Topic: SotN vs. NitM?

[Vincent]

OK, so I got the game, and am playing it on the emulator. Unfortunately it turned out to be Japanese, and I mean EVERYTHING'S in Japanese. Besides the numbers.

My question is, are there any gameplay differences between these the English and Japanese versions? I heard there was a second fairy, which I have, but I don't know what it does. Are there any exclusive items?

Also, all of the items', weapons', and relics' names are in Japanese. Except for one item which I found in the inverted Long Library, and it's called Staurolite. It's in English. What does this item do? There are no stat boosts.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. The game is not as fun when you have no idea what item does what. I also miss all the clever comments on food.

[crisis]

NitM runs slower than it's counterpart, and there's the 2 exclusive areas..

[Kensuke]

For Playstation? No.

The only major differences should be the two familiars that were never seen in the US. The "Pixie" will sing the song "Nocturn" if you have "The Best" PSX re-release (which BTW, is quite beautiful, and SHOULD have been the ending song instead of "I am the Wind" that everybody universally hates), and the big nose devil thing that was dropped because it was a cultural in-joke that nobody in the US would have gotten.

Some item locations were changed, but there is no new items IIRC.

The Saturn version had some MAJOR changes though. Two whole new areas, some remixed classic Castlevania tunes, and playable Maria.

You're probably better off sourcing the US PSX version. Going through the PITA of playing in Japanese really only makes sense for the Saturn.

Staurolite does the same thing it did in the US release: "Strengthens power of cross".

- John
 

[Wolfman Jake]

NitM runs slower than it's counterpart, and there's the 2 exclusive areas..

That's only true of the Saturn version of the game.

[Kensuke]

In Reply To #2

Only if he's playing the Saturn version. PSX version was pretty close between all regions, except the relatively minor changes I cited.

- John

[Long John Silver]

There's also slight gameplay change for richter. His air slide jump will change into backflip if it hits something unless you hold the jump button, which makes him go through the obstacle like he did by default in psx.

[Kale]

In Reply To #1

Numbers can't be a certain language >.> it can be written out like One and two and stuff but thats a word. Yea, I just wanted to say that. cuz everything else is like covered.

[Kensuke]

In Reply To #7

Actually, that's wrong. There exist different numbering symbology. It just happens that "Western Arabic" is the most common worldwide and nearly universally adopted in modern times. "Roman" (I, V, X, L, C, D, M) is less used but still very widespread. There's also others like Hebrew, Cyrillic, Babylonian, ect. Some of which are very arcane and seldom used anymore.

The Japanese still occasionally use their own Chinese-derived system in verticle writing which looks like 一, 二, 三, 四... But I can't remember the last time I saw it in a video game. Probably because most text in video games is horizontal anyways.

- John

[Kale]

In Reply To #8

I don't know about the roman ones, but the other ones are teh kanji for them. Which is basically the word.

[Vincent]

which BTW, is quite beautiful, and SHOULD have been the ending song instead of "I am the Wind" that everybody universally hates), and the big nose devil thing that was dropped because it was a cultural in-joke that nobody in the US would have gotten.


Oh. I have the entire soundtrack to SotN and I always wondered where the hell Nocturne came up. Funny how my friend who introduced me to this game actually loved I Am The Wind.

Also, does the Big-Nose devil have any special abilities?

The Saturn version had some MAJOR changes though.

I heard the Saturn version was glitch-tastic, making the concept of bonuses somewhat moot. Is this true? And is Maria fun to play as?

Staurolite

Why is the name in English? Isn't that weird?

His air slide jump will change into backflip if it hits something unless you hold the jump button,

Funny you mention that, Serio. So far I've pretty muched cleaned out the first castle but I have yet been able to do the backflip from the airslide (which I did consistently on the American version years ago). Hadn't they put it in or something?

Oh, and I mentioned numbers because that was the only way I was able to beat the game. I don't know the name of the weapons, what they do, any special effects or anything.

P.S. Alucard Shield's summon is super cheap.

[Kensuke]

Also, does the Big-Nose devil have any special abilities?

IIRC, he stabs things and makes wise-ass remarks. So no.

I heard the Saturn version was glitch-tastic, making the concept of bonuses somewhat moot. Is this true? And is Maria fun to play as?

It's not glitch-tastic, it's just poorly coded thanks to the fact that it was farmed out to KCEN, while the original game was KCET. It's got some slowdown issues, and much of the light sourcing effects were dropped along with some transparency effect. But it's otherwise reasonable. The Underground Garden level is kinda cool. The Cursed Prison is kinda lame. The additional music tracks are nice for the most part. There are also a few new weapons for Alucard.

Maria is cool in the Saturn version. But IGA prefers her cute and dumb I guess, so she regressed back into something closer to her Rondo traits in the remakes. :  Like Richter Mode, she doesn't have a story.

They also tried to fix Richter's costume by making it closer to Kojima's artwork, but as Serio will tell you, there's a few issues (A for effort, C for execution).

IMHO, a "Perfect Edition" of SotN would include the graphics of the PSX version coupled with the additional features of the Saturn, and some very minor tweaking. But IGA doesn't seem to agree. He dislikes the features in the Saturn version.

- John

[Long John Silver]

Well and I agree with him. Megaman Maria with poor animations, ugly new Richter whose outfit changes its light sources on each frame, stretched out sprites, lack of transparency and blending effects and visually very unappealing new areas (garden which is just a mishmash of other stage graphics put into one area with idiotic looking enemies and the short zigzagging prison) aren't exactly something to be proud of.

If something, those things were done with such lack of professionalism it looked like a bad fangame.

[The Last Belmont]

Well and I agree with him. Megaman Maria with poor animations, ugly new Richter whose outfit changes its light sources on each frame, stretched out sprites, lack of transparency and blending effects and visually very unappealing new areas (garden which is just a mishmash of other stage graphics put into one area with idiotic looking enemies and the short zigzagging prison) aren't exactly something to be proud of.

If something, those things were done with such lack of professionalism it looked like a bad fangame.

Yeah I've heard the saturn version is very flawed, I never even bothered to play that version cuz the game costs so much now and importing fees on top of the game being inferior to the PSX version make it a very bad investment.

[Kensuke]

Well, most of those problems can all be fixed with a little effort. It's just that Nagoya didn't give a crap (small wonder they were shut down). I used to own a Saturn, and it was superior to the PSX in 2D largely because of the increased texture RAM. Plus, the game would have had to be completely reprogrammed from the ground up anyways for the PSP/XBox.

So I think Iga was actually more dismissive of the new features themselves, except for Maria being playable.

- John

[Long John Silver]

Sotn is 3d though. It's not purely 2d like some would think, the game engine is a 3d one it seems. The sprites are textures on flat rectangular 3d models.

That's why some of its special effects are possible, like the stopwatch item crash's shockwave, Alucard's wavy animation when he transforms into the bat, the mist form etc.