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21

Fan Stuff / Re: Castlevania The Lecarde Chronicles May 2013

« Last post by RichterB on December 02, 2023, 09:09:44 AM »

Where do we click to play this and Lecarde 2 as whole games? There are so many files, I'm confused. Also, is there any way to skip to the Hard Mode in Lecarde 1?

22

General Castlevania Discussion / Re: I know the feeling.

« Last post by comeau on December 02, 2023, 04:20:57 AM »

As someone who never liked the first series and felt it was a major betrayal of expectations and promises, here are my gripes:

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Hiring Warren Ellis, who is notoriously awful at writing stories about faith or religion with any semblance of nuance or respect (see: Supergod) was a fucking blunder. Muddying the waters on how faith and the power of God works in Castlevania was a massive mistake and they shot themselves in the foot by confusing it, something that Nocturne barely fixes - but in the process also screws over the internal logic of the world in the long run.

Forgetting Grant was a huge blow to the potential of the series, IMO, because without that human element of "a non-powered hero, trying to do the right thing", what we get boils down to Gothic horror superheroes versus the League of Doom (of which the "Dracula's court" plot supplied unnecessarily).

Abandoning Dracula as a recurring villain kills the spirit of the series, and the framing device of the Belmont bloodline's interactions with him from a writing perspective. Each hero is fundamentally designed, ultimately, in contrast to Dracula - and would be in a better or more faithful adaptation a driving point for each season, potentially.

People kvetching about the need for "more plot" have clearly never seen what can be done with a short series or OVA, or shounen in the vein of a "monster of the week" format (see: Stardust Crusaders, Phantom Blood, etc.). Adapting Castlevania, III especially, was a very easy task if they managed to keep the atmosphere for what it was, and embrace the simplicity of "the journey to Dracula's castle". Instead, it got lost in Ellis trying to inject Reddit-tier atheism and quips instead of properly dealing with the subject of 'faith' in a series where religion is objectively real and efficacious against monsters.

You do not have to have a long-form or deeply character-driven plot for Castlevania, necessarily - but you also have to take what you are writing and present it seriously.

Nocturne is a consequence of Netflixvania's failings, directly. Not that I'd expect anything better to come out of it, because they're obviously pandering to the audience they cultivated under the direction they went with the previous series. But the fact of the matter is that you can very clearly tell by the writing (see the clip of Richter's "I was about to say something cool but fuck it" moment) that the series is being helmed and written by people who do not get it (the vibe, the story, the feel of Castlevania), nor do they care. There is an underlying apathy, if not resentment for the content being created, because these people do not respect the "dumb video game show".

These writers are akin to those who look at the Symphony of the Night English opening, the one with the script by that hack Blaustein - and say, "WELL CASTLEVANIA IS JUST A SILLY SERIES LOL LMAO".

I wanted the show to be good. I really did. Shankar outright claimed his hatred for bad adaptations, and promised to capture the series faithfully. But it's not, and the people who are working on it evidently do not care for the original games, because they cannot be bothered to match or even write around the core premise or vibes of the original. There is a fine line between "what they need to change for an adaptation" and spurious inventions and completely missing the tone and atmosphere of a series, no matter how scant the writing is.

That being said, in the hands of competent writers, I think that a Castlevania anime (inspired heavily by Vampire Hunter D) could've been fucking great. I think that AoS would've made a perfect shounen, and actually has 'enough' story to potentially build around with the 1999 Demon Castle War, and with the thematic conflict of Soma's identity, and ESPECIALLY the theoretical fight choreography due to the Power of Dominance. I just wish that the foundation for that to happen was not written by people who are completely apathetic about making something good.

23

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

« Last post by JR on December 01, 2023, 10:14:15 PM »

Going through my second playthrough of RE4 Remake (my wife got me a PS5 for my birthday). I really like how close they stayed to the original, but I wonder if they should've done more? I dunno. It's fun playing again, though. My first playthrough was on Hardcore, and the Salazar fight was a pain in the ass. Other than that, it was good, although I felt like I was just limping by throughout my first playthrough. Krauser feels like even more of a dork in this one, lol. Overall pretty great game, though.

Next on my list is the new Robocop game. Can't wait!

24

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

« Last post by Abnormal Freak on December 01, 2023, 06:24:41 PM »

Played through the Super Mario RPG remake and

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beat all the post-game bosses. Really wish there were a New Game+ mode so you could actually make use of the new weapons.

It's a lot easier than the original game but I like that it kept things mostly the same with a few new surprises. I really hope Nintendo implements a hard mode in an update.

25

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

« Last post by zangetsu468 on December 01, 2023, 06:08:41 PM »

Started playing Super Mario Wonder. It’s pretty good, giving me og SMW vibes.

26

General Castlevania Discussion / Re: I know the feeling.

« Last post by knightmere on December 01, 2023, 02:03:09 PM »

The first show on Netflix was bad so I never bothered with the new one. I don't even like anime so it was always going to be an uphill battle for me.

27

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

« Last post by Kamirine on December 01, 2023, 10:10:15 AM »

Trapped in a loop of playing Monster Hunter Rise/MHR: Sunbreak and Splatoon 3.  Every once and a while, I sneak a game from the back catalog in there.

28

Fan Stuff / Re: Castlevania The Lecarde Chronicles May 2013

« Last post by Aceearly1993 on November 30, 2023, 04:38:50 PM »

https://github.com/Aceearly1993/lecarde-1/releases/tag/v0.4.4

Original video option is now reworked

29

Fan Stuff / Re: Simon's Curse, metroidvania game based on Simon's Quest

« Last post by Wanhus on November 30, 2023, 06:07:35 AM »

Hiya!

And as always saves SHOULD be backwards compatible!
From version 0.73 (this version) onwards you dont have to move savefiles from old version folder to new version folder. Sorry for that.

Download at itch.io!: https://metzgermade.itch.io/simons-curse


Update v0.73 D30.M11.Y2023

-added new areas

-added 2 new enemies

-added new effects

-added new status

-added new secret

-added new tiles

-added new backgrounds

-added new music

-added new sounds

-added fullscreen option (only in main menu.)

-improvements to sadam woods

-improved day transition animation

-improvements to window graphics

-improved metzger made logo and added animation

-improvements to jova

-minor improvements to many locations

-minor improvements to several tile sets

-decreased flying skull spawn time

-fixed some block positions for improved jumping

-fixed npc's walking inside slopes

-fixed npc having wrong portrait in andole

-fixed some non moving paralaxes: sadam woods, andole, outskirts

-fixed collision mask with various spikes and traps (made them slighly smaller)

-fixed frogs no longer trying to crouch (yeah that was kinda funny)

-fixed level 3 bone throw skeleton wrong reverse sprite

-fixed missing tiles from debora woods

-fixed dead river passage tiles

30

Fan Stuff / Re: Castlevania The Lecarde Chronicles May 2013

« Last post by Aceearly1993 on November 26, 2023, 09:59:01 PM »

I feel like I missed a lot. Lecarde Chronicles 1 is getting another pass?! It sounds like spike balls are being worked on and remapping controls, maybe even with an XBox controller?

I haven't had much time lately, but I had started a Hard Mode quest on LC1 with the old build several weeks ago. (Which was hard to get when there are so many virus versions out there.) I am progressing well--Hard Mode seems totally doable with the skills I built on Normal--but I have had a glitch where the Xbox controller jams up when walking sometimes. Like, the character just stops moving as if you've let go of the stick. I don't know if you've seen this in the new build or if you're working on d-pad support. Anyway, I'm intrigued. (Maybe Konami will see the light and release a Lecarde Chronicles 2-pack. )

And I saw an old comment where you said you missed the whip action of LC1 after LC2. I felt the same way. LC2 was absolutely amazing, but there is something special about LC1, too.

The controls remap is now here, the support to xbox gamepad is now in place and the plugins used by the controller events are reworked, they (normally) should be all OK in the latest build.