Castlevania Thread - Vampires, Whips, and Horror's Greatest Hits Now In One Gaming Franchise

[Grub]

I'm bad with computers but it took me a while to set up Bowser's Inside Story using an emulator, trying to bind the voice input to a button. I'd imagine reconfiguring touch inputs or installing patches would be another level of hassle I just don't care to deal with.

Imagine thinking clicking a download link is a hassle.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Imagine thinking clicking a download link is a hassle.

*doesn't click link*

 

[Grub]

*doesn't click link*

I do get it. Me and a friend of mine years ago had a fairly heated discussion about doing things yourself vs paying money for something or to have something done. Some people would rather just pay money and have something work without having to fuck around or put any effort in and I can respect that even if I don't really understand that mindset myself.

 

[Gravemind]

Qtes are arguably worse. There's a hack that just completely removes the touchscreen nonsense.

I know about that patch, and while it does remove that element from DoS, this new alternative isn't bad. Functionally, it IS similar to a QTE, but the timing requirement is fairly lax or so I've found. You can take a reasonable amount of time so long as you hit the corresponding buttons in the correct order, but one misinput DOES fail the whole sequence. I think it's a neat compromise that stays true to the intended mechanic.

So it's pretty much a worse version of the rewind function in emulators.

Pretty sure it's exactly the same as an emulator's rewind function. It's just the PC port has that odd habit of SOMETIMES crashing if the Rewind is used too much at once. The most notable time I ran into it myself was doing a "no damage" run on Barlowe in OoE for the medal, and one other occasion that I don't totally remember in OoE. Never had any issues with the game crashing otherwise.

So pretty much these two things would be the only reasons.

For you, maybe. All I'm saying is that it's a good release and worth buying, but you're under no obligation to do so if you'd rather play each of the DS games with QoL patches on emulator.

Oh, and I guess there's also the art gallery, which features neat concept art + manual scans for every release of the game + includes all of those official 4koma comics made for each game. And I think you can rip the high quality, non-DS compressed versions of each game's opening cinematic from the files.

A friend also informed me that, apparently, some of the game's animations (like Dual Crushes in PoR) are actually movie files, so you can do some really dumb shit like replacing certain animations with shitpost-y memes if you were so inclined. According to him, they are also somewhat "hot swappable" (as in, you can make those modifications while the program's running).

Do Castlevania games go on sale often?

Konami likes doing regular publisher sales on Steam, yes, and it might go on sale during the next big, upcoming sale period. Probably the Winter event. I'd expect 10-15% off at the most, though.

 

[capitalBBustard]

Some people would rather just pay money and have something work without having to fuck around or put any effort

Dominus collection is actual ports (in the weirdest bass-ackwards way imaginable) of the DS games my guy. Code is running natively.

 

[Gravemind]

Dominus collection is actual ports (in the weirdest bass-ackwards way imaginable) of the DS games my guy.

Got any more information about this "bass-ackwards" way in which the Dominus Collection ports were coded?

It's all black magic to me that ran immaculately well, despite the fact that other players have reported more instances of crashes in fairly benign situations (which I never experienced) and that odd thing with Rewinding sometimes causing a crash (And, I feel like I can't emphasize this enough, this only ever seemed to happen when I used Rewind way too many times in a row in a singular instance. In fact, I'm just now remembering the other time a crash was triggered on my end and that seemed to be from accidentally overlapping the Rewind function and the Collection pause menu at the same time – which is deceptively easy to do as the Rewind/Pause commands are mapped to the same button. You rewind by tapping L trigger and you pause by holding L trigger.)

Oh, and uh, I should probably note. The Collection can seemingly only be played with a controller. There doesn't seem to be any keyboard compatibility at all (although I've triggered the Pause function randomly from trying to clip tool screenshot). The controls also seem to get a little weird when remapped through Steam Input, so it's best not to futz with that too much if you can help it.

 

[Raging Capybara]

I've been playing the Dominus collection and having a lot of fun with the games until I got into Ecclesia. The third game in the trilogy is a fan favorite but it didn't click with me.

It's way too difficult and frustrating. The best way to deal with all the bullshit in the game is to damage-boost your way through the map. Exploration is a chore and some maps are just a dumb corridor where, as I said, you can just run and ignore everything because fighting those sponge monsters takes forever.

Just a fucking weird game where everything is a tank with 9999 hp and your attacks are all garbage. I got the shitty ending and now I must save all the villagers, but I'm not in the mood to continue. I think I'll give up on this one

 

[Gravemind]

It's way too difficult and frustrating. The best way to deal with all the bullshit in the game is to damage-boost your way through the map. Exploration is a chore and some maps are just a dumb corridor where, as I said, you can just run and ignore everything because fighting those sponge monsters takes forever.

Just a fucking weird game where everything is a tank with 9999 hp and your attacks are all garbage. I got the shitty ending and now I must save all the villagers, but I'm not in the mood to continue. I think I'll give up on this one

Don't get filtered. Order of Ecclesia is the one game in the whole series that actually leans heavily on weapon/attack weaknesses and resistances. This is the thing that turns the game from a dick-punching experience to a fairly normal difficulty Metroidvania once you know how to play by its rules.

IIRC you get the upgrade that lets you cycle between three glyph presets pretty early. Set one up with Macir (the hammer glyph), set another one up with a slash damage Glyph of your choice (dual Secares are a bit of "jack of all trades", dual Confodores are weaker but have the benefit of speed, dual Hasta is weaker than Secare – at least until you get the Melio upgrade – but has the benefit of long reach if you want to play it safe, which you should) and set your last preset with "magic" type Glyphs that you'll frequently switch out depending on what you fight. Ignis and Vol Fulgur will generally be good. Luminatio will be you go-to for Holy damage, but good God, fucking avoid Umbra until you can get Vol Umbra for your Dark damage.

Everyone ALWAYS get filtered because they never figure out how to switch weapons. Don't make this mistake. Be flexible in what you use.

 

[capitalBBustard]

Got any more information about this "bass-ackwards" way in which the Dominus Collection ports were coded?

They essentially ported the games but still run them through some kind of emulation layer to allow the use of savestates and rewind. And despite doing the all the work to make the code run natively, they decided to simulate the DS multiscreen gimmick for absolutely 0 benefit at that point.

Just the logic of it is so dumb, they made the default option 3 screens for a game on a dual screen system that they easily could have turned into a proper single screen game. Mindboggling when you think about it. No wonder people think it's emulated. Funny thing is IIRC there's glitches that are now possible to pull off in OoE because of it running natively that would crash real DS hardware/emulators.

 

[Kulee Baba]

The Dominus Collection is without a doubt worth $20. 3 great DS games + M2 finally made Haunted Castle worth playing. I feel like Konami is finally getting back on track.

I love Dawn of Sorrow so much. The worst thing about it is the generic anime artwork it’s a shame they didn’t keep Kojima’s illustrations for the whole modern series. It’ll be so ridiculous if that shitty mobile Grimoire game is the last time they use her art.

Here’s hoping they greenlight a proper full scale game where Gigachad Julius kills Dracula in 1999.

 

[CyrusHowler]

Castlevania 4 and Bloodlines are my favorites.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

So how's the retarded tv sequel series doing? Still glorifying literal Caribbean voodoo despite the rest of the series relative respect for Christianity and its principles?

 

[Back me up!]

So how's the retarded tv sequel series doing? Still glorifying literal Caribbean voodoo despite the rest of the series relative respect for Christianity and its principles?

Gonna find out on Jan 16th.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

Gonna find out on Jan 16th.

Too bad that's going to be when the Switch 2 is announced and more people pay attention to that. The writers of this shitshow must be seething.

 

[Brain Power]

The torrents for the newest Netflixvania episodes are already out. Fuck it, I'll suffer through them and see what are the most retarded things they could have shoehorned there.
EDIT: *sigh* not even 10 minutes and they're already releasing the fuck bombs. Alucard visits an ancient Egyptian tomb, gets attacked by nigger vampires and then two huge guards with the Abbystrong bodytype. Seriously, those are ripped men's bodies (and they're much taller than Alucard) but they have female grunts.

DUDE, LIKE, MUMMY AND MOMMY SOUND SO SIMILAR SO FUNNI AMIRITE?

 

[The handsome tard]

I think a big issue of modern takes of Castlevania is making Dracula too much of a victim. He may be tragic but he isnt a victim, he literally waged war against God and humanity for the reason he believes his love was unjustifiably took from him. He choose to partake in demonic powers for the sake of revenge.

What makes it worse is that Symphony of the Night might even imply Dracula really has no choice in the matter, he cant back out or change. When he dies in that one, he is literally told by his son that his second wife's last words was to not bring harm to humanity despite what they done to her. Dracula seems legit heartbroken, asks Liza to forgive him and bids farewell to his son. I do believe he asked for her forgiveness because he cannot ever fulfill her last request because of his resurrection cycle doesnt bring Dracula back necessarily but his dark influence and desire for death and revenge upon mankind (so each incarnation is technically their own, possibly having little to no memories of the last, maybe only the negatives).


And now he is stuck in a cycle of death and resurrection even if he likes it or not. Getting put down for good by Julius was probably a mercy at that point.


Thats something you can clearly see things like the TV show dont seem to get. Dracula is complex but he is still suppose to be ultimately an evil monster.

So how's the retarded tv sequel series doing? Still glorifying literal Caribbean voodoo despite the rest of the series relative respect for Christianity and its principles?

That still confuses me, the Castlevania TV show seems to just handle the spirituality and religious aspect of the series all wrong (intentionally so, as expected from modern clown world).

Im fine towards showing the church being corrupted and all, God knows I share that sentiment with my intense dislikement towards the modern Popes but it really doesnt seem to be trying to balance things out by showing that isnt being stopped by the men of the church but by the men chosen by God to slay evil. Apparently liza is in Hell, which makes no sense since she never did anything objectively evil and all her knowledge was towards healing the sick and injured. It would have been more tragically poetic if Dracula went to Hell to find her but failed because she is in Heaven and thats the one place Dracula, with all his powers, can never get to.

Tho of course, whenever other religious are brought in, they arent mishandled or misrepresented at all. Its all intentional and they're shameless.


This series is for tourists and fans that had ditched the series several years ago and only have a vague memory of it.

Castlevania 4 and Bloodlines are my favorites.

They really feel like the peak of the classic format.

EDIT: not even 10 minutes and they're already releasing the fuck bombs. Alucard visits an ancient Egyptian tomb, gets attacked by nigger vampires and then two huge guards with the Abbystrong bodytype. Seriously, those are ripped men's bodies (and they're much taller than Alucard) but they have female grunts.

DUDE, LIKE, MUMMY AND MOMMY SOUND SO SIMILAR SO FUNNI AMIRITE?

Okay, correction, this series is for god damn redditors. The unappealing female designs (thats not even how muscular women look like, those are trannies) and niggers in Egypt (cuz of course, we waz kangs and shieeet) and the awful cringe reddit tier humor, especially the "white dumb male".

I feel like apologizing to Castlevania Judgement's designs now

 

[Brain Power]

Man they really went out of their way to make Maria utterly despicable here.
Juste: Maria don't kill your dad your mom sent me to stop you she still loves him!
Maria: NO FUCK YOU AND FUCK WHAT MOM WANTS I'LL DO WHAT I FUCKING WANT FUCK YOU DAD (Fucking kills her fucking dad by fucking roasting him alive and almost gets herself fucking killed and only fucking lives because Juste fucking regains his fucking magic, then she fucking faints and Juste has to fucking drag her out of fucking church)
Also Maria:

Holy shit she just keeps shitting non-stop on Juste because he dared saving her and giving her some advice. I'm supposed to side with her?

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Why are you people subjecting yourself to this

 

[Jade Goody]

I've been playing the Dominus collection and having a lot of fun with the games until I got into Ecclesia. The third game in the trilogy is a fan favorite but it didn't click with me.

It's way too difficult and frustrating. The best way to deal with all the bullshit in the game is to damage-boost your way through the map. Exploration is a chore and some maps are just a dumb corridor where, as I said, you can just run and ignore everything because fighting those sponge monsters takes forever.

Just a fucking weird game where everything is a tank with 9999 hp and your attacks are all garbage. I got the shitty ending and now I must save all the villagers, but I'm not in the mood to continue. I think I'll give up on this one

I don't remember anything from Ecclesia, and I played it when it first came out.

 

[Brain Power]

Ha, even Sekhmet was niggerized, AND she even takes over Nigganette's body! They learned NOTHING from the Cleopatra fiasco