Recent Posts

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General Castlevania Discussion / Re: Worried about the site/these forums.

« Last post by XombieMike on January 20, 2026, 08:24:09 AM »

Navigation seems to be taking me about 16 seconds per page load. Not sure what's up with that. I know it's not my connection as other sites load quickly.

Forums are still important to me. Platforms such as Discord are not only prone to whoring out your information, but they are not great places for searching for long form posts and organized information. For example, this forum has many links to collections of interviews and resources for those who seek them. The community side of forums is obviously on a big low point, and yeah, that's sad to me. However, I think the usefulness of the forum format still has value in today's internet.

If you're reading this, thanks for being here! The world is a place where many people are divided for many reasons, but here you are a Castlevania fan and therefore we share that and can come together under our love of something common.

Now if Konami would just... well you know.

At least we will get a new Bloodstained game this year! I'm looking forward to that with great exictement.

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Off Topic / Re: Music you've been digging lately

« Last post by Abnormal Freak on January 18, 2026, 08:15:36 AM »

Picked up Peaceville's 30th anniversary CD of Sigh's Infidel Art. I think this is the best it's ever sounded.



Not sure I can say the same for their CD of Scorn Defeat. I haven't listened to it enough yet but there's some tape warble not present on previous issues. As of now, I prefer the 2011 remaster by Deep Send Records, followed by the original edition by Deathlike Silence.

Still, glad Peaceville has been reissuing the classic albums, and I'm looking forward to their releases of Ghastly Funeral Theatre and Scenario IV: Dread Dreams. These albums need to be more widely available; the Chinese editions by Mort were pretty bad and I sold most of those off, save for the Maor Appelbaum remaster of Scenes from Hell that sounds loads better than the original.

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Off Topic / Re: OH NO, WHERE'S MY MEAT?

« Last post by Abnormal Freak on January 18, 2026, 08:06:52 AM »

Meet the meat.

Meat me at the meet.

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Hardcore Gaming 101 / Re: What game(s) have you been playing lately?

« Last post by zangetsu468 on January 18, 2026, 02:38:32 AM »

At the start of Jan I finished Metroid Prime 4. I was surprised the game was actually as long as it was, given I got 98% items(it took a while).

Honestly, I'm not understanding all the backlash of the NPCs. While the one tech guy was a bit irritating, the interweebz have bombarded the net with clusters of annoyed rants and bad reviews, focusing solely on NPCs. While I get that it's unusual for a Metroid/ Prime game, the game itself I felt holds up pretty well. I played the version on regular Switch and graphically, it looks beautiful(definitely the Switch pushed to its upper limits.)

I'm looking forward giving it a proper playthrough on Hard Mode now, as I accidentally did the whole save>clear file thing.. Oops.

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Off Topic / Re: OH NO, WHERE'S MY MEAT?

« Last post by Gunlord on January 17, 2026, 07:44:13 PM »

:meat:

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General Castlevania Discussion / Re: Castlevania Confessions

« Last post by Lumi Kløvstad on January 17, 2026, 07:08:42 AM »

Somebody made that RoB skeleton sprite over 30 years ago and I don't think they made a new one until Haunted Castle Revisited. That philosophy and complacency effects the entire gamefeel top to bottom

I mean in Symphony of the Night, it made thematic sense to reuse Rondo assets as it was a direct sequel, but honestly the asset reuse wasn't really just complacency. Konami has never really judged Castlevania "worthy" of a proper AAA development budget, and especially as we got into the DS era, that got worse. So the asset reuse was more a way to keep things within the narrow scope of the budget (especially as Rondo's assets were of REALLY GREAT QUALITY), but that why Order of Ecclesia feels so special in a way. There's a ton of new enemies with detailed and colorful original spritework, and the whole game is an visual feast compared to just about every post-Symphony 2D game thanks to that.

That said: one of my confessions is while I appreciate the work that went into Ecclesia... it's probably my least favorite game made under Iga's tenure.

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Off Topic / Re: OH NO, WHERE'S MY MEAT?

« Last post by Abnormal Freak on January 15, 2026, 11:59:45 AM »

The meat has returned! Not sure why.

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Off Topic / Re: OH NO, WHERE'S MY MEAT?

« Last post by PFG9000 on January 10, 2026, 08:01:45 AM »

I can see your meat, and it looks as tasty as ever.

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General Castlevania Discussion / Re: Castlevania Confessions

« Last post by BLOOD MONKEY on January 07, 2026, 03:30:24 PM »

The other thing I don't care for is the Soma story. The games are very fun, but I'm sorry I'm just not into the Japanese kid becoming Dracula thing. I get these are Japanese games, but feels off from the rest of the European theme.

I like to imagine, like the initial localized story implies, that he's a Latin-American weeb. Mina obviously being his long-distance discord girlfriend.

I don't think there's been a single title that's truly Castlevania in quality since Aria and Lament. I've played them all except LoS 2 and the mobile game and they're either too mediocre to be memorable or they're just nostalgia bait. Feels weird to be like that since it's almost a third of the series that exists and I know a lot of people were introduced to the games that way, but man, LoI was the last mainline game that doesn't suffer from incredibly obvious asset reuse. Somebody made that RoB skeleton sprite over 30 years ago and I don't think they made a new one until Haunted Castle Revisited. That philosophy and complacency effects the entire gamefeel top to bottom, and I don't think there has been anything produced close to the quality Castlevania had in the 90s in a long time.

I also like Simon's Quest a lot. I don't think it's fun. It's almost exclusively not fun. But I like it.

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General Castlevania Discussion / Re: Castlevania Confessions

« Last post by GuyStarwind on January 06, 2026, 08:07:47 PM »

I'm sure most of you know this, but I'm just not a fan of non Belmont characters. I've said this a hundred times that Belmonts are the heroes, and your Alucards, Somas, Shanoas, etc are supporting characters that should never outshine the heroes. I know many will say "oh but that's not true because of this or that" but that's not how I see it. To be honest this isn't just a Castlevania problem, it's an anything that says something is supposed to be the strongest yet there is something that's somehow stronger problem. Yes, I know there is story strength and gameplay strength, but they should still match. Not sure I'm making sense but yeah.

The other thing I don't care for is the Soma story. The games are very fun, but I'm sorry I'm just not into the Japanese kid becoming Dracula thing. I get these are Japanese games, but feels off from the rest of the European theme.