Topic: RoB or DXC?

[Pfil]

What version do you prefer and why?
I choose the original game. Better controls, prettier graphics, 2D instead of 2.5D and music that sounds better, all of that despite being older.

[JILost]

Rondo. It's not so much that the graphics look better or the music sounds better (I actually prefer DXC's graphics); Rondo just has a certain charm to it that DXC doesn't. It captures the spirit of the "new CD media frontier" era perfectly as well as the 1993 Castlevania "soul".

To be perfectly honest, that Castlevania soul is exactly what draws me to the Castlevanias I like and the less of it a game has in my eyes, the more disappointed I'll be with it - the one exception being CV64, and that's just because the CV64 soul is amazing. 

Also yay for derailing the topic in the first reply!

[Pfil]

I agree with your entire post, but I like more sprite based graphics, so to me they look nicer, and old soundfonts (like SNES or Genesis) have that same charm that can't be emulated with modern sounds.

[JILost]

Again, it's not so much that the music sounds "better" in Rondo (production-wise and arrangement-wise, I feel DXC does a better job), it's just that it has that classic 1993 "first ever CD-ROM Castlevania with Redbook audio" sound to it and I like that element. To put it another way, it's not that I prefer Rondo because it doesn't feel aged or because I feel like anything is particularly "better" about it - I like it because it does feel aged and I guess I hear some ambition in it of Konami reaching for the stars for the best Castlevania ever while still using that humble hardware (the PC Engine).

It's a little like hearing a child get better and better at playing music...but then there's that one day when you hear him play something and even though he could obviously be better, there's something in that performance where you can tell he's destined for great things ahead. That's what Rondo was for Castlevania - It was the series' first outing on CD media and demonstrated clearly that even in the new frontier, Castlevania was still a force to be reckoned with well into the future.

That spirit just isn't captured in DXC for me. It looks -too- polished and with -too- high of production values. There's no more ambition for the future, just "modernizing" an old game for a quick buck in the present. It looks, sounds, and feels really good and was done well, but it also feels somehow cheap.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Topic moved here since this place is better suited for all of this game 1 vs game 2 talk.

As for my answer, as much as I liked DxC, RoB is better maybe because of the sprites. Or the nostalgia, or for some people the bragging rights of buying the actual thing from Japan, including the console.

[JILost]

Or the nostalgia, or for some people the bragging rights of buying the actual thing from Japan, including the console.

I might be a little biased, because of the reasons Shiroi states.

* I had been playing the SNES version for about 10 years before I played Rondo, so it was somewhat a case of "nostalgia from a new game". Plus I play it so infrequently these days that every time feels like the first time again.

* I have those bragging rights. Granted, DXC and the Virtual Console release both came out less than a year after I got the real deal, but I got it and still have it. 

[Abnormal Freak]

I would say that Rondo's music most definitely IS better. Stronger arrangements, more adept production, better instrumentation. DXC just sounds uninspired most the time with probably the most bland arrangements and production in any CV game.

Graphics are a little easier to come down to preference. I like Rondo's pixel art and use of limited color palette. DXC looks good but I'll usually prefer dot art over polygons.

Rondo is the more fun game because as stated the controls are tighter. Doing backflips feels pointless in DXC because it's so floaty and unresponsive, but it really enhances the gameplay in the original.

Also, animu cutscenes and less talking. :3 Rondo wins.

[Beaumont_Belmont]

I'm partial to RoB. I don't get to claim any bragging rights because the first time I played it was on the VC. Dracula X Chronicles was good, but I guess I didn't really feel it was necessary.

[Pfil]

I would say that Rondo's music most definitely IS better. Stronger arrangements, more adept production, better instrumentation. DXC just sounds uninspired most the time with probably the most bland arrangements and production in any CV game.

Plus, it messes up some chords and changes some of the arrangements that gave personality to the original.

[Puwexil]

Rondo's better. Comparatively, it puts on a much more commandeering display of pixel art than DXC does with 3D models, and the presentation overall is a lot more interesting and thought-out. For example: the boss introductions are striking to witness because control is never wrested away from the player, unlike in DXC's static cinematics. The alterations in music track placement also seem a little haphazard; Poison Mind being excluded from the CV1 boss rush borders on the inexplicable, and an uninspired Moon Fight remix and Red Dawn aren't good substitutes for Den and Op.13, differences in intended tone and atmosphere be damned.

There's a kinetic sense of airy, effortless adventure to Rondo, which makes the competent yet portentous remake seem rote and workmanlike by comparison, even if it was a labour of love of a different sort.

[Lelygax]

Original, I've did really crazy things to play this game for the first time (like downloading it in a 56k dial-up modem, converting all musics to their original state since they came in a different one and using a emulator, all of this when I started using a computer, so I was a complete super newbie lol) and when I've discovered that they released it in Wii to US too, I've run to play it.

[Bloodreign]

Rondo hands down, I never got quite excited, or the level excitement for DXC like I had for the original "forbidden fruit" of RoB back when I saw it in those Gamepro pages years ago. Those pages told me that it wasn't coming to America, like a big slap to the face mind you.


Then I tried Rondo, oh what an experience, the music, the magic, the soul, all there and hitting you like a giant wave. When DXC happened it was like a little bit of cold water, but not the monster RoB was when I first gave it a play. Plus DXC was so damned ugly, and Rondo had such beautiful spritework.

The only thing I appreciate DXC for.... the first US appearance of Rondo without the need to import. I'd also pick up the game again on Wii VC down the line to experience it in big screen format.

[Pfil]

Can please mods add a poll so we can all vote?
I didn't think of that when I made the topic.

[Bloodreign]

Can please mods add a poll so we can all vote?
I didn't think of that when I made the topic.

Far as I know, it's too late to add the poll option once the thread and post are submitted.

[Pfil]

If it's not too annoying, I will start a poll now for both threads.