Topic: A serious question for a hardcore fan site

[Kaori]

No, I wouldn't get rid of SotN. If it wasn't for SotN, I may not have bought the other games in the series.

I had loved Castlevania III ever since I was a kid, but I never had any of the other games between that and SotN. One day when I wasn't really looking I saw SotN at Blockbuster. This Blockbuster not only had games for rent, you could buy them too. I original saw Digimon World 3, and I was going to buy that. Then I saw SotN. I had little allowance money at the time, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get both of them because I wanted both. However, I had JUST enough!

The first thing I did when I got home was play SotN. I laughed my butt off at the intro and almost thought it was stupid at the time. Then Alucard came, ran into the Castle...and Dracula's Castle started playing. The music awed me. I immediately fell in love with the game once I started playing at that point. SotN made me go and check out all the other games in the series, past and future releases. So even though I started with CVIII, I probably wouldn't have checked out the other games if it wasn't for SotN. If it wasn't for SotN, I wouldn't have EVERY USA released game in the series except for the Lords of Shadow games, Dracula X, and Legends. I did have LoS and MoF, but I didn't like them so I got rid of them.

And as a female, to me it had nothing to do with Alucard being attractive (although I do love Alucard, lol) or the easy difficulty. I was born and raised a gamer and I just simply liked the game for what it was. The music and gameplay were interesting to me and I liked it.

[Abnormal Freak]

To be frank, SOTN kind of spurred me on as well to check out the rest of the games. Actually, it was the first N64 game more than anything, since around that time I started working for my dad and could buy my own games, and my interest in the N64 one made me emulate and shortly after buy all the other ones.

Grew up on games too, and Super Castlevania IV has been a favorite since I was 6, but my brother and I just never had any other games in the series until he picked up SOTN one day, and it blew my mind and rocked my world and all that.

[Morning star]

@ kaori. You should invest in Dracula X. It's worth it in my opinion. Especially if your collection is that stacked. It was a tough purchase, but i don't regret doing it.

@ freak. That's awesome that the N64 games is where you started. That's one you don't hear everyday. Also, i think castlevania 4 is one of the best games ever made. For nostalgic and difficulty reasons i favor others first, but I think it was the gem of the series.

[machetespeghetti]

That's a tough one, I prefer the classic castlevania style but i really love SOTN and COTM (HOD was Ok) But imo I think the series got weird after that starting with aria of sorrow. for starters the game takes place in the future in japan during a solar eclipse  . I haven't really played a game in the series since.

[Shiroi Koumori]

And as a female, to me it had nothing to do with Alucard being attractive (although I do love Alucard, lol) or the easy difficulty. I was born and raised a gamer and I just simply liked the game for what it was. The music and gameplay were interesting to me and I liked it.

Yup yup. Female gamers have more or less similar tastes as male gamers.
I was talking about the female non-gamers like myself at that time who were lured in by SotN.

[TatteredSeraph]

*Raises hand*  Another female gamer who was lured into the series by SotN.  I blame a chance encounter with Ayami Kojima's artwork, then loving the storyline.  It took me a while to get hold of a copy of the game (sadly, only an emulator version), and the rest is history.  I'd dabbled with a couple of games in the past, but nothing much.  SotN led me to exploring the other games in the series.  It's responsile for me being a gamer now, all in all.  It's not just that Alucard is gorgeous, and the game is easy.  There's everything about it that I like.  The levels design, the music... it just works.  I love the Sorrow games, and LoI, but I agree that there was a decline.  However, imo, that came along with PoR, which I hate.  I got as far as the first boss, and just lost the will to play further.  However, I'm glathat LoS's come along and again revived the series, much as SotN did. 

As for Twi****t, those ARE NOT vampires.  They're fairies, taking the p*ss.  Come on, they sparkle, and don't even have fangs.  Plus, both of the male love interests are creepy as all heck, and not good rolemodel figures for anyone.  I'm also with casting them into the abyss.  At least Robert Pattinson, who played Turdwood, freely admits to despising the series.  I read the first page out of curiousity as to what al the fuss was about, all but threw the book back on the shelf, then went to fetch some brain bleach.  They're attrociously written.  At least with Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, the characters are likeable as well as pretty, and the books are pretty well written.  Well... until she went completely gaga and off the deep end.

[VEP]

I agree with Freak.

Plus my 2 cents.
I knew the existence of Castlevania since the Famicom days watching my dad play, but SOTN was the main reason I was hooked into Castlevania (along with lots of female fans who didn't cared about the series until that point). And I actually liked the metroidvania format.
Thus, I won't go back in time.

I too grew up on CV by way of my father playing Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse. I came away from it for years until I picked up CV4 and then went on to trying to find anything castlevania after that. Once I got my hands on SOTN I knew they really had created something dynamic. Exploration and character building is always fun and has become important in a lot of iterations since. So I would not remove it from the series for anything.

[Inccubus]

As an old school gamer and having been practically raised on CV I would say that I would definitely not remove SotN, but I would have made some alterations.
As an avid reader of theoretical physics, I say none of us have the slightest actual idea that the series would have died without SotN.

As to the question of playing the DS games, I'm sensing some undue negativity towards them. Yes they are gimmicky. Yes they have weak, vague stories. But as for the actual game play, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia both have merits. Dawn of Sorrow could have just been, and some might argue it should have been a remake. Regardless I would still give the other two a try as they do have unique twists on the classic SotN game play.
That said, I'd love for someone to at least do a graphics hack of both games to update all the reused graphics to match the new designs in each game and eliminate every shred of reused artwork except for the Old Axe Armor.

[TatteredSeraph]

Thanks, Inccubus, you've now given me bad physics meme level mental pictures of physics meets Castlevania, such as Schrodinger's Drac.  *Facepalm* 

[zangetsu468]

There is no going back. SOTN deserved the praise it had, and it was arguably one of the most innovative and best games of all time.

[Inccubus]

Thanks, Inccubus, you've now given me bad physics meme level mental pictures of physics meets Castlevania, such as Schrodinger's Drac.  *Facepalm*

You're quite welcome.

[notkev]

SotN was amazing and a necessity for the evolution of Castlevania. I didn't think the early 3D games were too bad (Curse of Darkness was amazingly fun). However, the newest gen of games really just don't cut it in my opinion.