Topic: Question concerning a Castlevania marathon

[SubstituteBelmont]

Hey y'all, been a lurker for nearly 2 years and finally decided to join you guys in the never ending crawl to put Dracula down 

I'll start off with a simple little question. I've decided to marathon a set of Castlevania games, to re-play some of my favorites and try ones I missed out on, but I've run into a wall. I've played all the classicvanias (8-bit, 16-bit and gameboy trilogy) MSX vampire killer, symphony of the night and the 64 titles.

I'm planning on playing Chronicles now on the PS1, but with the growing length of the games at this point its starting to get a little daunting, especially since I'm running out of free time with the holidays coming to a close soon and these metroidvanias take quite a bit of playtime compared to CVIV or bloodlines. Which ones do you guys think I should just skip entirely? I still have: 

.The 6 portable metoridvanias
.The 2 3Dvanias from PS2 era
.The LOS trilogy
.Harmony of Despair
.Kid Dracula
.Haunted Castle (Definitely not a priority)
.Order of Shadows (Not a priority)
. Judgement (Curious, but not priority)

I wanna get your opinions and see if there are any that you all think I should definitely give time to/aren't worth it. Are there any metroidvanias that probably aren't worth as much time as the others? Is Harmony of Dissonance as bad as they say? Is Kid Dracula even a castlevania game  ??

Cheers for the read, and hopefully this doesn't become a Judgement, Order of Shadows and Haunted Castle hate thread :')

[Lumi Kløvstad]

First off, welcome to the front lines!

Kid Dracula, Haunted Castle, Judgment, and Harmony of Despair on PS3 and 360 are all skippable as they don't really add anything to the lore. Haunted Castle also is well known as one of the hardest (if not the hardest) entries in the series.

If you can, I'd suggest you give Order of Shadows a try. I feel it's worth a solid playthrough but, as it's a Java game that isn't distributed anymore on a platform that gets rarer by the day, you might have some trouble unless you can find a good emulator.

It doesn't contribute to the lore at all, but it's a rare story that shows more than one active Belmont at a time (three, in this case, though for equipment issues only one wields the Vampire killer, relegating the other two to a support role) and was about as good a Castlevania game as could be made for the platform it was on.

Also, while Kid Dracula is skippable, try it anyway. Both the original and the Game Boy port are quite good and clever little games.

Lament of Innocence on PS2 has a soundtrack and story that is widely considered among the franchise bests, though the gameplay is a bit repetitive. Curse of Darkness is one of my personal favorites, but you'd be forgiven by many for not finishing it--it ALMOST added to the lore by establishing the idea of Devil Forgemasters, Time Travel, and the vague future from which Saint Germaine claims to hail from, but none of its more interesting plot threads are ever picked up again, which hurts the series.

As for portable metroidvanias, they are all varying levels of good. If you play in release order, it'll be less aggravating (Circle of the Moon is non-canon but feels the most like the classic series, including difficulty).

Harmony of Despair literally adds nothing to the series. It just kind of "is" and is a Cooperative multiplayer entry rather like the new Star Wars Battlefront (no story, just chilling for a few hours in the franchise world with a few buddies). I wouldn't say it's bad though... just totally different (and admittedly cut-and-paste).

[theplottwist]

Kid Dracula, Haunted Castle, Judgment, and Harmony of Despair on PS3 and 360 are all skippable as they don't really add anything to the lore. Haunted Castle also is well known as one of the hardest (if not the hardest) entries in the series.

I only disagree with Judgment here. It does add some curious things to the lore - if you're obssessed for Castlevania like I am - such as expanding on Galamoth's role. They are minor things, but if the lore interests you, then the lines of dialogue here have some gold nuggets to find.

For Kid Dracula, I'd say you should go straight for the GameBoy version. It's basically an improved version of the original NES game, even though it's treated as a sequel.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Skip the LOS trilogy and the rest below it from the list.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Skip the LOS trilogy and the rest below it from the list.

Unless he meant to write "Harmony of Despair", you're essentially advising him to skip Harmony of Dissonance which is one of the best designed games in the series from when Iga was at the top of his game.

That doesn't sit well with me.

[SubstituteBelmont]

Unless he meant to write "Harmony of Despair", you're essentially advising him to skip Harmony of Dissonance which is one of the best designed games in the series from when Iga was at the top of his game.

That doesn't sit well with me.

Ooops :') Yeah, I did mean 'Harmony of Despair', I'll change it I know how high Harmony of Dissonance sits with everyone, just never got around to finishing it. Metroidvanias are far too long :') but that is the point I guess 

[Lumi Kløvstad]

It is entirely the point of the Metroidvanias.

And I stand by my assessment of Order of Shadows. Give it a try if you can -- it was a noble effort by Konami USA with limited resources and an even more limited platform, and was my go-to portable Castlevania for almost a year in 2008 because I could take my flip phone places my GBA-SP and DS couldn't go.

[Ratty]

In my opinion the 3 most interesting Metroidvanias lore-wise would be Circle of the Moon (even though it's not officially canon, beautiful game), Portrait of Ruin and of course Aria of Sorrow. Those are all fun and have some of the best art in the series, not to be missed. Lament of Innocence is a game I initially didn't like but that has grown on me a lot over the years, great title, don't skip it.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Lament of Innocence is worth playing for Jameison Price's deep sexy manly baritone alone.

Oh, Walter. Even the guys want him.

Leon's narm is the other reason.

[SubstituteBelmont]

So Curse of Darkness isn't worth it? Because it really doesn't interest me from what I've already played to be honest.

Also, this isn't so much lore wise, because I do know how everything fits into place, and the story for most of the games, its mainly fun-factor/gameplay and whether I should really acknowledge it.

Also, I'm surprised there's love for Order of Shadows, maybe I'll give it a second glance.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I am probably not the best person to ask-- I have some serious pro-CoD bias. Curse got me into the series way back when. To its credit: the art direction, music, story, and voice acting are great and among the best in the series.

It's just a shame then that it's so trudgy a game with dull maps, dull combat, and substandard AI.

Enjoy a longplay video with minimal to no commentary track-- I'd probably skip the game itself over in your case though.