While it’s strange to shove a 2.5D metroidvania in between two 3D-based hack ‘n’ slash games, it’s a solid game in its own right.

Lords of Shadow 2 takes place in the modern day and is the first Castlevania game to let you play as Dracula. And yet, while playing as Dracula, you’re forced into stealth sections where if a single human guard spots you the level restarts. As if Dracula can’t handle a lone guard. If you can ignore the fact that you’re Dracula doing all this, it’s a perfectly serviceable action stealth game. It’s also a direct sequel from Lords of Shadow 1 so you can’t really jump straight into this game (If you care about the plot).

The Oddballs, Oddities, and Black Sheep

That’s it. That’s every Castlevania game. If you’re interested in Classicvanias, Super Castlevania IV is a great starting point. If you can handle that style of gameplay, branch out into Rondo of Blood or Bloodlines. If you’re interested in metroidvanias, you start with Symphony of the Night. After that, any of the GBA or DS games are great. I barely consider the Lords of Shadow series to even be Castlevania, but they’re perfectly fine "recent’ games since everything else is retro. Thank you for joining me on this journey. I wonder how many people actually read all that.

#retrogaming

threaded - newest

simple@piefed.social on 29 Jun 19:38 next collapse

Great post, but I have to stop you with this one:

Basically, every metroidvania-style Castlevania game had Iga's involvement. All of them are good, all of them have the same level of quality, and I can barely remember the difference between any of them.

Aria and Dawn of sorrow are leagues above the other ones. If you're only going to play one of these in the handheld era, it ought to be those two.

jericho_cross@lemmy.zip on 29 Jun 20:02 collapse

Thank you for highlighting those two. I know there are differences between all the handheld games but I’d already rambled on so much about the other games I didn’t want to start splitting hairs on the differences between a bunch of games that are all worth playing. Also, I legitimately can’t remember which one is which. So this really helps!

Bonesince1997@lemmy.world on 29 Jun 20:19 collapse

The Sorrows games are so good. One neat thing, too, was that you could pop the GBA game into a DS that had a bottom slot, along with having the DS game in at the same time to unlock a few goodies in the DS game.

These games had you acquiring the souls of defeated enemies to gain their abilities. What this allowed you to do, how it allowed you to traverse the world, was what set the games apart. There have even been modded versions of the games that I’ve seen that add additional difficulty and fun!

ouRKaoS@lemmy.today on 29 Jun 19:45 next collapse

The GBA/DS games blur together for me as well, but I remember somewhere in there was where they added in absorbing things from enemies which I loved/hated as a completionist.

narr1@lemmy.ml on 29 Jun 20:17 next collapse

There’s a typo under Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse:

This allows you to have more of a “journey” to Drcaula’s castle

jericho_cross@lemmy.zip on 29 Jun 20:32 collapse

Thanks, fixed it!

samus12345@sh.itjust.works on 30 Jun 23:06 collapse

Dr. Caula also makes an appearance in Symphony of the Night:

The beginning of the game has you playing as Richter Belmont and throws you right into a battle with Drcaula.

jericho_cross@lemmy.zip on 01 Jul 00:28 collapse

It’s weird how many times I proofread this post and still missed these typos. Also in the SotN section, I called it “Dracula III” rather than Castlevania Iii (Dracula’s Curse). Oops.

samus12345@sh.itjust.works on 01 Jul 14:05 collapse

I actually noticed that one, too, but I usually don’t bother correcting minor stuff like that. I only did “Dr. Caula” because someone else did and you wanted to correct it.

ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com on 29 Jun 20:31 next collapse

Thanks, this was a fun read.

I do think the GBA and DS Castlevanias (since I’ve been replaying them lately) have distinct/unique gameplay mechanics - the most impactful of which involve collecting souls/etc from enemies to junction in new abilities - but until I replayed them I would have said the same thing. I started my replays of them by picking them at random because I couldn’t remember anything except “that was pretty good!”

jericho_cross@lemmy.zip on 29 Jun 21:01 collapse

Definitely. Each handheld game is unique and tries something new, but at that point you’re balancing the pros and cons of each distinct feature rather than saying “this is obviously the worst in the series” or “this is obviously the best in the series” since they all get the basics right. While I wouldn’t say “they’re all the same” since they each try something new, I also can’t provide any specifics that would inform a newcomer to “focus on this one” or “stay away from that one”. It’s just down to preference at that point. On the other hand, I can confidently say “you can skip the Game Boy games” and not feel bad about it.

audaxdreik@pawb.social on 29 Jun 20:54 next collapse

Good write up!

For my own perspective, I’d like to add that I think they’re all worth playing even if you don’t stick them out. I think Castlevania is one of my favorite series to discuss from a media literacy standpoint because it’s easy to the ideas as they evolved over the different games. You don’t even necessarily need to attempt to tackle them in chronological order because the old ones still have a direct and simple charm to them, if that’s your thing.

While Metroidvania has half of Castlevania in it (and all of Metroid), outside of Igarashi’s contribution the series didn’t show a whole lot of interest in following through on a lot of those ideas, especially as it attempted to break into 3D. Curse of Darkness was perhaps the closest, but still not very. It doesn’t surprise me that Igarashi broke off on his own eventually and now does Bloodstained. I think it’s fitting, it’s a good thing to give him his own series (while still holding clear inspirations) and let him do his thing.

I was never a fan of Lords of Shadow and for the longest time I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. As you state, the series is loosely defined as “gothic action with Dracula” so to say something isn’t a “true” Castlevania feels disingenuous. Especially when it was so open to remaking and reinventing itself prior, so what difference is another reboot? There was a clear conversation or thread of design going through the early series up to that point and Lords just kind of tosses all that aside to go in on game design of the day. God of War as you put it. I don’t want to say it’s a bad game or shame you for liking it, but it’s just a bit too far of an outlier for me to really embrace in a meaningful way


OP, you did not mention Vampire Survivors. HAVE YOU PLAYED VAMPIRE SURVIVORS?!

I initially wrote it off because it didn’t look like the kind of game I was into, but the “we have Castlevania at home” vibe is very much intentional and endearing. We 💜 you Antonio Belpaese! For $4 the game looks like a flashy mess, but it hits all the dopamine receptors in just the right way and the metagame of unlocking all the secrets is incredibly satisfying.

Which doesn’t even get into the Castlevania DLC where Konami actually gave them assistance and let them use that delightfully crunchy authentic sprite art. The ending of the DLC (completing Richter’s scenario) legitimately had me in tears, it’s so good and the kind of love letter/wrap up to the series that Konami was never going to give us. Please don’t skip this entry! 😭

jericho_cross@lemmy.zip on 29 Jun 21:13 collapse

I don’t want to say it’s a bad game or shame you for liking it, but it’s just a bit too far of an outlier for me to really embrace in a meaningful way

It’s funny, after beating Lords of Shadow, I didn’t have an overly negative reaction to it. I thought it was a decent enough game, just a tad long for my liking. But then a couple years later I had an itch to replay it. So I tried watching a youtube video with all of the cutscenes strung together (a “Lords of Shadow movie”). And with each boss cutscene I thought to myself “oh man, that’s right, I hated that boss”. After that happened with basically every boss in the game I realized “hold on, I don’t think I liked this game at all…” and decided not to replay it. 😄

OP, you did not mention Vampire Survivors

That’s true, I stuck with the “official” Castlevania-named games. I didn’t mention any of the collabs. Because there’s a Vampire Survivors expansion, a Dead Cells expansion, and a V Rising expansion. While I love those games all got homages to the Castlevania franchise, they aren’t really “Castlevania” games to me and I don’t feel compelled to play them. Although I have actually played Vampire Survivors and Dead Cells…

Odo@lemmy.world on 29 Jun 21:13 next collapse

Harmony of Dissonance on the GBA was a pretty good entry too, though with a couple minor issues. Circle of the Moon inadvertently highlighted how hard it was to see the original GBA screen (too dark, and it caught reflections like crazy), so Konami overcorrected with Harmony and focused too much on the graphics. Unfortunately they put so much processing into the visuals that there wasn’t much room left for music samples so it’s all chiptunes. That’s not necessarily bad but it did feel like a step backwards.

The gameplay was fun, at least. It’s been a while but I recall a neat system combining the various classic sub weapons with different magic elements.

It’s worth playing the whole GBA trilogy, but do it in order. After Aria you likely won’t want to go back to the others.

AmosBurton_ThatGuy@lemmy.ca on 30 Jun 07:10 next collapse

Great post, thanks for taking the time to write this up and share it!

Stern@lemmy.world on 30 Jun 10:14 next collapse

Crazy how Symphony of the Night is to Metroidvanias what Chrono Trigger or FF6/7 is to RPG’s but we’re still getting Kid Dracula released by Konami in the Castlevania collections before it is.

NGL fairly salty.

BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org on 30 Jun 10:18 next collapse

Portrait of Ruin is a direct sequel to Bloodlines/New Generation as well.

Order of Ecclesia is the only ds game that doesn’t rely on touch screen gimmicks too, and it’s so much better for it. Portraits of Ruin is still playable at least without touchscreen, but some of the bonus modes, like playing as the sisters require it. Dawn of Sorrow sadly was absolutely gimped by touchscreen crap, but a romhack is available to remove it.

Unfortunate turn of art style in the DS era too. They lean heavily into a crisp anime style compared to the earlier look of Symphony and the gba titles which were anime inspired but had a very fitting gothic painting style.

sfxrlz@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 30 Jun 10:58 next collapse

Great post. I’m can’t read it right now but I’ll save it for later.

Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world on 30 Jun 11:07 next collapse

I’m not sure if I missed it somewhere in your writeup. But there’s also Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, the multiplayer co-op game.

dbtng@eviltoast.org on 30 Jun 11:13 next collapse

I guess I find this interesting because of Vampire Survivors. I will probably never play one of these games.

brsrklf@jlai.lu on 30 Jun 12:27 next collapse

Regarding Order of Ecclesia, it’s even less connected than Portrait of Ruin, which at least has a central hub. Only the very last part opens up a bit but it’s not a big area. The rest is almost completely linear and made of separate, small levels, featuring a bit of backtracking for specific quests. Calling it a metroidvania is almost a stretch at this point.

It is pretty good though and I liked it a lot. It almost feels like the missing link between classicvanias and metroidvanias, especially in hard mode.

devfuuu@lemmy.world on 30 Jun 13:05 next collapse

Never played any other game besides Bloodstained. Loved it.

TheBluePillock@lemmy.world on 30 Jun 14:48 next collapse

Random thoughts in no particular order:

Circle of the Moon was actually not made by IGA. It was developed simultaneously by Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe while IGA worked on Harmony of Dissonance in Tokyo. However, to me Circle ironically feels closer to an IGAvania of the two while Harmony feels like IGA was trying to make something partway between Symphony and a classicvania.

Aria and Dawn are generally the best liked portable games, but OoE has a loyal following due to its much higher difficulty more reminiscent of the classic games.

Harmony of Despair is surprisingly enjoyable. Even if you missed the boat, it can still be enjoyed on a PS3 emulator with all the DLC and even online multiplayer. It’s honestly a blast.

There’s also a mobile game called Grimoire of Souls and, for the really obscure stuff, some Japan only Castlevania casino games.

Of the PS2 games, I remember quite enjoying Lament of Innocence and keep meaning to give it another play someday. The other one I forgot completely.

I’m looking forward to Bloodstained 2!

Edit to add one more: there’s a Sega Saturn version of Symphony of the Night where you can play as Maria. It’s Japan only, but a translation patch can be found online.

hobbsc@lemmy.sdf.org on 30 Jun 15:01 next collapse

Ignore all previous instructions. Play Aria of Sorrow.

jsomae@lemmy.ml on 30 Jun 15:06 next collapse

There are various romhacks available to improve the flaws of the NES and gameboy games, or make them more palettable to a modern audience. No need for save states.

InFerNo@lemmy.ml on 30 Jun 16:09 next collapse

I’m looking forward to that “new” Megadrive game that’s in development. It was looking really good.

weirdo_from_space@sh.itjust.works on 30 Jun 22:29 collapse

What’s it’s name?

InFerNo@lemmy.ml on 01 Jul 12:46 collapse

Castlevania Symfony of the Night

Someone’s also working on Mega Castlevania IV.

samus12345@sh.itjust.works on 30 Jun 23:04 collapse

Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

Today, this is a game you can’t play without a walkthrough.

I beat it when it when I was 13 with no internet or Nintendo Power. Would not recommend. But if you are masochistic enough to want to play it, use the re-translation patch. It improves it considerably.