Castlevania Megathread

[Scotty Scotty]

Haven't played "Rondo of Blood", but I loved "Super Castlevania IV" and "Bloodlines". I'd even go as far to say that "Bloodlines" is the better game.

 

[aquova]

I would dare say Super Castlevania IV is the best Castlevania game ever for its "whip simulation" gameplay that sadly has not been added even in new games. IDK why they didn't improve whip gameplay by catching enemies with a whip and thus throwing them to the walls, ceiling, and bashing them to the ground and walls repeatedly and all. But the gameplay I have in mind is doing these manually in whatever way you want by using analog stick or mouse lol so they are not part of an automatic combo.

I completely agree, the 8-directional whip is definitely my favorite classic Castlevania control scheme, and it might even rival some of the weapons from the Metroidvania titles. I always wished one of them would include an 8-way whip as a hidden weapon or something. Instead, they just included Richter mode in every other game..

 

[kingschelppy]

Castlevania: Bloodlines was the first Castlevania game I ever played, as I was seven when the Genesis came out, and my older brother didn't have Castlevania on his NES. Bloodlines is really what sucked me into the Castlevania mythos, as well as my love for Metroidvania in general. While SOTN is still my favorite Castlevania game (as well as my favorite game of all time), it is because of this game that I follow, play, and support Metroidvania titles now, even at 36.

 

[Deleted member 560402]

Alongside Game Boy Castlevania games.

 

[Turbo Kid]

Bloodlines is my favorite (or Vampire Killer as the superior, original, uncensored and unaltered version of the game is called), but I wouldn't argue the point as they all are amazing.

What's really fascinating is how they each are very distinct, something which was typical back then when Konami would do different games from a particular franchise or license on different systems back then. Konami was an overachiever in the 90s and 80s, even with their arcade ports (look at Teenage Mutant NInja Turtles IV on the SNES for example)

I like the characters and story in Bloodlines and some of the crazy elements in the stages like one where you're walking on the ceiling. I like using the spear wielding character too and like how he changes the gameplay. I do love Super Castlevania's soundtrack though, it's AMAZING.

 

[X y b e r - S k u ll]

I used to be a Castlevania 4 guy, but after playing Rondo of Blood... yeah, it's really no contest. That game blows all the other 16-bit Castlevania's out of the water.

 

[Turbo Kid]

Rondo's difficulty is oft putting for some, and not everyone is a fan of silly, cutesy, anime girl Maria who is COMPLETELY out of place in a Castlevania game. This is when the series went full anime mode for better or for worse. I like her much better in Symphony of the NIght. Plus a lot of people still have nightmares of the SNES version of Rondo which has tainted the game's legacy.

I personally prefer the Dracula X Chronicles remake of the game.

 

[ONecessario]

I used to be a Castlevania 4 guy, but after playing Rondo of Blood... yeah, it's really no contest. That game blows all the other 16-bit Castlevania's out of the water.

Rondo of Blood has the best replayability factor, but i personally think Super Castlevania IV – with its darker tone, atmospheric music and early horror cinema art style – conveys the sense of an epic adventure leading up to Dracula in a way I haven't found in any other Castlevania titles I have played.

 

[Turbo Kid]

Rondo is an excellent game and I won't deny that, but it's always been the weaker of the three to me and got completely outshined by its successor Symphony of the NIght. I think Rondo achieved its legendary status as the so called best classic style game simply because most people couldn't play it and that gave the game a certain mystique.

 

[Deleted member 660650]

I used to be a Castlevania 4 guy, but after playing Rondo of Blood... yeah, it's really no contest. That game blows all the other 16-bit Castlevania's out of the water.

If somehow Super Castlevania 4 whip gameplay + Rondo of Blood "style" + Castlevania: Symphony of the Night levels and map designs + the GBA games' features combined into one game it would be very legendary game. But then if it also had "catching enemies with a whip and thus throwing them to the walls, ceiling, and bashing them to the ground and walls repeatedly and all. But the gameplay I have in mind is doing these manually in whatever way you want by using analog stick or mouse lol so they are not part of an automatic combo" gameplay + throw enemies to other enemies to inflict damage via your whip + use enemies as shield with your whip + your character is very acrobatic to make the gameplay fast and stylish + "your character can temporarily turns into a monster in a way even monsters try to run away from you" + no more finding cooked meat in walls, you just eat monsters in "monster mode" "bosses having a personality like they flex when they start the boss fight, half way there to their death they start to complain and near they dying they start to cry lol" + extreme gore detail and visible change in enemy bodies as they take damage realistically + every enemy have their own weakness so they have their own ways to be defeated like Witcher 3 + damage make enemies bleed and realistically splash their blood and their insides around walls and objects = I would just faint from "extreme epicness!!!"

lolol

 

[bjork]

They're all great, but Rondo is the one for me of these, and apparently for Konami as well since it's the one they followed up on. Bloodlines plays fine but has a thing for me where it feels too visually busy and the colors are too... not bright, but too colorful? Too saturated? Idk, but it detracts from the experience. Super IV is definitely well made, but it makes me sleepy? The slower pace and the music doesn't hit quite as hard as other titles. Also, the "but you can whip 8 ways" thing doesn't hold water for me, because that's why subweapons exist in the series. I've never been a "git gud" kind of person, but it's an unnecessary freedom, as evidenced by the way they've never revisited it.

 

[X y b e r - S k u ll]

Rondo of Blood has the best replayability factor, but i personally think Super Castlevania IV – with its darker tone, atmospheric music and early horror cinema art style – conveys the sense of an epic adventure leading up to Dracula in a way I haven't found in any other Castlevania titles I have played.

I could see there being a debate on the music and thematic elements between the 2 games. I think for me what really sealed it was when I realized the one thing that everyone almost universally praises 4 for is actually the biggest thing that breaks it; the 8-way whip. It just completely destroys any and all challenge from the game to the point where items are essentially useless since you can pretty much deal with all the enemies with the whip. Any sort of strategies regarding how you approach a situation are just not needed in 4 since the whip does everything for you.

Post automatically merged: Sep 17, 2025

Rondo is an excellent game and I won't deny that, but it's always been the weaker of the three to me and got completely outshined by its successor Symphony of the NIght.

Not really sure how Rondo and Symphony are in anyway comparable as games. Completely different style of games.

 

[Deleted member 660650]

They're all great, but Rondo is the one for me of these, and apparently for Konami as well since it's the one they followed up on. Bloodlines plays fine but has a thing for me where it feels too visually busy and the colors are too... not bright, but too colorful? Too saturated? Idk, but it detracts from the experience. Super IV is definitely well made, but it makes me sleepy? The slower pace and the music doesn't hit quite as hard as other titles. Also, the "but you can whip 8 ways" thing doesn't hold water for me, because that's why subweapons exist in the series. I've never been a "git gud" kind of person, but it's an unnecessary freedom, as evidenced by the way they've never revisited it.

I guess if Castlevania is not "good whip game series" for you you wouldn't have any reason to like the 4th except some cool level designs that adds flavor to the platforming gameplay, but if you just care to kill to kill then IDK any newer one would be a good game for you. However just killing is meaningless to me.

For example I love Castlevania: Curse of Darkness just because the killing can turn into a meme when you can kill by using a frying pan that has eggs on it lol. Otherwise the game would be meaningless to me.

And then prime reason why video game industry turned into shit: Dull gameplays that has only have the aim of killing to kill. Press the attack button and the character does some moves, you point and shoot. So what? It's meaningless. It's a video game therefore killing to kill cannot mean anything because they are not your enemy, someone you want to take revenge on or something. They only appeal killers but I'm gamer. I care about decent fun gameplay. In that context why my pick is the 4th game just because gameplay is decent and fun its own Castlevania context beyond "just attacking". That's why this feature is not trivial, it should have been the default whip gameplay style, in fact default hack and slash gameplay style for any video game with added realism to make it great as much as you can. However even in this time and age gameplay style of melee attacking games so primitive, you mostly attack in front of you and this causes hit doesn't land on enemy then you attack until you randomly hit the enemy. This is BS. They don't even bother making players able to control your attacks in the direction you want just like in Jedi Academy. The year is 2025 so let's give up on ancient gameplay BS!!!

 

[bjork]

[wall of text as usual]

Not preferring one entry in a series with like 50 titles somehow meaning I only care to kill is a gigantic leap to make. It's just not as fun to me, I'm sorry if it somehow wounded your "I'm a gamer" sensibilities by saying as much.

 

[Deleted member 660650]

Not preferring one entry in a series with like 50 titles somehow meaning I only care to kill is a gigantic leap to make. It's just not as fun to me, I'm sorry if it somehow wounded your "I'm a gamer" sensibilities by saying as much.

I see you don't even try to understand what people write then use Twitter just to write to write lol.

 

[bjork]

I see you don't even try to understand what people write then use Twitter just to write to write lol.

It's not a matter of understanding, you vomit out these gigantic walls of text that basically always have the same underlying tone: games are bad now, developers are lazy/unskilled/greedy, and they should make games the way you see them or they're bad. It's tiring after awhile and sometimes I just don't have the energy. Apologies if I don't feel like essaying at you after being essayed at. lolol

 

[Deleted member 660650]

It's not a matter of understanding, you vomit out these gigantic walls of text that basically always have the same underlying tone: games are bad now, developers are lazy/unskilled/greedy, and they should make games the way you see them or they're bad. It's tiring after awhile and sometimes I just don't have the energy. Apologies if I don't feel like essaying at you after being essayed at. lolol

Wow so dramatic. No point in talking to a person who can't even get it but loves to put words into people's mouth and write their own dramatic fiction to enjoy their delusionally distorted reality lol.

 

[Turbo Kid]

I could see there being a debate on the music and thematic elements between the 2 games. I think for me what really sealed it was when I realized the one thing that everyone almost universally praises 4 for is actually the biggest thing that breaks it; the 8-way whip. It just completely destroys any and all challenge from the game to the point where items are essentially useless since you can pretty much deal with all the enemies with the whip. Any sort of strategies regarding how you approach a situation are just not needed in 4 since the whip does everything for you.

Post automatically merged: Sep 17, 2025

Not really sure how Rondo and Symphony are in anyway comparable as games. Completely different style of games.

They're related because SOTN is a direct sequel and SOTN just made more an impression and left a bigger impact on me than Rondo, which I didn't think was as great as Super Castlevania or Bloodlines.

 

[bjork]

Wow so dramatic. No point in talking to a person who can't even get it but loves to put words into people's mouth and write their own dramatic fiction to enjoy their delusionally distorted reality lol.

But that's exactly what you did to me albeit with much longer dramatic fiction. Doesn't feel so great on the receiving end, does it. Just let it go. Go whip 8-ways and be merry.

 

[Turbo Kid]

See this is why I like Bloodlines, I thought the attack options the staff user had are more interesting than the 8 way whip thing. You get classic style Belmont whip action. Plus a guy with more attack range options. It's the best of both worlds. Plus, Bloodlines is arguably a more technically impressive game than Super Castlevania with all of the visual effects and stuff and has a more interesting story but I'm getting off topic.

That's not to say that I don't like the 8 way whip thing, but I do feel like the physics of it are a little weird. It's like something out of a modern physics based platformer which isn't what Castlevania games are.

I love being able to swing on things Indiana Jones style though

It would be very interesting to play a 3d Castlevania game that tries to simulate the actual difficulty of wielding a whip as a weapon. The Netflix show did such a great job of conveying how much long range a whip actually has and the absurd amount of skill Trevor must have to wield it.

Another cool thing about Bloodlines is that the graphics feel more like traditional Castlevania than both Super (where the characters look a bit too big) and Rondo (which is just generic anime), just done 16-bit style.

 

[petran79]

See this is why I like Bloodlines, I thought the attack options the staff user had are more interesting than the 8 way whip thing. You get classic style Belmont whip action. Plus a guy with more attack range options. It's the best of both worlds. Plus, Bloodlines is arguably a more technically impressive game than Super Castlevania with all of the visual effects and stuff and has a more interesting story but I'm getting off topic.

That's not to say that I don't like the 8 way whip thing, but I do feel like the physics of it are a little weird. It's like something out of a modern physics based platformer which isn't what Castlevania games are.

I love being able to swing on things Indiana Jones style though

It would be very interesting to play a 3d Castlevania game that tries to simulate the actual difficulty of wielding a whip as a weapon. The Netflix show did such a great job of conveying how much long range a whip actually has and the absurd amount of skill Trevor must have to wield it.

Another cool thing about Bloodlines is that the graphics feel more like traditional Castlevania than both Super (where the characters look a bit too big) and Rondo (which is just generic anime), just done 16-bit style.

The Castlevania arcade with motion controls went in that direction

 

[Deleted member 660650]

That's not to say that I don't like the 8 way whip thing, but I do feel like the physics of it are a little weird. It's like something out of a modern physics based platformer which isn't what Castlevania games are.

I love being able to swing on things Indiana Jones style though

It's time for 3D version of such a gameplay!!!! I imagine the whip control being via analog or mouse and you move it by moving your arm just like in Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix to cast a spell!!! Castlevania: Whipping Simulator when??? lolol

 

[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 Yousef]

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