Topic: N64 Castlevania

[Evil_Tim]

64 is the better of the two, with Legacy's additions, other than save points in Duel Tower, being rather uniformly terrible. Hi-res mode is barely playable, and the game's full of horribly balanced abilities, like throwing multiple subweapons at once, or giving one character a hitscan, infinite range gun with a skippable reload animation.

 The new levels are a mixed bag, but it's a mixed bag of different kinds of awful. Foggy Lake is dull, the new Forest of Silence lacks the sense of scale the old one had, and Cornell's quest redefines the concept of 'filler;' whether it's being forced to climb one of the towers in Castle Wall twice, or the unbearably boring run through Villa's garden maze backwards with no music and nothing chasing you [or the unbearably boring escort mission that follows] the majority is just focused on time-wasting and padding. Art Tower is the worst since the padding is spent listening to ticking sounds on the pause menu or falling off an impossibly narrow rope, but all the re-imagined levels are pretty poor: Tower of Sorcery has lost most of its graphical detail [the sparkles in the background and floating bubbles are AWOL], Science goes from hilariously difficult to hilariously easy, and so on. The game closes on two cheap, stupid bossfights, the last being particularly heinous in that regard.

 Henry is worse, especially as a replacement for Coller. He's Reinhardt's character model with what appears to be an axe armour's head thrown on the top, given a ludicrously prefunctory quest that really adds nothing to the storyline and no enemies designed to take his unique abilities into account.

[Long John Silver]

the new levels got rid of the idiotic fetch the key quests though, so they fixed that glaring bug at least.

[Evil_Tim]

the new levels got rid of the idiotic fetch the key quests though, so they fixed that glaring bug at least.

 Um...Cornell's Castle Wall is a key / item quest [the lever], Villa's all about the keys for him [seven of the damn things, with two crest halves the game doesn't even bother to tell you about], Art Tower's first half is finding two switches, Ruins' first area is an LoI-style level where you have to find three switches in a bunch of copy-paste rooms and then in the second you have to find two more, Science still has a key, Clock Tower has five keys instead of three...

[Long John Silver]

wasn't talking about cornell's but the other two who were also in n64 one.

also i meant the forest. n64 version's way more annoying. and it fails for not having pirate ship.

[Evil_Tim]

wasn't talking about cornell's but the other two who were also in n64 one.

 I wasn't aware much had changed in the CV64 > LoD transition for Carrie and Reinhardt. Certainly they all have to do the much, much longer Clock Tower [the level's about three times longer in Legacy, you can beat it in five minutes in 64]. Still, Duel Tower with save points is an improvement, I won't dispute that.

also i meant the forest. n64 version's way more annoying.

 Well yes, but that's more related to that diagonal jump with a gap in the wall platform sequences. LoD and 64 both have sidetracking for levers, though I guess if you count the LoD shortcut it's a much more bearable level.

and it fails for not having pirate ship.

 I always thought of it as more ship of the dead than pirate ship, though I'd agree more games should have a ship that fills with water to waist height, stops, and the explodes as soon as you get outside it.

[Gimph]

In Reply To #65

In Legacy of Darkness, Carrie's projectiles are less accurate. In 64, even if you're not facing your enemy, your spell will still make contact. It just turns around and attacks the thing behind you. In Legacy of Darkness, it won't turn; it goes straight ahead, and you miss. I hate it. Reinhart, I haven't noticed any differences.

I like the Legacy of Darkness Forest of Silence a lot better than the one in Castlevania 64, because it gets really repetitive and annoying in 64. It's just platform, switch, enemies, gate, platform, switch, enemies, gate, etc.

And yes, the pirate ship (as I refer to it) makes the game more fun for some reason. I just love that level. Then, of course, the serpent boss in hard mode is one of the hardest bosses in the game.