This is an example of something that is great when you first experienced it back in the 90s but gets increasingly boring the more you revisit it. Finding out there was an entire second castle and it was upside down was legitimately clever and surprising at the time. But now after having played it two dozen times it loses its luster. Lost Painting is amazing but I get very tired of listening to Finale Toccata. And navigation becomes a chore since by flipping the map platforms often wind up juuuust out of reach of your double jump so you're constantly changing to a bat or using that awkward super jump that freezes you to the ceiling for a second. And the story just stops cold except for a brief and insignificant confrontation with Death. It also doesn't help that jumping back and forth between castles is a slog.
>But now after having played it two dozen times it loses its luster.
So does anything.
If the worst criticism you can muster is "it got boring after I beat it 24 times" that's a pretty good game.
>Would have been cool if it had more songs.
It played the best fricking song in the entire game, which was designed specifically for pumping up the suspense as you explore an upside-down , eerie as frick looking castle.
It was a neat way to extend the length of the game, since designing that large of a castle back then would've been a large undertaking by itself.
The way the castle was designed didn't necessarily lend itself to being flipped upside down, though.
Like the other anon said, it feels like a victory lap. You don't find any important relics in the inverted castle, just minor upgrades to your fundamental abilities, and the five pieces of Vlad needed to access the final boss.
>The five pieces of Dracula are held by the original five bosses of CV1 >The zombies impersonating Alucard's old friends from CV3 >Galamoth and his minions from Kid Dracula getting a whole area of the castle to themselves
Had some good Easter Eggs, at least.
The five pieces themselves also being a reference to CV2.
But yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Portrait of Ruin also makes use of the CV1 bosses for the second-lap portraits, being The Creature (Frankenstein's monster), The Werewofl, The Mummy, and Medusa.
The five pieces themselves also being a reference to CV2.
But yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Portrait of Ruin also makes use of the CV1 bosses for the second-lap portraits, being The Creature (Frankenstein's monster), The Werewofl, The Mummy, and Medusa.
Werewolf was Rondo. Can't remember if there was a werewolf boss in a Cv game before Rondo. Not Cv1 or 2, that's certain, but I'm drawing a blank on Cv3.
https://i.imgur.com/8tZqjpg.jpg
>Inverted castle
Great idea or lazy level design?
I wasn't surprised. I noticed all the stairs on the ceiling and shit and figured there's be a way to walk up there. Originally, though, I thought it's be like Hermes' sandals in Battle of Olympus where you can walk upside down on the ceiling.
>I noticed all the stairs on the ceiling
Which place has stairs on the ceiling? Can't remember any. The only detail I remember that kinda foreshadowed the inverted castle is the top (bottom) inscription in the room where you fight Galamoth (read as RIP in the inverted castle)
2 years ago
Anonymous
I misremembered. Upside down stairs. Still, I remember thinking them an odd design choice as a kid. Then the inverted castle happened and I was like "oh; that's why."
No. That's Haunted Castle, the arcade game. This is the X68K game (ported to PS1 as Castlevania Chronicles).
Ah. Haven't played either the original or the port.
It was done a lot better in later games, Harmony Of Dissonance does the twin castles thing far more fleshed out and well realized, where the parallel castles are actually rather different from each other.
True. Pity HoD's music is such utter dogshit, tho.
2 years ago
Anonymous
The sample quality is rough, but I love the compositions a lot.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah? I don't find any of it particularly good, but I'm glad someone enjoyed it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Most plebs cannot appreciate lofi chiptune jazz fusion in their vidya
2 years ago
Anonymous
Oh, and that example is not even 10 minutes into the game and there are several others throughout.
Also >inb4 phoneposting
My phone emulates amazingly well and I love it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Oh, and that example is not even 10 minutes into the game and there are several others throughout.
Also >inb4 phoneposting
My phone emulates amazingly well and I love it.
Dracula's coffin is also upside down in the first castle.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It was done a lot better in later games, Harmony Of Dissonance does the twin castles thing far more fleshed out and well realized, where the parallel castles are actually rather different from each other.
Speaking of Harmony of Dissonance, someone updated the old Chinese Revenge of the Findesiecle rom hack that added Julius from Aria so that it is a more complete hack, and it's really impressive, possibly even the best way to play the game.
It adds tons of new characters. Julius from Aria, Maxim, Devil Juste (an Alucard ripoff), John and Eric from Bloodlines can all be played from the start by entering their names and have full featured playthroughs with equipment, menu, relics, spells and merchant access. In addition, Simon, Megaman, and Mario are also available as non-Menu characters for I guess NES nostalgia reasons.
Also contains quite a few bug fixes and QoL improvements, like changing Juste's outline to be less obnoxious.
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5848/
Also speaking of HoD, I remember not being able to get into the central chamber with Maxim in one of the two castles so Maxim can't 200% the game. Forgot which castle it was. You know... the one in the floor in the middle of the castle practically identical to the SoTN one beneath the clock room where you fight Dracula in both games? That one. In one castle, it's the Drac fight and in the other it's... well, it's been so long, I don't remember what Juste finds there. Maxim, I think. Either way, I know that when playing as Maxim you can only access it in the castle which leads to Drac but not the other castle.
Any hacks which change that?
2 years ago
Anonymous
No one can answer you because nu/vr/ (ever since adding your trash GBA and its brethren) is just oldGanker now IE they don't actually play games here.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>I don't remember what Juste finds there.
He finds Maxim there. It's in Castle A. You defeat him and get the ending with Maxim dead. Only in Castle B you can fight Dracula wearing Maxim's and Juste's ring when fighting Maxim(in Castle B). For Maxim, you can't enter that area in Castle A.
2 years ago
Anonymous
stupid phoneposter
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah, well, my house has a hundred baffrooms.
2 years ago
Anonymous
That image, HoD also has places like this, but you don't get an inverted castle there. You get a well done Twin Castle that you only learn later you are visiting both castle at the same time.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>I don't remember what Juste finds there.
He finds Maxim there. It's in Castle A. You defeat him and get the ending with Maxim dead. Only in Castle B you can fight Dracula wearing Maxim's and Juste's ring when fighting Maxim(in Castle B). For Maxim, you can't enter that area in Castle A.
Where would Juste be if he left Castle B?
2 years ago
Anonymous
There is no Juste if you play as Maxim.
[...]
[...]
Also speaking of HoD, I remember not being able to get into the central chamber with Maxim in one of the two castles so Maxim can't 200% the game. Forgot which castle it was. You know... the one in the floor in the middle of the castle practically identical to the SoTN one beneath the clock room where you fight Dracula in both games? That one. In one castle, it's the Drac fight and in the other it's... well, it's been so long, I don't remember what Juste finds there. Maxim, I think. Either way, I know that when playing as Maxim you can only access it in the castle which leads to Drac but not the other castle.
Any hacks which change that?
>I don't remember what Juste finds there.
He finds Maxim there. It's in Castle A. You defeat him and get the ending with Maxim dead. Only in Castle B you can fight Dracula wearing Maxim's and Juste's ring when fighting Maxim(in Castle B). For Maxim, you can't enter that area in Castle A.
You can't even get 100% in either Castle A or Castle B with Maxim. For Castle A, you can't reach that area where you fight Maxim. For Castle B, pic related can't be done with Maxim.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I've done it, though. Don't you either use the spin-jump thing or the throwing star to do it? I know it's doable.
And I think Anon meant that if there are two castles and leaving one castle puts you in the middle of Transylvania, where would leaving the other castle put you?
I'd have worded it as >were juste to exit castle b, where would that leave him?
2 years ago
Anonymous
There is no Juste if you play as Maxim.
[...]
[...]
You can't even get 100% in either Castle A or Castle B with Maxim. For Castle A, you can't reach that area where you fight Maxim. For Castle B, pic related can't be done with Maxim.
Yeah, it's the spin jump thingy. Just did it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I've done it, though. Don't you either use the spin-jump thing or the throwing star to do it? I know it's doable.
And I think Anon meant that if there are two castles and leaving one castle puts you in the middle of Transylvania, where would leaving the other castle put you?
I'd have worded it as >were juste to exit castle b, where would that leave him?
Thank you. So only in Castle A you can't get 100%.
>where would leaving the other castle put you?
Same place, but in Castle B, you don't save Lydie. So,
Killing Maxim in Castle A: Juste leaves the Castle in Transylvania together with Lydie.
Killing only Maxim in Castle B: Juste leaves the Castle in Transylvania alone.
Killing Dracula's Wraith in Castle B: Juste laves the Castle in Transylvania together with Maxim and Lydie[there is an extra here if you get 100% of furniture in that room]
Maybe there is no way of leaving the Castle in Castle B, forcing Juste to first move to Castle A before leaving.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I meant Juste leaving the castle as in /just/ leaving. Not talking game stuff. Just hypothetically. Like, if Justeikins shows up to Castlevania and goes through the motions and shit and was all like "Y'know what? No." after hearing about the two castles and left while he was in Castle B, where would he be? Is Castle B on another plane of existence? Are there unicorns there? Are they nice? Are they friends with leprechauns?
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Is Castle B on another plane of existence?
Everything in the game makes it seems like Castle B is in another plane of existence. The whole sky is red and whatnot. Then again, maybe leaving Castle B would force him to return to original place. As if the whole world, so to speak, is Castle B and both those "teleport" and leaving the Castle B all take him back to Castle A/Transylvania.
2 years ago
Anonymous
That's what I thought, too.
Given some of the backgrounds, I'm inclined to say that it's either a a sort of "Dark World" reflection pulling references from Maxim's mind or it's just flat out Hell, maybe even both. >Are there unicorns there?
Maybe. >Are they nice?
Doubtful, I always figured Castle B is Dark Maxim's take on things, and given that Dark Maxim is regular Maxim's repressed desires and emotions brought out and likely twisted by Dracula's evil power, any unicorns you find will probably want you dead. >Are they friends with leprechauns?
Neither are human and are a part of Castle B's fricked up world and likely both groups want you dead, so yeah, probably.
A friend of mine was in a joke metal band back in the late 90s/early 2000s and one of their songs was about a "unicorn of darkness" who kicked leprechauns and ate babies.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Given some of the backgrounds, I'm inclined to say that it's either a a sort of "Dark World" reflection pulling references from Maxim's mind or it's just flat out Hell, maybe even both. >Are there unicorns there?
Maybe. >Are they nice?
Doubtful, I always figured Castle B is Dark Maxim's take on things, and given that Dark Maxim is regular Maxim's repressed desires and emotions brought out and likely twisted by Dracula's evil power, any unicorns you find will probably want you dead. >Are they friends with leprechauns?
Neither are human and are a part of Castle B's fricked up world and likely both groups want you dead, so yeah, probably.
>Galamoth and his minions from Kid Dracula getting a whole area of the castle to themselves
Wait, I got Galamoth, but I didn't catch his minions. Which ones were they?
You have to understand this from a game design standpoint and aim this at the dumbest average people. The idea of freedom in a game is confusing. The game initially starts with just one path. Then you get two branching paths, one that just loops back to the original starting point. That is to teach the player that you can back track and it's not a linear game. So you go to the next path, which leads to the outer wall which gives you several paths to choose from in addition to buying the israeliteel of open which opens up more.
The game gradually starts with limited ways to go and gradually opens up over the course of the game. New abilities unlock being able to go to more areas.
Then we get to the final inverted castle in which there are no barriers and you can go anywhere. The game went from no freedom to max freedom.
If they had just started the game with max freedom then it would be too confusing and people would complain.
It was both. The ceilings themselves should have been designed carefully to make fun levels after they made this decision, but they did not. It was a great idea and they put the minimum effort into it.
Switching constantly to forms or using the excessive vertical upwards launch is really tedius, which is why I said it should have been made fun. It was plenty doable because you had these, it was just not fun.
>they put the minimum effort into it.
well, time got cut short, so you're right, but it's not like the devs didn't care and just pushed it out the door.
It's a cool idea which feels like it was implemented very late in development, and like it wasn't quite fleshed out and fully realized. Flawed, but still a good addition.
It was done a lot better in later games, Harmony Of Dissonance does the twin castles thing far more fleshed out and well realized, where the parallel castles are actually rather different from each other.
>Igarashi had creative influence and was involved with the story-writing and programming. >Part way through production, Hagihara was promoted to head of the division and asked Igarashi to finish the game as the assistant director.
NTA but he oversaw the finishing of a game that was mostly all planned out by then, big deal.
Rondo shares more with Symphony than any of the subsequent Metroidvanias and he didn't even work on it. Hagihara was the genius behind the game and it shows, which is why Igarashi failed several times in making something new with the franchise and only ever found success by rehashing SotN
Not retro, but Bloodstained's inversion ability is actually a good evolution of the Reverse Castle by cutting down the repetition. I hope Igarashi's next game brings it back, but makes the castle more deliberately designed around inversion rather than a select few areas like in Bloodstained.
Bloodstained is literally SOTN 2 but with the best elements of the later handheld igavania games. If the game had CASTLEVANIA and the konami logo slapped onto it, people would be eating it up and praising it.
I'm the original person who was defending Bloodstained, but honestly it's not a conversation worth having because
1. it's not retro and this is /vr/
2. and people here obviously think "new thing = bad" despite the fact that Bloodstained is just a culmination of all of the good ideas Igarashi has had over all of his Castlevania games. People trying to label it as some kind of MN9 kickstarter scam have not played the game. If anything, it's more like Sonic Mania where it culminates all of the good stuff of the series, and adds more into it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Let's not lie to ourselves anon, I played the shit out of the game over several months but the launch was rough and the switch port is still abysmal.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Bloodstained was fine during its launch, and the amount of content at launch was well worth the asking price. The Switch port was abysmal partly because the game was being developed for the Wii U, until Nintendo pulled the rug under them and abandoned the Wii U in favor for the Switch. I don't know the status of the port right now since I played it on PC. But since it's release it has gotten way more content, and it's slated to get even more by the end of this year. I just don't see how someone could dislike the game if they're a fan of iga's Castlevania games outside of pure intellectual dishonesty.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It's been patched on Switch a plenty
2 years ago
Anonymous
I'm the original person who was defending Bloodstained, but honestly it's not a conversation worth having because
1. it's not retro and this is /vr/
2. and people here obviously think "new thing = bad" despite the fact that Bloodstained is just a culmination of all of the good ideas Igarashi has had over all of his Castlevania games. People trying to label it as some kind of MN9 kickstarter scam have not played the game. If anything, it's more like Sonic Mania where it culminates all of the good stuff of the series, and adds more into it.
[...]
Explain what's wrong with Bloodstained
I'm the original person who was defending Bloodstained, but honestly it's not a conversation worth having because
1. it's not retro and this is /vr/
2. and people here obviously think "new thing = bad" despite the fact that Bloodstained is just a culmination of all of the good ideas Igarashi has had over all of his Castlevania games. People trying to label it as some kind of MN9 kickstarter scam have not played the game. If anything, it's more like Sonic Mania where it culminates all of the good stuff of the series, and adds more into it.
Until Lords of Shadow trilogy for PS4 & Switch.
2 years ago
Anonymous
We don't talk about LoS here, newfriend.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I'm only talking about performance, not content. The engine downgrade was a bit disappointing as well.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>The engine downgrade
???
2 years ago
Anonymous
Unreal Engine. Switch didn't support the newest version so they had to port it to the older version. I think the same thing happened with Dragon Quest XI.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Oh, well, doesn't really matter since UE is shit regardless
2 years ago
Anonymous
>MN9 kickstarter
AKA "We need a way to justify how stupid we were to pay $4mil USD for what was always pitched as a PSN Store-tier game and will plug our ears to what actually happened".
It had good ideas, but between the developers' lack of experience with 3D and continuous bad luck with developers, it's a miracle it came out at all. I got my Platinum (PS4 player) and never touched it again, so I have no idea how it is with updates now.
its unironically one of the ugliest games I've ever seen, everything is slicked in oil.
castlevania is my favourite series of all time, bloodstained isn't the worst but my god its just so ugly and slow its not worth playing and when it occasionally gets fun you get interrupted by a character who'll throw 10 minutes of boring dialogue at you.
there were enough explorative castlevanias after sotn to substantiate anyone wanting that fix, bloodstained is cakka doo doo.
I'm never a stickler for visuals but its dog vomit.
>its unironically one of the ugliest games I've ever seen
Outside of the tutorial boat area, the game isn't particularly ugly. Honestly, unpolished visuals are kinda par for the course with Igarashi's Castlevania games. Konami never gave him the same budget as they did with SOTN since they relegated him to making only handheld titles. Iga's games were always done cheap with tons of asset reuse, especially the DS games which constantly ripped 32-bit sprites from SOTN whenever they could. At least the GBA games downscaled the SOTN sprites so there was some visual variety to them. I don't know how Konami expected Igarashi to pump out those games on a regular basis without a reasonable AAA budget. But at least he's free from them now. >slow
This is just blatantly false though, stuff like backstep cancelling were heavily nerfed in the handheld games for some reason. Bloodstained brings back a lot of the practical animation cancels like rapid backstepping, divekick canceling, and towards the end of the game there's a Black Panther-esque shard powerup like in the Soma duology. It makes up for the lack of a Wing Smash equivalent.
>>slow >This is just blatantly false though
Miriam being/feeling slow is a very common complaint actually. Yet IGA has shown videos where they austically copied Alucard's moveset, animation speed and everything. How can the game feel slow then, you might ask? Simply because it's 16:9 now so the character moving from one edge of the screen to another takes almost twice as long. Not to mention that SOTN is pretty slow by today's standards too.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Backstep cancelling in Bloodstained is almost as fast as dash spamming in Harmony of Dissonance though, and I feel like most people would agree that Harmony of Dissonance is an extremely fast paced game because of dash spamming + GBA screen crunch. Bloodstained's backstep cancelling is about on par with SOTN's backstep cancel. One common complaint people had with the games post-Aria was how much they nerfed all of the movement options, hence why Dawn of Sorrow is easily the slowest game in the series. Bloodstained is nowhere near as slow as Dawn of Sorrow.
2 years ago
Anonymous
is Bloodstained good? haven't tried it
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yes. So is Curse of the Moon.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah. If you like igavanias then it's basically more igavania content. It's not like Konami is ever going to do anything meaningful with the Castlevania IP. As the other anon said, Curse of the Moon is pretty good too. It's basically like a proper follow-up to Castlevania 3, and it's made by Inti Creates.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>It's not like Konami is ever going to do anything meaningful with the Castlevania IP
If anything, they've resorted to dredging up Getsu Fuma Den instead.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>dredging up Getsu Fuma Den
And the Classicvania fan getsu fricked again.
I agree, I liked Bloodstained but the art direction is awful. It's so bad that it was really hard to make out what was on the screen, what could be interacted with or not, what was the playable area, etc at least until you get used to the shit.
I'm glad it exists just because of the Curse of the Moon games are some of the best games of the last decade.
Bloodstained itself is not only ugly, but very clunky. All the hit boxes feel really bad.
Music is great though and I still enjoyed the game more than most in the genre.
I thought it was >Based devs working on cool game. >Konami: Are you done with it yet? >No, great things take time. >Konami: OK, well, you have [short amount of time]. >Hmmmmm. >Inverts castle. >Welp, best we can do.
This. It wasn't part of the initial plan but they had time and resources to make it happen. All they had to do is flip the first castle and then change some textures here and there and then add in some new monsters. It was great, and genuinely exciting on first playthrough as a kid when I finally got there, having no idea it even existed.
It took me forever to figure out the Spike breaker armor as a kid, which you need to use to get into the inverted castle.
I would say it was lazy if it wasn't for the fact that there was some foreshadowing about the inverted castle in the first castle, also like some anon mentioned it includes some nice easter eggs alluring to previous installments of the franchise and some rooms (unfortunately not every) seems to have been built around the idea of exploration in both castles.
But it's a shame cause you can tell they didn't have much time to polish the inverted castle: Only like four different soundtracks, some areas didn't include a boss where in the first castle it did, no additional progression items: you can freely explore the inverted castle from the moment you arrive and also the sheer amount of optional areas that the inverted castle has: Library, Catacombs, Entrance, Underground Caverns (you can just go directly and fight Death), Clock Tower, Coliseum, Laboratory.
It's a great idea, but ultimately, there's actually nothing important to do once you are there, other than getting the five relics and fight Shaft / Dracula and thus it makes the second castle boring to explore.
It's a great idea, but ultimately, there's actually nothing important to do once you are there, other than getting the five relics and fight Shaft / Dracula and thus it makes the second castle boring to explore.
In my opinion, lazy enemy desing: most of the enemies in the inverted castle left area are nova skeletons or jack o bones and most enemies in the inverted castle right area are imps and ukobacks.. I expected to see more enemies in the inverted castle, like the 2 head creature of castlevania chronicles or the invisible wraith of super castlevania 4.
Kids pretending like they didn't lose their goddamn minds when they got to the inverted castle and jizz their pants over the entire (great fricking) idea.
I love how it's fashionable now to shit on SotN just because it's proven to be one of the only good huge, mainstream games after the Shit Era of Games began (mid-90s) because it proves 3d gameplay is a fricking gimmick and linear snorefests are trash.
Great idea conceptionally, but only a Nintendo (circa GameCube era desperation) or Sega (arcades in the 90s and Dreamcast) level developer would be able to pull off a castle that works inverted and normally
That level of autism is reserved for the true otaku
It was great. More so because I didn't know English so I thought Ritcher was the last boss, but after playing many times and trying to learn new things, I found out that secret passage in the clock room, found the weird glass and even with that, it still took me a while to wear it when fighting Ritcher. I think I finished the game 4 to 5 times before learning there was a inverted castle. I still find the idea amazing and the game the only good metroidvania out there.
excellent idea.
memorable and a good way to reuse the map and extend play time, blew my mind as a teenager and made me play all the other castlevanias after.
its like you homosexuals purposely take it out of contextual time, stuff like that in games wasn't common, the only reason you associate inverted / reversed maps with hack playtime extension is because games like sotn paved the way for mediocre ones to copy them but do it worse.
Speaking of Harmony of Dissonance, someone updated the old Chinese Revenge of the Findesiecle rom hack that added Julius from Aria so that it is a more complete hack, and it's really impressive, possibly even the best way to play the game.
It adds tons of new characters. Julius from Aria, Maxim, Devil Juste (an Alucard ripoff), John and Eric from Bloodlines can all be played from the start by entering their names and have full featured playthroughs with equipment, menu, relics, spells and merchant access. In addition, Simon, Megaman, and Mario are also available as non-Menu characters for I guess NES nostalgia reasons.
Also contains quite a few bug fixes and QoL improvements, like changing Juste's outline to be less obnoxious.
Speaking of Harmony of Dissonance, someone updated the old Chinese Revenge of the Findesiecle rom hack that added Julius from Aria so that it is a more complete hack, and it's really impressive, possibly even the best way to play the game.
It adds tons of new characters. Julius from Aria, Maxim, Devil Juste (an Alucard ripoff), John and Eric from Bloodlines can all be played from the start by entering their names and have full featured playthroughs with equipment, menu, relics, spells and merchant access. In addition, Simon, Megaman, and Mario are also available as non-Menu characters for I guess NES nostalgia reasons.
Also contains quite a few bug fixes and QoL improvements, like changing Juste's outline to be less obnoxious.
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5848/
: (
For some reason, neither the Robledo online patcher nor the hack64 patcher will patch this rom for me. Keep getting a "system busy" error, which is odd since the browser downloads everything the frick else just fine (both the patch itself and a second copy of the rom in case mine was fricked for some reason, for example).
I don't wanna download a program or app for rom patching so I guess I'll go without. Thanks for posting it, though. Maybe someone else will enjoy it (and upload a copy somewhere other than Mega for me).
I will give you a patched copy, but you have to show some level of progress on learning how to patch things locally yourself not using online patchers, because I'm tired of people not learning. Do you have access to any kind of computer, literally anything that will run Windows, Linux, or Java? Answer the question and I will upload the rom for you, and also give you advice on how to do this yourself in the future.
Oh, no worries. I know how to patch, but my PC is a toaster. Even still, it has some undoubtedly ancient version of Lunar IPS on it I guess I can try. If it doesn't work, however I'll just live without. No big. Just really don't wanna download a PC program which, due to its age, is unlikely to work and hate downloading apps to my phone.
That's why I have a strong preference for online patchers which, it must be said, have never given me a problem before today.
Switch to Flips. Floating IPS. Google it. Entire source code is on github, it's legit. GUI on windows and linux. No reason to use LIPS anymore. Flips isn't even something you install, it's just a simple executable on every platform. None of the sketchy shit these programs had back in the day.
Here's the rom I promised:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/e7w7rmwamtu319j/
Here's a good link to Flips:
https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1040/
2 years ago
Anonymous
Thank you kindly.
My aversion to new programs has nothing to do with fear of sketch or refusal to install things. It's only exactly as I said: I don't want to download something that will very likely not even work at all due to the PC's extreme age.
To put it into perspective, were my kid as old as the computer, he'd be starting high school in a few weeks.
>possibly even the best way to play the game.
Eh, all of the new content additions are fairly pointless to be honest. If you're romhacking HoD, all you really need is the animation mod and outline remover
First time it was cool, but on repeats you do start to notice it’s got a lot of less effort put into it than the rest of the game so I just skip it most of the time (sorry Richter)
It's shit because they never designed the levels with it in mind. They just took layouts that weren't meant to work inverted and just inverted them anyway. None of it was planned out in advance or earned. Lazy dogshit and also plays poorly because of that. If you find it amusing you have sub 50 IQ.
A bit lazy for sure but I didn't mind it since it was at the time unlike everything I had played before.
Exploring this area was a thrill because the music made you feel like you weren't supposed to be there and were about to discover something truly horrifying
Based >Freeform exploration >Open ended level design >Hardest enemies in the game >Need to make regular use of your abilities and best gear to progress
Been playing a lot of the SOTN randomizer, it's pretty fun. Zelda 2 randomizer is better, but it is what it is. I wish there were more randomizers this good.
Better at what? SOTN has a lot of loot and the skills are more meaningful than in Zelda 2. unless it's one of those mods that change even the level design
Would have been cool if it had more songs. It felt more like a victory lap by the point you got there, everything fricking melted.
But you breeze through the inverted castle compared to the normal one. I feel like adding more songs would’ve been a waste.
They could have at least varied it up so you weren't hearing the first 20 seconds of Finale Toccata over and over as you swapped areas.
I had the opposite experience, everything was way harder and one-shot the frick out of me by the time I made it there.
Great because of above, it was spooky. I agree it could have used a few more music tracks though.
This is an example of something that is great when you first experienced it back in the 90s but gets increasingly boring the more you revisit it. Finding out there was an entire second castle and it was upside down was legitimately clever and surprising at the time. But now after having played it two dozen times it loses its luster. Lost Painting is amazing but I get very tired of listening to Finale Toccata. And navigation becomes a chore since by flipping the map platforms often wind up juuuust out of reach of your double jump so you're constantly changing to a bat or using that awkward super jump that freezes you to the ceiling for a second. And the story just stops cold except for a brief and insignificant confrontation with Death. It also doesn't help that jumping back and forth between castles is a slog.
>But now after having played it two dozen times it loses its luster.
So does anything.
If the worst criticism you can muster is "it got boring after I beat it 24 times" that's a pretty good game.
I played it for the first time last year, and it was the most obvious filler I've ever been subjected to.
>Would have been cool if it had more songs.
It played the best fricking song in the entire game, which was designed specifically for pumping up the suspense as you explore an upside-down , eerie as frick looking castle.
It was a neat way to extend the length of the game, since designing that large of a castle back then would've been a large undertaking by itself.
The way the castle was designed didn't necessarily lend itself to being flipped upside down, though.
Like the other anon said, it feels like a victory lap. You don't find any important relics in the inverted castle, just minor upgrades to your fundamental abilities, and the five pieces of Vlad needed to access the final boss.
>The five pieces of Dracula are held by the original five bosses of CV1
>The zombies impersonating Alucard's old friends from CV3
>Galamoth and his minions from Kid Dracula getting a whole area of the castle to themselves
Had some good Easter Eggs, at least.
The five pieces themselves also being a reference to CV2.
But yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Portrait of Ruin also makes use of the CV1 bosses for the second-lap portraits, being The Creature (Frankenstein's monster), The Werewofl, The Mummy, and Medusa.
The Werewolf wasn't one of the CV1 bosses.
Right. She forgot the giant bat.
Werewolf was Rondo. Can't remember if there was a werewolf boss in a Cv game before Rondo. Not Cv1 or 2, that's certain, but I'm drawing a blank on Cv3.
I wasn't surprised. I noticed all the stairs on the ceiling and shit and figured there's be a way to walk up there. Originally, though, I thought it's be like Hermes' sandals in Battle of Olympus where you can walk upside down on the ceiling.
I think the first CV Werewolf was in the X68K game.
Isn't that the one where Simon's whip becomes a sword for some reason? Never played it, either way.
No. That's Haunted Castle, the arcade game. This is the X68K game (ported to PS1 as Castlevania Chronicles).
>I noticed all the stairs on the ceiling
Which place has stairs on the ceiling? Can't remember any. The only detail I remember that kinda foreshadowed the inverted castle is the top (bottom) inscription in the room where you fight Galamoth (read as RIP in the inverted castle)
I misremembered. Upside down stairs. Still, I remember thinking them an odd design choice as a kid. Then the inverted castle happened and I was like "oh; that's why."
Ah. Haven't played either the original or the port.
True. Pity HoD's music is such utter dogshit, tho.
The sample quality is rough, but I love the compositions a lot.
Yeah? I don't find any of it particularly good, but I'm glad someone enjoyed it.
Most plebs cannot appreciate lofi chiptune jazz fusion in their vidya
Oh, and that example is not even 10 minutes into the game and there are several others throughout.
Also
>inb4 phoneposting
My phone emulates amazingly well and I love it.
Dracula's coffin is also upside down in the first castle.
Also speaking of HoD, I remember not being able to get into the central chamber with Maxim in one of the two castles so Maxim can't 200% the game. Forgot which castle it was. You know... the one in the floor in the middle of the castle practically identical to the SoTN one beneath the clock room where you fight Dracula in both games? That one. In one castle, it's the Drac fight and in the other it's... well, it's been so long, I don't remember what Juste finds there. Maxim, I think. Either way, I know that when playing as Maxim you can only access it in the castle which leads to Drac but not the other castle.
Any hacks which change that?
No one can answer you because nu/vr/ (ever since adding your trash GBA and its brethren) is just oldGanker now IE they don't actually play games here.
>I don't remember what Juste finds there.
He finds Maxim there. It's in Castle A. You defeat him and get the ending with Maxim dead. Only in Castle B you can fight Dracula wearing Maxim's and Juste's ring when fighting Maxim(in Castle B). For Maxim, you can't enter that area in Castle A.
stupid phoneposter
Yeah, well, my house has a hundred baffrooms.
That image, HoD also has places like this, but you don't get an inverted castle there. You get a well done Twin Castle that you only learn later you are visiting both castle at the same time.
Where would Juste be if he left Castle B?
There is no Juste if you play as Maxim.
You can't even get 100% in either Castle A or Castle B with Maxim. For Castle A, you can't reach that area where you fight Maxim. For Castle B, pic related can't be done with Maxim.
I've done it, though. Don't you either use the spin-jump thing or the throwing star to do it? I know it's doable.
And I think Anon meant that if there are two castles and leaving one castle puts you in the middle of Transylvania, where would leaving the other castle put you?
I'd have worded it as
>were juste to exit castle b, where would that leave him?
Yeah, it's the spin jump thingy. Just did it.
Thank you. So only in Castle A you can't get 100%.
>where would leaving the other castle put you?
Same place, but in Castle B, you don't save Lydie. So,
Killing Maxim in Castle A: Juste leaves the Castle in Transylvania together with Lydie.
Killing only Maxim in Castle B: Juste leaves the Castle in Transylvania alone.
Killing Dracula's Wraith in Castle B: Juste laves the Castle in Transylvania together with Maxim and Lydie[there is an extra here if you get 100% of furniture in that room]
Maybe there is no way of leaving the Castle in Castle B, forcing Juste to first move to Castle A before leaving.
I meant Juste leaving the castle as in /just/ leaving. Not talking game stuff. Just hypothetically. Like, if Justeikins shows up to Castlevania and goes through the motions and shit and was all like "Y'know what? No." after hearing about the two castles and left while he was in Castle B, where would he be? Is Castle B on another plane of existence? Are there unicorns there? Are they nice? Are they friends with leprechauns?
>Is Castle B on another plane of existence?
Everything in the game makes it seems like Castle B is in another plane of existence. The whole sky is red and whatnot. Then again, maybe leaving Castle B would force him to return to original place. As if the whole world, so to speak, is Castle B and both those "teleport" and leaving the Castle B all take him back to Castle A/Transylvania.
That's what I thought, too.
A friend of mine was in a joke metal band back in the late 90s/early 2000s and one of their songs was about a "unicorn of darkness" who kicked leprechauns and ate babies.
Given some of the backgrounds, I'm inclined to say that it's either a a sort of "Dark World" reflection pulling references from Maxim's mind or it's just flat out Hell, maybe even both.
>Are there unicorns there?
Maybe.
>Are they nice?
Doubtful, I always figured Castle B is Dark Maxim's take on things, and given that Dark Maxim is regular Maxim's repressed desires and emotions brought out and likely twisted by Dracula's evil power, any unicorns you find will probably want you dead.
>Are they friends with leprechauns?
Neither are human and are a part of Castle B's fricked up world and likely both groups want you dead, so yeah, probably.
>Galamoth and his minions from Kid Dracula getting a whole area of the castle to themselves
Wait, I got Galamoth, but I didn't catch his minions. Which ones were they?
The Salomes and Frozen Halfs.
>muh victory lap
You have to understand this from a game design standpoint and aim this at the dumbest average people. The idea of freedom in a game is confusing. The game initially starts with just one path. Then you get two branching paths, one that just loops back to the original starting point. That is to teach the player that you can back track and it's not a linear game. So you go to the next path, which leads to the outer wall which gives you several paths to choose from in addition to buying the israeliteel of open which opens up more.
The game gradually starts with limited ways to go and gradually opens up over the course of the game. New abilities unlock being able to go to more areas.
Then we get to the final inverted castle in which there are no barriers and you can go anywhere. The game went from no freedom to max freedom.
If they had just started the game with max freedom then it would be too confusing and people would complain.
I wonder when the entrance's well (to the scrapped zone) would be made available by a competent level designer (not the Saturn ones at least)
why not both
it's great and lazy
It was both. The ceilings themselves should have been designed carefully to make fun levels after they made this decision, but they did not. It was a great idea and they put the minimum effort into it.
You can already fly by that point so it didn't really matter
It's kinda annoying having to switch to bat/mist though, specially when you only miss the platform by half an inch
Were you using the secret boots that make you a few pixels taller?
Switching constantly to forms or using the excessive vertical upwards launch is really tedius, which is why I said it should have been made fun. It was plenty doable because you had these, it was just not fun.
>they put the minimum effort into it.
well, time got cut short, so you're right, but it's not like the devs didn't care and just pushed it out the door.
this game is fricking trash compared to aria of basedow
It's a cool idea which feels like it was implemented very late in development, and like it wasn't quite fleshed out and fully realized. Flawed, but still a good addition.
Smart use of assets to add length to a game. It's a cheap trick, but effective.
Good idea in principle, but he implementation was terrible.
I wish someone made a mod adding some Rondo of Blood tunes to the inverted castle, the musical repetition is its biggest sin.
It was great for the first time. Then Iga started doing it in every Castlevania.
It's double Wily castles all over again.
It was done a lot better in later games, Harmony Of Dissonance does the twin castles thing far more fleshed out and well realized, where the parallel castles are actually rather different from each other.
>Harmony Of Dissonance
Is that the one where you play as Isweartogodimnotalucard Belmont?
Yes, Icancarryafrickingbedandcabinetaroundthiscastleatonce Belmont.
Iga didn't direct a single castlevania.
The only game he made was Elder Gate on ps1. He's a producer not a director. Learn the difference. Producers handle promo and admin.
>Igarashi had creative influence and was involved with the story-writing and programming.
>Part way through production, Hagihara was promoted to head of the division and asked Igarashi to finish the game as the assistant director.
I don't know who these people are.
NTA but he oversaw the finishing of a game that was mostly all planned out by then, big deal.
Rondo shares more with Symphony than any of the subsequent Metroidvanias and he didn't even work on it. Hagihara was the genius behind the game and it shows, which is why Igarashi failed several times in making something new with the franchise and only ever found success by rehashing SotN
He's an absolute fricking hack, he took Hagihara's brainchild, convinced morons it was his and made a career out of cloning SotN
Only harmony of dissonance did it, aria of sorrow had a new (short) area at the end
I don't mind it.
Not retro, but Bloodstained's inversion ability is actually a good evolution of the Reverse Castle by cutting down the repetition. I hope Igarashi's next game brings it back, but makes the castle more deliberately designed around inversion rather than a select few areas like in Bloodstained.
>new game
Nah it's shit. Shame. I'm a huge fan of sotn
Bloodstained is literally SOTN 2 but with the best elements of the later handheld igavania games. If the game had CASTLEVANIA and the konami logo slapped onto it, people would be eating it up and praising it.
Nah that's some MN9 shit. New games suck ass.
Explain what's wrong with Bloodstained
I'm the original person who was defending Bloodstained, but honestly it's not a conversation worth having because
1. it's not retro and this is /vr/
2. and people here obviously think "new thing = bad" despite the fact that Bloodstained is just a culmination of all of the good ideas Igarashi has had over all of his Castlevania games. People trying to label it as some kind of MN9 kickstarter scam have not played the game. If anything, it's more like Sonic Mania where it culminates all of the good stuff of the series, and adds more into it.
Let's not lie to ourselves anon, I played the shit out of the game over several months but the launch was rough and the switch port is still abysmal.
Bloodstained was fine during its launch, and the amount of content at launch was well worth the asking price. The Switch port was abysmal partly because the game was being developed for the Wii U, until Nintendo pulled the rug under them and abandoned the Wii U in favor for the Switch. I don't know the status of the port right now since I played it on PC. But since it's release it has gotten way more content, and it's slated to get even more by the end of this year. I just don't see how someone could dislike the game if they're a fan of iga's Castlevania games outside of pure intellectual dishonesty.
It's been patched on Switch a plenty
Until Lords of Shadow trilogy for PS4 & Switch.
We don't talk about LoS here, newfriend.
I'm only talking about performance, not content. The engine downgrade was a bit disappointing as well.
>The engine downgrade
???
Unreal Engine. Switch didn't support the newest version so they had to port it to the older version. I think the same thing happened with Dragon Quest XI.
Oh, well, doesn't really matter since UE is shit regardless
>MN9 kickstarter
AKA "We need a way to justify how stupid we were to pay $4mil USD for what was always pitched as a PSN Store-tier game and will plug our ears to what actually happened".
It had good ideas, but between the developers' lack of experience with 3D and continuous bad luck with developers, it's a miracle it came out at all. I got my Platinum (PS4 player) and never touched it again, so I have no idea how it is with updates now.
No, Bloodstained might have had a chance if it had INVERTED CASTLE.
its unironically one of the ugliest games I've ever seen, everything is slicked in oil.
castlevania is my favourite series of all time, bloodstained isn't the worst but my god its just so ugly and slow its not worth playing and when it occasionally gets fun you get interrupted by a character who'll throw 10 minutes of boring dialogue at you.
there were enough explorative castlevanias after sotn to substantiate anyone wanting that fix, bloodstained is cakka doo doo.
I'm never a stickler for visuals but its dog vomit.
>its unironically one of the ugliest games I've ever seen
Outside of the tutorial boat area, the game isn't particularly ugly. Honestly, unpolished visuals are kinda par for the course with Igarashi's Castlevania games. Konami never gave him the same budget as they did with SOTN since they relegated him to making only handheld titles. Iga's games were always done cheap with tons of asset reuse, especially the DS games which constantly ripped 32-bit sprites from SOTN whenever they could. At least the GBA games downscaled the SOTN sprites so there was some visual variety to them. I don't know how Konami expected Igarashi to pump out those games on a regular basis without a reasonable AAA budget. But at least he's free from them now.
>slow
This is just blatantly false though, stuff like backstep cancelling were heavily nerfed in the handheld games for some reason. Bloodstained brings back a lot of the practical animation cancels like rapid backstepping, divekick canceling, and towards the end of the game there's a Black Panther-esque shard powerup like in the Soma duology. It makes up for the lack of a Wing Smash equivalent.
>>slow
>This is just blatantly false though
Miriam being/feeling slow is a very common complaint actually. Yet IGA has shown videos where they austically copied Alucard's moveset, animation speed and everything. How can the game feel slow then, you might ask? Simply because it's 16:9 now so the character moving from one edge of the screen to another takes almost twice as long. Not to mention that SOTN is pretty slow by today's standards too.
Backstep cancelling in Bloodstained is almost as fast as dash spamming in Harmony of Dissonance though, and I feel like most people would agree that Harmony of Dissonance is an extremely fast paced game because of dash spamming + GBA screen crunch. Bloodstained's backstep cancelling is about on par with SOTN's backstep cancel. One common complaint people had with the games post-Aria was how much they nerfed all of the movement options, hence why Dawn of Sorrow is easily the slowest game in the series. Bloodstained is nowhere near as slow as Dawn of Sorrow.
is Bloodstained good? haven't tried it
Yes. So is Curse of the Moon.
Yeah. If you like igavanias then it's basically more igavania content. It's not like Konami is ever going to do anything meaningful with the Castlevania IP. As the other anon said, Curse of the Moon is pretty good too. It's basically like a proper follow-up to Castlevania 3, and it's made by Inti Creates.
>It's not like Konami is ever going to do anything meaningful with the Castlevania IP
If anything, they've resorted to dredging up Getsu Fuma Den instead.
>dredging up Getsu Fuma Den
And the Classicvania fan getsu fricked again.
it's like pottery, it rhymes
I agree, I liked Bloodstained but the art direction is awful. It's so bad that it was really hard to make out what was on the screen, what could be interacted with or not, what was the playable area, etc at least until you get used to the shit.
I'm glad it exists just because of the Curse of the Moon games are some of the best games of the last decade.
Bloodstained itself is not only ugly, but very clunky. All the hit boxes feel really bad.
Music is great though and I still enjoyed the game more than most in the genre.
Its lazy but it could be a great idea if executed well
I thought it was
>Based devs working on cool game.
>Konami: Are you done with it yet?
>No, great things take time.
>Konami: OK, well, you have [short amount of time].
>Hmmmmm.
>Inverts castle.
>Welp, best we can do.
This. It wasn't part of the initial plan but they had time and resources to make it happen. All they had to do is flip the first castle and then change some textures here and there and then add in some new monsters. It was great, and genuinely exciting on first playthrough as a kid when I finally got there, having no idea it even existed.
It took me forever to figure out the Spike breaker armor as a kid, which you need to use to get into the inverted castle.
I would say it was lazy if it wasn't for the fact that there was some foreshadowing about the inverted castle in the first castle, also like some anon mentioned it includes some nice easter eggs alluring to previous installments of the franchise and some rooms (unfortunately not every) seems to have been built around the idea of exploration in both castles.
But it's a shame cause you can tell they didn't have much time to polish the inverted castle: Only like four different soundtracks, some areas didn't include a boss where in the first castle it did, no additional progression items: you can freely explore the inverted castle from the moment you arrive and also the sheer amount of optional areas that the inverted castle has: Library, Catacombs, Entrance, Underground Caverns (you can just go directly and fight Death), Clock Tower, Coliseum, Laboratory.
It's a great idea, but ultimately, there's actually nothing important to do once you are there, other than getting the five relics and fight Shaft / Dracula and thus it makes the second castle boring to explore.
It's a great idea, but ultimately, there's actually nothing important to do once you are there, other than getting the five relics and fight Shaft / Dracula and thus it makes the second castle boring to explore.
In my opinion, lazy enemy desing: most of the enemies in the inverted castle left area are nova skeletons or jack o bones and most enemies in the inverted castle right area are imps and ukobacks.. I expected to see more enemies in the inverted castle, like the 2 head creature of castlevania chronicles or the invisible wraith of super castlevania 4.
Kids pretending like they didn't lose their goddamn minds when they got to the inverted castle and jizz their pants over the entire (great fricking) idea.
I love how it's fashionable now to shit on SotN just because it's proven to be one of the only good huge, mainstream games after the Shit Era of Games began (mid-90s) because it proves 3d gameplay is a fricking gimmick and linear snorefests are trash.
Both.
Great idea conceptionally, but only a Nintendo (circa GameCube era desperation) or Sega (arcades in the 90s and Dreamcast) level developer would be able to pull off a castle that works inverted and normally
That level of autism is reserved for the true otaku
It was great. More so because I didn't know English so I thought Ritcher was the last boss, but after playing many times and trying to learn new things, I found out that secret passage in the clock room, found the weird glass and even with that, it still took me a while to wear it when fighting Ritcher. I think I finished the game 4 to 5 times before learning there was a inverted castle. I still find the idea amazing and the game the only good metroidvania out there.
Castlevania always gets this high praise for this " genius" upside down idea (which sucks to play btw )
But I don't hear people giving disgea credit for infinite replay and making every item be a new world of fun
Genuinely amazing mechanic if you dig srpgs
And unlike castlevania it's more than a good idea with shit implementation
Item worlds were trash bro, it was just more grind.
You ever considered that some ppl like the grind?
Monster Hunter is just "the grind"
excellent idea.
memorable and a good way to reuse the map and extend play time, blew my mind as a teenager and made me play all the other castlevanias after.
its like you homosexuals purposely take it out of contextual time, stuff like that in games wasn't common, the only reason you associate inverted / reversed maps with hack playtime extension is because games like sotn paved the way for mediocre ones to copy them but do it worse.
Pretty lazy, but I enjoyed it enough at the time. There was enough new to keep me entertained.
Speaking of Harmony of Dissonance, someone updated the old Chinese Revenge of the Findesiecle rom hack that added Julius from Aria so that it is a more complete hack, and it's really impressive, possibly even the best way to play the game.
It adds tons of new characters. Julius from Aria, Maxim, Devil Juste (an Alucard ripoff), John and Eric from Bloodlines can all be played from the start by entering their names and have full featured playthroughs with equipment, menu, relics, spells and merchant access. In addition, Simon, Megaman, and Mario are also available as non-Menu characters for I guess NES nostalgia reasons.
Also contains quite a few bug fixes and QoL improvements, like changing Juste's outline to be less obnoxious.
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5848/
Nifty. Will d/l and patch and play and stuff.
: (
For some reason, neither the Robledo online patcher nor the hack64 patcher will patch this rom for me. Keep getting a "system busy" error, which is odd since the browser downloads everything the frick else just fine (both the patch itself and a second copy of the rom in case mine was fricked for some reason, for example).
I don't wanna download a program or app for rom patching so I guess I'll go without. Thanks for posting it, though. Maybe someone else will enjoy it (and upload a copy somewhere other than Mega for me).
I will give you a patched copy, but you have to show some level of progress on learning how to patch things locally yourself not using online patchers, because I'm tired of people not learning. Do you have access to any kind of computer, literally anything that will run Windows, Linux, or Java? Answer the question and I will upload the rom for you, and also give you advice on how to do this yourself in the future.
Oh, no worries. I know how to patch, but my PC is a toaster. Even still, it has some undoubtedly ancient version of Lunar IPS on it I guess I can try. If it doesn't work, however I'll just live without. No big. Just really don't wanna download a PC program which, due to its age, is unlikely to work and hate downloading apps to my phone.
That's why I have a strong preference for online patchers which, it must be said, have never given me a problem before today.
Switch to Flips. Floating IPS. Google it. Entire source code is on github, it's legit. GUI on windows and linux. No reason to use LIPS anymore. Flips isn't even something you install, it's just a simple executable on every platform. None of the sketchy shit these programs had back in the day.
Here's the rom I promised:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/e7w7rmwamtu319j/
Here's a good link to Flips:
https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1040/
Thank you kindly.
My aversion to new programs has nothing to do with fear of sketch or refusal to install things. It's only exactly as I said: I don't want to download something that will very likely not even work at all due to the PC's extreme age.
To put it into perspective, were my kid as old as the computer, he'd be starting high school in a few weeks.
>possibly even the best way to play the game.
Eh, all of the new content additions are fairly pointless to be honest. If you're romhacking HoD, all you really need is the animation mod and outline remover
Lazy.
Dawn of Sorrow > SotN > Portrait of Ruin > that last DS castlevania > >>
else
First time it was cool, but on repeats you do start to notice it’s got a lot of less effort put into it than the rest of the game so I just skip it most of the time (sorry Richter)
It's shit because they never designed the levels with it in mind. They just took layouts that weren't meant to work inverted and just inverted them anyway. None of it was planned out in advance or earned. Lazy dogshit and also plays poorly because of that. If you find it amusing you have sub 50 IQ.
Bit of both, I thought the game was over for the first time so I'm thinking based.
A bit lazy for sure but I didn't mind it since it was at the time unlike everything I had played before.
Exploring this area was a thrill because the music made you feel like you weren't supposed to be there and were about to discover something truly horrifying
If you play it backwards it sounds really happy (and you'll hear a recipe for a really ripping lentil soup!).
It's non-linear unlike the first castle and the loot and enemy design is better, the first castle is overrated
Based
>Freeform exploration
>Open ended level design
>Hardest enemies in the game
>Need to make regular use of your abilities and best gear to progress
I think it just to prolong the game a little. Not bad, not good
ʇi pǝʞil I 'sǝY
Anyway the great thing about the inverted castle is that it's completely unlinear and you can go at it any way you want
Been playing a lot of the SOTN randomizer, it's pretty fun. Zelda 2 randomizer is better, but it is what it is. I wish there were more randomizers this good.
Better at what? SOTN has a lot of loot and the skills are more meaningful than in Zelda 2. unless it's one of those mods that change even the level design
Zelda 2 has a pretty strong overworld and dungeon randomizer. It gets pretty insane.