Level design is good but has some issues>Some rooms are a bit too puzzle-y at times (which can break the rhythm and the flow of progression) >too many road blocks (even tho most of them lead to upgrades so that's not much of an issue) >only a bunch of teleports (this makes the castle harder to navigate expecially if you wanna backtrack in lategame)Other issues>Consumables can only be dropped from enemies>Having to press the same button twice in order to run is dumbOverrall I think those are some minor issues which don't really impact the game that much. Everyone who complains about the low drop rate is dumb, you don't have to collect all the cards since 1)you don't even know which effect a card has without looking it up 2)you are supposed to get few cards per playtrough anyway in order to have a different experience every time.So, what are your thougts?
>>11025886worst metroidvania style CV game
>>11025905I hate how people always seems to dismiss this game withouth a reason. Yeah, it's not Aria or SotN I get it, but stating it's the worst one when games like Harmony of Despair exists is really disingenuous
>>11025915>withouth a reasonit fucking sucks, looks like shit the controls are shit the level design is shit the grinding is shit the bosses are shit everything about it is shit even the shit story Konami declared it's not canon to CV>Harmony of Despairmuch better than Contrarian Of The Moon
>>11025886>>Some rooms are a bit too puzzle-y at times (which can break the rhythm and the flow of progression)I can only think of the waterway being a bit annoying. Other than that some minor puzzles are fine.>>too many road blocks (even tho most of them lead to upgrades so that's not much of an issue)They don't really disrupt the game but they're admittedly unelegant. Truth be told CotM is a much better straightforward action game than metroidvania, the obstacles and powers you obtain to overcome them feel arbitrary and don't really mesh with your overall moveset and combat at all. Thankfully the game seems aware of that and rarely ever asks you to explore, the circular level design always puts you back in the middle of the castle near the next area you have to tackle.>>only a bunch of teleports (this makes the castle harder to navigate expecially if you wanna backtrack in lategame)Their placement isn't perfect but I've seen worse.>>Consumables can only be dropped from enemiesYeah unless you're playing Thief they're a non factor.>>Having to press the same button twice in order to run is dumbBy far the biggest issue with the game.And yeah people fixate on the cards system when it's perfect for what the game was going for. If you want all the cards so badly just fucking play Magician mode, you'll soon realize that dozens of card effects overlap and are virtually interchangeable, because you were never supposed to have so many cards in a normal playthrough.
>>11025949Finally an anon with a sane mind.>I can only think of the waterway being a bit annoyingYeah I was thinking of that section in particular, the others are mostly fine, even tho I don't remeber Aria having any puzzle at all (I played it a long time ago)>Truth be told CotM is a much better straightforward action game than metroidvaniaIf you mean that exploration isn't really rewarded that much I agree. But personally I see every metroidvania as an expanded action game.>>11025949>Their placement isn't perfect but I've seen worseSomeone should make a romhack like ReVamped where you can teleport beetween each save room. >By far the biggest issue with the game.What were they thinking? You eventually adapt to it but in some sections where you have to make precise jumps is really annoying.Also, is there a reason why they didn't place a save room right before the Hugh bossfight? Just reaching it from the teleport can be a pain.
>>11025886Great game. Satisfying difficulty, chad hero, card system gives you a lot of options for replayability, great graphics, great music, great sound.>>11025949>>11025959The running thing is a non-issue. simply press back-forward
>>11025886Making literally everything of worth a random drop on enemy kills is the major thing holding the game back, atop of the drop rates in general being far too low.It makes the game too grindy, which exacerbates that the general movement and combat isn't as fluid as SotN was or HoD/AoS would be. It aimed to be a bit more methodical like classicvania but with mid-air control though, so I can't fault it as much.The "Card Mode" hack that changes DSS cards into being discovered around the castle instead of random drops (and changing those drops into health recovering meat) greatly improves the flow of the game and actually rewards exploration, instead of just getting yet another HP/MP/Hearts upgrade.The forbidden waterway is my least favourite area with frozen being a terrifying status condition; you're almost certain to take a second hit whilst frozen and receiving ridiculous amounts of damage.There's also the fucked up part where you're free to navigate the waterway fully without finding the purifying water item. A first-time player could be fooled into thinking that this is the path of progression and not the other corner of the map to specifically make the waterway not a constant health drain.It's a double-edged problem; expert players can completely skip the death boss fight because they can navigate it, but a progression blocker in the form of a constant health drain isn't great (even if Super Metroid does it with heated rooms).One thing I do love about the game though is the additional modes that have varied stats and restrictions, and are rewarded for clearing each new mode unlocked from the first.Fireball mode that has you physically weaker but gives you the entire range of DSS combinations to use with great MP.Fighter mode that makes you physically stronger but completely disables DSS.Ranger mode that is completely focused around subweapon usage.And the luck mode that makes you weak as fuck in general, but gives you shitloads of item drops.
>>11025962>The running thing is a non-issue. simply press back-forwardIt's strange because the Kirby series also features a double-tap to run in nearly every game, and it's never a point of complaint.With CotM specifically, I think the issue is that your default walking speed is too slow, and the double tapping doesn't go well with the somewhat stiff movement, Kirby games are a lot more fluid.The other part of the problem is that running is an upgrade you get like 5 minutes into the game and exists only to produce a single hurdle that cannot be cleared without it. It's a laughably unnecessary upgrade that a trained vampire hunter apparently couldn't run before.
>>11025974If you double tap it does genuinely suck. But simply pressing back-forward makes it a non issue.
>>11025974Shitrby is a kusoge series, double tap is just one of its many issues of poor design.
>>11025974It's the size of the character sprite vs the size of the castle/area/platforms.You don't see this problem on any of the other Igavanias because the ratio is much more balanced.You need to double tap everytime after you've stopped to do anything so it messes up with combat flow too. Many times you want to just jump-whip and oneshot whatever is in front of you so you keep running when you hit the floor, otherwise if you need to stop and take your time with the enemy, it's back to double tapping again.With maybe 200-400 double taps per playthrough, if you do all the modes the game has you end up doing way too many.My first GBA pad had the left and right rubbers completely softened after so many playthroughs.
>>11026039shoulder tackle does the same damage as a whip attack and maintains running afterwards, so if you can one-shot things you don't need to stop or do any jumping shennanigans
>>11025886>Consumables can only be dropped from enemiesWhy is this an issue? Is the board filled with scrubs who need to buy 50 potions from the store in order to cheat at every boss encounter? You heal by not getting hit in the 1st place.
>>11026328>Is the board filled with scrubs who need to buy 50 potions from the store in order to cheat at every boss encounter?So healing is now considered cheathing? Anyway I don't see any valid reason why you shouldn't be able to heal if you want. The same applies for MPs, some DSS effects only last so much that having the option to heal back some mp would them make evem more useful.
>>11025886You made some valid points but you forgot to mentio that some DSS combos completely break the game, like the fire circle or STR increase based on map%
>>11025886The game is mostly fine but fuck the battle arena and the final boss
>>11026338You CAN heal, occasionally as a treat. I mean, you can't heal mid boss fight in plenty of games and you don't hear people reeeing about it. I refute the notion that CotM demanding you heal less often and instead dodge more as some negative. If you learn to dodge enemy attacks, you'll no longer feel compelled to grind for item/armor drops too.
>>11026349Point to the igavania that doesn't have some broken bs in it. It's part of the fun, like killing Drac with the skeleton ring is
>>11026380>I mean, you can't heal mid boss fight in plenty of games and you don't hear people reeeing about itThat's not my issue with it. I wished I could heal more during exploration than during bossfights.
>>11026386Meh, retreat to a save station and do better next time. Cotm is attempting, for better or worse, to be more classicvania. Heals were short there too. The game wants to to play better to get further. It's why the healing is treated as a bonus, rather then a constant tool. It's different sure, but rewarding to beat.
>>11025949>you were never supposed to have so many cards in a normal playthroughIdk why people don’t understand this. The card system is great, and the randomization makes it more fun. CotM is one of the better castlevania titles and was a perfect launch title for GBA. Magician mode is one of those fun bonuses game devs wouldn’t even bother with nowadays.>>11026374Skill issue. Battle Arena is supposed to be challenging. And why wouldn’t the main antagonist of the game be really hard? I personally thought the Death fight was harder. See >>11026380
>>11026465Battle Arena is poorly designed in a few ways.Order of Ecclesia does have the Large Cavern, which I'd say is more challenging but is competently designed because the enemy patterns can be influenced to your advantage to stay safe and take your pot shots.The fucking Minotaur room in CotM has little recourse as their basic pattern is to activate when you're close enough, and then constantly move towards you and attack on fixed intervals with a wide damage area.Going over them isn't safe due to how they raise their weapons and your super jump makes you slam against the ceiling then drop down (as compared to later Igavanias where the super jump can let you "stick" to the ceiling).Clearing this room without taking damage is doable, but demands a bit too much of the player and the room can quickly get out of hand as you get juggled to death.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkeRpLAhjKgThe other two big complaints are the total lack of music, and the disabling of the DSS system, forcing you to rely solely on brute strength or sub weapons rather than creatively employ the unique system that the game had designed.They could've changed it so that your MP doesn't replenish, limiting your DSS usage for when it's really needed, but they instead went with having it drain rapidly. This left an exploit where you could use MP recovery items to refill and pull off one screen clearing attack before your MP drained, which is about the only viable way to clear the arena on Magician mode.The reward isn't really worth it anyway, it's just one nice but inessential bit of armor. There's another enemy in the main map that spawns late game and has a better armor drop iirc.
My biggest issue with the game may be subjective but I just dont particurally like the way nate controls and how basic combat functions. Your walk speed is very slow for the size of the environments, while the double tap is stiff and unwieldy for close combat, jumping from walkspeed has anemic horizontal range. The above issues combined with the sponginess of enemies makes most enemy encounters a repetitive chore. I often hear that COTM is good because it's a return to the style of the classicvanias but I didn't feel it, that steady forward hop whip hop whip rhythm of I loved in the old games isn't there.The card system more than being bad just feels completely forgettable in a default playthrough. Drop rates are so low that without grinding you're likely to only have 3 or 4 additional cards outside the gimme starters. What this amounted to for me was just using the 25% attack bonus and forgetting the system even existed, only thing else was a few impractical gimmicks. I found the bosses in the game a bit too reliant on bloated healthpools for difficulty, even when I happened to be struggling on a boss I'd be doing multiple clean cycles in a row to the point of tedium. They were ok and preferable to cakewalks, but nothing I'd call great.I don't hate cotm, for a gba launch title it's not a bad package at all and for those who want to dive deep into grinding and drops it's a treasure trove, but the incredulousness of its cheerleaders to anyone who's even mixed on it can be a bit much.
>>11026568>jumping from walkspeed has anemic horizontal rangeThat's the real issue I have with the controls, this makes some platform sections particularly frustating to navigate. I'm thinking of that floating skulls section
>>11025886>Level design is goodI'm someone who usually defends this game, however this.... absolutely not. This probably has even worse level design than LoD and that's saying a lot.
>>11026715I mean, it flows pretty well except for the three road blocks variations as I said. If AoS level design is a 10 I would give CotM a 7.5/8-
>>11026567I agree the reward is not the greatest, but I think the real point is just skills mastery and that being its own reward (I know, not compelling for many). I’m not above looking for ways to cheez the game, but I’ll admit I did have a lot of fun when I beat the arena just through brute force endurance bc it was very hard.
>>11025886not OP but forgot to mention we just came out of a thread about this game, I'll link just for posterity.>>10997202
>>11026567>Order of Ecclesia does have the Large Cavern, which I'd say is more challenging but is competently designed because the enemy patterns can be influenced to your advantage to stay safe and take your pot shots.Bullshit, you need to be at level 90 at least to MAAAAAAAAYBE survive past the first 5 rooms, and enemies there are damage sponges and guess what, OoE is infamous for making Defense stats fucking useless because the MC is weak as shit and takes fuckloads of damage while again, enemies are damage sponges with even RNG scripted crap for the bosses, and their latterns dont have "tells" or reasonable "recovery" times, (that faggot at the castle who makes shadows being the worse), the bosses are just fucking tedious and NOT FUN to fight, its SOULS LIKE slop before it was even a thing.CotM Battle Arena's only sucks with the minotaur rooms and the demon rooms, but the rest is bearable, plus you can actually escape.
>>11027061Literally sounds like you need to git gud.OoE forces you to learn attributes; weapons have types and enemies have resistances and weaknesses you have to exploit. E.g. slashing weapons are ineffective against skeletons or armored enemies, so blunt striking weapons are called so.The enemies DO have tells on when they're going to perform a certain move, and Blackmore does have an actual pattern you can learn.OoE is the most challenging by design and forces you to be a competent player, and not just overpower everything through nice equipment like most Igavanias had done before it.Also you can escape from the Large Cavern, and literally anywhere else by using an item called the Magical Ticket. It's your safe escape item and has featured in a few Castlevania games (though not CotM).
>>11027034That one got auto-saged, that happens after a week mate.
>>11027071>GIT GUD GIT GUD>NO GAME SUCKS EVER>SKILL ISSUE SKILL ISSUENigga. Sayin Git Guf is now the equivalent of stupid UK kids sayin UR GAY. U FAG! it lost its meaning, and yes, people missuse the term to defend bad games, specially those idiots who do not enjoy these games, bit wanna feel special.Git Gud? When Game Does then?
>>11027081Oh yeah I was just mentioning since it seemed like if it was a continuation of the discussion it should probably be linked for a better experience.Also wasn't it two weeks? I think it varies on some boards
Why is Death's second form in this game some lame ass turtle thing?
>>11027071I watched a zoomer play this on twitch about a year ago and it was shocking. He got stuck on the first skeleton boss in the prison for over two hours, complaining about how it “walls you”, never thinking to use the magnet power he just got. Throughout the entire game he never learned to use any of the mechanics or take advantage of attributes. Blackmore took two whole streams on its own. His struggle against Dracula took over five hours and he only made it through by eating like nine of the tuna bbq full heal items. He hated it and never accepted any fault. Sub-human intelligence. I don’t understand how some people can function.
>>11027484Zoomies are low hangin fruit, but Eclessia is legit badly playtested and even just as badly balanced
>>11027484I didn't have much problem with most Igavanias but I really had to abuse save states to beat some bosses in OoEThe game also wasn't that enjoyable and I wasn't a fan of the level design or the DSS system, the Dracula Castle also wasn't that fun to explore
>>11027484Also I only beat the skeleton in prison because it glitched out and could not atack me
>>11027602>>11027594dont bother lad, they just gonna spam GIT GUD GIT GUD GIT GUD like retards because thats all they know what to say.
>>11027594>>11027602I’m legitimately curious how your thought process goes. How old were you when you played it? What was the problem you had? Its fair to say that none of the bosses in OOE are meant to be beaten on the first try, but at the very least almost all of them are easy to simply avoid while you figure out what’s going on. Are you simply damage racing over and over? Trying to fight with a favorite glyph that’s resisted? Not using your healing items?The game positively spoils you with tools and information, and only really demands that you actually avoid taking damage. Someone else said you can’t simply steamroll every enemy in the game and I think that’s a good way to describe the intended difficulty curve, even though that itself can be largely negated with healing items if the player chooses to use them.
>>11027520I wouldn’t say badly balanced, but it is uneven at times. Skeleton Cave being the primary offender, and Eligor being much harder than Death and arguably Dracula. Some weapons like the knives are no good, but they are crap in every castlevania. Full screen spells like the lightning are appropriately low DPS, and monster weaknesses are almost always intuitive enough to figure out just by glancing at the sprites.
>>11027724I only played it a few months ago, I tried to learn the patterns but they felt hard to avoid with almost no room for error.While I expect the bosses to be hard, the regular enemies also just felt like a chore to fight so I preferred avoding them.Maybe I was just not using the right glyph combinations but I did not feel like looking that up.I liked how there was a boss you could defeat instantly if you know what to do.Also unlike the other Igavania games levelling up is much slower and barely makes a difference so I could not just level up my character to defeat a harder boss. The heal items are also less effective.
>>11027740>EligorOh yeah that fight was completely tedious, if you fall you have to keep doing all that shit over and over again.Barlowe fight was also really hard.
>>11027740>but they are crap in every castlevaniaBro, in SotN, Alucard can throw knives like a machine gun and they only cost 1 heart each, and Richter has the item crash when he does it even more powerfully and you even become invincible during that time.
>>11027743>Also unlike the other Igavania games levelling up is much slower and barely makes a difference so I could not just level up my character to defeat a harder boss. The heal items are also less effective.Correct, in Eclessia farming up does nothing but giving you more HP and MP but does not reduce the latter's consumption or make you more resistable to damage, i mean hell, this game brought back the HP MAX up power ups and yet you still take the same amount of damage from older enemies even, Defense and Strenght is useless, almost as useless as Luck being worthless in vanilla Dawn of Sorrow, no joke.
Really it's the high challenge that makes anyone care about this. What you could say good or bad about it you could say about many other igavania: the toybox of many spells, the backtracking issues, the esoteric nature of this or that. The difficulty is the odd feature out. Most Igavanias are only hard on bosses while this is hard on everything. And there is less access to cheese spells and endless potions.We have had a thread every week for at least the past 2 years about this game all saying the same points that are being said here. If you forgot what the points were just read the archive.
>>11027484>I watched a zoomer play this on twitch about a year ago and it was shocking. He got stuck on the first skeleton boss in the prison for over two hours, complaining about how it “walls you”, never thinking to use the magnet power he just got.Where can I go to see such wonders. I thirst for what I have never drank.
>>11025886Ive always enjoyed it since it came out, revisit it every couple years. Genuinely don't think the game has any major issues, for me its just always been another fun Castlevania so its strange seeing it get shit on so much these days.
>>11027071>>11027087Yeah the battle arena is stupid. It's obviously something that was just made on the fly. The same flat room over and over and each room having the just floods of the same enemy. The solutions to not getting hit are esoteric and tedious. What most people will do is just spam consumable items. The reward is an armor that definitly isn't worth the lose of those consumables or the trial and error to figure out how to not take a hit. There is a better or near equal armor that is easier to get. And the journey wasn't fun either.It's just a rush job. An ugly spot on a game that otherwise does not have such major issues.
>>11026567>The reward isn't really worth it anyway, it's just one nice but inessential bit of armor.Don't forget Black Dog and Unicorn cards.>There's another enemy in the main map that spawns late game and has a better armor drop iirc.Yeah, the Dark Armor which you can get from Lilim in Machine Tower after Death.
Circle is great. It was the first attempt at a difficult Classicvania-style IGAvania that HoD improved upon, and I like it for that reason. No stupid gear system of collectable pokemon soul bullshit, just a handfull of subweapons and the card system. Some of the card effects are pretty neat and can change up your playstyle, so it has good replayability. So for me it's in the top 3.I wish Konami gave a fuck about CV so this game could get a modern re-release.
>>11025915fuck you Harmony of Despair is good and I guarantee it has more playtime on average than any of your faggy handheld games
>>11028376The Black Dog / Unicorn cards being random drops within the battle arena makes it hard to consider them rewards, more like bonuses.>>11028391Castlevania Advance collection had a modern release on all current platforms though? It has CotM, HoD, AoS, but also Dracula X/Vampires Kiss because that was notably absent from the Castlevania Classic Collection.
>>11028281I don't get where the "Cotm is hard" meme comes from. I played it recently and the difficulty is exactly on par with other igavanias. >>11028292Probably some youtuber said it's shit and suddenly has become popular to hate on it.
>>11028550Come on now, if you play CotM and HoD back to back it's absurd how ridiculously easier the latter is. Bosses like the zombie dragons and Dracula's second form in CotM were unmatched in terms of difficulty in igavania until OoE.
>>11027071I remember the first time I played OoE I got the gold medal on this boss purely blind without knowing anything just pure instinct and reaction
>>11028104You might as well put on two Death Rings and go for the no-damage wins with how meaningless defense in OoE is.
>>11028292It's not bad, it's just inferior to other games
>>11028593It literally encourages you to do that if you're going for all of the perfect boss fight medals. There's even a meme in the item description for defeating the giant crab boss.
>>11028550If your ability to recover hp is limited. In other ones you can buy tons of potions or in stuff like Hod tge drop rate is si high you can easily reach 30 or 50 without even trying. The cheesiest spells are either near impossible to find without a guide. You have limited ability to correct jumps, non bosses can hit hard while bring tricky to avoid. Harder bosses. Can't bulk up on stats to outscale enemies as much. If you want proof just watch first timers play the games. They will run into more walls, take more effort to climb over them, and drop out more often.
>>11028815you can access all the spells within 5 minutes of gameplay. the "use any dss combo" glitch is so fucking easy to trigger it's trivial to stumble across it yourself, even.
>>11028405>Castlevania Advance collection had a modern release on all current platforms though?I meant remaster not re-release
>>11030653>I meant remaster not re-releaseWhy would you need one? They are perfect as they are
>>11025886Odd that it's the worst entry of the three GBA games but has some pretty good music and features the most game modes. I love the additional difficult game modes. It's way more modes than the other two. I still prefer aria of sorrow the most. Juste is a sexy mother fucker too.
>>11033119i think a lot of people are so caught up in the fact that it is the worst of the gba castlevanias that they miss that that doesn't mean it's bad. i honestly think it's a damn good sign that the worst one is still this good
>>11033119>>11033193It's actually the best one and the "odd" things you mentioned are due to being made by different devs.
This is from Aria of Sorrow, but I'm working on a new CV music arrangement.https://voca.ro/1ifmRq93MRcM
>>11028405Man, why did you have to remind me about Dracula XWorst Castlevania I ever had the displeasure of playing. Rondo/Dracula X Chronicles mog it by a fucking mile
>>11035571Dracula X is really a joke of a remake/port
>>11035571>>11037241Skill issue.
>>11027594>>11027602Man, girls can beat OoE, what's your problem? You dodge the skeleton with the magnets. Like yeah it's harder than Dawn or Portrait but so is pretty much everything. You don't have to look up enemy weakness, they're either obvious or appear after you beat them once. The game gives you the ability to run three separate load-outs at once, lean into it
It's wild to me how even in this very thread someone claimed this is a contrarian choice. This game was THE reason to get a GBA at launch. It sure as fuck wasn't Mario 2.
>>11037929It also sold the most by far out of all the GBA/DS games.
>>11025886Weird timing, just started replaying it then I see a /vr/ thread.It's better than I remember. I already liked it, but playing while being able to see the screen is huge. The card system is sweet, though having it through enemy drops is both cool and kind of weird. First playthrough I didn't know which enemies had them and got through most of it with very few cards. This replay is on the collection, and they tell you which enemies have cards. So now I have way more abilities, and some I never tried are really fun like the fighting game input Apollo card moves. I skipped Death too, was easier than fighting him actually. Had to abuse the Jupiter+Mandragora healing in the red water area, and beat Camilla by standing on top platform with poison cloud around me. So yeah, the abilities are nice. Though I kinda missed not knowing which enemy might have a card, even though I don't miss wasting time grinding random monsters.It's also shorter than I remembered, almost done already.
>>11025886Borderline unplayable on original hardware, probably the only game made better by emulation
>>11037960Sounds like the Card mode hack might be better than the normal game, because finding the cards sounds like a really satisfying reward for exploration.
>>11037971I'd argue that's true of every single GBA-onward portable Castlevania, which have some really nice spritework and effects that you aren't going to notice on a tiny screen.
>>11038117Yeah, but CotM had the most issues. They made an effort with HoD onward to make the graphics brighter though, CotM could get really hard to see without a backlight. It was never literally unplayable, since obviously a lot of people enjoyed it still, but you had to be playing with good light and it was hard to see sometimes.
>>11038134Oh, I remember. I think Carmilla even has a translucent projectile attack in a total dick move.
>>11037459Yeah and is just tedious and not fun.
>>11038146Ah yeah, Carmilla has translucent purple spheres that chase you.I'm playing emulated on an RG35XXSP at the moment and am able to go to the final area.I had no issue seeing those attacks on a modern screen, but on the original launch GBA screen it would've been impossible to see. It might be difficult to see on an AGS-001 too, but an AGS-100 would've probably been fine.There's also the Game Boy Player, of course.CotM and HoD were completely different teams, but the HoD team were definitely over-compensating for the shit GBA screen.On the other hand, they didn't understand the sound capabilities of the system and produced a soundtrack that was closer to the GBC capabilities. Except for that ending credits track which is suddenly a good quality full audio recording which probably took up most of the ROM space.Speaking of visibility, CotM has an issue where a lot of enemies will attack you from off-screen.In the forbidden waterway, this can get really bad as you can be attacking one ice armor enemy, when suddenly a projectile from another ice armor enemy can hit you from off screen.They're really deadly attacks too, the first freezes, the second deals critical damage whilst frozen. It's actually an incredibly unfair set-up.
>>11038684funny enough, it didnt look much better, OG GBA had such a terrible screen, this retroshart shader recreates it.
>>11038759It's precisely why Juste has that blue outline anyway, to give him the most visibility to contrast everything else.But then again it does shit like this
>>11038759What shader is that?
Was wondering if someone had made a CotM randomizer and looks like they have.https://github.com/calm-palm/cotm-randomizerI'll have to check it out, it looks pretty in-depth.
>>11025886>thoWhat?
>>11025886>Level design is goodStopped reading right there.
>>11041664>Stopped reading right there.stopped reading there
>>11038134Makes me wonder if GBA was going to be backlit in early development
>>11042720I doubt it, batteries weren't really there yet, a front lit display, let alone a back lit one would've been too much on the AA batteries.The rechargeable battery of the GBA SP was a huge selling point after all.With CotM, I think the devs just overlooked how the game looks on real hardware, and did everything based on their dev hardware.
>>11025886>So, what are your thougts?2 problems:1. You can start a new game with all the cards from the beggining with the "magician" code BUT you cannot start a new game with most of the items you beatn your previuos game(like the meat items to replenish health or the bottle items to replenish magic).2. There are not a "enemy list" in the "pause" option to watch enemy stats like their life points, the items they drop, some info about them ,etc.(castlevania aria of sorrow solved that problem).
>>11042850>I doubt it, batteries weren't really there yet, a front lit display, let alone a back lit one would've been too much on the AA batteries.>The rechargeable battery of the GBA SP was a huge selling point after all.>With CotM, I think the devs just overlooked how the game looks on real hardware, and did everything based on their dev hardware.That and most likely Nintendo was goin to use the same type of screen they used for the GBC which while not that great in visibility and has some bad yellow grey calibration, it would have at least been more visible, to the point of making games more bearable, and in hindsight make no need for giving all the GBA library that ugly overly washed out look.Here's a sample of same pic here >>11038759but with the shader edited out to use GBC color correction instead of the already ugly GBA color desaturation, this is what at the very least the original GBA screen should have looked like, and btw this is from OG HoD
>>11044087whoops, nevermind, the screenshot i used its from the Color Corrected Hack from Joanata Guitar or whatever he is called, but that one is supposed to have SNES style colors, here's what OG H0D should have looked with a good non backlit screen
>>11025915Never insult HoD again.
this is a color corrected version of a screenshot of H0D i did myself long ago, i did run it trough some RA shaders that emulate the GBA shitty screen, including a customized one with GBC colors.really, the big issue with the original gba was the screen, or rather the color correction, it was just too dark
>>11044205and to end here's a quick example of what CotM would looked like had Nintendo not been stupid and used a screen similar to the GBC.
>>11044224Nobody cares lol.
>>11041664Why you didn't like it?
>>11044343I care.
>>11044343I thought it was neat
>>11025886i will never understand people that complain about running mechanic in this gamemany other games have double tapping left or right to run and it works fine, why outing this and only this game about it?
>>11045453the walk is worthless so you need to use it in situations close up where it feels stiff.
>>11044205>>11044224I play these games on a modded wii through a CRT. My hat goes off to anyone who beat these games on a GBA.
>>11045453Double tapping is and has always been annoying for any game.
>>11044224>>11044205Did the OG GBA screen, really looked THAT BAD? does anybody had one of those to corroborate?
>>11046731Part of the issue is those screens are over 20 years old now. LCD displays degrade over time so they look worse than new.The ideal is to calibrate against factory fresh parts, but aged parts.
>>11046731>Did the OG GBA screen, really looked THAT BAD?Did the ESL really "talked English" THAT BAD??
>>11047573Let's see you talk spanish, asshole.
>>11047990Thats a bit stupid. I'm Spanish too. You're being entitled. We're on an English website. There are Spanish chans and you can make fun of bad Spanish there. But this is an English place. We are guests. Dont overstep your bounds
>>11039730I very specifically download the hack that disables his outline these days, it's just unnecessary
>>11046731I don't think it was quite that bad, but it was pretty damn bad. I remember mostly playing indoors and having to figure out where enemies were by movement. Running into a Bloody Sword was an exercise in getting hit by an invisible enemy. Eventually I went outdoors and was amazed to find out the game had colors. HoD and AoS were MUCH easier to see. I was able to play both of them no problem.
>>11048183Whenever I play HoD it's that Revenge of the Findesiecle hack, since it's just QoL stuff and lots of extra character options.
>>11046731All the talk about needing strong overhead light is legit, like I first saw one from a friend in class and the overhead florescent lights made it look just fine. Once we got ours at home this is pretty fucking accurate, we had a couple full-sized snake lamps aimed directly at it from behind us to make CotM playable, although playing in the car during the day was entirely possible. The first SP's screen looked a little washed out with the light on but it was still an absolute improvement and I absolutely did not regret the purchase
>>11048319>>11044205>>11044224>>11044087>>11044094>>11038759>>11048192How many GBA gameslegit had some color/bright options in game and not some esotheric ONLY ON GB PLAYER crap, out of the top of my head, only some of the capcom disney ports and Kingdom hearts have those.
>>11048453The one I remember the most is Doom, was really nice if you played on OG GBA you could turn the game radioactive so you could see on the darkest places, or alternatively put it on the lowest and it looked similar to the PC colors.There was a bunch more, it was a much appreciated feature, considering the alternative was something like Donkey Kong Country and the oversaturated jungle
>>11048482If only all gba games had this option by mandate, fucking nintendo.
>>11025915You mean Harmony of DIssonance? Despair was the Xbox/PS3 multiplayer loot/level grinding game and was pretty good. Dissonance was definitely still better than Circle of the Moon anyway, except for the grating music that sounds like bad 8bit chiptune music.
>>11048453
>>11048453Zelda Minish Cap, Zelda LttP + Four Swords, and Sonic Advance 3 also had color mode options.Sonic Advance 3 made it a hidden thing on the title screen though, you'd need to change it from default every time you boot the game.It's something that only became prominent later in the GBA lifespan with more ways to play GBA games becoming available.
>>11049116>>11048705Unfortunely with some of these games with brightness options, the original prime color palwttes seemed to be the defacto bright ones, because the dark desaturated ones look a little ghastly and discolored, tge one exception i can think of are Capcom's Magical Quest 2, 3 and Aladdin, since those were already SNES games, the latter was the prime color palette.
Too grindy HOD and COTM are the most grindy games in the series
>>11025886It's just bad. So is the other one, I don't remember the name, HoD or something. Aria is the only one of the three worth playing. For that matter, half the games in this series are fucking bad. Retro is better, but the ones worth playing are:>I>III>Rondo>SotN>AriaMAYBE IV if you want to be a completionist. The rest are variable degrees of shit.
>>11025886The teleporter having no warps for the lower half of the castle is an issue, don't know why one more warp was not included.Running is a non issue for me, I'm used to fighting game and beat em ups where double tapping is normal.And the lack of shop is a plus, it keeps you from cheesing bosses and the coliseum by buying your way out of them instead you have to just get good.The difficulty is just right and why it's my favorite Metroidvania, since most others are cake walks.
>>11025886I still like this game, but I admit I'm biased because I bought CotM at the GBA's launch; and it was my first Castlevania.I still have the cartridge from 2001, but not the GBA I got with it. Gave that to someone else when I got an SP.
>>11051381The warp room positioning is pretty shit in CotM, none of them are in particularly helpful locations.In general, the flow of the map is pretty poor, as is the layout of many of the larger rooms.
Bump
>>11038759Looks like this in a GBA modded with a GBA SP 101 screen. Sorry for the poor quality of the pic, though.
>>11053249>modded gbawhat about an un modded one?
>>11053318Sorry, I don't have one of those at the moment. Maybe a friend of mine can lend me his OG GBA soon. I just posted that image because there wasn't a comparison with the AGS-101 screen yet in this thread.
>>11028583It's the hardest of the GBA trilogy for sure (fuck u dragon zombie), HoD's mobility makes combat much more approachable, and Aria practically plays itself combat-wise.
>>11039807Looks like scanline
The scale of the level design is way too big.Then in HoD it was way too tight.Like many other things, Aria got it right.
>>11025886For me it's just the way it looks and feels compared to Aria or Harmony, it just gives this sense of "we didn't put our best guys on this one."
>>11054761CotM was developed by Konami's Kobe based subsidiary Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe (KCEK), and it was actually the last game they made in their short 3 year span. KCEK would be dissolved and absorbed into the main Konami studio in 2001.https://www.mobygames.com/company/4436/konami-computer-entertainment-kobe-inc/They were responsible for Castlevania 64 + Legacy of Darkness on Nintendo 64 as well, they share a similar jank and feel.They also did stuff like Konami Krazy Racers, Rakuga Kids (hence the Bear Tank easter egg in CotM), and apparently a Goemon Sugoroku style board game on N64, Japan exclusive.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRzPi7fYgq8
>>11038759>>11039730how is HoD compared to CotM? it's the one GBA Castlevania I never got around to playing.
>>11055219HoD has decent enough combat with a nice subweapon+magic combo system, making Juste one of the more unique Belmonts to play as.Where it falls apart is that this was the SotN's team first time working with the GBA hardware and they didn't properly understand the system's capabilities. It shows in the garish color schemes and low fidelity music (which works for and against some of the tracks).The main problem with the game though is the map decision. You navigate two castles where the routes between them are interwoven, but riddled with dead ends and an annoying number of keys and locked doors (versus upgrades that open new paths). It is by far the most back-track heavy game in the series, with a lot of "where the fuck do I go".Another point against the game is the shop system. You'll periodically encounter rooms with a hint in the corner about how to make the merchant appear, and each room has its own unique stock.The requirements vary from having a certain number of hearts, holding a certain sub weapon, having a odd or even numbered level, and this can make actually visiting that shop a problem.The story is a bit of a nothing-burger and amounts to "one day my best friend was called to the castle, shit happens, Dracula maybe??".The two GBA games developed by the core Castlevania team are unique in that they reuse zero assets from previous games, as compared to the DS titles that reused stuff from the SNES and PS1 titles aplenty.It's definitely worth a play at least once, but it's the one I replay the least out of the GBA trilogy for a reason.One good thing about it is that it has the most boss fights in the series by far, they went nuts with how many they added.
>>11056558>The two GBA games developed by the core Castlevania team are unique in that they reuse zero assets from previous games, as compared to the DS titles that reused stuff from the SNES and PS1 titles aplenty.and why would having a consistent set of sprites be a bad thing, exactly? it leads to a graphical identity. it's comfy.
>>11056634The already large detailed sprites for SNES/PS1 might've been too large for the GBA, unlike some other SNES -> GBA ports.I'm not against re-using assets by any means, and there are pros and cons to developing all assets from scratch for a new game.AoS does re-use the engine from HoD, such as the names displayed of items collected and enemies struck.
>>11025886Unplayable without the always run patch. It's available for both the original ROM as well as the Steam collection. Just google it, makes the game 1000% better.
>>11025886It's amazing how many abilities are hidden behind rare drops, some from rare enemies that appear in one place. Lots of cool stuff like summons, item crashes, and familiars in the game, but the average player won't ever get to use them on a normal playthrough. It's neat but also a pretty weird choice.
>>11056735In a manner of speaking, Aria of Sorrow does exactly that too, but the key difference is every enemy in AoS has a soul you can acquire and use.CotM doesn't let you know an enemy has a drop worth grinding for, or any sort of in-game reference like an enemy guide.The advance collection added an overlay that specifically informs you that this monster has a DSS card drop you don't have yet, which is a pretty important improvement.
>>11056786Don't like how low the drop chance for a decent setup is, you can go through the whole game playing just whip and subweapon if you're not into googling for upgrades. In Aria you can get souls consistently to help progressing the game.
>>11025886CotM desperately needs a remaster
>>11057925>>11058159Supposedly it was the US versions that ruined the Luck system, is that right?
>>11058159Agree. I wouldn't even mind if it was 2.5D as long as it looked as good as Dread did.
>>11058170luck was the least of it's problems
>>11058170CotM actually has a functioning luck system.Wearing two luck boosting accessories (that usually weaken other stats) and using a luck boosting DSS combination has an actual observable effect on item drop rates.The issue is that the base drop rate is too fucking low in general, so even with luck boosts you'll still be grinding way too much.My recent CotM playthrough was the card mode patch, which has the added effect that monsters that commonly drop their DSS card, will commonly drop health recovery items instead. It makes the game far easier, but desu if you're playing the game properly about the only time you need these items is in the late, late game or arena.AoS and DoS are notorious for having a basically non-functioning luck system, the trade off is that the base drop rates are a lot more tolerable and that accessories like the rare ring, gold ring, and soul eater ring actually do what they say they do (as their effects occur at the end of luck formula).It's possible that the luck system in AoS / DoS was actually working as intended, but I'm more of the opinion that it was a mistake as PoR and OoE have a properly working luck system, with enemies having 1-5 star rarity ratings for their item drops that can actually decrease in rating as your luck increases.AoS does also have a bug that the Intelligence stat does not boost the strength of bullet souls. It only boosts your guardian souls, which is why using bullet souls (coupled with a weak MP regen rate) is so underwhelming in vanilla AoS. Try playing it with an Int Fix + Faster MP regen patch, it really changes how you play the game and makes bullet souls worth using.By the way, the Int stat in CotM is unique in that it just affects MP recovery rate.There's a DSS card combo that boosts int, but has an MP cost over time.So ironically, it kinda does nothing unless you have a very high Int stat in which case it helps to accelerate your MP recovery (so it's good for Magician Mode).
there was two other ones on gba
>>11058184I want this
>>11056558HoD was an overcompensation for CoTM. People complained that CoTM was too hard to see and awkward to move in, so they basically sacrificed everything else to address the complaints. They weren't using a particularly large GBA cart either.
itt:I am a casual baby and can't cheese this game like I do other metroidvanias so it's bad
CotM could really benefit from a remake
>>11060528Didn't all 3 GBA games get a compilation?
>>11060558I think it was only Harmony and aria
>>11060562It has CotM and Dracula X as well
>>11060558that' how i've been replaying cotm recently, on my switch with an nes controller, as the switch nes controllers have shoulder buttons
>>11060558>>11060574Oh you guys are talking about the advanced collection. I thought you were talking about the Castlevania double pack.
>>11025972>Making literally everything of worth a random drop on enemy kills is the major thing holding the game back, atop of the drop rates in general being far too low.>It makes the game too grindy, which exacerbates that the general movement and combat isn't as fluid as SotN was or HoD/AoS would be. It aimed to be a bit more methodical like classicvania but with mid-air control though, so I can't fault it as much.I like how you put this. It's not perfect, but I do appreciate what it tries to do, and I find the game pretty fun still.
>>11026328The problem is that most usable items are not useful enough that the low drop rates make sense, if you don't consciously grind for health potions, you will very rarely find any at all, and they're not worth grinding for either.They could be omitted from the game and it would do extremely little to change the gameplay beyond removing an incentive for tedious grinding.
>>11060276And yet as demonstrated above, HoD was still barely visible on a normal GBA screen.
>>11061337People greatly exaggerate this, I was able to play CoTM, with its dimmer colors and lower contrast, just fine.The problem was to find suitable lighting conditions around your house (or wherever else) depending on time of day and such, or get just the right kind of light from a nearby lamp, which isn't ideal, but it'd work. It's a lot like playing games on the original Game Boy, except you don't get the added flexibility of the contrast dial.
>>11061354>I JUST WENT TROUGH HOOPS GUYS!
>>11061473Welcome to unlit handhelds, kid.
>>11062060Nigger, the GBC has better visibility then the OG GBA
