Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: wcarnation on November 25, 2008, 02:52:41 AM
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Myself, I have not played a single one. I am sorta curious, though.
Particularly Legacy of Darkness on N64.
What do all you guys think about them? It might give me a better idea of where to start out.
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In Reply To #1
I love Legacy of Darkness.
I play it via Emulation with my Controller set up such that the right-analog is mapped to the N64 D-Pad, thus giving me the camera control I need.
I have the cart but it looks better on the TV via emulation. Also there's a hi-res texture pack.
As for LoI and CoD, I want to like them... but I end up getting very bored very early in the games. It's tedious for me to just fight enemies and move from room to room, even if the locales are beautiful.
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I personally liked the N64 titles more then the ps2 ones, the cept curse of darkness, its one i really like as well, mostly for its music score. and i'm currently blending LoD with Judgement i'll see how that goes, lol
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Texture packs are neat. I think they give a little extra life to the older games (its surprising how low-res they look today and how much more awesome they look with texture packs. This is something completely impossible with original hardware).
3D games are going to have some issues with camera. Was reading an interview with Eiji Aonuma about Ocarina of Time, and he said the lock-on system developed out of a need to get a good camera. It's usually pretty good in the PS2 titles (excepting a few rooms where foreground blocks your view or the camera zooms out too much), horrendous in Judgment b/c it moves around too much, but I didn't play much of the N64.
My biggest beef with the PS2 games is the poor level design. You get these huge castles and yeah, the walls look good, but... It's just a bunch of empty corridors. Where's the furniture? Where's stuff you can knock enemies into for extra damage or break open for hearts and money? Dracula must have had a blowout castle sale. DMC had all these detailed rooms, but it also had a fixed camera. I don't think Castlevania needs a fixed camera as it is inherently a scrolling game, but the levels I find to be really boring as they ultimately amount to just long, empty tunnels.
The other thing is going to have to be with fights, and this plagues nearly all 3D games I've played. It's easier to just avoid monsters by walking around them or by taking a couple points of damage to get through them than it is to spend the 10 seconds or so it would take to fight. You get nothing from lower-level enemies and it takes multiple hits to kill them (versus 2D games where weak enemies get sliced through in one hit). I think it's the lack of 'walking tank' mode, but also tedium of fighting in 3D that gives me problems. Locked doors is just a cheap way of keeping you stuck.
I honestly didn't think CoD was THAT bad, but I won't say it's a good game. LoI is in the same category, but usually rated higher simply because it was the first. The N64 games were notorious, but I don't think they were completely awful. The 2D games are still superior, so for your 3D vampire-killing action fix, you'll have to stick with DMC and God of War. It's really too bad that even though CV is a gold standard for 2D, they just can't get it right in 3D.
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I love LoI, and CoD. For me, CoD is better than SotN. ;D
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Castlevania 64 is in my top 5 cause its awesome.
I like LoI and CoD, they get a lot crap, but you should really play them and decide for yourself, they're really fun
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I like LoI and the N64 games, but I never play the N64 games anymore since I instead decide to watch these videos (http://www.viddler.com/explore/Evil_Tim/videos/) because I find doing that to be much more entertaining.
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I LOVED Castlevania 64 as a kid.
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I thought CoD and LoI were pretty awesome. CoD more so, I love fighting all the time. Soundtrack was amazing too.
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The only thing I didn't like about LoI and CoD is there isn't enough platforming. In 64, the vertical levels had the moving platforms, the revolving spike platforms, and all sorts of classic things, it's just not as fun without them.
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I love the 64 games. They're among my favorite CV games of all time. The platforming and level design are excellent and they really create a huge and beautiful world for you to play in. The atmosphere of these games is off the charts too.
The PS2 games look beautiful and are fun for a bit, but the lack of depth in the level design hurts them. Had they cut the levels in half and made twice as many levels, I think those games would have been better received, because there are a lot of great things about them. It's just that they get overwhelmingly boring after a short while.
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As is the general consensus here, I highly recommend the 3D Castlevanias for the 64 (even though LoD is practically the first game with extra gameplay). I think they had a good idea going with the mix of combat and platforming, the only real draw back is the limited knowledge of 3D cameras back then, and it shows.
I've played LoI and own CoD, and I have to say that while platforming may be a bit "watered down" it wasn't bad. I haven't gotten around to finishing it yet though...so I may change my opinion at a later date, but I like it so far. The combat tries to play itself off like DMC or Ninja Gaiden, which is sad since it makes each attack feel weak individually (more than one hit to kill a flea man, what?) but is fun to chain combos together against harder monsters and bosses. The soundtrack is beautiful...but it's Castlevania so that's something we expect, and some of the level designs and locales are also beautifully rendered and enchanting.
So...there's my two cents, really, just get and play them all and come up with your own conclusion.
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I am quite surprised by the positive attitude towards the N64 Castlevania titles here. That opinion does not seem to be the norm in most places.
That said, I agree; those were by far my favorite 3D CastleVania games. They were full of interesting platforming ideas and many unforgettable moments (the wheels of the clock tower stage being able to crush you, running around with explosives, vampires chasing after you and biting you, being chased by Ash in the garden, etc).
Speaking of Ash, the game had quite a few horror movie references, from Evil Dead to Carrie (besides the obvious, Carrie's ending cinematic was obviously inspired by the film's ending sequence).
Really, they had a lot of good ideas.
I've played the PS2 games, but they're honestly not my cup of tea. Their soundtracks, on the other hand, are kickbitchin' good.
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I think that the ps2 titles were better than the n64 titles. LoI was the best. It had better graphics than the N64 titles and like them it had some puzzles. Plus, the different whip combos were kind of cool. The only advantages CoD had over LoI are the fact you could level up and you had innocent devils.
Out of the four 3D games, LoI had the best music.
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Lament of Innocence somehow feels a bit more polished than Curse of Darkness. On the other hand, the soundtrack in Curse of Darkness is in fact one of the best I've ever heard in a video game, I kid you not. Both games are a bit on the boring side, but exploring is a little more fun in CoD cause it's laid out more like a 3D castleroid, albeit a VERY flat one. It takes forever to walk from one end of a room to another. And there are way too many filler rooms in each level. They should've cut the game in half or something.
I have no opinions on the N64 games. I didn't like them. Didn't hate them either. They were just kinda.. there. The graphics are VERY depressing by todays standards though. 3D games from that era hasn't aged very well at all. I mean, 16-bit graphics are fine. Heck, some of it still look surprisingly clean and detailed! Everything 3D on the N64, Playstation and Saturn just look like utter garbage though. Except maybe Super Mario 64 which looked alright the last time I checked, in all its simplicity.
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Well, from the N64, I've only played CV64. I found it enjoyable to play. I loved the platforming and the creepy music that suited the game's atmosphere.
From the PS2, I like playing LoI all the time. I went through the game many times and past it once in Crazy mode. I haven't played CoD much, the areas can tend to be boring but, like shelverton. said, I also enjoy listening to the music.
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the problem i have with curse of darkness is that it feels more like a seiken densetsu game than castlevania. i mean you could actually call this an rpg, something you can't even do with the handhelds(i haven't played ecclesia so i don't know if that feels more like one than usual either). the rest of the 3d games have more of a classic feel. lament goes kind of half and half, the metroid exploration is there, but you don't level up, which makes the game shorter, which to me, is a good thing actually.
i mean castlevania is initially an action series, and you don't want these games hitting the 20+ hour range. especially since you might need to go back and gain a few levels to take on the next boss or what have you. not much incentive to play a second time, relatively soon afterward, when it takes that much time to get through it once. that said i have enjoyed curse of darkness, and thankfully trevor does not level up.
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not much incentive to play a second time, relatively soon afterward, when it takes that much time to get through it once.
Interesting. Play length is definitely one that would be hard to balance. A shorter game would have higher replay value than a 100-hour game I'd think, but the 100-hour game you might get more out of. Of course, you could also get bored with it and never finish...
I rarely play through a game twice, and that's part of the reason. There has to be something significantly different in the play-through, like Sisters mode. (Then again, I also don't tend to read the same book twice or watch the same movie twice!). Though I guess if you think about it, Castlevania 1 was kinda like that, except you played through the whole game again on a harder difficulty. SotN and the rest follow that model, only you're given a different character.
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What do I think? I agree with Igarashi-sama that the ideal 3D Castlevania still continues to elude us. For once, we agree on something. Now if that isn't a positive sign of interspecies co-operation I just don't know what is.
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I don't have a problem with 3D castlevanias.
>:( I don't even know if this affects all the copies, but my biggest complaint is with Curse of Darkness for the Xbox, for some reason Konomi forgot to put in the sound effects.
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I liked the gameplay in LOI but the plot should have been way better for the very first game. The graphics were also top notch for the ps2, and contrary to many I actually found cod alot of fun. I loved exploring all over romania and fighting the time traveler was fun.
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I think all of the 3D Castlevanias are a bit of a spread out puzzle. If they'd be put together it'd be awesome. They're all good, but the PS2 titles seem to lack something the N64 titles have and vice versa. I think if you took the N64 title's setup and mixed it with the PS2 title's graphics, music and battling system I think it'd be great. Running around through identical rooms slaying endless amounts of monsters get kinda boring in the long run.
So technically the N64 titles are better but somehow I still prefer the ones for PS2. I hope to see more 3D Castlevanias! With some new ideas in it of course
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The 2 N64 3d CV games:
Great environment but the movement of the character is sluggish.
Iga's 3d CV games:
The graphics, music, gameplay are great but the stages is boring that makes me yawn several times.
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here's what i think would work. cross the best elements of the n64 games(pretty much everything) and god of war(the 3d platforming aspects and excellent usage of an elongated, prehensile weapon). more focus on the belmonts too....much more... i mean seriously, do they just get lazy and give up until one has to fight dracula? what the fuck type of vampire hunter lineage only cares about one vampire?
bleh, i gotta stop here. i start thinking about the glaring holes in this series overall plotline, i could probably go off on a 50 paragraph long rant.
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I enjoy the N64 titles more than the PS2 games. For some reason the whole Devil May Cry feel turned me off of the PS2 games, and I also thought they got tedious very quickly. Even though the N64 games were flawed and frustrating at times, at least they kept me interested the whole way through. I also thought the atmosphere was much better in the N64 games, and the plots and cutscenes of the PS2 games didn't do much for me.
But I agree that we still haven't seen the definitive 3D Castlevania yet. Hopefully they will get it perfect someday.