Topic: is Castlevania: OoE possibly better than Symphony?

[Saner]

OoE is definitely superior over SOTN.

[Xadion]

I loved OOE- by far FAR range better than PoRuin

I just downloaded SOTN on my PS# via PSN (is it the enchanced version or is that only XBLive) But have been through it many many times- I have no idea where my CD is lol.

As for what one is better I put them all in my top 3- SOTN/OOE/XXXXofSorrows (I put them both as one game)

I rate them all a 10/10 for a 'modern' castlevania

[Kamirine]

This thread has brought laughter and enjoyment to me. IMHO, in no way is PoR better than OoE. Or too much of anything if you want me to be frank and honest. But I digress.

SOTN and OoE are about what and what with me at this point. They both have their faults and strengths and I enjoy playing both after beating them. I don't really care for either games extra play modes (I'll admit, the only one I ever bothered with was DoS's because Julius mode did, for some reason, rock.) and I loved the music for both. The storyline (to me) were decent in both so no real complaints there. Pretty much what and what.

[True Sorrow]

In Reply To #62

Okay, I don't know what the bashing about PoR's soundtrack is about- I thought it was pretty good for the most part, even if it's 90% reused tracks. There's far worse music in the series.

As for the sprites, I hope you realize that DoS's Alucard is the EXACT SAME Alucard that was used in SotN. Julius... was average. It was better than Maxim's.

About PoR's OST:
It was bland, predictalbe, every melody was extremely forgettable, it was too up-beat (JAEL OF JOOULZ WAS FUCKING HORRID) and the never-ending drums were almost the same throughout the whole OST, so bland and so booooriiiing. I'd like to hear what OST you thought was worse than PoR's.

About the sprites: Alucard had an awful black outline. While this worked ok with the other sprites, with him it made him look fantastically horrible. Especially on that tiny screen ._.
Also Julius looked like he had hemorrhoids.
But aside from the colourful outlines, I never really had much against HoD's sprites. Hell, considering the whole feel of the game, the outlines were actually pretty welcome. Added to the weird, creepy vibe of it all.

This thread has brought laughter and enjoyment to me. IMHO, in no way is PoR better than OoE. Or too much of anything if you want me to be frank and honest.

THANK YOU. That paragraph just made my day

[Giz]

HoD suffers for its sound quality.

[Xadion]

While on the topic of HoD and I will add CoTM, I must say they both did to me, feel very castlevania- more so than parts of DoS and much...if not all of PoR.

CoTM draws you into the darkness right from the start- in most games the entrance is just that an intrance- in OOE, LoI and some others you can leave and go to your 'safe place' like the village or rinaldos house- but in CoTM your thrown into the dark depths of the castle with no way out- and no where to go but a bloody fight ahead of you- to me that added to the dark sence and some fear.

HoD really was a great advancement and took what we liked about SoTN and attempted to make it viable on a portable- AoS imo while as I said on my top 3 of whats-what for 'current' castlevanias- really hit it right with the plot and character interaction- the 3 person mode in DoS was done better than PoR's 2 person mode for the whole game.

[DoctaMario]

I just thought of something else that is present in OoE that bothers the hell out of me: Forced Grinding.

In order to be able to even have the option to buy potions, armor, etc., you have to grind to get the items to complete the quests to make these things even available in the shops.

The quest system in PoR is much better because it doesn't force you to complete it. If you don't want to do the quests, you don't have to, the game goes on. But if you want to do them it's a diversion from the main game. In OoE however, you have to complete the quests in order to finish the game unless you're a masochist who enjoys playing without potions or armor. Bad design if you ask me.

[Giz]

Except for the fact that it's perfectly doable to just run through the game, get whatever potions you can get with whatever money you happen to find and beat the game normally. No 'grinding' required. Not to mention most of the 'beggining' items such as High potions require no grinding. Unless you're retarded and missed every chest in the game, you'll have the necessary ingredients.

[DoctaMario]

In Reply To #71

High potions require no grinding? You mean, except for having to get the Mandrake Root? Uh, I had to grind for quite awhile to get that. Plus, with the other items you have to play "Common-Chest Roulette" and hope you get the items you need, which is a sort of grinding in and of itself because it involves a lot of pointless backtracking if you don't get the item you need. The quests almost non-optional and the chest contents random. Again, poor design if you ask me.

There's quite a bit of grinding involved in getting the metals for the armor.

[Battler Ushiromiya]

In Reply To #72

The only real grinding in OoE's quests is with the Horse Hair and Mandrake Root. except for those two, enemies drop the other items often enough that it's not as much of a problem. (Second playthrough aside, I got all 3 gold ores and all 5 cashmere threads fairly quick.)

[DoctaMario]

In Reply To #73

But that's the thing: Sometimes you get the stuff quickly and easily with little effort, and other times you have to hunt high and low for it without much luck. It's still grinding, and the game still forces you to do it in a certain sense because who in their right mind is going to say no to being able to buy items?

I had to do a bunch of grinding to get some of these quests out of the way.

[Giz]

Err, my mistake. I meant Potion, not High Potion. The items you do need however, for example Sage and Rue.. both of which are so incredibly common that not having one by the time you rescue Jacob is incredibly unlikely. The likelihood of having to play 'Chest-roulette' to get everything you need is incredibly unlikely; I only had to do so once, and that was to get an item or two I needed to get 100%.

You're making the game sound harder then it is, like it's some kind of doomsday machine if you don't grind as much as possible and get thousands of gold and do every single quest in the game... ):

[DoctaMario]

In Reply To #75

I'm pretty sure I didn't have a sage by the time I rescued Jacob because I remember having to retrace my steps in the hopes of finding one. Sure, Sage and Rue are common, but the other half of what you need to complete those quests isn't terribly common, or if it is, you have to figure out which enemy drops said item.

And I had to do the chest-roulette thing more times than I cared to. OoE was a fairly tough game on the first go-through, so I made sure to get potions when I could, but I was bugged by the system they used to meter out what you could buy. I liked it better in PoR where you could get better weapons or moves, but it wasn't a necessary thing to do the quests.

You act like this game is a snap and that items obtained from said grinding aren't useful. No, you don't need to do every quest in the game, but some of the more useful ones require a bit of grinding, which is what I have a problem with. Would it be good design to require someone to grind in order to not have to fight with their fists?

[MarquisX]

In Reply To #34

"Well, for one, OoE is piggybacking on what SoTN started. Yes, it does some things better, but on the whole, it just doesn't have that "je ne sais quois" that SoTN has."

Hey everyone, I'm new here and gald to be. It seems like a lot of people just can't get why othere people like certain castlevanias more than others. Or the fact we can't enjoy all of them instead of putting so much negativity towards our favorite series. Oh well....

As that Dr. Maro guy said about OoE piggybacking SotN is not fair. Everyone loves to praise RoB or CV3 which in your view "piggybacks" from castlevania 1.

I have been playing this series since the very first and love each of them and happy to have them since the series could have died years ago. IMO OoE is far superior to SotN which I feel is over rated. I even enjoy PoR more.

Now a lot of you are going to blow a stack from hearing this but I enjoy these games more because they are more fun. SotN just kinda bores me now. It was a great game for its time and is truly a classic, but it's action and gameplay is just not as interesting as OoE or even PoR which I pick up to play quite often.

I don't think the topic should be Castlevania: OoE possibly better than Symphony? it should be: Can anyone admit they like other castlevanias more than SotN?

I can!

[Battler Ushiromiya]

I have been playing this series since the very first and love each of them and happy to have them since the series could have died years ago. IMO OoE is far superior to SotN which I feel is over rated. I even enjoy PoR more.

*Waits for the PoR haters to start raging*