Topic: Vampire Survivors: Ode to Castlevania collaboration

[eryson]

That's it, the guys that developed the bullet heave game Vampire Survivors managed to make a official collaboration with Castlevania!
who would guess something that started as a fangame (even using castlevania sprites in the beginning) would reach this far, right? :3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPzZdLNoXS8

[crisis]

It looks pretty fun, kinda like Harmony of Despair 2.0

But unfortunately there’s a lot of pessimists here that will say it’s a trash moneygrab, Castlevania is now officially dead blah blah blah

[Eric Roman]

Can I call 'em or can I call 'em?  X]

[Eric Roman]

Holy shit, I just saw the trailer and holy shit.

If any of you guys are on Steam, hit me up on the PM; I'll gift a copy of the DLC to the first five.

[LuxKiller65]

it’s a trash moneygrab, Castlevania is now officially dead

[Reinhart77]

i've never been one for bullet games - though i love sub-weapons - if that makes any sense. wonder how i'll take to sub-weapons acting like bullets or vice-versa.

[Eric Roman]

it’s a trash moneygrab, Castlevania is now officially dead

This is definitely the moment CastleVania’s future is decided once and for all.

The Netflix has not been serving us for plenty years.

This is it.

[Gunlord]

Epic simply epic!

[Abnormal Freak]

Unlike the other crossovers (or "collabs," iffin I wanna be a hipster douchebag), this one actually looks kinda cool, helped by the base game looking kinda cool. I downloaded a trial, played for a bit, and I think I'll buy it.

I'm all for Castlevania having decent content. The series can't be remembered for the dreadful Nocturne show.

[Mystic Myotis]

Lots of doom and gloom here, but I bought this and it was clearly done by people who love the series a lot and who tried to cram as much as possible into it.  I don't necessarily disagree with everything said, but let's take a look at this thing anyway.  I bought it on Halloween.

First I'm going to point out the most obvious thing: you're going to want to check out the OST of this game.  It has a TON of songs from the series, and each one comes with a variation.  Some are just straight-up rips but a lot of them are mixes as far as I can tell.  So, music.  A LOT of it.

There's a buttload of characters.
In fact, there are so many that I think I can probably list all the ones not in the game with little effort:



No:
nameless NPCs from the very old games save one very interesting inclusion.
Selena Belmont for Simon.
Drolta Tzuentes from Bloodlines (though they included someone I didn't expect related to Bloodlines, ha).
damsels from Rondo/Dracula X save for Maria herself if she even counts.
Hugh/Morris from Circle of the Moon.
Lydie and no merchant from Harmony of Dissonance.
villagers from Ecclesia.
non-playable N64 characters.
Elizabeth Cronqvist (she only appeared in backstory anyway) and no Mathias Cronqvist (lol sorta, but that's not to say there's nothing about him there).
Aeon/Golem from Judgment.
Kid Dracula.  While Alucard is obviously in the game, his Genya Arikado disguise is not.
characters from Moonlight Rhapsody/Grimoire of Souls/Lords of Shadow/Order of Shadows/Pachinko/Worlds of Power.
characters from radio dramas/comics/show/etc.
I'm pretty sure basically everyone else worth noting is in the game.  I guess as far as enemies they could have included, there's no Astarte or Laura? ... Wallman?



Vampire Survivors also already had references to Castlevania all over the place in it, so a lot of the pre-existing content feels like it fills in a lot of the very few gaps there are. A lot of them feel like knock-off CV characters or NPCs/enemies from the series, with one clearly being inspired by Legion, for example.

They went all out with additional references with this release, I'm actually a bit impressed.  I think they probably could have squeezed more in but I'm just being greedy at this point considering how affordable it was on top of everything else. Adding all the straightup CV content insertions to all the referential content in the base game of Vampire Survivors helps the game succeed at what it was going for at the start.  It feels a bit like a CV fever dream and a bit of a condemnation that Konami just leaves all this stuff rotting in the basement.

It is worth pointing out that the interface is pretty poor.  It was designed as a mobile game and it shows in that respect.  That said, I've found it fun, and it's also easy on the hands if you are disabled like me.  The game has DLC packs but it does NOT have microtransactions, which is good.

I like it.  It actually exceeded my expectations.  That said it is absolutely NOT a Castlevania game, lol, so don't go in with the express goal of being disappointed.  It's supposed to be fun.

[The Puritan]

All these collabs make me wonder when someone from these very forums will leave their mark on the franchise (though I suppose the Miriam costume for Wallachia Reign of Dracula is the closest we've got right now). I'm rooting for every single one of you.

[whipsmemory]

I'm usually one of those all against these collabs whenever they come up, but this one honestly looks pretty cool. I love the sprite work, and i already like the base game a lot, so I'm going to purchase it and see. Only thing i can complain about, if I must do at all times, is I don't like the promotional artwork. The base game key visual is outstanding and really looks like mid 90s to early 2000 Castlevania, idk who the artist was but its really a great piece of art, and I would have loved to see actual Akumajo characters done in that style. This DLC visual instead looks like they commissioned to some amateurish twitter artist, I mean its totally not bad at all on its own terms but definitely a huge step down and misses the atmosphere of the original art completely, like going from Kojimas art to the Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait stuff.

A fun fact, i've been seeing coworkers playing pirate version of the game when it first came out and those had already included characters from various castlevania games lol.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I'm very fond of this game already, so with the Castlevania crossover content, it rocks.
Also, so much to unlock!