Topic: What is the best Castlevania game for GBA?

[sonicabid]

In Reply To #30

Which of the metroidvania's do you enjoy almost as much as SOTN? Only Cotm OoE and DoS come any close for me.

[paletteswapmonster]

In Reply To #31

I don't even like SotN. But what came close to my first time with it were AoS and OoE.

[Long John Silver]

In Reply To #29

we're talking about kcek here though. you're comparing the work of two completely separate companies, with different teams and directors. blocky repetitive layers with boring layouts aren't exactly influenced by code, but by the designer's imagination. the layers were limited to 16 colors in both cotm and the other two, all of them were limited to 4 layers etc.

about the only thing i could blame on it being the "launch title" is the lack of transparencies/blending effects.

and somehow despite those "launch title" problems cotm managed to get a better quality sound than both hod and aos. they obviously did know enough about the hardware, but just lacked creative imagination to do something interesting with it.

tl;dr
bricks everywhere

also as far as i remember back when you did the code for layers i created that merman room place, and it's still there. it might have gained more fps, but its design didn't change at all. it's still full of alpha blending layers that simulate shadows as it was before.

[justin312]

I think Aria was the best GBA title.  Very polished, great level design, and just the most fun overall.  Second favorite was Circle, I thought it was a nice mix of classic CV and Metroidvania, and it was very challenging.  Least favorite was Harmony... it was a good game and all, but I just liked the other two better.

[uzo]

Well yes, you cant lay all blame to the launch title, as we see some experiences should have prepared designers for low ram situations. For example Castlevania 4, had beautiful environments with little tile count to speak of. Though there is no doubt inexperience with a console can hamper development. Compare Castlevania 1, to 3(j), graphically.

Anyway, about the merman room in my engine, if I were not able to increase the performance of the engine (due to project schedule, inexperience, etc), that room would have to be down sized graphically. Thus the 'new to the console' idea. That was the reason for that example.

I hope we can produce something better than Circle of the Moon though

[The Last Belmont]

Well yes, you cant lay all blame to the launch title, as we see some experiences should have prepared designers for low ram situations.

I agree, I don't even take the fact that it was a launch title into consideration personally. I don't think it should be a reason to excuse bad games. Look at SMB launch title and one of the greatest games of all time.