Topic: Game Informer's Castlevania Rankings

[Tavis Belmont]

I'm not sure if this has been posted yet, but here's a link to Tim Turi's personal Castlevania Rankings. If this is a repost, please feel free to delete this topic.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/04/04/ranking-the-castlevania-bloodline.aspx

I don't personally agree with some of the ranks, and I would've liked more in-depth reasons why he chose each one, but to each their own.

[beingthehero]

It's kind of hard to rank the entire series, mostly because there's just so many great games. The one I didn't agree with in his list is the low ranking of Castlevania Chronicles.

[Ratty]

Stopped reading when I saw he put Castlevania Legends and Legacy of Darkness at the bottom. Has this guy even played more than 5 minutes of these games, or Castlevania Adventure/CV64 at all? I seriously doubt it. I'm usually respectful of other's opinions but this is a particularly lazy excuse for "game journalism".

Comparing them to Symphony when neither of them were ever trying to BE Metroidvania*, is exactly the kind of thing I ranted about in my post in the "Underrated Castlevania(s)" thread. Another lazy and self-important "journalist" regurgitating age old put-downs of perfectly good or, in the case of LoD, great games.

*And they were incapable of being as vast as SotN on their respective platforms whatever the creators had aimed for.

[Tavis Belmont]

It's kind of hard to rank the entire series, mostly because there's just so many great games. The one I didn't agree with in his list is the low ranking of Castlevania Chronicles.

I completely agree. I personally prefer Chronicles over the original for the muisc, gameplay, graphics and herb. I always wished they'd do another one, and then we got Dracula X Chronicles. I absolutely loved that game.

[uzo]

Stopped reading when I saw he put Castlevania Legends and Legacy of Darkness at the bottom.

Sounds about right to me. Though I'd have placed Legend a little higher, and CV64 right next to LoD. Legends was at least stomachable, and I was able to play through it in a sitting.

It's really hard to judge the middle entries though. Categorizing them into "Best" "Good" "Meh" and "Shit" would be easier.

[Ratty]

Sounds about right to me. Though I'd have placed Legend a little higher, and CV64 right next to LoD. Legends was at least stomachable, and I was able to play through it in a sitting.

It's really hard to judge the middle entries though. Categorizing them into "Best" "Good" "Meh" and "Shit" would be easier.

Legends was a good game aside from the graphics, which I believe were a product of the forced addition of SGB features. It was no Belmont's Revenge, but it was a solid if short entry in the series I think. LoD is still the best 3Dvania game imo. I've not played LoS as I don't own any current gen system* everything I hear about it is "competent but not really Castlevania" though.

*Been waiting for the end of the console cycle/Sly Cooper 4, whichever came first. Looks like they're going to be pretty much concurrent.

[DingusBelmondo]

Stopped reading when I saw he put Castlevania Legends and Legacy of Darkness at the bottom. Has this guy even played more than 5 minutes of these games, or Castlevania Adventure/CV64 at all? I seriously doubt it. I'm usually respectful of other's opinions but this is a particularly lazy excuse for "game journalism".

Comparing them to Symphony when neither of them were ever trying to BE Metroidvania*, is exactly the kind of thing I ranted about in my post in the "Underrated Castlevania(s)" thread. Another lazy and self-important "journalist" regurgitating age old put-downs of perfectly good or, in the case of LoD, great games.

*And they were incapable of being as vast as SotN on their respective platforms whatever the creators had aimed for.

Something has to be at the bottom

[e105beta]

Something has to be at the bottom

Yeah, I'm not sure what else could be down there besides Dracula X. Encore of the Night should probably be lower.

[knightmere]

Legends is garbage and deserves near the bottom just ahead of Haunted Castle and Vampire Killer.  LoD on the other hand should be in the middle of the pack.

[e105beta]

Legends is garbage and deserves near the bottom just ahead of Haunted Castle and Vampire Killer.  LoD on the other hand should be in the middle of the pack.

Haunted Castle! That's what they left out.

The list is pretty much garbage, though. The bottom is fairly accurate, swapping out LoD for CV64, but I wouldn't be surprised if he put CV64 ahead of LoD because it had whips and LoD didn't.

[Odile Kuronuma]

What? Encore of the Night scored higher than LoI? How can a puzzle game have a higher ranking than a "real" game?
Oh and apparently Por is better than Aos. BS

[Sindra]

Where's Rondo? I don't mean Dracula X Chronicles, I mean fucking RONDO.

And  Super Castlevania 4 should have been above Ecclesia, much as I love the latter.

[Charlotte-nyo:3]

I think they just do lists like these to get hits really. There's no way one individual's personal list is going to please many people--it's going to totally feel off to the wider fanbase with sometimes a LITTLE bit of stratification that makes sense. If one tried to glean what the average fanbase ranking of the games would be, it might be a bit more interesting (although I'm sure it'd still piss a lot of people off, namely people who like games the majority of the fanbase doesn't).

As far as Haunted Castle and Rondo, they're probably excluding games without the Castlevania moniker (no Vampire Killer either) so that eliminates Haunted Castle from the list and games that the US didn't get which stops them from putting Rondo on there. Actually though, the original Rondo is a bonus in DXC so I guess that does include Rondo.

[Chernabogue]

Wasn't that ranking already posted?

[Ratty]

The list is pretty much garbage, though. The bottom is fairly accurate, swapping out LoD for CV64, but I wouldn't be surprised if he put CV64 ahead of LoD because it had whips and LoD didn't.

My guess is it's because more people played CV64 and he'd be more likely to get called on overly harsh criticism. Notice whenever you see some a media person talk trash about LoD the footage/screenshots are almost always from the first level/on the ship or before the Castle. Though if it's a list the footage from other games will be from different spots in them.

What? Encore of the Night scored higher than LoI? How can a puzzle game have a higher ranking than a "real" game?
Oh and apparently Por is better than Aos. BS

Yeah that's straight bull. "Oh it's associated with SotN, guess I'll give it a free ride above actual games." SotN itself IS one of the best games ever made, but come on.