16-bit Castlevania Titles

[Pinballbuzzbro]

I think my favorite of em' is Castlevania Chronicles/akumajous densetsu whatever on the X6800, would love to see that game get a modern rerelease lol

 

[Turbo Kid]

I think my favorite of em' is Castlevania Chronicles/akumajous densetsu whatever on the X6800, would love to see that game get a modern rerelease lol

I hadn't even considered that one. I guess it should be part of the discussion. I've never played it

 

[Yousef]

I adore Super Castlevania IV, it’s one of my favorite 2D games.

 

[DanCalibur]

I must be the only one that likes Dracula X, it was my first contact with castlevania in the 90's. I've finally beaten it in the Advance Collection, twice for both endings.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

It’s kind of amazing how Konami went 10/10 with Castlevania on three different consoles in the same generation.

The fact Konami managed to master three separate hardware still surprises me.

Treasure were beasts on the Genesis but only on it before getting more diversified in the 32-bits era.

I'm surprised how Rondo of Blood could have passed as an early Genesis or SNES title and how Bloodlines managed to look impressive to the point of not shying out from the then more powerful SNES.

 

[Turbo Kid]

The fact Konami managed to master three separate hardware still surprises me.

Treasure were beasts on the Genesis but only on it before getting more diversified in the 32-bits era.

I'm surprised how Rondo of Blood could have passed as an early Genesis or SNES title and how Bloodlines managed to look impressive to the point of not shying out from the then more powerful SNES.

90s Konami was...

Even Capcom wasn't in their league back then and let's not forget that Treasure was born out of Konami.

 

[bjork]

Even Capcom wasn't in their league back then

whoa there

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

whoa there

I think we can agree that Namco, Capcom and Konami were the holy trinity of third party devs for action games.

 

[Isegrim]

Super Castlevania 4 is my favorite for 16 bit mainly because of the OST. It nails the whole Vampire Hunter on a lonely and dark quest to nail Dracula aestethic perfectly. It had a classical music vibe, the way I like it best and I really like almost all the songs in the game. (The library song is the only one I didn't like)

I'd score Rondo higher but it always irritated me that you can't save everyone in one go for the best outcome. In that respect, Dracula X for the SNES satisfied that need. Also, I might have been irritated with Symphony of the Night's intro if I didn't play Dracula X beforehand since it was the only game I could access at that time that referred to Richter's victory so there's that for nostalgia.

I always thought Bloodlines was neat in the sense that it tried to tie Bram Stoker's novel with the franchise...at least before it was retconned.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

My gripe about Super IV is that while the game is a great extended remake of NES Castlevania I didn't really like its overreliance on gimmicks like the rings to balance Simon, the Mode 7 (yes, it was the big gimmick of the SNES but to the cost of blurry sprites and black backgrounds for some bosses) and maybe because the art style is a bit too brown/dulled out compared to the colours that even the NES games had (yes, while it's semi horror I still think Castlevania should have many contrasting colours while keeping its gothic ambience)

Look at how magnificent this looks:

The colours are popping so much and I really like the blueish cross.


While it's subjective the OST is perhaps a bit too "experimental" which sounds a bit "un-Castlevania" to me. Yes, Rondo also had some weird ones in its soundtrack but it was because of Redbook Japanese techno from the late 80's - early 90's kicking in (like in Opus 13 or Cross a Fear).

I would've killed for a second original Castlevania on the SNES that would've pushed its capacities to its limits instead of that gosh darned Vampire's Kiss that felt like a regression from IV and a dullified port of Rondo despite that it was on a more powerful hardware.