Topic: What ever happened to the 8 directional whipping?

[Stenner]

I thought that the 8 way directional whip would have followed every Castlevania after Super Castlevania 4 and that it was not present in the first Castlevania games on the NES due to the limitations. I've only just came back to the Castlevania games and am slightly let down that you say this feature never made another appearance because it was a really good one. It makes it seem so unrealistic that you can't hit diagonally. But hey, the lack of this feature didn't ruin the first few games so I guess it can't of ruined any since. Still the question remains, why would they not have brought it back at least once?

[crisis]

People keep forgetting they DID bring it back, with Julius in Harmony of Despair. He has multi-directional whipping, the only character in the game that does.

But I feel that the way SCVIV was made is what makes it unique, kinda like the DSS Card System makes CotM unique in it's own way, the Spellbook fusion in HoD, etc.

[Sumac]

It's not surprising that a lot of fans jumped ship to the metriodvanias when they came out.  For all the sh*t metroidvanias most get for being SotN clones, at least each new game had a different combat system.

I think it was a bit different. The stream of "metroidvanias" started only after several years after SOTN and there were several games in between SOTN and COTM. Sadly, after SOTN there simply wasn't much alternative - CV64 was questionable in many eyes and Legends were outright mediocre. So, it was choice between staying with series supporting "metroidvanias" or abandoning it alltogether.
Also, I disagree with "metroidvanias" having different battle systems. In my eyes, all "metroidvanias" are very similar to each other and the only major difference were the subsystems introduced in games.

The whip can pretty much reach where the subs can hit

I disagree with this. Whip can not reach for the other end of the screen, for example.

People keep forgetting they DID bring it back, with Julius in Harmony of Despair. He has multi-directional whipping, the only character in the game that does.

It's a bit too late for that.

[X]

I'll be finishing up my OoE playthrough and onto PoR so I'll be able to confirm that for sure I'm fairly positive Jonathan can at least diagonally down while he's airborne, and I remember a whip that would track enemies (Nebula whip I think).

That's all that Jonathan can do once he acquires the whip relic from Wind. He can only whip down diagonally. And while Julius can whip in 8 different directions in HoD sadly it was the wrong game for that to happen.

[crisis]

It's a bit too late for that.

That's like saying "it's too late for them to release another classicvania," yet we got Adventure ReBirth in 2009.

[TheouAegis]

Still, cardinal whipping broke mechanics. They were having issues with broken mechanics in the metroidvanias too that they tried to fix in OoE.

And, like, I know CV ain't really all that realistic anyway, but just how viable is whipping diagonally upward, let alone straight up? I mean, especially straight up. I can see diagonal whipping, though... That's totally doable. Used to do it all the time as a kid.

And the NES was more than capable of handling it, they just chose to not use their CHR slots efficiently enough. If Konami really wanted to and really tried, they could have implemented cardinal whipping in CV1, CV2 or CV3.

[Phoenix7786]

Yeah look what they did with Contra 1. That let you shoot in damn near any direction, and that was with guns no less (although you DID die in one hit the principle is that the NES could indeed handle 8 way attacks).

[Zetheraxza]

And it's not like Super Castlevania IV was dead easy. If you never played a Castlevania game, you still died in the game, the bosses were not that easy either. The game was not a "cakewalk" because of these mechanics. But it was probably the first castlevania where people tended not to rage quit and blame the controls for being "bad". If it weren't for save states in the emulator, I would never even try to finish the NES games. I mean there was so much potential in those games and they were fun, really. But, most people are not hardcore when it comes to "know the game better than you know the controls" and dodge the axe knights and medusa heads without attacking the medusa heads and add the second knight and still not attacking the knights and reach death unscathed. If frustration was the cost of having fun in those classic games, then you were probably not down for the challenge. I wonder that of all the castlevania games sold on NES, what is the percentage of people actually finishing those games to people who threw the cartridge out the window? Super Castlevania IV was the only classicvania that I finished without the save states and that game was "challenging" rather than "frustrating" and that is the best classic Castlevania out there for me. RoB was much better than DX just because of that last boss with Dracula in DX, it changed the way I looked at the game, otherwise the game was fantastic, had better graphics than RoB and I still respected that game despite being a butchered port. But the final boss comparison was just a turn off for me. There was no reason for them to add pits on a boss that involved players to die in their 6-9 times to fight Dracula on his first form alone but then you add the pits making you want to not even face the challenge.

[K.G. Morder]

They probably figured they would have a hard time as time went on, in designing more and more levels based around multi directional whipping, not to mention that when you have a whip that hits all directions, even if it does not make sub weapons obsolete, you are still less likely to use them to say, hit something right above you. Or diagonally up from you.

[TheouAegis]

After hacking through CV3 for the past year or so, I can say honestly that it's not that hard. It's hardly "NES hard". I can get farther in CV3 than I ever could in Contra, even when I played CV3 for the very first time 15 years ago when I bought it for $10 used. I played it a few times, got frustrated, and gave up on it. But I still got past the first few stages. I never got past stage 2 in Contra. And nowadays I can reach Dracula's Castle without using any save states.

Furthermore, CV3 had passwords, so it's tons easier than CV1. And CV2 was mostly just hard cuz of vagueness. I've never once thought CV3's controls were bad. People that rant about classicvanias' controls are just shitty gamers. CV1 and CV3 handle very well. If you're going to bitch about CV's controls, then bitch moreso about Bionic Commando's. You couldn't even jump in that game! Yet I still beat it -- over and over. Now it doesn't want to boot up because I think I damaged the contacts.

[Sumac]

People that rant about classicvanias' controls are just shitty gamers.

Sorry, but that's like saying "everyone who doesn't like NES graphics are stupid". It doesn't make sense and sounds fanboish.
All NES CVs had some troubles with controls. CV3 had the least of them. As for CV1 and CV2 - they had rather questionable physics, when it came to jumping. And moving speed was also low.

I completed Contra in a week and Super C in 2 days, when my parents bought me those games. And it was more than 20 years ago. I beat those games on the past week and lost approx 2 lives in both. NES Contras (including Force) are much, much easier than any Castlevania title. Especially CV3.

That's like saying "it's too late for them to release another classicvania," yet we got Adventure ReBirth in 2009.

It's too late because reintroducing this mechanic doesn't affect anything in the long run nowadays. If SCV4 was followed with at least two games, that had multidirectional whipping, it could siginificantly change evolution of the series. Nowadays, it's just a throwback to oddness of the past and nothing more. I suppose, you can understand this point.

Still, cardinal whipping broke mechanics.

No.
SCV4 was well tuned for a game that introduced such change. It maybe was a bit easier, but it was far from broken. You want broken mechanics? Use Alucard's spells in SOTN or Maria's Dragon in NITM.

[JR]

After hacking through CV3 for the past year or so, I can say honestly that it's not that hard. It's hardly "NES hard". I can get farther in CV3 than I ever could in Contra, even when I played CV3 for the very first time 15 years ago when I bought it for $10 used. I played it a few times, got frustrated, and gave up on it. But I still got past the first few stages. I never got past stage 2 in Contra. And nowadays I can reach Dracula's Castle without using any save states.

That's not to say that one is necessarily harder than the other, though. I've been through both NES Contras without losing a life (only once each, but still), yet CVIII is a pretty challenging game for me.

[TheouAegis]

So then the argument stands as such: if you suck at NES CV, you'll probably blame the controls. If you suck at NES Contra, you'll probably blame all the bullets. I have no problem at all with movement in any Castlevania game. To this day I still have issues with Contra games. So I still stand by what I said to a lesser extent: if you think NES CV games had crappy controls, you just suck at NES CV games.

Now the Gameboy CV games. Oh god, those did and still do make me just turn the games off after 5 minutes.

[Phoenix7786]

The only GB CV I can't stomach is the first one. I beat it just for the sake of completion and that was more agonizing than rectal suppositories.

[Dark Nemesis]

Reading all these comments, they make no sense to me. Why? Because people tend to compare today's games with games of the past. I can only remember my self back then, when a game was coming out saying, wow, i really need to get that game and the controls for each game, it was about the same, small differences. Has anyone played batman returns for the game boy? Now that's what i call shit controls and ridiculously difficulty. Still back then, i was able after many tries, to be able to finish it without losing a single life, even on hard.

  Yes, i agree that most of the past games they were having stiff controls, but that was something that was adding some more challenge. Now almost everything it's made to be easy to play, for all the people, challenging games in our days, are almost non existent and when one game tries to bring back the old difficulty, all the people are starting to bitching  about that game and how hard it is.

  Even to this day, i am able to finish in less than 10 minutes kung fu master for game boy, even on hard without losing a single life. For me it's all about practice. Nintendo offers even the help button for those that can't past a stage or boss, having the cpu do all the work for them.

 Also don't forget from were all games come from: Pong.