>start harmony of dissonance>it's just symphony but on gba and worseAre all the handheld Castlevanias like this?
>>737076186Aria is better than Symphony.
>>737076186Aria of Sorrow is way better than the others
>>737076186who chooses HoD as a representative entry? most people say Aria. I'd put any of the DS ones ahead of Harmony.
>>737076186They're a lot like Symphony. Later ones have more of a clear gimmick like a team of 2 or Shanoa fighting only with spells.
>>737076673true>>737076186keep playing, it has some unique stuff when it comes to navigating the map
>>737076186You will not find a game another IGAvania as pretty looking and replayable as SOTN except for Bloodstained. Harmony and Circle pay the price of being early attempts at a GBA game, the Sorrow duology are really good but heavy on the grind if you want to have fun with all the soul abilities, while Portrait and Ecclesia have some fun mechanics at the cost of drab level design.
I liked Dawn, it seems like that game is underappreciated.
>actually playing these easy mode no density jarpigsIt's telling the only thing people give a shit about is the admittedly good music in the series
>>737076186HoD is pretty bad, yeah.CotM and Aria are both better than it.As for if they are better than SotN, production value wise, no not really. SotN's presentation is just that good, and the fact it's a console game unshackled by the GBAs soundfont is a huge plus.However, in terms of gameplay, i think both are interesting and well worth the try. CotM is actually challenging and has bosses that can pack a serious punch like the zombie dragon or adramelech. And Aria has a pretty open and interesting system with the souls and weapons.
>>737076673Better in some ways and worse in others.The DS ones are better than the GBA ones.
>>737080412You should go back to watching Mork videos on loop instead of ever sharing your opinion again.
>>737081293Who the fuck is Mork
Yes. Sorry.The only argument I've heard in favor of AoS etc over SotN is that SotN was too bloated. Eg. its a GOOD thing that they crammed all the cool stuff you could do in SotN into the very restrictive soul system that requires you to navigate menus as soon as you want to do anything other than spam warg souls.
>>737076186everything after 4 is trash
>>737083835I go back and forth on this. In my head, I think of Aria as the superior game, because it's so much tighter as a gameplay experience, both because the Soul system is a tight little package that's fun to play with, and because it lacks the dead appendage that is the inverted castle. I mean, by the time you get to that point, you're already able to fly past everything anyway, and Alucard can just mow everything down, even the bosses. It's just mopping up at that point. The backtracking is worse too. And unless you really miss DARK METAMORPHOSIS or fighting in wolf form or shit like that, SotN can afford to have a bit of the fat trimmed off.But on the other hand, Symphony is just such a treat as a complete experience that I think it's the best while I'm actually playing it. PS1-era pixel graphics definitely aged better than the GBA's did, so it has a great retro aesthetic. I also like its weapon options better than Aria's. In Aria the weapons are kind of blah compared to all the cool shit in Symphony.
>>737076186Aria > Harmony > Circle
>>737076186that's the worst one of the bunch. ecclesia was also terrible. rest are good
>>737085408>dead appendage that is the inverted castleI liked the inverted castle. I don't know, maybe its autism. But having a rough idea of whats coming up and seeing how they they made it work upside down was cool.>And unless you really miss DARK METAMORPHOSIS or fighting in wolf form or shit like that, SotN can afford to have a bit of the fat trimmed offYes fucking exactly. Alucard's D A R K M E T A M O R P H O S I S voice line is rent free in my head to this day.But yeah. I've tried playing AoS I think four times but I've never actually finished it just because I always get bored of it at some point and go replay SotN instead. I think the argument probably ultimately comes down to which one you played first, if you grew up on one of them that probably trumps any other argument for most anons. I played AoS before SotN but Curse of Darkness was actually my first castlevania and that one is my favorite.
>>737085572OoE gets bonus marks for not just being SotN: GBA edition.I didn't like it very much. But the difficulty was well tuned. I don't want to say it was balanced because the idea of balance in a singleplayer game is retarded. But while SotN was a rollercoaster going from SWISH SWISH SWISH GET SLASHED GET SLASHED GET SLASHED one second to "what the fuck is is a galamoth OH FUCK" the next. All over the shop, not necessarily a bad thing but OoE was pretty consistently challenging the whole way through and that's probably a big deal to many players.
>>737076186>it's just symphony but on gba and worseYeah, but it's a PORTABLE Symphony but on gba and worse
>>737080618Aria is better than Dawn.
>>737086579I'm sure there's some dumbass one hour youtube documentary just waiting to be made about how portable games that can be played while japanese salarymen are commuting to and from work cannibalized the home console game industry for many genres because the japs have brain damaged work ethics.
>>737086686And they'd be right, see gacha
>>737076673You probably eat your own smegma
>>737089584sure, but I don't see what the has to do with it
>>737089584perhaps the same could be said for all threads
>>737076186Do not play Harmony of Dissonance, it makes you gay.
I'm 55% in Castle A, 66% Castle B, and honestly it's not giving Aria a run for its money. But it's more rewarding exploration, RPG items are more interesting along with the movement, more-so than Circle of the Moon. And I'd say they're equal with different things complimenting what they're going for.
>>737076186I can't decide if this or Order are the worst of this style of Castlevania games I've played. I like and enjoy playing both. I just also think they're the weakest in different ways. Yes weaker than Circle.
>>737076186The handheld castlevanias are all really mediocre.SOTN was the last good game in the series but even it isn't as good as wonderboy 3 and super metroid (the 2 games it rips off the most).
>>737085408I like the skills as options, but yeah, I dunno what the fuck the point of the wolf was really. There's like two places where it's good for going through faster, and otherwise its uses are... filling in map in the reverse cave, and opening that hidden room in the merman area.Maybe speedrunners found something else to do with it, but idgaf what they do with a game.
>>737085408There's a lot I like about Aria, especially the variety in weapons and "soul" attacks. Symphony is just more fun. I like getting an item that makes a previously unused button do something. The biggest difference is that getting to a new area in SotN is exciting and cool, in AoS it feels like more of the same.
>>737093961The idea of the wolf probably is the devs going "what vampire abilities can we put in the game" and having problems giving it stuff to do.If they made an Alucard game on the DS or something I'm sure the wolf would've been the lategame "go fast" move like how Aria had the Black Panther soul and Portrait had the Speed Up spell.
>>737094420SOTN's presentation was off the charts. I think it was generally produced better, too. Putting aside the quality of the sound, the music felt like it had better care and attention for how well tracks suited the areas they were played.I don't think that was an outright bad aspect of most of the other igavanias, but none of them really seemed to have that level of care going on in the design phase either.
Problem with HoD is it's too easy, only the midgame big bosses hurt, but they are heavily telegraphed. Also, Bible + anything is busted.
>>737094681Personally my issue was it's "upside down castle" was instead a mirrored castle. And for some reason I hate mirrored shit and I guess think it's lower effort than upside down. I'm not saying I'm right. That's just how I felt after beating these games. The side objective being "decorate this room" probably didn't help.
>>737094801Mirror vs Inverted is kinda non-issue, Room decor taking place of maybe different whip types or something is retarded.
>>737094860Oh, nevermind, the way you GET to the merchant is retarded.
>>737094681It's not a shmup or fighting game, of course it's easy
>>737094917Odd non-flex, but pop-off king.
>>737080412>castlevania>jarpigwrpgcels forever seething lmao
>>737094801Effort-wise I think it comes out about the same. The reverse-castle in SoTN felt pretty rushed. I understand it's endgame when you have all the abilities and such, but with so much reused music, and all the "flavor" of the proper castle exploration gone, it just feels tacked-on. Both approaches probably cut down a lot on overall devtime.I don't think anyone disagrees about the decorations though. Playing interior decorator is probably the most common and agreed-on complaint, since the music and graphics both have supporters and detractors.
>>737094990I don't really have a problem with most of their mechanics. Of course they could make higher-quality spritework, but instead of that we'd probably get them all remade in awkward 2.5D again, so pass on that.Seals in DoS being the mechanic exception, because fuck that bullshit. At least it's easily patched out these days.
>>737094990I don't want modern Konami to work on a remake of anything. There little annoyances in each that could be fixed, but a remake would probably leave all those problems as-is and create new ones.
>>737076673FPBP
>>737076186Order of Ecclesia is better than Symphony.
>>737094990No, people think Bloodstained looks good, people are fucking blind
>>737096026For a 2010s Kickstarter-vania. It's pretty alright.I think Guacamelee deserves more love.
>>737094681I've heard people say to just leave the defensive equipment off entirely for a more proper challenge but I've never tried it.
>>737097131>romhacksWouldn't know, I'm not a tranny
>>737076673fpbp
>>737083835I am one of the anti-bloat guys, and the point is that AoS's fun/hour is off the charts. Yes, that is in part because it's on the shorter and easier side, but I believe enjoyment is a quality orthogonal to difficulty. I also think the thematic flavor rivals SotN, as far as non-Belmont games are concerned, the condition for true end is top-tier.>cool stuff you could do in SotNSadly a lot of cool stuff is limited to one-off gimmicks, with equal chances (you) are gonna love it and be let down that it's underutilized, or hate that it was ever there at all. Like with motion inputs, which may be cool, but spells are wack and weapon specials are few and far between. Culmination of that design is the inverted castle, and I'll refrain from ramblings on that topic.
>>737094971>I understand it's endgame when you have all the abilities and suchThat's not an excuse either, it's a design crutch, because the reverse castle would be unplayable if you weren't able to fly anywhere. The castle level design simply doesn't work upside down so you just have to trivialize it to the point it doesn't even matter. And there are countless moments where you only need to transform for a split second because a platform is a few pixels too high to jump on normally.
>>737096026It's also wack in mechanics-refining department, especially if you focus on Igavanias specifically. I was never one for counting hours until double jump, in some vain attempt to measure originality. But RotN """borrrows""" so much from prior games, with such nothingburger twists, that it gets comical. A shit-ass homebase in the basement of a desecrated village, a remix of many interpersonal relationships, a soul-grinding crafting system. 3D areas are like the only truly new thing, and that is not a compliment.I guess Lair of Behemoths had a fun gimmick, even if it does imply the gambler boss is actually of miniscule rat size.
>>737080412>muh gameplay density>>737076186this >>737076673
>>737076673>SymphonyThat's the one where you play as the gay vampire, so anything else must be better
