Your favorite Castlevania games?

[No_Life_King]

I personally adore the Sorrow games. I adore all the characters, especially Soma. I haven't played all of them, but I've played many.

I need to play Portait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia at some point. I might end up marathoning soon, we'll see. I play these games all year round, so you know.

 

[Brandon Heat]

Order of Ecclesia is my favorite, it's almost a 2D souls like. And Shanoa, for me, has the best design of the franchise.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Portrait Of Ruin for me.

 

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

Rondo of Blood is my personal favourite

Tbh; I've always kind of preferred the classic style Castlevania's over the more Metroid and soft-RPG style they adopted with Symphony of the Night and pretty much all the games after that. Obviously I don't hate those games, and I think Ayami Kojima created the absolute peak aesthetics for the series, but Rondo was the peak of the classic games in pretty much all aspects.

 

[MDGeistsfavMC5song]

oh boy.. i guess ill go with bloodlines, sharp x68000 castlevania, symphony, and yeah the game boy advanced games, also portrait of ruin.. and the deedlit in wonder labrynth record of lodoss war non castlevania castlevania game..

 

[BrawlMan]

Bloodlines & Haunted Castle Revisited. These are my top two favorite and most replayable Castlevania games.

​

 

[Zerohour2k12]

My Top 5 would be
Rondo of Blood
Symphony of the Night
Aria of Sorrow
Bloodlines
Super CV 4

Honorable mentions.
Circle of the Moon
Harmony of Dissonance
Lords of Shadow
Curse of Darkness

 

[-------]

Castlevania Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate for 3ds, I really liked it.

 

[Appiplyer]

Order of Ecclesia is my favorite, it's almost a 2D souls like. And Shanoa, for me, has the best design of the franchise.

FR it literally combine 2 type of castlevania gameplay lol.
Belmont Quest + The original
And the dual weapon mechanic was so fluid

 

[Lancelotk]

Portrait of Ruin is my favorite Castlevania game overral. It doesn't do anything perfect, but it's like 9/10 in everything. Aria is a close second and then Symphony of the Night. For classicvanias, Rondo is the best for far, then Castlevania III and after that, Castlevania IV.

 

[MDGeistsfavMC5song]

Portrait of Ruin is my favorite Castlevania game overral. It doesn't do anything perfect, but it's like 9/10 in everything. Aria is a close second and then Symphony of the Night. For classicvanias, Rondo is the best for far, then Castlevania III and after that, Castlevania IV.

you are correct.. but you left out bloodlines

Post automatically merged: Apr 30, 2026

does the monster world games count as castlevania?.. if so monster world 4

 

[maltra]

Vampire Killer/Bloodlines as far as Classicvanias go. My fav Metroidvania is Aria of Sorrow

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

I havent beaten them all but my favorite ones are bloodlines, rondo of blood, circle of the moon and dawn of sorrow

 

[Bakuma1997]

Metroidvania: The Sorrow Duology, especially Dawn, SOTN and the peak of the series: Portrait of Ruin
Classicvania: Super IV, Dracula's curse, Adventure Rebirt and the OG
Special mention: Curse of Darkness




and Simon's quest

 

[MDGeistsfavMC5song]

Metroidvania: The Sorrow Duology, especially Dawn, SOTN and the peak of the series: Portrait of Ruin
Classicvania: Super IV, Dracula's curse, Adventure Rebirt and the OG
Special mention: Curse of Darkness




and Simon's quest

i dont know.. i always thought super castlevania 4 was kinda weak, outside its awesome soundtrack.. but i know im in the minority

 

[DinoRexMax DinoRexMax]

It's IV. It will always be IV, now and forever. The fact that you even pretend to enjoy to games without Mult-Directional Whipping and Dedicated Sub-Weapon Buttons is blasphemous. The fact that Iga continuously denied IV and it's achievements all the way into making Bloodstained is unforgivable, and proves he should never get his grubby little hands on another Castlevania-like franchise ever again.

Curse of Darkness is pretty cool too, I guess.

 

[Sanomoe]

By platform:

NES: Akumajo Densetsu (the japanese version of Dracula's Curse). It has a great OST with the exclusive chip it has in this version, alongside having a more balance difficulty, and not changing stuff like Grant being able to throw his knives. It has the great mechanic of having multiple characters (that the Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon subseries also has it), and multiple stages. A truly delightful experience;

SNES: Super Castlevania IV. A great reimagination of Simon's first adventure, with new gameplay improvements like being able to swing the whip in 8 directions, grab some places to overcome hurdles, and using the Mode 7 for great visuals;

PSOne: Symphony of the Night. Not much to say aside being my first entry in the series, and being in love with the RPG elements, OST, a second castle to explore, and the cheesy dialogue;

Game Boy: Belmont's Revenge. A vast improvement in comparison to the weak first game on the portable. Better OST, gameplay and challenge;

Game Boy Advance: Aria of Sorrow. Consolidated the metroidvanias here. Better graphics, Michiru Yamane returns as a composer, nice gameplay system with the souls;

DS: Dawn of Sorrow. Even though some touch screen effects can get in the way, I had a blast with this entry, almost as close I had with SOTN. Having more than one inventory, and the extra mode making you able to level up as well made it a great entry.

Special mentions: Bloodlines (Genesis), Chronicles (Sharp X68000/PSOne), Adventure Rebirth (Wii), Rondo of Blood (PC Engine), Curse of Darkness (PS2/Xbox)

 

[Viviana Santos]

Symphony of the Night is by far my favorite (that’s mostly due to nostalgia, since Symphony of the Night was my first Castlevania game and I played it and Super Metroid simultaneously for the first time back in 2017, so I’m pretty biased about this game, since I really love its aesthetic, atmosphere, level design, and soundtrack), with Aria of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia, Rondo of Blood, Portrait of Ruin, Dawn of Sorrow, and Bloodlines being my other personal favorites from the series itself.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

It's peak...

 

[Viviana Santos]

i dont know.. i always thought super castlevania 4 was kinda weak, outside its awesome soundtrack.. but i know im in the minority

Don't worry, you're not alone on this. I've always thought that Super Castlevania IV was kind of wack when compared to Rondo of Blood and Bloodlines.

---

I've never played any of the 3D Castlevania games, so I don't have any strong opinions about them.

 

[Yousef Yousef]

A tie between 3 and 4, for me.

 

[Stare best girl]

1-Portrait of Ruin
2-Aria of Sorrow
3-Bloodlines
4-Rondo of Blood
5-Curse of Darkness

 

[gwardojones]

I love all of Iga's games, especially Bloodstained, but Castlevanias, Circle of the Moon is probably my favorite. It was my first, but it also was the one that made Dracula and his castle a threat. The rest of the Iga titles are really easy, love them though I do, and the last boss fights are rarely the hardest fights in the game. But Circle of the Moon felt like I was lowly human fighting my way through a little slice of hell to stop an incarnation of the Devil himself. I'll always love it for that.

Next would be Dawn of Sorrow, even though the setting and character portraits have always rubbed me the wrong way. The soul system was even better than in Aria, and I might be alone in this, but I loved drawing the sigils. It made it feel like I was a character in an anime. Fighting a tough boss like Gergoth, barely making it to the finish by a hair's breadth, then botching the sigil was such an "oh shit" moment. Feeling hopeless, but still being able to pull out the win felt like my favorite moments in every anime I grew up with. Too awesome.

My favorite classic title is probably Bloodlines. It's exciting, colorful, and the bosses are wild. That said, I haven't played a lot of the classic titles, aside from 1, 4, Bloodlines, and a little Rondo of Blood. I'm planning on playing through them all soon, but I haven't worked up the courage--even Mega Man feels like a walk in the park compared to those early NES Castlevanias.

 

[random0nonsense]

Dawn of Sorrow was the first Castlevania I ever managed to beat, so I guess that one.

 

[Fietto!]