Topic: What's the most difficult Castlevania game?

[Einzige]

My first post on the subject. How exciting.

I've heard some pretty hilarious stories about Haunted Castle, but I've never had the (mis?)fortune to play that one myself. Of the ones I have played, though, Rondo of Blood certainly takes the cake for me. I'm not sure if it's because my hands are reacting instinctively to a console controller that is not there or what, but I don't recall any of the past games being anywhere near this difficult. And while I'm aware that a lot of people find Bloodlines challenging, that was my mainstay game as a lad, so I'm used to it. It'd be nice if Rondo had a difficulty selection feature like that game did.

[Foffy]

Out of all of the games that are difficult that are balanced in doing so, Chronicles probably takes the cake. In terms of cheapness, I think it'd be between Haunted Castle and Adventure.

[DragonSlayr81]

I'd put Simon's Quest into that group. Unless you know what you're doing, a lot of it could be confusing.

[Successor The Cruel]

Haunted Castle and Vampire Killer are the toughest to me, but they're pretty much broken games.  As far as reasonable, well thought out difficulty, perhaps Order of Ecclesia's Hard Mode.

[Chernabogue]

Curse of Darkness' CRAZY MODE. I cried playing it.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

For me it was Curse of Darkness.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I still stay with Haunted Castle (even version K), Castlevania Chronicles (Original mode), and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (NES).

[PFG9000]

Vampire Killer MSX for me, assuming we're talking about the standard difficulty level.  If things like Crazy mode count, then it's probably the Hard-level-1-cap of PoR with no carryover equipment.  I couldn't even make it past the underground area of that one.  One hit from a boss will kill you, and you can only be hit like twice between save points.  To be fair though, I haven't played hard mode of all the CVs that offer it.

[Harrycombs]

Haunted Castle. I got to the second level of that thing and it was bullshit. I don't think even God could beat that game.

I'm not considering the hard and crazy modes of the later games, as they were rather poorly designed and generally just made everything deal more damage and made you take more damage, and the lazy level design and enemy placement artificially made the games more difficult.

[VampirehunterB]

Vampire killer, Haunted castle, CV chronicles, Cv adventure

[shelverton.]

Haunted Castle is pretty much impossible to me. And the final boss battle in Vampire's Kiss was brutal too, but the game itself wasn't too bad.

Also, I absolutly suck at certain types of 3D action games, so Lords of Shadow proved to be rather difficult for me. Or maybe it was more tedious than difficult... let's just say it's one of the more painful experiences I've had with the series. I thought the enemies had waaaay too much health, not to mention the bosses. Anyway, I felt overwhelmed by the painfully drawn out fighting and thus never finished it (I had already seen a walkthrough on youtube though, so I knew how everything ended)

[X]

I'd have to vote Haunted Castle and the original Vampirekiller. I've only ever finished Haunted Castle twice and that was usually a fluke concidering that if you don't plan ahead in that game, it'll wipe the floor with you... I never did finish Vampirekiller cause those stupid Medusa heads in the second area kept on knocking off the ledge or I'd just get bombarded to death. CV3 I would also vote into the category but because I've essentially mastered the game (no-matter which of the four endings I wish to see), It's not really all that hard anymore.

-X

[Munchy]

MSX Vampire Killer. I've gotten to the second stage maybe once. It's a charming game somehow; I wish they'd remake it for something, minus the absolutely retarded input method for the subweapons.

[Einzige]

I'd put Simon's Quest into that group. Unless you know what you're doing, a lot of it could be confusing.

That's definitely true. CV2 was the very first game in the series I ever played, and I remember endless nights as a boy trying to figure out just what the Hell I was supposed to do with the red crystal. But now that I can pretty well beat the game with my eyes closed, I definitely find it to be one of the most fun Castlevanias I've played (which is admittedly limited to the first nine games or so - pretty well everything pre-PS2). The difficulty in Simon's Quest doesn't stem from the core gameplay itself, but rather the somewhat poor integration of the story with the gaming mechanics.

EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, I'm of the opinion that CV2 had the best pure platforming mechanics of the three NES releases. CVIII had some extraneous things mostly involving melting blocks, and CVI was pretty basic.

[Dremn]

Bloodlines.

Having only a limited amount of continues makes it marginally more difficult than most games in the series easily.