This is the best 8 bit Castlevania. There's not even a debate. It has the best gameplay, the best music, the best graphics, cutscenes, multiple playable characters and more. The NES games don't hold a candle to this.
This is the best 8 bit Castlevania. There's not even a debate.
>This is the best 8 bit Castlevania.
moron
The PC Engine is an 8bit console.
It’s both, but with how many colors it can display it feels more like a 16-bit machine
>The PC Engine is an 8bit console.
that point is moot when it runs a monster like After Burner II better than the genesis does (32x port not withstanding)
Nothing to do with bits
>better
that port that made it more like after burner 1, has a lower resolution, controls more badly than the mega drive one, has worst sprite scaling and has a less accurate ost, in general both are limited versions of after burner but the md one at least plays the best and has more quality to it and is better, even if it should have had the rocket recharging ship.
plane*
nevermind it has it, sorry for forgetting that, they should have made it scale tho.
>8 bit
>PCE
I know it technically is, but come on..
>8 bit
erm..
i agree though, it's the best classicvania followed closely by castlevania 3, then bloodlines, then the adventure.
The PC Engine is 16 bit albeit
It has an 8bit processor.
The amount of colors it can display is irrelevant. It's got an 8bit processor.
>PC Engine
>AKA the TurboGrafx-16
Nothing special. The NES can also produce more color and sample like the SNES with enough added memory. Something Nerdy Studio's could get FMV's running with a memory add on. If the Famicom Disk System took off in the US it's likely similar games could have been produced.
https://twitter.com/SomethinNerdy/status/1500869390501359620
>The NES can also produce more color and sample like the SNES with enough added memory.
The part about colors is wrong, the NES has a fixed palette (picrel) with no way to change it
About that...
https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/VT03%2B_Enhanced_Palette
(the issue of this is that they are using an fpga (aka a programmable chip to copy other architectures) to make it so they aren't using the nes capabilities but streaming video through the fpga while not using any of the nes hardware, this can be proven by the bad apple video being originally a mega drive video thanks to the video having mega drive specs, having the same framerate and quality, sound generators (a ym2612 and sega psg combo) and format, they very likely choosed this video by it having a reasonable size system requirements to the fpga to work it with his specs and for it being faster by having common 68000 instructions.
remember that a fpga in flashcarts is more potent than the base systems they work on, in general the way to prove that it isn't the fpga doing the work is by the rom using accurate sizes for the system or not using them, just using burned standard roms, this is the reason most md demos are made with the size limit of 8 mbs or use ssf2 memory mapper (which isn't fpga based and can't be converted into extra specs, normal memory mappers are always fine, the issue isn't the mappers but adding more specs).
sorry for not seeing the resolution, it has nes resolution
the only point that i could do is that the video has a lower resolution and in general by the explanation they are making they are using the fpga to put more hardware power into it, in the mean time i can say that is:
a. a video made with the fpga which just uses the nes as a pass through device while they are saying that is the nes with a fpga that just inputs data with timing (doubtful by the way the video looks and the way it pass timings which would be impossible to do on the nes without straining the device).
b. an excellent demo which used all of the nes capacities, but that would depend on having the code of it and the compression used.
by reading the way it works i can say that it's a
>we just put the video directly to the screen with timings, lulz
the only part that i can think of that is nes is the audio which they openly said that it carries 70% of the load on an nes, the other 30% could just be used to pass the video to the nes or most likely the pcm is made with the fpga and they use all of the nes specs to just pass the video and audio.
it's the md video seeing it too, the reason of this is that the video has a 4:3 res which the nes can't output and they tried to obfuscate this by not putting the video on a 8:7 screen (the video would have looked squashed) while putting black bars on it on the recorded demo, something that reflects tampering as a way to obfuscate the resolution, in general these demos should respect the resolution of the system when they are uploaded to know that they are showing the system and not just trying to pass something off (even if they fricked on this part by the video having the same res as the mega drive one by it having the same size on the screen without the black bars on yt which accounts for res
sorry for saying that 8 mbytes are the final size limit of the md, it was 5 in ssf2 and the cartridge limit was that, still, the person who developed the bad apple md video cut it down in half so it can be used on normal mappers and not on just everdrives (i will use those as the reference points because using everdrives is still a no no).
this is the reason they said this:
>Unfortunately, even if we did, it wouldn't do you any good. You also need an implementation of the memory mapper being used for this (MXM-1), which we have not publicly released. We are not going to release that for a while for many reasons.
they will never release it
if you want to see the bad apple md video here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vPe452cegU
here are the download links:
You can download 4 MB roms here (cut on parts to see without special mappers :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6fy2y71zfssomxk/BadApple.bin?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v8dffnxpcgvo93d/BadApple_p2.bin?dl=0
8 MB version available here :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fg8oymtgjv6o7rt/BadApple_p1.bin?dl=0
ok, after seeing it more, i can say that it isn't the md demo, i could see that it's a compressed video at 4:3 (it has some color effects which the md demo doesn't have, something which could have just got by doing modification or most likely a compressed version of the original without any modifications to make it fit into the nes color palette which can't degrade as well and doesn't have enough res and capacity to generate reasonable dithering.
the conclusion of this is that the pc engine has more color than the nes and the nes has color limits based on the docs.
Again...
they are color limits based on the docs, i didn't said anything wrong.
More color ram = more colors, the VT03 proved this.
yeah, that's part of non stock hardware tho but yeah, doc type of things.
It has two, therefore it's 16 bit.
Its basically a souped up NES game
>The NES hardware sucked but instead of be honest about it I’m going to play numbers games with the PCE hardware to defend the NES’ honor
Many such cases
CV3 is the superior game regardless of how many bits the Turbografx had
The Famicom came out in 1983, the PCE came out in 1987. Can't really consider them to be part of the same hardware generation.
Who are you quoting, schizo? Imagine constantly having to fight demons in your head.
Time to break out the screenshots again.
brutal mogging
I dont know why people praise this shit so much, it's more overrated than SotN
I agree that SOTN is overrated, I'll say that.
>bossfight is treated as separate level
>"wooooow look how short these levels are"
They couldn't put an actual level before the boss like in every other Castlevania game?
I still like it more than CV3
This is some pathetic bait, that's by far the shortest level in the game
Oh come on, at least pull an actual level from Rondo, your point would probably still stand.
>Captcha: VGDXM8
the whole game is just walking through corridors, theres barely any platforming, bosses are easy as piss. but it has some anime cutscenes so i guess its the best one.
>bosses are easy as piss
The early-level bosses, sure, but Death kicks my ass multiple times on every playthrough unless I puss out and use easy mode (Maria). I find the second Shaft fight with the skelly dragon is no cakewalk either. Dracula is a little more automatic but you still have to be on your game.
I feel like some people just aren't satisfied with anything short of the CV1 Death fight but honestly, frick that boss. The fact that the later Vanias weren't quite so determined to kill you is a good thing
Easy bosses, maybe, but they were still fun if you ask me.
>later Vanias weren't quite so determined to kill you is a good thing
You mean later Classicvanias? Because Chronicles' Medusa and Shewolf stood out to me as being big pains in my ass.
Replaying Chronicles again after a couple weeks of rust made me realize how insane the Medusa fight is without, at least, a double-shot Cross. Shewolf is hard too but she seems to encourage going all out against and the easiest subweapon to get on the way to her is an axe, which is perfect for that fight. Medusa only has holy water on that last portion of the runback which sucks shit in this game.
Chronicles is the hardest overall IMO. I’m not sure what it is but that game absolutely whoops my ass
Agreed, yet I still consider it my favorite (tied with Akumajou Densetsu). Was able to do it deathless one night though which I still can't do with CV4, funnily enough.
You think fighting 5 bosses in a row with no save points and one health pick up is easy? Lol
what do you mean no save point? the stage you have to go through before the boss is just a short corridor with no enemies, you dont even need a save point. and most of those bosses are not hard at all.
I need to give it another try. For the most part I still prefer SCIV, Chronicles, and Bloodlines. Probably Symphony of the Night too
In terms of 8-bit 'vanias there's not much to compare it to besides the NES and Game Boy games. In terms of Turbo CD games I find it to be kind of overrated compared to some of the other stuff on there
This is a PC Engine CD game, so its more 16-bit than a regular hucard game. More dynamic sound and all that.
Not OP, that's not really how processors work. Virtual Boy and GBA are both 32-bit without having CD quality audio or (good) full motion video. Also, a console can be fourth gen and 8-bit at the same time, like Game Boy and Game Gear (and TurboExpress)
>when they took the "stairs are the hardest enemy" meme too seriously
Level 2 in each game. Castlevania 3, a challenging clock tower level that you have to scale and then do down as a different character with different abilities. Rondo, a straight line with occasional jumps.
Rondo has two Stage 2 plus two alternate paths
I know this is all bait but just for the sake of the thread I'll give this a sincere response.
Rondo and CV3 are my two favorite Castlevania games, because I think they're both the best at two different kinds of gameplay. CV3 gives you a wide array of tools and then puts you in situations that force you to take full advantage of them and this, combined with the slower pace, makes it a strategic experience. Rondo is more of a straightforward, fast-paced action game and the emphasis is on the presentation and speed, not to mention the boss fights. Boss fights in CV3 are mostly trivialized with subweapons (in-keeping with the design of strategic choices being more important than precise execution), whereas in Rondo you actually have to learn boss patterns and react to them. Unless you spam item crashes, I guess, but there aren't enough hearts to do that with every boss.
Anyway, this is all to say that CV3 level design and Rondo level design are different because the games are trying to accomplish two completely different things. It's not like the devs were trying to make CV3-style levels and failed.
Respectable Castlevania lover post. Who's your favorite partner in 3?
Grant. He's not overpowered like Sypha nor is he in the Alucard position of being either useless or mandatory. Grant encourages you to be observant and think creatively about the environments to take full advantage of him.
Good taste. I always go for Grant too. It helps the level you go for him is really fun, doubly so on your way out with your new buddy.
>He's not overpowered
True true, but I was talking about the US version, which is the one I've played more of. And I still think Sypha's more OP than Grant even in JP if you can hold onto Lightning.
Good post
>people falling for the 8bit semantics trap
I think it's interesting Rondo did away with whip upgrades entirely and just kept the VK as a chain whip. Really whip upgrades happen so quickly in the other CV games that it makes sense to just cut out the middle man and just keep the whip at full power.
I can't imagine anyone wanting to go through CV 1 or 3 with only the leather whip.
>I can't imagine anyone wanting to go through CV 1
I have actually gone through almost all of CV 1 leather whip-only. "Almost all" because Death himself is literally the one part of the game I haven't pulled it off on. Someday...
>made me realize how insane the Medusa fight is without, at least, a double-shot Cross
I used to think myself that having a throwable weapon was borderline necessary, but by loop 8 or so, I came to realize that Medusa likes to react to how close you are. For anyone having trouble, start the fight close enough to whip her, and then quickly back the frick off to the other side when she recoils. Avoid the snakes she throws at you and don't get close to her until she fires the purple, petrifying laser, and then repeat the process. So long as you don't stick too close to her for too long, which is admittingly a tight window, she won't insist on closing the space between you and overwhelm you.
I'd attribute to things like
>Simon is kind of gimped even compared to his CV1 self
>enemies like skeletons are more on point than usual, the aforementioned will take potshots at you on stairs
>Chronicles loves its verticality
>X68K/Chronicles has parts that are straight up pavlov's bell for old hands
Fine example of all these points is that last vertical section before Medusa, even, with the stairs and skeletons. There's a candle to the far left when you first enter, and if you go for it, your dumb ass just allowed the skeletons up top to group up and form a while of bones that you are not getting past while going up the stairs. You're pretty much eating a hit unless you have an axe or stopwatch, and I've felt like Chronicles makes it a point to screw you out of those.
>I have actually gone through almost all of CV 1 leather whip-only.
That sounds like absolute fricking agony, it's bad enough the leather whip has shit range but that reduced damage too. How long did it take you to beat Frankenstein's monster and Igor?
Oh it's been years since I last went through the whole game like that, so I frankly don't remember how it went with Frankenstein's Monster. Pity, too, I sometimes see people asking how to deal with him, and I'm sadly at a loss for words, and this despite the fact that I could probably tell you how to deal with the mummies and Death. Franky is just one of those things I _do_, you know? Like driving a route you've gone through so many times but then you worry yourself about if you took a wrong turn when you actually pay attention to what goes on around it.
That said
>the leather whip has shit range but that reduced damage too
Eh, CV 1 is the one game I have the balls to pull this shit on in the first place because of its design. Not to say that there isn't a difference, axe armors are more dangerous since now it matters what height you whip at, but otherwise? Just maybe slightly different rules of engagement.
>Medusa
It really is a pretty tight window, yeah, but if you can get in those, what, I think maybe two whip hits and run the frick away to the other side, she'll never approach.
>the moment she jumps forward I tend to panic and get fricked over throughout the fight
You mean like how she just goes all over you once she starts? I don't remember the exact distance, but even I think that, even if she gets to pull it off, you can still push her back and reset things if you get far away enough, even if you have to hug the wall to do it.
>that webm
Cripes, that must be exhilarating to say the least. I just trigger the guy, run up the stairs, and wait for him to do his little dash past me and run to the other side. Have enough time to off the test tube babies and then whip the Creature a little ways crouched from the wall where he can't get me. I'm not fighting that fricker fair.
Nice bait thread.
Great example of why classifying consoles by how many bits their CPU's registers had was always stupid.
Nowadays, people tend to think more about how games look when they talk about 8 bit style or 16 bit style. PC Engine looks closer to SNES than NES, thanks to having a 16 bit graphics processor, so it's thought of as more of a 16 bit console.
I think that's fair and not just blindly believing the marketing.
It's a weird in-between console.
Was gonna start a threat for it but frick it, this'll do.
How do I get into this franchise, bros? I feel a bit intimidated by the sheer amount of games that usually take more than 30 hours to finish exploring and have no clue where to begin.
Can't go wrong by starting with the first game.
Only SotN and post-SotN Castlevanias ("Igavanias" some people call them) are explore-'em-ups like you describe. The Classicvanias are straightforward arcade-style games. As for how to get into the series, I would strongly suggest release order. If you're looking for a list of absolute must-plays, I'd recommend:
>Castlevania 1
>Castlevania 3 (JP or US version, either one)
>Super Castlevania 4
>Bloodlines
>Rondo of Blood
>Symphony of the Night
If you end up liking the NES games, you could try Chronicles and Dracula X. If you want more Igavanias after Symphony of the Night, try Aria of Sorrow and Order of Ecclesia. I'd also recommend Harmony of Dissonance, but I think I'm a minority on that.
Finally, a note about Super Castlevania 4: it plays very differently from the rest of the series, but I included it on the list because it really seems to click with some people. It's a love it or hate it kind of thing.
>Only SotN and post-SotN Castlevanias ("Igavanias" some people call them) are explore-'em-ups like you describe.
Simon's Quest?
>I'd also recommend Harmony of Dissonance
Ayy, I'm not the only one.
Try HoD but be wary, it gets somewhat tedious later on with it's Dissonance gimmick
Definitely go in release order. First game can be tough as frick when starting out but it's also the shortest one. Just take it easy and you'll get through it.
Super Castlevania 4 tends to be the go-to beginner game but I highly recommend NOT starting there since it could cause some bad habits, like considering subweapons to be useless, trying to whip anywhere or possibly even thinking you can jump on stairs in the NES games.
Feel free to skip stuff like Vampire Killer and Haunted Castle since those are on the weird side, although still worth checking out later on.
If you get to Castlevania 3 then I recommend playing the Japanese version first and then NA. NA isn't that bad except for the underground route but it still has some annoyances compared to JP in my opinion.
>considering subweapons to be useless
I get that IV makes you rely less on, well basically the Axe maybe, but the Cross is as useful as in any other classicvania and you always want to have it at rank III, at least I know I do.
>possibly even thinking you can jump on stairs in the NES games.
IV is still rather strict with stairs though, compared to pretty much every other castlevania made after it.
But yeah I also recommend playing CV1 as the introduction to the series. No discussion, great game, no reason to not start with it.
Oh I agree with you there, the Cross is still a fantastic choice. Really I don't even hate the other subweapons because they still function as well as you'd expect, it's just that there's fewer instances where you'd ever need them since there aren't many times the whip can't hit an enemy at a very specific angle, and if there are like those two skeletons near a room's entrance in Block 6 or those Dullahans in the beginning of Block B, then just holding the whip or using the Cross' bigger hitbox does the trick anyways.
I had a feeling that's how Medusa works and that's normally what I try do on runs where I don't have a good subweapon but admittedly, the moment she jumps forward I tend to panic and get fricked over throughout the fight. I've finally figured out how to avoid the snakes but that jumping tail whip comes out fast. Going to have to try out the other loops too now that I think about it.
>playing the shitty PSX port
ISHYGDDT
What are the differences between Chronicles Original Mode and the x68k version?
You start with the first game, just skip the Castlevania 3D games and you are good to go.
Play Castlevania NES first, then Castlevania III (you pick which version, some say Japanese is better overall)
A lot of the later games reference these two so it's fundamental you play them first
It's also important you understand the Hammer horror movie origins, as the later games basically turn into SMT with monsters from religions, literature, folklore, cryptids and shit like that
>that usually take more than 30 hours to finish exploring
Absolutely fricking NOT
The metroidvanias are ~5 hours on average, extremely short games that are meant to be replayed multiple times
Most classicvanias are >2 hours, about the length of a movie (but might take you significantly longer-- however long it takes you to git gud)
Castlevania 3 has a beautiful map done in a traditional style. At the end, the return to the side view of Castlevania is a nice surprise for people who played the first game. Rondo has bluesky.jpg on a straight-line map (just like the game, really).
You really hate Rondo, don't you?
Willyvania
will never catch, auster.
Willyvaniscotformer
why would you dissrespect montezuma's revenge like that
Is Auster an actual individual who really exists or is it just anyone who loves the Speccy/Amiger and hates Nintendo?
Redpill me on Simon's quest, what's bad and good about it?
That's maybe going to depend on who you ask, but me personally, I enjoy the game but I think its design is kind of lackluster, particularly in light of CV 1, even if the way it handles things is what was popular back then.
>bad
If you don't already know through cultural osmosis, it probably will be difficult to know what to do without a guide, though there are books hidden even outside the mansions that help with that.
For me especially, though, I take a bit of issue with the enemy design and player character design. It's not all bad, but I think a good deal of enemies are just borderline there? Unarmed skeletons and a bunch of others just walk back and forth, a lot of flying enemies just make a slow beeline for you, enemies spitting fire aren't shit if you have Drac's rib equipped all the damn time, stuff like that. Kind of says something that the most dangerous foe is the countryside slime. For Simon's part, on the one hand, he no longer has an axe for upper-directional attacks, so he can't coventionally deal with skellies and armors blocking the ends of stairwells, but on the other hand, Simon can just use laurels for on-demand temporary invincibility to walk through them, and this isn't getting into stuff like the flame whip or the golden knife or the early-game sacred flame that fricks shit up. It's weird like that.
>good
For all my shittalking, you'll still get your ass beat if you go into things unprepared, probably, and even though people talk CV 2 up as a progenitor of Metroidvania, it still remembers to be a Classicvania with some tricky, dangerous jumps here and there.
Also, I just love the setting. Even Bloody Tears doesn't take away from the somber mood, maybe even adds to it. Maybe it's the colors, maybe it's the story of Simon's life ticking away with little help from his fellow man. Conversely, Simon not lashing out at anyone and seemingly praying for Dracula in some of the endings despite everything is stuff that resonates with me.
Best 8-bit:
Rondo of Blood
Best 16-bit:
The New Generation
Best 32-bit:
Chronicles
Sorry Nincels, but you got fricked when it came to Castlevania games.
Inferior to CV3
>stairs: the game
Castlevania III is overrated as shit.
Also the partners break the game's balance.
Baby got filtered
>filtered
chronicles' original mode is harder than cv3.
Ironically one of the easiest parts of that hellish level, even on stairs you have plenty of space to react to those enemies and weapons to deal with them.
>one of the easiest parts
really? I'd say 9-2 is one of the toughest stages in the whole game
I just had a much harder time with the parts that come after it, had to redo it so much it just wasn't a problem at all. After playing it enough times it became easy to tell when I needed to attack or keep walking.
Stairs are fun!
Unironically filtered.
>replying to australia-kun's stale, rotten bait.
>RoB bad
Counterpoint: Maria
>best non-linear 'vania is on MSX2
>best linear 'vania is on Sharp X68000
Computerchads... we just can't stop FRICKING WINNNNIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGGG
>MSX2 Dracula
>Non-linear
It has the same stage-based progression as the MSX2 version. The only thing that changes is that it forces you to look for keys.
>replying to australia-kun
Slightly off topic, but this didn't seem to warrant it's own thread.
Can any big CV fans explain Belmont vs Belmondo?
Was it a mistranslation? Did the West like it better? Or did the Japanese get something wrong when using the name?
Don't know the particulars, but Japanese words don't tend to end in certain consonants, and they generally alternate consonants and vowels. So "Belmont" becomes something like "Berumonto". It was probably supposed to be "Belmont" in the creators mind, but the way they wrote it led the translators to think it was "belmonto", which is like the Spanish-ish name "belmondo"
The short version is that it reads more literally as "Belmondo" in Japanese, but it got rendered inconsistently as "Belmont" or more rarely "Belmond" in English. The West soon adopted the Belmont form, while Japan eventually settled on Belmondo.
You want a real headache? Try Sipha/Sypha/Cipher Velnumdes/Belnades/Fernandez.
Why didn't anyone just tell the localizers that they were trying to say "Fernandez"?
In early Japanese materials for the original Akumajou Dracula (both, FCD and MSX2), Simon's full name was alternatively spelled as シモン・ベルモンド and シモン・ベルモント. The little apostrophe changes the "t" sound in Japanese to a "d" sound.
I always got the impression the Belmonts were named after Jean-Luc Belmondo.
Because they weren't? It's ヴェルナンデス
Jean-Paul Belmondo from Breathless? Feels a little highbrow for castlevania, I know the creator was into old horror movies but I didn't know he was into arthouse cinema.
Do you think the consonant shift in the Japanese original was intentional? Or did they just realize they'd been translating it into Japanese wrong?
Gotta say, I prefer Belmont to Belmondo. The former's got more of an oomph to it with that hard "t" at the end. The name makes me think of someone like Simon wielding the Vampire Killer.
You don't understand anon, the Japanese name is Japanese therefore it is superior. Belmondo is better just like Rockman.
>ヴェルナンデス
>Ve-ru-na-n-de-su
Seems a lot like "Fernandez" to me.
Dracula X is better than ROB so it's technically the best 8bit Castlevania since it's basically just a scrambled port of old assets.
>Dracula X is better than ROB
Nice b8, but only envious nincels unironically believe that.
*crack neck*
Entire castlevania rating:
Castlevania 3 (NES) > Castlevania 1 (NES) > Nothing else is worth playing
You're welcome
*leave cooly*