Now that the dust has settled, can we agree Dawn of Sorrow was objectively the best Castlevania game?
If you think Dawn is better than Aria then you have terminally shit taste. I don't know what else to tell you.
Wrong
>>729748471soulless qualityslopI hate good games that have no personality
>>729749095>soullessquite literally, unless you want to grind for fucking days
>>729748471is this the one that has the stupidass plot of Dracula living inside the moon/sun?
>>729748471*Curse of Darkness
>>729748471The soul synthesis system fucking sucks and gimps every drop table and natural pick-up in the entire game so you have to engage with it. Soul drop rates are also unneccasarily small so you can't even mess around with it without hours of boring grinding.The story is also the worst in any CV. I just can't overlook how much they fucking ruined the soul system, so much work wasted because everything is so pointlessly rare.
You now remember this box art.
>>729749226Aria of Sorrow is the one where the backstory is that Dracula's Castle was sealed within the European solar eclipse of 1999 by Julius Belmont, military forces, and Japanese shrine maidens invoking the power of Amaterasu/Susanoo.Then Soma Cruz was born as a reincarnation of Dracula during the 2017 solar eclipse in America, and Aria occurs during the Japanese eclipse of 2035.
Portrait of Ruin was so much better that it's not even funny.
>>729748471I prefer portrait
>>729749389>Clocktower has the best them of all Castlevania clocktowers>The level is nothing but hallways with switches and elevatorsAnyone who didn't drop that game right there needs to be corrected with violence
>>729750778What the fuck are you trying to say?
>>729748471Eh its alright.
>>729748471Holy shit noIt's one of the worst
>>729750152>>729750435same
>>729748471>Luck stat is bugged to the point where it's useless>IGA forced to change the artsyle because konami wanted to reach younger audiences>most environments look butt ugly and monotonous. The wizardry labs and subterranean hell especially.Out of the trilogy of Dsvanias, the only high point it has were the boss fights. But even that got marred by the hamfisted DS touchscreen gimmick at the time
>>729754791Bro just play the romhack.
>>729748471The Classicvanias in general are better than the Metroidvanias, but Dawn isn't even better than Aria. It's not even the best drummer in the Beatles.
>>729749389One of the worst.
>>729750778retard
>>729750152Both Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia were better than Dawn of Sorrow. Only good thing about Dawn of Sorrow was my waifu Yoko.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN_ECc8HA4g
>>729748471No.
>>729749952So what you're saying is that Soma is probably playing Fortnite and making 6 7 jokes right now?
It's definitely the best of the DS games, but Aria is still better.
>>729758753worst of the ds and worst overall the 7 games
>>729748471no. super castlevania 4 it's still the best
>>729750435I feel like charlotte could have been her own thing. I'd play another game with just her in it.
>>729748471>forced touch controls
You have to admit both Somacula and Menace are goated final bosses.
>>729748471But its not even the best DS Castlevania, PoR is
Aria of Sorrow > Portrait of Ruin > Circle of the Moon > Harmony of Dissonance (with a sprite patch / fix I made myself to fix Juste's horrible sprites and ugly glow) > Dawn of Sorrow (Patched, only the beginning level is good) >>>>>>>>>>>>> Order of ShitlesiaEven hacking Order of Shitlesia to play faster and giving Shitnoa more movement options didn't save the game from how far it strayed from the classc formula that always worked. Its pros are Shanoa's design and some of the beginning stages plus the soundtrack as a whole. Rest was disappointing as fuck.
>>729761864It's kind of shocking to me how dogshit Shanoa's glyphs for 80% of the game compared to the offensive options the previous protagonist had.Even when I did the level 50 glitch recently it did increase the utility of some niche Glyphs but it wasn't that fun either.The water levels are atrocious too.
2026 CASTLEVANIA ANNIVERSARY PREDICTIONS?
>>729761864NopePoR/CotM > OoE > AoS > SotN > HoD > DoS
>>729762224They'll release a perfect port of SotN with all content across versions just in time for the SotN decomp. It'll be a gaming event of all times.
>AoSLike 40% of the bosses are just normal enemies but thankfully the rest of them more than make up for it>Portrait of RuinExtremely tight pacing, good bosses, lots of content. Kinda fun post-game dungeon.>CotMMagician Mode or bust >HoDSome of stupid decisions mostly regarding the Castle's design but it gets too much shit. Juste's movement is tight.>DoSBasically an open-world game if you get familiar with the glitches. Probably the best iterations of the Soul system when it comes to variety(somehow beating Bloodstained). Weapons feel kinda shit to use though.>OoEMeh. Best looking vania besides SotN I guess.
>>729760131I don't think Castlevania had a bad final boss, they're usually pretty great
>>729748471>Take an excellent game>Add unnecessary touchscreen bullshit>Add soul farming and make it required if you don't want to feel underpowered the whole gameNo
>>729748471yes
>>729754834Which one?
>>729762692Simon's Quest Dracula is lame but the design itself is really cool and I'll die on that hill.
>>729762824Definitive Edition+
Aria of Sorrow > Symphony of the Night > Order of Ecclesia > Dawn of Sorrow > Portrait of Ruin > Circle of the Moon > Harmony of DissonanceThem's the facts.
>>729762424Hopefully it's collection with an HD remaster of Dracula X Chronicles.
>>729758859How can you say that when HoD and arguably CotM exist
>>729762713Soul farming was in Aria too dipshit. And it was required for the true ending.
>>729748737I will never forgive Netflix for what they did to the curse of darkness characters.
>>729763231There's no excuse for what they did to Hector, but they unironcally improved Isaac in every way.
>>729748471It's pretty close to the worst one of that style.
>>729763190Aria didn't require you to collect the same fucking soul 9 times in order to make it useful, dumbassIt also didn't have a crafting system that required you to farm even more souls to keep your weapon from feeling like a butterknife
>>729763275Bait
>>729763575lmao as if CoD Isaac was a paragon of incredible writing
>>729763502You can't complain about the crafting system but defend needing to grind to get the true ending.
>>729762868Thanks dude
>>729763837You needed three souls to get the true ending in Aria, none of which are the rarest drop typeFully upgrading a weapon in Dawn is around a dozen, some of which will be 5-star rarity and then there's the need to collect more than one of each soul to "upgrade" the soul as I mentioned earlier
https://x.com/KojiIGA/status/2006427843216208104Seems like Bloodstained 2 will release this year.
How to improve every DSvania>DoSRework the soul upgrade system, make it so they become stronger with usage and you can downgrade the souls anytime without releasing copies away.Remove Puppet Master soul from the gameYou fight Black Panther just before Abyss and it has a 100% soul drop rateWeapon Synthesis creates a weapon tree just so you'll be able to visually see the synthesis results and progressionNaturally, better soul drop rates and Luck is stronger>PoRCompletely remove subweapon mastery from Jonathan, literal paddingMore whips through the game and better weapon skillsCharlotte transformations now can all be activated with an input sorta like SotN, give her wing smash while at itI never got too much use of the union skills but I'm assuming they could be strongerAgain, make luck actually useful for a changeNeeds some dumb monster girl completionism system just because the game is silly enough already>OoEI don't think Wallman and his glyph should've been tied to Dracula castleYou can just farm hearts before boss fights so might as well just refill your hearts before themA bit more of water stages and at least one boss fought underwater, maybe inside Dracula's Castle, I feel like this is something that felt missingMore transformations
>>729762713>played the game for the first time last year>didn’t need to grind for the souls to unlock true ending even onceSkill issue
>>729763275Sypha was an objective improvement because nobody cared about her before the show.
>>729764520What's wrong with puppet master?
>>729764520>remove subweapon mastery from PoR>but ADD it to DoS
>>729748471dawn of sorrow is not even the best soma's castlevania
>>729764520>OoE>More transformationsOoE doesn't need more transformations, it needs to flesh out the existing ones. Getting to play as a succubus or a cat lady is cool until you realize they just have two attacks each, neither of which are good.
>>729764520Bad ideaLet's revisit>DoSremove the farming and fix most of the souls being utterly shit or utterly OPRemove the incredibly amount of shitty backtracking and slow pacing>PoRCharlotte needs to be nude at all times>OoEShanoa needs to be nude at all times
>>729758717Yes
Unpopular/insane opinion but main installment wise I enjoyed Simon's quest more than any of them. Sans the red crystal tornado which is some legendary bullshit.Overall most fun I had in any Castlevania was Harmony of Despair on the Xbox360 during launch week/month.Total blast when it was new but eventually devolved in to Harmony of Soma while other characters got no love. DLC levels were fun, too.
>>729749458
>>729764452That fuck nip nigger hasn't even finished sending the backer items from the first game. I don't expect to ever get my physical PC copy at this point. $30 stolen.
>>729764835It works better with souls than subweapons. You don't even have that much of a reason to spam subweapons in PoR because they conflict with Charlotte spells which is her main trait.>>729764809It's slow and silly to use as a progression soul. I usually just pick Cutall from the number rooms and it improves my DoS experience by a lot. I like Puppet Master as a boss but I hate these useless souls that you're intended to use just to get through the game. Mostly because I hate menu'ing in Soma games and I set other stuff using the spare setups>>729765015I think they're fine, maybe Cat Lady should bump backwards after hitting an enemy and avoid contact damage while dashing. You could have secret glyph combinations that improve the transformation skills I guess.>>729765034DoS doesn't have that much backtracking if you just use Cutall
>>729763631His sole purpose is to be an injoke for fans to explain why Dracula never had a third form after 3.
>>729765130I liked Simon's Quest and all callbacks in SotN and HoD, I find it funny that's pretty much the Zelda 2 of Castlevania in basically every way
>>729765015Arma Felix is cracked nigger, first attack is a forward lunge that has i-frames out of the ass and the other is a disjointed hitbox that hit like a million times.
>>729748471castlevania is uncslop
>>729765130NES Castlevania > all other Castlevania.
>>729764452Huh, his hand is scarred
>>729765675Funny you say that and that's a really good comparison. I'm one of those weirdos who enjoyed Zelda II as well. Not as much as the first game but it's still up there.
>>729748471no sotn is better, it's a fun one though
Every day that I wake up without Harmony of Despair on Steam is another day I wake up angry.I NEED to grind Sonic Shoes with a bunch of funny Japs at 3 in the morning.
>>729765319Is your argument SERIOUSLY: bro just glitch, it's not that backtracking thenYou're a trollHave a bonny lassie day!
>>729766212DEMONIC MEGAGNOME!
>>729763275>they improved Issac's character by... making a new oc nigger character that has nothing to do with the original character from the game, instead of actually taking the character from the original game and actually improving itamazing logic
>>729765130 Based take honestly. Simon’s Quest had a weird magic that none of the other titles really tried to recapture-feels like a fever dream every time I replay it. That whole “what the hell do I even do” vibe mixed with the day/night cycle and the graveyard-cryptic nonsense made it unique. Once you actually know what to do (or have a guide), it's fun as hell in its own janky way.And yeah, Harmony of Despair at launch was GOATed. Everyone scrambling for loot, spamming Dracula runs, dudes glitching into walls to speedrun-it was chaos in the best way possible. Shame Konami just let it rot. It could’ve been a whole sub-series.
>>729748471it's not even as good as aria because there's barely any cool weapons in the castle (because of the weapon crafting system), you have to grind souls way more because they locked their full power behind having 9 copies and the weapon crafting system, and the game is full of stupid touch screen gimmicks.portrait of ruin and ooe are both way better, with por being my personal favorite
>>729766212Was that the multiplayer one where you could be most of the main characters? That shit was pretty fun
>>729748471What are Harmony of Despair and Grimoire of Souls like? Are they similar to the good igavanias? Can I emulate them and if I played them solo would it be fun?
>>729763231They were definitely handled badly, but I think Alucard and Trevor don't catch anywhere nearly as much flack as they should. Alucard is more immediately offensive to me coming off of a fresh playthrough of Symphony of the Night, because the Netflix version is all of the following:>edgy>rude>weirdly proud of being a vampire when the whole point of the character is that he hates being one>gay>generally a snooty manchildAnd it's funny because in the games, even though he comes off as cold and detached on the surface, he's generally a polite and noble hearted guy with bad social skills. I guess that wasn't edgy enough for Warren "god I wish I were George R.R. Martin" Ellis though. And on a similar note, I can dig a more jaded Trevor but going as far as to have him spit on the corpses of a bunch of innocent villagers who were brutally murdered left a really bad taste in my mouth.
>>729765262>check it out dudekek
>>729765262More
>>729764671>because nobody cared about her before the show.If you played the game, you loved her spells as they fucked everything up. Her faster attacking also made her ideal for taking out bone pillars and crows.
CHARLOTTE!>JONATHAN!CHARLOTTE!>JONATHAN!CHARLOTTE!>JONATHAN!CHARLOTTE!>JONATHAN!
>>729748471Last boss is really bad and Julius playthrough is better because it fixes that
>>729762224SotN, Chronicles (everyone always forgets this one), RoB, Bloodlines
>>729764520Union attacks are busted lol. >>729758403I raise you:https://youtu.be/HGHG8FqQf8o?si=FNItQMRilNZ7uhNe
>>729748695SotN > Aria > PoR > DoSI don't know where to put OoE. Aesthetically it was better than the rest of the DS games but I didn't like the glyph system. All the games after SotN went way too far in consolidating mechanics and having a well defined, formulaic system took all the wonder out of discovering stuff. Jumping around attacking things and accidentally casting a spell for the first time was a moment that the later games never really managed to capture. Same with weapon special attacks, it was always a pleasant, cool surprise instead of something you took for granted.
>>729769435I am dead convinced that PoR was meant to be a multiplayer game and the multiplayer aspect somehow got shitcanned halfway through development. It just makes no sense any other way.
>>729748695>>729748471Dawn is better in every way, except that the transporters are placed in inconvenient locations. So backtracking is more tedious than necessary. But other than that Dawn has better graphics, better sound, better progression, better abilities, better gameplay.
7/10 main game.11/10 Julius mode.
But why PoR was so unserious?
>>729763631Isaac was good writing. Its sad finding out that his character was more or less hector's little kouhai that got mindbroken when hector betrayed dracula.Wish there was a dynasty warriors clone set in the time period. That'd be cool.
>No new games in over a decade >doomed as a collab whore and rehashed collections till the end of timea fate worse than death
>>729750435Indeed
>>729748471I got stuck. Last thing I remember was killing a big guy who fell through a bunch of floors and I got a laser beam attack. Feel like I've been all over the map but dunno where to go
