Castlevania Megathread

[BrawlMan]

I've been on a somewhat Castlevania binge playing various Classicvania games a few months ago. A thought a occurred to me: earlier this year, and near the end of last year, I was playing all of the Castlevania games, that are retellings of the first game. Though Vampire Killer (MSX) wasn't doing much for me. Controversial opinion, but Castlevania IV isn't my favorite of the Simon Belmont/CV1 iterations. It's actually Chronicles via the Arranged Mode where he's given the best design. The long, crimson red, barbarian hair. Though my #1 out of all of these is Haunted Castle Revisited. You heard that right! A game I got in 2024, from the DS compilation pack, I only bought to play HCR, is the best of the Simon Belmont games.

HCR is the perfect length. It's not too long, nor is too short. It's just the right length for an arcade game. The difficulty while much easier than a majority of Classic Castlevania titles, still has its own challenge on Normal. If you want to bump things up to Hard mode, do a run with no continues, and even have the old style jump and knock back, you can change in the options menu any time before starting a new game. It's the most accessible Castlevania game ever made. I played through the game several times and managed two 1CC runs. I have not done a Hard Mode run yet. The game also has a boss rush mode and level select too. So you can pick levels to do practice runs for that perfect run.

My #1 Castlevania game will always be Bloodlines.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

There’s a metroidvania fangame version of the first game iirc

Yep Castlevania: ReVamped

 

[Deleted member 466]

How many times can we keep retelling/remaking the original game?

Nintendo: "Forever, and ever"

My favorite is Super Castlevania IV

 

[JoueurCitoyen]

Nintendo: "Forever, and ever"

Well, Nintendo has nothing to do with Castlevania I'm afraid

 

[Deleted member 466]

Well, Nintendo has nothing to do with Castlevania I'm afraid

but they're very good at making the same game.

 

[Luxfin]

Until Komani explodes with the many versions that they get away with. Wouldn't surprise me if the next one would combine Simon's Quest as a first half and then Castlevania I for the other half in a double decker remake/reimagining of those games.

 

[NeonKnights]

Super Castlevania IV would be great if it weren't for the missing Dracula monster transformation and being censored on the SNES. In my mind Akumajou Dracula・悪魔城ドラキュラ will always be the definitive official release. The title screen even drips blood. You're telling me they were incapable of replicating that on the SNES version with green blood. Super Castlevania IV will always be a butchered port to me and it brings me no pleasure to say so.

 

[BrawlMan]

Castlevania I for the other half in a double decker remake/reimagining of those games.

Akumajou Dracula・悪魔城ドラキュラ will always be the definitive official release.

It's why I love either version of Bloodlines. Japanese and USA got away with all the blood and gore. Genesis does! (except in Europe and the UK. I play the japanese version of Super when the mood strikes me.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin]

The Japanese naming scheme for all these games makes it all the more confusing. At least in English all the games have a unique name but in JP there're all just called "Akumajou Dracula".
- NES (Castlevania)
- MSX (Vampire Killer)
- Arcade (Haunted Castle)
- SNES (SCV4)
- X68000 (Chronicles)
Also while the MSX game is mega jank I still like it, no continues is pretty brutal though. Did a playthrough of it on the Wii U virtual console ver. a while ago. Doing it deathless actually makes it easier because it let's you stockpile hearts.

 

[SliperyHippo]

 

[bjork]

So HCR was the first one in 20ish years if you're counting the PS1 Chronicles release date here... I'll say, "not enough times." People know Batman's story and they sure retell it as often as they can.

 

[NOTthatHARD]

How many times can we keep retelling/remaking the original game?​

For as long as it continues to sell, I guess.

 

[UnDubious]

Those are also mostly games with no real in-game stories so it doesn't matter much.

 

[Pearly]

I loved the arranged version that was done for castlevania chronicles.

That's the first time I played the game and it used Ayami Kojimas designs so I was pretty happy with that at the time as my introduction to Castlevania was symphony of the night on the ps1.

I've played others since and it's still my favourite rendition. Though my favourite of the classic style games will always be rondo of blood by a large margin, pc engine or psp remake.

 

[Isegrim]

It's a classic scenario. Holy warrior enters Dracula's castle of horrors to do battle within the evil inside. Anyone who watches or reads Dracula media is steered towards that basic formula...a perfect situation for a videogame.

No one's mentioned Seta's Nosferatu.

It's not technically a Castlevania but it practically is. Instead of bringing holy weapons into Dracula's castle(s), the hero awesomely beats up everything including Dracula with his bare fists. It's like a hybrid of Castlevania/Karateka/Prince of Persia. Jonathan Harker could have done this to Dracula first time around if he knew martial arts. Oh wait, he did...there's also Dracula for the Sega CD.

My personal actual Castlevania favorite is Super Castlevania 4. The loneliness, horror and tension that would be experienced by a vampire hunter and articulated perfectly by the OST is just amazing. Music is pretty much half the reason why Castlevania is one of my favorite franchises. I usually prefer the Japanese version but take note there's a hack in the repo that not only restores all the censorship in the U.S. version but also reduces significantly the slowdown. I'd say that's the definitive version to play the game now.

 

[throughdarkness]

Castlevania is one of the few series where they can keep remaking the first game for eternity and I would happy. Super CV IV might tell the same "story", but that's where the similarities end. It really isn't OG Castlevania - Snes version and neither is Chronicles. Same with Dracula X on Snes. People say its a shitty port of Rondo all the time but it's not a port. It's legit its own game. Might be inferior, but still not a port in my mind. Way too different.

Anyways, long live Castlevania. May Dracula resurrect every 100 years for eternity.

 

[Zerpina]

Until Komani explodes with the many versions that they get away with. Wouldn't surprise me if the next one would combine Simon's Quest as a first half and then Castlevania I for the other half in a double decker remake/reimagining of those games.

Honestly Konami will remake Castlevania, albeit with slightly different plotlines and characters, until the sales drop.

It's more or less their cash cow, and people do love a good monster slaying game.
It's like Mario, be it 2D or 3D how many times have they made the same game? How many times have they made the same football, basketball, soccer, etc., games? People like what they like. Personally, I love the series and have bought Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on nearly every platform it's been released on (I'm getting it for my fridge with a screen next week!) XD

But it's a cool series and concept. Basically, Konami took the universal monsters, changed them enough to avoid being sued up the wazoo, and gave the finger to Universal Studios and made a game about killing there monsters with a leather clad dude with a whip....

Huh... It sounds like some kinky S&M game the more I think about it... a muscular dude in leather with a whip, whipping guys in monster costumes for kinks.

So, how long can they keep making the same game? Until the end of time, people stop buying them, or the company sells off the IP, and it's no longer used

 

[UnDubious]

But it's a cool series and concept. Basically, Konami took the universal monsters, changed them enough to avoid being sued up the wazoo, and gave the finger to Universal Studios and made a game about killing there monsters with a leather clad dude with a whip....

Aren't the "Universal monsters" all public domain, and/or not Universal's at all? Dracula being an old novel and all.

 

[Zerpina]

Aren't the "Universal monsters" all public domain, and/or not Universal's at all? Dracula being an old novel and all.

Yes they are, But i do believe Konami based there monsters on universals versions

 

[Ikagura]

But they're very good at making the same game.

I don't know if it's an attempt at trolling but you can clearly tell the difference between a Zelda game form the 80's, from the 90's, from the 2000's and from the 2010's. The only time a Zelda felt really similar to a previous one was Twilight Princess because it was really similar to Ocarina of Time (albeit with original dungeons and the wolf form).

Maybe we can consider that Super Metroid is a 16-bits version of NES Metroid with extended areas, that Fire Emblem had a remake/followup story of the Famicom game on the SFC and that New Super Mario Bros is a nod to the original NES games but that's like saying every games of a series is the same because they are the same game genre and this could almost be disingenuous when you can still find something to prefer in one entry from another.

 

[Deleted member 466]

I don't know if it's an attempt at trolling

Its not. They have retold Star Fox and Punch Out 3 times. And Pokemo Red. I could list more, you can name more. The point is they do it, and they will keep doing it. And theres nothing wrong with it

 

[Ikagura]

It's not. They have retold Star Fox and Punch Out 3 times. And Pokemon Red.

I'd still beg to differ about those points:

Star Fox on the N64 is a reboot sure but there was the (cancelled then reintroduced) Star Fox 2 and it was clear that Star Fox on the SNES was an impressive tech demo but wanted to make something using the full capabilities of the N64.

The second reboot happened nearly two decades after 64 and you forget the existence of Adventure, Assault and Command that were made in between (even if Adventure didn't start as a game of the series it's still a canonical game counted in it). It would be silly to say that every games are the same.

Punch-Out was an arcade game and sure most arcade sequels are very similar (thus why Super Punch Out was very similar outside of the characters) however Super Punch Out on the SNES was a different game with a new mechanic and new adversaries (with few returning ones). Even Little mac barely looks like his NES counterpart.

Punch-Out Wii is basically a remake after 15 years (and still includes SPU characters) so it's a bit of a bad faith to say Punch Out has been done three times when the third one (which is the real remake not Super) has been done after a long hiatus of two generations. You could say the same about Kid Icarus, the first two games were similar (the GB one is almost like a port) yet the third is vastly different and made much later.

I'm not a big Pokémon fan but if you're saying that every games are like Pokémon Red/Blue (including Black/White and Black 2/White 2) is like telling Dragon Quest is (for most of the games) the same thing solely because of repeating themes and a similar progression and journey.

I could list more, you can name more. The point is they do it, and they will keep doing it. And there's nothing wrong with it.

I cannot blame a platforming series like Super Mario Bros for making similar games because platforming as a genre is always stuck in the same codes (jump, get items and powerups to defeat enemies and finish the level) yet I feel like people are downplaying many of Nintendo's games for "being the same thing for 25-30 years" which is a lame argument when it comes to series that still have evolved.

Of course when they change things radically (like BotW) there will also be people whining about it "no longer being like it used to be"...


But I'm digressing a lot and as for Castlevania it's the story of the Belmont family being made of vampire slayers and they stop Dracula each time he resurrects, it's a simple premise yet it's effective.

Also even if Rondo of Blood can be seen as a "next generation of Belmont" game it's fundamentally Castlevania 1 with a more powerful hardware yet still feels different thanks to its less linear approach.

I can almost say that, with Simon's Quest, it was the proto Metroidvania with an alternative character, optional paths and having a side quest about saving the maidens.

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

but they're very good at making the same game.

 

[BrawlMan]

but they're very good at making the same game.

View attachment 145331

 

[Ikagura]

View attachment 145331

I know that posting a meme is easier than trying to debate but at that point every game series ever are fundamentally the same games if you don't take every details into account.