Topic: Castlevania Requiem, Rondo/SotN PS4 port officially announced

[BLOOD MONKEY]

i probably won't buy it on account of i only care about one of the games in question, and already own that one on multiple other platforms

i never was a particular fan of OG rondo, so that does nothing for me

i now await the inevitable rage from SOMEONE over the fact that my feelings toward rondo dangle between disinterest and just plain not liking it

h

[Lumi Kløvstad]

OG Rondo would be better if we hadn't waited for so long to get it in the west -- when you can't have a thing, you build it up in your head and what we got just... didn't actually match what most of us wanted to expect.

DX Chronicles was MUCH closer to what I was expecting though, so that was a fun release.

Kills me that its muddyish textures will never get a remaster. That game could be so incredibly gorgeous.

[Aceearly1993]

By the way, the last update on the CVD page was regarding the LOS series. It would've been over 6 years ago.

I guess I'm curious as to whether this collection merits a "new" game release, and does CVD's page get updated if so?

It does count as "new" product on the official page, and count as an entry in the Castlevania product timeline. Sadly this entry is not anything "new" at all and barely count as product given almost all information in question about it confirmed to be true in this very thread.

I wonder why Grimoire of Souls doesn't just count as a valid entry post-announce but this lazy collection does. Bloody weird.

[Dracula9]

OG Rondo would be better if we hadn't waited for so long to get it in the west -- when you can't have a thing, you build it up in your head and what we got just... didn't actually match what most of us wanted to expect.

that has nothing to do with it, actually

very little in rondo do i find fun to deal with--not a fan in any measure of 90% of the music (style, not composition) due to grossly inappropriate musical style (gothic adventure horror, let's go cheesy 90s jpop), mildly inappropriate art direction (gothic adventure horror, let's go standard 90s anime style and everything's bright and colorful like it's a lost episode of alex kidd in evangelion world), complete lack of emphasis on anything that happens (boy all those barely-audible sfx that are mostly different kinds of squeaky noises because when you hit a werewolf with a spiky chain it definitely goes squeak), and just overall lack of any of the trademark punch and precision classicvanias had down to a science by that point

(yes i know they experimented here and made richter less clunky and more fluid, and yes i give it a tiny bit of a pass because the first attempt is always clumsy)

meanwhile the port version everyone else seems to hate corrects a lot of these problems by having more appropriate instrumentation, sfx, and overall control flow compared to everything else going on in the engine (though it's a shame there's no maria mode, as the alone made most of rondo bearable to trudge through more than once)

dxx has its own slew of issues, to be sure, but i find i enjoy playing it much more than i do rondo

coincidentally, dxc also corrects most of these by having better audiovisual direction and overall aesthetic, and also made richter handle a bit tighter as far as controls go

original rondo was just a hot mess of "let's experiment with the formula and see what happeNOPE NOPE GOTTA POLISH THIS STUFF IN THE SEQUEL BACK TO WORK FOLKS"

and thus, i don't like very much of it at all

[Dremn]

I have Requiem preordered, I never owned a physical copy or any version of SotN before. I had Rondo on Wii but that's about it.

I'm a little bummed it's the PSP audio/dub only.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

meanwhile the port version everyone else seems to hate corrects a lot of these problems by having more appropriate instrumentation, sfx, and overall control flow compared to everything else going on in the engine (though it's a shame there's no maria mode, as the alone made most of rondo bearable to trudge through more than once)

dxx has its own slew of issues, to be sure, but i find i enjoy playing it much more than i do rondo

coincidentally, dxc also corrects most of these by having better audiovisual direction and overall aesthetic, and also made richter handle a bit tighter as far as controls go

original rondo was just a hot mess of "let's experiment with the formula and see what happeNOPE NOPE GOTTA POLISH THIS STUFF IN THE SEQUEL BACK TO WORK FOLKS"

and thus, i don't like very much of it at all

get out of my head you

DXC matches much more of what I had come to expect from Castlevania while also providing Rondo's good bits.
And I too am a sucker for DXX, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that it was the first Classicvania I ever actually beat.

[BLOOD MONKEY]

in my personal opinion, the dracula x series/story arc is really the epitome of castlevania

[Abnormal Freak]

Using the DXC voices for both games makes this a more interesting compilation, IMO. I've got perfectly good copies of the original games, but the English Rondo and redubbed Symphony are stuck on a small screen. The original SOTN dub is better, but it does mix things up in an interesting way to do something out of the ordinary. Having the option to choose would've been nice, but I was fretting this compilation would feature yet another re-release of PS1 SOTN. Getting all the enhancements and redone dub of the PSP version is welcome.

[zangetsu468]

(click to show/hide)

that has nothing to do with it, actually

very little in rondo do i find fun to deal with--not a fan in any measure of 90% of the music (style, not composition) due to grossly inappropriate musical style (gothic adventure horror, let's go cheesy 90s jpop), mildly inappropriate art direction (gothic adventure horror, let's go standard 90s anime style and everything's bright and colorful like it's a lost episode of alex kidd in evangelion world), complete lack of emphasis on anything that happens (boy all those barely-audible sfx that are mostly different kinds of squeaky noises because when you hit a werewolf with a spiky chain it definitely goes squeak), and just overall lack of any of the trademark punch and precision classicvanias had down to a science by that point

(yes i know they experimented here and made richter less clunky and more fluid, and yes i give it a tiny bit of a pass because the first attempt is always clumsy)

meanwhile the port version everyone else seems to hate corrects a lot of these problems by having more appropriate instrumentation, sfx, and overall control flow compared to everything else going on in the engine (though it's a shame there's no maria mode, as the alone made most of rondo bearable to trudge through more than once)

dxx has its own slew of issues, to be sure, but i find i enjoy playing it much more than i do rondo

coincidentally, dxc also corrects most of these by having better audiovisual direction and overall aesthetic, and also made richter handle a bit tighter as far as controls go

original rondo was just a hot mess of "let's experiment with the formula and see what happeNOPE NOPE GOTTA POLISH THIS STUFF IN THE SEQUEL BACK TO WORK FOLKS"

and thus, i don't like very much of it at all

I'm very glad to not be the only one who shares this opinion of XX. The artstyle is world's better also, it's probably one of my favourite.

[X]

I've also got a soft spot for DXX or I should say CVDX. Played it to death and got good enough to finish it from start to end without dying (especially the key segments and learning to use it advantageously in combat).

[Reinhart77]

I see that you can switch between english and japanese audio.  That might make it worth a new play through.  I don’t recall that being available in Dracula X Chronicles, but I could just be forgetting it. 

https://www.destructoid.com/castlevania-requiem-is-an-alright-collection-of-two-fantastic-games-527467.phtml

[Aceearly1993]

I see that you can switch between english and japanese audio.  That might make it worth a new play through.  I don’t recall that being available in Dracula X Chronicles, but I could just be forgetting it. 

https://www.destructoid.com/castlevania-requiem-is-an-alright-collection-of-two-fantastic-games-527467.phtml

JP/EN audio switch was available In DXC.

I still have some doubt if there's full scale region switch like in Capcom's Mega Man X Legacy Collection this time (change title screen graphics and in game text in between Akumajo Dracula version and Castlevania one), but it doesn't matter now given this collection is already being one of the lazier move they did.

[Jazz Paladin Productions]

If they went through all that trouble of retaining the new dialogue from DXC, why couldn't they just include the entirety of DXC with it's updated game graphics? Sheesh...

Especially after I freaking bought DXC so I could play it on the big screen with the PS TV--which they sadly never patched to play on the unit.

[Abnormal Freak]

Is there any word yet on how the ports look? I'm a little afraid they'll look like fetid butthole with blurred visuals (even with filters turned off) or huge horizontal borders rather than filling to the top and bottom of the screen. It feels risky to buy before knowing that stuff, but I would like to take advantage of the discounted price.

There's also the issue of input latency. I guess the Mega Man X Legacy Collection exhibits atrocious levels of input lag, so that could be something to be concerned about.

[Zuljaras]

Usually I am against digital only games but I will make a second exception with this one. The only other exception was Bloodstained Curse of the Moon for the Switch.