Castlevania Megathread

[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.

 

[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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Turbo Kid]

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

Capcom was great in the 16-bit era, but too many iterative releases back then like fifty thousand versions of Street Fighter. They also weren't as prolific on both 16-bit consoles (three if we include the Turbo with Rondo) as Konami was.

Also, Konami went above and beyond with arcade/console ports. Capcom's ports were lazy i.e. Final Fight. Compare that to something like TMNT IV on the SNES

Konami was just more creative too with the design of a lot of their games. Like I can't imagine Capcom back then coming up with the SNES version of The Adventures of Batman and Robin and all the different gameplay styles it was juggling along with that amazing art style. Or coming up with something like Rocket Knight Adventures

Capcom even got showed up a bit by Sega, with the Streets of Rage series regularly outshining Final Fight.

Capcom was no 2, Konami was number 1 back then

 

[bjork]

Capcom even got showed up a bit by Sega, with the Streets of Rage series regularly outshining Final Fight.

Streets of Rage 2 was the only good one, though. Final Fight had one bad port to SNES because the hardware wasn't there, hardly Capcom's fault at the time.

 

[Turbo Kid]

Streets of Rage 2 was the only good one, though. Final Fight had one bad port to SNES because the hardware wasn't there, hardly Capcom's fault at the time.

Bare Knuckle III was great and the best one in every way but the music. Streets of Rage was pretty basic but gave players what Final Fight didn't, and with a far better soundtrack. Plus cop cars with explosive fire arms.