Author [EN] [PL] [ES] [PT] [IT] [DE] [FR] [NL] [TR] [SR] [AR] [RU] [ID] Topic: Haunted Castle revision differences?  (Read 8841 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline LuxKiller65

  • Vampire Hunter
  • ***
  • Posts: 220
  • Awards The Great Collector: Has a seemingly obscene amount of Castlevania memorabilia.
    • My YouTube Channel
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Castlevania 64 (N64)
  • Likes:
Haunted Castle revision differences?
« on: October 16, 2016, 10:22:21 PM »
0
We know there are at least 5 revisions of Haunted Castle:

Japan: 'N' version and 'P' version
USA: 'K' and 'M' version
Europe (or is it "rest of the world"?): 'E' version

But no website/resource lists the actual differences. I believe they are not known in detail, unless someone was crazy enough to analyse all of them, but didn't post his work.

We know M is ridiculously hard, but that's mostly all we know. I've also read that M is the original USA release, which means K was released later, I guess for obvious reasons, since M was just too hard, literally unplayable.

Calling out to anybody who can share any details about this mystery. A few questions:
- What do the letters mean?
- Was E for Europe or for 'everywhere except Japan and USA'? Or, was it instead a 3rd release for USA?
- And of course, what are the actual differences between N, P, K, M, E?

Offline Lelygax

  • The Wanderer
  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 4552
  • Its useless, its all useless.
  • Awards 2017-07-Sprite Contest First Place Permanent Resident: Seems to always be around to post/reply.
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (GBA)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2016, 03:34:54 AM »
0
Its just a guess, but maybe M is for Mature since its harder and K is for Kids? xD
(click to show/hide)
Hau auu~     

Offline zangetsu468

  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 3128
  • God bless the hustler, curse the first sleeper
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (NDS)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2016, 05:05:29 AM »
0
I thought M was generally tougher, you lose more hp and you get 3 continues only?

I've definitely played 2 distinct versions which I believe were M and K. I also thought in K you had 5 continues rather than 3.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<[Judgement]>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

                              
                **<<<<<SuperCVIV>COTM<<<<<<<<+
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v                 ^
                                 ^      l   v  ^    +<<<<<<<BE
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v                 ^  
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v     BE>>> VK<**   
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v     ^          ^   
            +<<<<<Legends>HC>OOS>LOD>64       ^
            v                           l              ^                ^
            v                           l     BE>> * <<<BE    RE
            v                           l      ^               ^       ^
LOI>CVIII>COD>AR>BR>CVC>CVII>HOD>ROB>SOTN>OOE>BL>POR>AOS>DOS>>>KD
                                                                          v
                                                                         BE>*  
BE=Bad Ending
RE=Richter Ending

Offline KaZudra

  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 2556
  • Gender: Male
  • Awards 2016-04-Story Contest - 2nd Place Master Debater: Gracefully argues 'til the cows come home about topics.
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Castlevania Bloodlines (Genesis)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2016, 08:12:01 AM »
0
M and K I remember... Arcade versions though.
M is brutal, K is playable.

But it's Quarter munching game so I never bothered to beat it.

"I ain't gonna let it get to me I'm just gonna let it get to me" -Knuckles

Offline Dracula9

  • That One Guy
  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 2417
  • Gender: Male
  • Blargh
  • Awards 2015-01-Music Contest Gold Prize 2014-12-Music Contest Gold Prize 2014-11-November FinalBoss Sprite Contest 2nd Place Winner A great musician and composer of various melodies both original and game-based. 2018-06 Sprite Contest First Place
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2016, 08:38:08 AM »
0
The difference is that one makes you cry harder than the others.


Trøllabundin eri eg, inn í hjartarót.

Offline X

  • Xenocide
  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 9361
  • Gender: Male
  • Awards SuperOld Dungeonite: Members who have been around since the oldOLD days. The Unfazed: Never loses his/her calm, even in the most heated arguments. The Retro Gamer: Has a heated passion for the oldschool VG Titles.
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #5 on: October 18, 2016, 10:31:32 AM »
0
Quote
I thought M was generally tougher, you lose more hp and you get 3 continues only?

Even the easier version still has limited continues, no matter how many quarters you pop into the machine  :P  The game is tough, no question. I've only ever beaten it twice. The first being sheer luck as I didn't know how many lives I had left in reserve.
"Spirituality is God's gift to humanity...
Religion is Man's flawed interpretation of Spirituality given back to humanity..."

Offline zangetsu468

  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 3128
  • God bless the hustler, curse the first sleeper
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (NDS)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2016, 04:44:57 PM »
0
Even the easier version still has limited continues, no matter how many quarters you pop into the machine  :P  The game is tough, no question. I've only ever beaten it twice. The first being sheer luck as I didn't know how many lives I had left in reserve.

It was either 3/5 continues or lives. It was a long time ago (14 years) so it's hard to recall.
I know the first time I played it I breezed through it until around stage 3 (version K).
Later when I tried it out again it must've been a different rom (I had doubles sometimes) which would've been version M, that was tough as nails and I remember continues being very limited. 
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<[Judgement]>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

                              
                **<<<<<SuperCVIV>COTM<<<<<<<<+
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v                 ^
                                 ^      l   v  ^    +<<<<<<<BE
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v                 ^  
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v     BE>>> VK<**   
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v     ^          ^   
            +<<<<<Legends>HC>OOS>LOD>64       ^
            v                           l              ^                ^
            v                           l     BE>> * <<<BE    RE
            v                           l      ^               ^       ^
LOI>CVIII>COD>AR>BR>CVC>CVII>HOD>ROB>SOTN>OOE>BL>POR>AOS>DOS>>>KD
                                                                          v
                                                                         BE>*  
BE=Bad Ending
RE=Richter Ending

Offline Lelygax

  • The Wanderer
  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 4552
  • Its useless, its all useless.
  • Awards 2017-07-Sprite Contest First Place Permanent Resident: Seems to always be around to post/reply.
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (GBA)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2016, 10:25:19 PM »
0
They added more enemies, they do more damage or both?
(click to show/hide)
Hau auu~     

Offline zangetsu468

  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 3128
  • God bless the hustler, curse the first sleeper
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (NDS)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #8 on: October 19, 2016, 02:57:31 AM »
0
They added more enemies, they do more damage or both?

I only remember stage 1 of HC in detail. From memory the enemies were the same, but they took way more hp off the player.
It may be my imagination, but those blocks that fly at you before the medusa fight were harder to dodge and attack in one version, which I'm assuming is M. I recall they were moving faster than the previous version (K) I'd played before it.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<[Judgement]>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

                              
                **<<<<<SuperCVIV>COTM<<<<<<<<+
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v                 ^
                                 ^      l   v  ^    +<<<<<<<BE
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v                 ^  
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v     BE>>> VK<**   
                                 ^      l   v  ^    v     ^          ^   
            +<<<<<Legends>HC>OOS>LOD>64       ^
            v                           l              ^                ^
            v                           l     BE>> * <<<BE    RE
            v                           l      ^               ^       ^
LOI>CVIII>COD>AR>BR>CVC>CVII>HOD>ROB>SOTN>OOE>BL>POR>AOS>DOS>>>KD
                                                                          v
                                                                         BE>*  
BE=Bad Ending
RE=Richter Ending

Offline redrum

  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 2224
  • Awards SuperOld Dungeonite: Members who have been around since the oldOLD days. ICVD Denizen: Those that dwell in the corrupted, mirror image of The Dungeon.
    • Awards
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #9 on: October 20, 2016, 11:46:25 AM »
0
well, i read this...
Quote
At some point during the development period, which was around 6 months, the game was in bad shape, quality and schedule-wise. Reportedly, the project was short-staffed. The head of Konami ordered people who were working on a completely different project, called Hot Chase, to help out with the project, one of which was Masaaki Kukino.

For a single month, all the artists of that team were assigned to Haunted Castle. That specific month was put to use in order to complete the unfinished stages and characters, and to improve the quality of the player and enemy sprites, as well as their effects and attacks. The schedule left no room for any big additions or changes. However, the concept of the crumbling bridge in the last stage was conceived during that stage of development.

Kukino later said in an interview that time for debugging was needed, which resulted in the staff having no more time to make changes to the balancing. However, at that time all the staff members from Hot Chase had returned to their own project already.

i'm guessing one version was "balanced" and one version wasn't, but they maybe felt both were fit for release?  i forget which version is the "K"iller/"M"urderous one, but it's way too rough, even for a quarter muncher :-\

Offline LuxKiller65

  • Vampire Hunter
  • ***
  • Posts: 220
  • Awards The Great Collector: Has a seemingly obscene amount of Castlevania memorabilia.
    • My YouTube Channel
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Castlevania 64 (N64)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #10 on: September 15, 2019, 05:45:39 AM »
0
forgot to thank you for the answers

what's funny is that not only are there two revisions, K easier and M harder, but also you can adjust the difficulty in detail through dipswitches

http://www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/hcast/manual-jhcast.htm

so i'm more confused, does that mean M and K are just the same board, set to different dipswitches, or are they different software revisions which can be FURTHER finetuned with dipswitches.

if i were rich id buy both boards to find out, but this isn't going to happen

here's what the switches do
adjust coins for player1/2 (1~4 coins for 1~7 plays)
adjust difficulty (easy, normal, difficult, very difficult)
adjust player strength (strong, normal, weak, very weak)

now if i have an M version and a K version both set to the same switches, you can do a comparison to see what's been altered
i suppose there are more alterations than the dipswitches, like enemy respawn, speed, etc.

whew

Offline Super Waffle

  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 2138
  • Obliterated CharloNathan and has no regrets
  • Awards Permanent Resident: Seems to always be around to post/reply. The Pervert: Sneaks in any and all innuendo into threads that he/she can.
    • The zone
    • Awards
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #11 on: September 15, 2019, 09:42:20 AM »
0
Is there a version where continues actually work like continues instead of "We're just going to throw you back to Stage 1 with all of your leftover Continues"?

Who the f ever thought that was good design for a coin-op arcade game
« Last Edit: September 15, 2019, 09:47:07 AM by Super Waffle »

Offline X

  • Xenocide
  • Master Hunter
  • *****
  • Posts: 9361
  • Gender: Male
  • Awards SuperOld Dungeonite: Members who have been around since the oldOLD days. The Unfazed: Never loses his/her calm, even in the most heated arguments. The Retro Gamer: Has a heated passion for the oldschool VG Titles.
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2019, 09:59:02 AM »
0
Quote
Who the f ever thought that was good design for a coin-op arcade game

Konami.  ;D

In fact the two Contra arcade titles pull the same s@#t.
"Spirituality is God's gift to humanity...
Religion is Man's flawed interpretation of Spirituality given back to humanity..."

Offline LuxKiller65

  • Vampire Hunter
  • ***
  • Posts: 220
  • Awards The Great Collector: Has a seemingly obscene amount of Castlevania memorabilia.
    • My YouTube Channel
    • Awards
  • Favorite Game: Castlevania 64 (N64)
  • Likes:
Re: Haunted Castle revision differences?
« Reply #13 on: November 03, 2022, 09:44:52 PM »
0
Yeah I know it's necromancy, but I'm playing the game again on the Hamster PS2 release. So I'm just hoping someone has more information about the 5 different releases.

There's a guy on YouTube which gives some info, but not very detailed, and he doesn't say anything about what the differences betwen N and P; he makes them sound like they're the same, but they must have differences.

<<
This game have a lot of versions: Two Japanese (N and P), Two American (M and K) (that one Is unfair) and One European (E):
The US M version is the mostly hated due to his unfairness. The enemies are overpowered (this is ridicolous every enemy (except regular bats) and boss can easily defeat Simon in 2 hits) and less Power-Up appear on the game.
The US K version luckily take down the Unfairness of M version. This version Is the same of the two JP versions, now Simon take 1 damage every hit and more Power-Up (like JP version) appear on the game. Now the US version is (literally) playable. The EU E version is the same of 2 JP and US K version.
The Japanese Version have an advantage that the International one gets lacked: When Simon falls on a bottomless pit, he respawns on the last checkpoint at cost of half your health, in the International version when Simon falls on a bottomless pit the game is over.
There's a trick that increase your health: Insert 4 (or more) Coins and start the game, skip or watch the the beginning cutscene and when you are on stage 1 press start 3 times and your health will hugely increases (visibile in numbers near the health bar) (Ex: 64, Max)
WARNING! Using this trick and lose the game you won't able to continue, since to increase the health cost your three continues.
Here's all the difference of this game.
>>

Tags:
 

anything