Thread 11921928

Is this a better Castleroid than SOTN?

>>11921928 (OP)
no, but its a great game
desu i have only played sotn and aria

>>11921928 (OP)
yes and no
it's held down by being on a shitty potato handled console
Dawn of Sorrow is what AoS should have been

>>11921928 (OP)
>no stupid and outdated subweapon system
>new ability for defeating every common foe
>better story
>better music
>better castle
It's better in every way despite what nostalgiafags will say

The entire genre is shit. Debating which flavor of shit is superior is pointless.

>>11921995
>no stupid and outdated subweapon system
How is it stupid and outdated?
>better music
Oh ok this was a bait reply. My bad.

>>11921995
>nostalgiafags
Anon Aria of Sorrow is a game from 2003

>>11922000
>Alucard can't carry salt and a knife at the same time and switch between them despite carrying a whole rpg inventory with him
Yes it's stupid carry over from the inferior games that doesn't belongs in metroidvanias
>better music
Castle Corridor mogs everything on Sotn

>>11922007
And I played all metroidvanias (and some castlevanias) around the same time around 2020s

So I'm not blindsided by nostalgia but objective facts.

SotN: unmatched atmosphere and attention to detail, excellent 2D and sound; but a pretty unpolished game—too easy, weird exploration, weird spell system, very "vanilla" combat, etc. etc., that bring it down significantly.
AoS: great atmosphere, but much less detail, terrible GBA graphics and sound; however, far more polished, way more sensible exploration, has way more stuff to do, soul system is cool (though again unpolished and broken in many ways).
DoS: by far most content and stuff to do, even more polished and not held back by hardware much, but loses horribly in atmosphere and art, to the point some people never give it a try.
You decide, honestly I think all 3 are must plays, and they all mog each other in different ways. Personally, I'd say DoS >= AoS > SotN, SotN fags generally deny any obvious flaws this game has.

>>11921928 (OP)
>Is this a better Castleroid than SOTN?
Yes kinda, except SOTN is more beautiful, a work of art.

>>11921928 (OP)
Fuck no.
Can't slash downward like in Symphony and you have to get a random soul to even divekick off a double jump, so fighting enemies is boring dogshit. That and about half of your play time is spent in water, switching between Undine and Skula.
Juste's game is better in every way. Its chip music is better than Aria's bitcrushed baby music, too.

>>11921928 (OP)
Its only memorable moment is when you're fighting Julius and he's literally bringing the castle down trying to kill Soma and then he admits that was just him holding back because he's willing to hope that Soma can break the Dracula cycle for good.

>>11921995
>no stupid and outdated subweapon system
>new ability for defeating every common foe
Soul system was an awful idea and tying it to RNG without a functional Luck stuck was retarded. Stupid ass game also forced you hunt down three missable souls and equip them all at the same time to trigger an optional boss fight and access the actual true route.

>>better story
The story is nonsense and you could axe 80% of the cast and nothing would change.

>better music
Game barely has three decent tracks and it's all programmed to sound like shit.

>better castle
Map is ass and the castle boring as fuck, there's nothing worth exploring for. Literally the only two "interesting" findables are the whip sword and cheat solais. Besides that? Pots and mind ups. It also has by far the blandest looking-castle of the three GBA games.

>>11921928 (OP)
yeah but sotn's still pretty good
the real question is this a better castletroid than aria?

>>11922324
It's more fun, not disgustingly easy and has good music, so yea.

I've never found the SotN castle to be all that great to explore, especially the inverted half that feels like a massively lazy endgame. Alucard is in some weird middle ground where his basic sword attacks are far less fun than whipping as a Belmont, and his spells are too input heavy to be worth it most of the time.
The game's claim to fame has always been the production values that make it stand out against both prior castlevanias and its handheld sequels, but for my money, CotM and AoS are superior metroidvanias.

>>11922331
>not disgustingly easy
at least until you get the old axe armor, anyway.

>>11922324
>tons of content
>fun extra modes
>two characters is actually fun
>memorable voicelines on a fucking DS game (they even fit both EN and JP voices on the cart)
>music by Yuzo Koshiro
>soulful details like gif related
Yes

>>11922507
SHALATTO!
JONNOTAN!
SHALATTO!
JONNOTAN!
SHALATTO!
JONNOTAN!
SHALATTO!
JONNOTAN!
SHALATTO!
JONNOTAN!

which one has the best waifus is the question. the answer is Portrait with the vampire twins but still

>>11921928 (OP)
Soundtrack goes harder. Every Clock Tower theme should sound like it belongs in a Judas Priest album.

>>11921928 (OP)
Largely, but it doesn't make SoTN bad.
SoTN is a bit unfocused and unpolished, but still an enjoyable game which is regarded as a classic for a reason. AoS is a much more polished and focused take on its concepts.

>>11922008
>he can't appreciate ClassicVanias
Sad, very sad!

>>11922315
The RNG isn't that bad at all, also you get one of those three souls for free after a boss, and can't not get it because you need it to progress.

You sound like you have awful tastes overall.

>>11922608
Post the twins.

>>11921928 (OP)
No. But the DS sequels Julius mode is pretty close and Portrait is even better

>>11921995
>no stupid and outdated subweapon system
Subweapons are based
>>new ability for defeating every common foe
99% are useless and only exist to pad the game with grinding for 100%
>>better story
False
>>better music
False
>>better castle
False
>It's better in every way despite what nostalgiafags will say
It came out like 5 years after Symphony, zoomer faggot

>>11921928 (OP)
Yes and it's not even close tbqhwy

>>11923452
>You sound like you have awful tastes overall.
More like I think your overrated game is bland as fuck and unremarkable, so maybe you're the one with dogshit taste

>>11922315
>>11923465
See >>11922024:
>SotN fags generally deny any obvious flaws this game has

>the rng in aos is bad
>meanwhile sotn has shitton of items locked behind even worse rng

>>11921995
Symphony obviously has better sound and graphics, beyond just fidelity, I think the music and designs are better in SotN. The castle in SotN is also more detailed and interesting.
The main thing Aria has is its souls system and does more creative stuff narratively.
Honestly a lot of igavanias just come down to the fun of exploring the castle which is done best by Symphony of the Night.

>>11923769
PoR has the best castle because it breaks from the generic and limited locations of the other games

>>11921928 (OP)
yes although the presentation and music are worse due to being a GBA game

>>11923769
>narratively
It's Castlevania though. That shit doesn't matter.

>>11921928 (OP)
Yes, it even looks better despite the resolution and the poor screen.

despite what sorrowfags say against sotn, with all the "muh polished" cope.
They do not seem to understand how lovely is to play sotn, doing a wolf+wing smash+gas cloud+downward kick mid air, is something that not even Ecclesia managed to capture with it's bouncy slingshot mechanics.

The movement in sotn is the real reason that it reigns superior to the rest of the games in terms of gameplay too.
It makes the game fun, the combat exhilarating and the exploration flow.

sotn simply mogs on all aspects all those inferior sequels/handhelds spins.
Only Portrait of Ruin and Circle of the Moon give sotn a run for it's money by trying to do some different things slightly differently. but still ultimately lose against the sotn supremacy.

>>11923748
>SotN fags
I don't like SotN very much either so your attempt at false equivalency is worthless.

>>11923775
PoR has terrible castle feel. Great for individual pieces, but the feeling of exploring an interconected castle was nearly completely destroyed.

>>11923792
>narratively
>It's Castlevania though. That shit doesn't matter.
Of course it does

>>11921928 (OP)
The actual best post-SOTN Castleroid is Blasphemous but this isn't the place for that discussion

>>11921928 (OP)
yes, sotn is boring

>>11923746
Nah, you just have bad tastes.

>>11921928 (OP)
>Is this Igavania slop better than older slop that's the same shit with a different coat of paint?
This is why circle of the moon is the best.
>Only metroid like vania with good map design
>Bosses aren't a complete joke
>Protag was deisgned to acutally look straight. The netflix freaks wouldn't touch him
>Punishes grindtards for thinking they need to have every card. You only need two and they're guaranteed drops in the starter area
>Alternate modes acutally play around with the mechanics and not just walking faster, making their shit map design even more obvious.

>>11924221
It's a thing with all igavania freaks.
Classicvania wars make sense since they all do their own weird thing. Metrovanias literally all play the same so I don't get it either

>>11924461
>Nathan Graves doesn't look like a gay fashion model
Ok.

>>11921928 (OP)
As a grown ass man and a functioning member of society, I recommend to play AoS first, then SotN if you liked AoS.

Both are great games, I do think AoS is the more polished of the two. It builds off SotN, it's just shorter in length and content.

>>11924483
Cope. Netflix was a suitable punishement for you iga lot. I can already see them making hammer gayer than he was in dawn.

>>11923452
the flame demon and succubus souls also have a higher drop rate than other souls, it's only really a problem if you're going for 100% because luck is bugged. although thankfully there is a romhack to fix that for both aria and dawn.

>>11924441
Ironic from someone with such shallow taste. Your game is mind-numbingly dull.

>>11924461
Yeah you really were not supposed to grind out all the cards in the first playthrough because otherwise getting them all from the beginning in magician mode is kind of anticlimatic. Whatever random ones you happen to get by sheer luck usually are sufficient.

But that being said, making it clear that all this shit is out there, giving you a list and then expecting you not to try and fill in the list is kind of counterintuitive. And they could have done a much better job conveying what some of the combinations actually did instead of expecting you just just try street fighter style directional inputs or getting poisoned on purpose or whatever context unlocked the entry and told you what the combo was actually good for. The system was too opaque. And some of the drop rates fucking fucked

After playing through Dracula X a bunch, I wanted more whipping, so I picked up Harmony again, been a while.
Fun game, the back and forth sliding is actually very enjoyable to use in combat, being all fast as a beast like that.

>>11924525
IMO it's only really in Dawn where the luck can get annoying, it feels like it takes 10x longer for anything to drop in that game.
But yeah, you literally do not need to 100% the games anyway, and you can get by with stuff you find anyway, there's a lot of viable equipment and souls, similar to SoTN.
You can find weapons like Mystletain lying around, and Hammer sells weapons like Ascalon, and those are literally ok for the late game.

Grinding in AoS and DoS is such a non-complaint, it suggests those people haven't actually played the game at all.

>>11923367
You're gonna have to post something as a comparison, I can't think of any Judas Priest song which sounds like the AoS Clocktower theme.

>>11924525
>it's only really a problem if you're going for 100%
It's really not. You'll have a way easier time going for 100% on New Game +, since Hard Mode combined with the Soul Eater Ring trivializes soul drop rates anyway. If you know what you're doing, you can buy the Soul Eater Ring just by selling the items that are hand-placed around the castle, and NG+ lets you acquire duplicates of these items so you still get to keep them for yourself. And lastly, the game is so short and well-paced that playing through it twice isn't that big of a deal.

>>11921928 (OP)
Probably objectively so, but SotN has that SOVL tho.

>>11924939
If this isn't soul then then I don't know what is.

>>11924927
>playing through it twice isn't that big of a deal
The underground/water area drags on too long, I don't think I could play AoS twice in a row because of that alone.

>>11921928 (OP)

In aria of sorrow, after you beat the game you can start a new game with most souls and items collected...while in symphony of the night not...wou cannot start a new game with the crissaegrim, or the dark shield or others items from the start.

So the winner is aria of sorrow.

>>11925673
Nah the underground reservoir was sick. It's perfectly placed right as the game goes into its 2nd half and it feels like you're truly delving into the castle's underbelly. The Death fight was a mid-point climax, so the reservoir starts off as a bit of a respite. However, it eventually leads you to all of the castle's darker and more mysterious areas. You don't even have to go exploring there, but if you do, it's where you find the best shit in the game. Also, the music track is perfect.

>>11921928 (OP)
I will say, as a fanfic-writing dipshit teenager when this one came out, it fueled my imagination more than any other game in the series.

I feel like it has way more world building than just about any of the other games. I loved the implication of a full on military attack on the Castle that we only get the aftermath of.

>>11925978
Yeah same here. Even today I often incorporate Aria of Sorrow's themes into my professional writing.

>>11921928 (OP)
Yes or No?
>>11899835

>>11926248
SoTN for SNES and Genesis are about as much ports of SoTN as Dracula X is of Rondo Of Blood. Less, even, since they're still just rough demos.

I wanna play Rondo, what emulator is best for TurboGrafics?

Also it was almost disappointing to see that like 75% of the TG16's library is space shooters.
Like, not to be a stick in the mud or anything, and if that's your favorite kind of game that's probably actually awesome, but I was hoping for a bit more variety, like on Genesis and SNES.
Looking at the CD games, the only ones which I wanted to try at all was Rondo Of Blood and Cho-Aniki.

>>11929092
i use mednaffe, it took a little finagling to choose the controller iirc but once you do the buttons are set just fine. alternatively you can just play it on dracula x chronicles but i think you have to unlock it ingame first

>>11929092
Whenever there is a system you don't know how to emulate, PC-Engine, Master System, Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket, Wonderswan, etc etc
the answer is always Mednafen.

>>11929704
oh and there's a translation for it out there, it's not perfect but it's pretty good
https://www.romhacking.net/translations/846/

>>11929709
I see. I commonly use ZSNES (gasp!), VisualBoyAdvance, JNES, and KegaFusion, because I started doing emulation in the late 90s and early 2000s, and I'm really set in my ways like a fucking idiot.

>>11929713
Oh, nice. Do I apply it like I'd apply a patch to other ROMs, with something like IPS, or do I use some other software for this?

>>11929713
>To make clear, this patch will translate the TurboGrafx-CD version of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood into English. Everything will be translated; even the voiced dialogue will be replaced with the official Konami English dub from Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP). However miscellaneous grunts will retain their original Japanese.
Hmm, the weeb in me would have preferred Japanese voice acting with English text, but I'll take what I can get.

>>11929092
Mesen is allegedly the most accurate one now.

>>11929412
Devil's Crush is sick

>>11921928 (OP)
SoTn is entirely carried by nostalgia and every Metroidvania after it improved the formula

>>11930282
I did make sure to grab that one, because I kinda like pinball games and the cover and screenshots looked cool.

>>11930343
SoTN is a fine game.

Almost finished up with Harmony now, and I feel like I wanna write a bit about it, and compare it to Symphony, what it does better, what it does worse, etc.

Wanna find some time and focus my thoughts.

Actually, something that I can address right now because I've completed that part, it's the fucking furniture.

What the fuck IS this? Juste finds an empty room in the castle, and having found some pieces of furniture or other trinkets around the castle, he decides to decorate the room.
Setting aside how absurd this is from a storytelling/plot perspective, it feels like this is just such an odd thing to put in a game from a gameplay perspective. There's an uncited claim on the wikia page that this was supposedly a concept intended for Symphony Of The Night, but which never made it in, and they decided to have it in Harmony Of Dissonance, but that doesn't explain anything.

It could almost feel like there was supposed to be more to this concept at some point, and then was simplified to just collecting, but at the same time it also feels like something they could have just put in for the sake of having the player gather collectibles.
In other types of games, I could see this for something like a player character's home, where they'll always have that and there's this logic to collecting furniture and items for your house, which the character will then have after the adventure is over, but in this game, presumably the room and its interior decoration vanishes together with the castle at the end, which makes it feel yet more pointless.

I guess something to start with on HoD is something to complain about. Now, I love the game still, and I enjoyed playing through it again, but I observed something about it and I really want to talk about it.

Money and loot drops.
The number one way to make money in HoD is to find one of the candles which drops big bags of money next to a doorway, so that you can go in and out of there, grinding that same candle to make money. Early on you can find one which is $100, later on you'll find one with is $250, and eventually you'll find one which is $400, and I don't just mean these values dropping sometimes from monsters, I really do mean that they drop from a candle right by a doorway so that you can go back and forth to stack coins.

You can also find gems, and you can sell those, just like in SoTN, but these are SO rare to find. There's one or two lying around which you can find, and then past that you just have the chance that maybe a monster will drop one.
This happens VERY rarely, relatively few monsters drop gems, and gems are really not that valuable either, the most priced one is the diamond, which is worth $1000, and which I got like, once, after killing the "Pixies" a bunch of times. You can make that money in the fraction of that time just grinding one of the 'moneycandles' instead, so there's not exactly a good incentive to grind for gems, they're basically just there because they were also in SoTN.

Do you really need money in HoD? Eh, not particularly, you could find enough lying around that you could buy some potions to have in reserve for bossfights, and you'd find equipment lying around which is generally useful. Would the game be harder without potions?
Sure, but it does the same thing as CoTM where save points restore HP & MP, which you can rely on just the same (and need to, because healing potions are not very useful in CoTM), and you'd get by anyway.

It's one of those aspects where HoD was maybe a bit underbaked.

More, your Luck stat apparently does NOT factor into ANY of this.
I put on gear to max my Luck during this run, hoping for more drops, Lucky Ring, Lucky Charm, even found a Rare Ring which also often wore, and so on. I thought I was getting Critical Hits fairly often because I had upped my Luck by a lot, but no, I was just getting those because I was getting them.

Wanna know what the Luck stat does in HoD? It does ONE single thing, increasing the odds that the Rare Ghost spawns in some places, one of those running away enemies you need to hurry to kill. He has a rare chance to drop a second Lucky Ring for you, which, uh, apparently you would then need to find him more often, and nothing else?
He might also drop a necklace which boosts Int, but there's so many much better ways to boost Int which don't require soulcrushing grind.

The Rare Ring apparently DOES make it more likely for Rare Drops to happen, but that's the only way you can help your odds if you want to get more drops, nothing else matters. People have the fucking gall to call the Luck busted in AoS or DoS.
To anyone interested in HoD, it's a fun game and I'll still recommend it, but you can completely ignore Luck as a stat, you don't need it for anything at all that matters.

>>11933039
I remember the merchant selling all kinds of weird gear in his late-game locations, like boots that let you double-jump endlessly in the air instead of once, and they were very pricey. Seems like money is mostly just for buying novelty items and not essentials.

>>11933039
>The number one way to make money in HoD is to find one of the candles which drops big bags of money next to a doorway, so that you can go in and out of there, grinding that same candle to make money.
A man discovers the easy mode in a RPG

>>11923751
The RNG in SotN is completely and utterly irrelevant. Only stuff like Valmanway or the Ring of Varda make a difference and that just takes you from effortlessly facerolling everything to effortlessly facerolling everything slightly faster.

Getting good souls in AoS on the other hand is the difference between the game being well-paced and fun and being a boring slog that sucks dick. The percentage drops themselves are higher, but whether you get the drops or not has a much greater impact on the game.

>>11933039
>>11933048
I dropped HoD because the map progression was horrible.

>>11933204
I agree AoS should have been better but
1) there's a patch that fixes most issues with the game
2) you're supposed to get a soul eater ring, getting 300k for it is interesting by itself, especially if you choose not to sell rare weapons
What really sucks is that without the ring, grinding for souls mid/early game is too grindy to just try them for fun. Then again, Lightning Doll + Demon / Durga / Manticore + Lubicant is that objective best combo

>>11924632
the advance game rerelease is quietly ruining a lot of people's experience of circle of the moon by having an icon that tells you which enemies drop cards
I didn't even know specific enemies drop specific cards on my original playthrough so it didn't seem possible to grind them

>>11933204
Aria is meant to be played and replayed over and over. The RNG actually helps with the replay value because every run turns out slightly different, it almost gives the game a slight roguelite quality. I played the game many times and I was always being forced to use some new souls I've never tried before. The souls also have lots of little quirks and use cases which are fun to figure out. Conversely, the RNG in SotN is so miserable that you either go out of your way to grind shit, or you don't get it at all.

>>11934672
It can be fun, yeah, though I'll say most souls are just bad. Half of the early game ones are just trash and only good for avoiding close combat. Best bullet souls are multihit, Lightning Doll / Nightmare / Legion. But Lightning Doll is the best one anyway, it hits up to 4 times and can be acquired way before others. If you want to do sequence breaks, Lightning Doll is almost essential.
Last time I tried changing things, couldn't get a Valkyrie soul for like 15 minutes. I had runs where I couldn't get Peeping Eye for 10 minutes of constant grinding or more

>>11934715
I feel like red souls are the least impactful overall. Some of them have useful properties and hitbox coverage for specific situations, but other than that it's mostly a DPS game (which may account for MP cost and recovery, if you run out).

Yellow souls provide objectively good buffs and support for other stuff, they definitely have their place, but most of them don't change the game in a more tangible way. A lot of them are just useless gimmicks as well, and the best ones are usually straightforward.

Lastly, blue souls are the most interesting in my opinion. Each one feels different to play and each one changes the way you approach the game. A surprising amount of them are super functional too, despite being unorthodox (Medusa Head is a perfect example of this). Blue souls can be a huge deal for your overall playstyle.

So overall, it would be blue > yellow > red in my opinion.

>>11921928 (OP)
no
>>11921995
>It's better in every way despite what nostalgiafags will say
Aria of sorrow is 22 years old

>>11921928 (OP)
Anything that's not Simon's Quest and Harmony of Dissonance schools SotN as far as metroidvania go. Almost every classicvania that's not a programming disaster put SotN to shame.

Igarashi himself doesn't care about making games, all he cares about is lore, continuity and visuals.

https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php?topic=10431.0

>>11935025
This so much, Overrated of the night might have been revolutionary but it not the best

>>11921928 (OP)
I say it's on equal grounds

>>11921998
Alucard's Dhampire feces, Soma's Vampire turd, or Samus' mutant log.
Take your pick, anon.

>>11922247
Damn, i noticed more people are giving HoD some love now.
I personally loved the affinity+weapon system it had

>>11935025
Of course the games under IGA's banter only started to get good when Curry took over. Also lmao at his remarks about Lament of Innocence. The part about the camera being problematic is ironic given IGA claimed they were "really cautious" about that while shiting on the N64 efforts.

>>11933048
How i hated that goblin creature, so hard to find.

>>11932175
It makes total sense for alucard to do, especially if the room was supposed to be his from the start. I think you're right on the money for it literally being intended for sotn originally.

>>11922485
>I've never found the SotN castle to be all that great to explore
Because it isn't, you're simply going back and forth long, flat corridors (it's actually even worse when they're not flat anymore) and the enemies are just fodder meant to slow you down and waste your time.

>especially the inverted half that feels like a massively lazy endgame
It's retarded and unfun on top of being lazy.

>Alucard is in some weird middle ground where his basic sword attacks are far less fun than whipping as a Belmont
Worse, the basic fist is more satisfying to use than swords.

>and his spells are too input heavy to be worth it most of the time
The spells are literally spelling out loud that all the effort they put into the game went into the wrong places.

>>11922550
It's actually
SHAROTTO
JONASAN

SHOOOTAIMU

>>11933048
>People have the fucking gall to call the Luck busted in AoS or DoS

I've always thought that was bullshit because the drop rate is identical to other games including SotN. I haven't seen any proof that the luck stat is glitched (nobody has, they just parrot that it is) but even if there is it's obvious to me it was balanced around the glitch

>>11932175
>>11933039
>>11933048
Most of the issues you're mentioning are the confirmation that what IGA was interested in when working in SotN is idiotic bloat. How much useless junk do you pick in SotN? Why are there so many items/weapons/whatnot? What's the game even trying to accomplish?

IGA wants to make another castlevania, what does he do? More pointless items to pick, more boring rooms to go through, more fodder enemies (an now every boss is a giant sitting duck waiting to be put out of his misery). The hard truth is that both SotN and HoD are mediocre games for the simple reason they are not even trying to be games beyond a shallow pretense. And what really hurts is that they're using the castlevania brand, the very opposite of trinket picking bloat.

>>11937401
>the drop rate is identical to other games including SotN
SotN's drop rates are actually much worse in practice. The drop rates for AoS's souls are much bigger than the drop rates for SotN's items, but the thing is that SotN doesn't have souls, so items ARE its soul equivalent mechanic. SotN's items amount to a lot of the game's content and they have a lot of unique mechanics, except you will never see the vast majority of that unless you go out of your way to grind. Meanwhile, AoS's soul drop rates are such that you will still get a fairly comfortable amount of souls without having to grind.

>>11933048
>>11937401
PoR and OoE do have a properly working luck system, and so does CotM. The trade off in AoS/DoS is that the base drop rates are more tolerable and that accessories like the Rare Ring, Gold Ring and Soul Eater ring actually do what they say they do (as their effects occur at the end of luck formula).

>>11937743
>SotN's drop rates are actually much worse in practice
I tried to farm for the heaven sword once (never again, not like I'll bother with SotN anymore to begin with). It took 60-90 minutes and some 1200 kills to get it. This was by far the worst drop rate of any Castlevania game I've played.

>>11921928 (OP)
is this as same-y as aria? i stopped rifht before the castle to save the rest of the villagers and i kinda got sick of it

>>11939258
>is this as same-y as aria
anon...

>>11929092

Retroarch as always. Beetle PCE Fast core

>>11921928 (OP)
No, but Dawn of Sorrow is.

>>11939827
Why use the fast core if you can run the more accurate non-fast at full speed?
Retroarch even tells you to use the non-fast one if possible

>>11939841
Subhuman taste

SOTN is overrated.
-Drop rates are garbage and yet that is entire basis of the rpg system
-The inverted castle is one of the most laziest shit done in any video game. It completely ruins the game.
-Sub weapons were never balanced and most of them are pure shit or gimmicky.
If SOTN had a single castle made harder and with a better drop system it would have been perfect.

>>11939956
>Why use the fast core if you can run the more accurate non-fast at full speed?
For example with Rondo, the fast version core will instant all loading times and won't error on start when using the faintest overclock.

>>11940218
>-Sub weapons were never balanced and most of them are pure shit or gimmicky.
The ENTIRE game isn't balanced and is just about gimmicky stuff.

>>11940278
Anon, the Fast in there means it performs faster in terms of hardware requirements, not faster loading times. It's intended to be used on lower-spec hardware or if you want a less taxing emulator.

>>11940528
>Anon, the Fast in there means it performs faster in terms of hardware requirements, not faster loading times
No you don't get it, I'm not talking about the branding, I'm talking about my personal experience using both cores. The fast core allows benefits the more accurate one can't, at least on Rondo.

>>11940218
Item drops are absolutely not the "entire basis" of SotN. They're completely fucking irrelevant. If no items dropped from any enemies in the entire game it would make zero difference. Where the fuck are people getting this from?

You're right about the sub-weapons though

>>11937752
OoE doesn't have a proper Defense system and you don't take less damage the more level up you do or use armors so it's a painful experience and also it was a sour note to end the IGAvanias

>>11940218
>-The inverted castle is one of the most laziest shit done in any video game.
yeah...i did my first playthrough of it a couple months ago. while the normal castle felt fun (but easy), the inverted castle was a massive difficulty spike out of nowhere. it wasn't hard, but more annoying. i kinda dropped it a few save rooms in from boredom.

is it even worth completely clearing? i kinda feel like trying out Aria of Sorrow

>>11942163
I don't really like most of the IGA-produced games, so for me it was all like whatever at that point.

>>11941023
You can speed up the loading CD times on both cores, Anon.

>>11942324
You still don't get it (or simply refuse to), I actually compared them with similar settings, there's a difference.

>>11921982
>it's held down by being on a shitty potato handled console

This. The GBA games should have been on home consoles (or ideally PC) at the time.
AoS and HoD in particular are excellent games but genuinelly held down by the console limitations in different areas and could easily surpass SoTN they were on a more powerful platforms.
CotM is good too but I can't blame it's issues entirelly on the GBA.

And to be fair, the same applies to the DS games. Better than the GBA games but held down.

>>11942413
You could try to illustrate your point, Anon. Like posting some footage showing your settings on both cores.

>>11942423
>AoS and HoD in particular are excellent games
Please.

>>11940218
>-Drop rates are garbage and yet that is entire basis of the rpg system
Bullshit. The drop system is just a minor feature to give some variaty and replayability to the game.
Unless you're autistic want to minimax and get the absolute best gear every single run, you can completely ignore the drop system. The game already makes you overpowered with the weapons laying around in the ground.

>-The inverted castle is one of the most laziest shit done in any video game. It completely ruins the game.
It's only lazy for today's standards. For the time it was revolutionary and as long as it's the only game that does it, it's okay.
As a matter of fact I even welcome another inverted castle as long as it's done better. The concept itself is genius and makes sense from a "supernatural" lore point of view (ask /x/ for more details).

>-Sub weapons were never balanced and most of them are pure shit or gimmicky.
Again, it was the first "metroidvania" and they kept old mechanics. But the game gives the player so many options that you can just completely ignore the sub-weapons.

>>11942439
It boils down to more accurate + overclock = no good.

>>11942456
>It's only lazy for today's standards. For the time it was revolutionary
The reverse castle has always been lazy. The normal castle's level layouts weren't designed to be functional upside down to begin with, which is why the reverse castle plays like absolute shit. Half of it is literally flat ceilings and the other half is awkward ledges that are 2 pixels too high to be jumped to. The "fuck you, fly anywhere" abilities are the only reason it's playable at all. It's lazy, it's entirely unearned and it's not clever.
>it was the first "metroidvania"
Fucking retard lol. You can stop posting now.

>>11942456
>to give some variaty and replayability to the game
What replayability? The game is boring as sin because the contents suck.
>The game already makes you overpowered with the weapons laying around in the ground
See.

>It's only lazy for today's standards. For the time it was revolutionary and as long as it's the only game that does it, it's okay.
It was lazy back then. The game is underdesigned, the inverted castle makes it obvious the castle wasn't made to be inverted and they only rolled with it because you had the ability to fly anywhere.

>For the time it was revolutionary and as long as it's the only game that does it, it's okay
It's not okay "because it's the only game that does it", it was a terrible idea which is why no one else bothered to do it again, meaning it wasn't revolutionary at all. Taking a room and mindlessly flipping it upside down is not game design.

>it was the first "metroidvania" and they kept old mechanics
The subweapons are meant to have purpose, the original games are designed around them. SC4 already dropped the ball there, but in SotN is just goes to show how little thought went into game design.

>the game gives the player so many options that you can just completely ignore the sub-weapons
SotN is a game that commits to nothing, it has no direction, things are there without game design in mind, the devs weren't making a game, they were making a world.

>>11942590
Not the overclock feature, the CD speed multiplier.

>>11944379
You're doing it on purpose at this point.

>>11944410
You need to calm down and breathe

>>11921928 (OP)
No, but it's better than SCV4 and the Julius mode of its sequel is better than CV3

>>11922324
Portrait is the best Metroidvania, period, and it's up there with Rondo for best Castlevania

>>11923748
The only redeeming factor of the Sorrow games is that you can play as Alucard and kill Soma. And Portrait shits all over both

>>11944846
Portrait is a terrible metroidvania with a a few really great bosses.

>>11922324
>the real question is this a better castletroid than aria?

The real question is, portrait is retro?

>>11921928 (OP)
i think it is
SotN is just too damn easy for its own good
aria isnt super challenging or anything, but its got more than SotN

>>11921928 (OP)
Can I just get a top 10 must-have souls for this game? started playing and much like sotn, the first half is easy as shit but then has a massive difficulty spike. started looking around at playthroughs and realize people are using abilities i have no idea about. i don't really like the idea of having to grind to get the souls you want but whatever.

>>11921928 (OP)
Yes, Aria of Sorrow is a better Willyvania.
You can say that SotN got better graphics and music, but AoS definitely got a better gameplay making it simply more fun to play.

>>11947059
>the first half is easy as shit but then has a massive difficulty spike
The only difficulty spike in the game is the boss fight against death halfway into the game. Then difficulty immediately deflates back.

>>11947313

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp9KOvUMUlg

what are the metroid style castlevania games worth playing? just beat SoTN for the first time and loved the art direction (music/atmosphere/graphics) and secrets but the gameplay and story/characters were kinda meh, what are other good ones?

>>11947763
Aria of Sorrow is often considered the best one

>>11944857
>Good games are… le bad
Ok nigger

>>11922008
>Castle corridor beats everything on SOTN
This is simply not true, Aria has good tracks like Forbidden Area, Top Floor and Hakuba Mina theme but none of them can be compared to the PS1 quality of Marble Gallery, Alucard theme, Dance of Pales, Festival of Servants, Requiem of the Gods and Crystal Teardrop.

>>11948146
AoS Clock Tower mogs them all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEdgubvviYk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0FAcqOpaIk

>>11947895
>le
>nigger
>>>/reddit/

>>11948315
No and less so with such crappy arrangement featured in the game.
https://youtu.be/NghLzqetGdI

I must say, there certainly is a diversity of opinions in this thread. Outspoken love, caustic hate, and for all kinds of different titles (including directly comparing a ClassicVania to a MetroidVania). Guess it goes to show that there's some variety and that there's a lot of different things to love in this series.

Personally, I haven't played every single Castlevania, and the only one I have REALLY disliked at all is Castlevania Legends. Sonia Belmont has a nice 90s anime look to her design, but her game just isn't any fun, it's a real drag. I don't love Simon's Quest, but it still has some very nice graphics and music to it, along with at least some good conceptual ideas, even if the execution is lukewarm, so I like it more than Legends.

>Symphony Of The Night
>Circle Of The Moon
>Harmony Of Dissonance
>Aria Of Sorrow
>Dawn Of Sorrow
>Order Of Ecclesia
I have played all of these MetroidVanias/IGAvanias, and I like all of them. Some more than others, and there's various ways I can compare them in what they do better than each other, though I never feel that these can be compared closely to the ClassicVanias due to how different they play.

Of the ClassicVanias, I could flip a coin between Super Castlevania and Dracula X for my favorites, which probably isn't a popular opinion, but I've also yet to play Rondo Of Blood, or Dracula's Curse.

>>11947510
Depends on if you play a new game on hardmode or not, which is what I prefer doing. It's not unbearable or anything, but it definitely starts ramping up by that part, healing items only help somewhat.

>>11947059
Lightning Doll and Valkyrie are good for their damage and reach, and you can get Valkyrie relatively early on.

For weapons, the Broad Sword and Katana are also good in the early game, doing nice damage and having a helpful swinging arc. You can also get the Whip Sword early on too, it doesn't have that kind of arc, but instead it has a nice horizontal reach and has decent speed.

>>11948413
Castlevania 64 was strange and esoteric but i loved it

>>11940218
>drop rates are garbage and yet that is entire basis of the rpg system
They're fine, you don't need anything that monsters drop.

>The inverted castle is one of the most laziest shit done in any video game. It completely ruins the game.
It's slightly underbaked maybe, but it's cool that they put such a big secret in the game.

>Sub weapons were never balanced and most of them are pure shit or gimmicky.
The old subweapons behave like they used to, ergo they're good, the Axe remains highly useful.

Aguni does nice thunderzaps, if you hold down attack after the first hit connects it will continue zapping for rapid damage. High cost in hearts but well worth it.

Rebounding Stone is kinda gimmicky, in that it's not that good in open spaces, but it shreds in hallways where it gets to deflect constantly. Playing as Richter, you get to do a lot more damage with it too (all subweapons do more damage).

Bibuti is the actually worthless one, because it's just a more awkward repeat of the Holy Water.

>>11948582
Death is the only wall you'll face in the game.

>>11934949
I remember when AoS was new, phenomenal game.

>>11933151
Pretty much. By the time you can buy those funny shoes, you have no actual need for them, they're just kind of there because. I do appreciate that kind of thing, just adding novelty gear for fun, and it's in line with SoTN featuring tons of equipment to play with.

>>11933192
Both SoTN and AoS handle money better here. You could grind for money/gems to get the shit you need in SoTN but you don't really have to, you'll occasionally find gems in places which you can sell to get enough for useful stuff.
In AoS, there's no gems like that, but just about any item in the game can be sold, so if you find a weapon or something which you're just not gonna use, you can sell it and buy something else with it.
It's also for the better than the later games don't let you stack 99 healing potions, 9 is already very plentiful, and it's a better balance to be able to carry up to 9 decent healing potions, instead of 99 shit ones (CoTM), or way too many at 99 decent ones like in HoD.
SoTN requiring time to use healing is a more balanced approach by far, it's just that equipping them like they're weapons is needlessly clunky, the lack of instant healing is the important part.

HoD placing big bags of money by doorways so you can quickly grind them feels like it's by design, and not like calculated design, but more like just a slapdash approach or bandaid solution without having thought about the dynamic very much.
The fact that Luck does not affect drops at all (neither for money nor for jewels), I feel is part of this. It's like they were running a bit too tight on time, yet the game is overall pretty well put together and good, so I suppose that they ultimately made the right priorities after all.

>>11948413
I think discussing entries within a series like this puts a large magnifying glass on things. Blowing up and dissecting tiny minutia can be a good thing, but if you zoom out, I think the vast majority of people can agree that even the entries they criticize are at least good games. Castlevania is just consistently good, period. For me personally, Super Castlevania IV is among of my least favorite classicvanias, and I shit on it a lot, but I still think it's a fine game. It's just that the others are great games.

>>11948643
>It's slightly underbaked
The inverted castle is not "slightly underbaked", it's fucking raw.

>but it's cool that they put such a big secret in the game
It's only cool until you actually start navigating it.

>>11921928 (OP)
>>11921928 (OP)
>>11921928 (OP)

>YOU MUST LEVEL UP TO KILL DRACULA

Fuck that gay shit.

>>11922024
>DoS: by far most content and stuff to do, even more polished and not held back by hardware much, but loses horribly in atmosphere and art, to the point some people never give it a try.
The PC collection isn't a bad deal when on sale for those who have a curiosity and don't want to pirate. Plus it has Shanoa's game which I really like but no one talks about.

>>11945462
It's not, and neither is OoE, but even non-retro places don't really talk about them even though they're good games.

>>11948859
>instead of 99 shit ones (CoTM)
CotM has five different healing consumables. It's also fine there because CotM has no shop system so you can't buy infinite items.

>>11950258
These five, but yeah they look cute.

>>11949956
You talk as if you need to grind, you don't.

>>11950209
>>11950258
Yes, they exist, but you talk as if they're really available.

If you really want to, you can grind for the basic healing potion, which is weak as shit and just barely useful in the early game. The better healing potion is more helpful, but it's only dropped by very high level enemies in the late game. You could grind for those, but that takes even more time, and it's going to overlevel you.

Dracula is pretty damn tough in CoTM, but you can do him without grinding for levels or potions, so overall it feels like they didn't think about usable items very much.
It's kind of better than HoD letting you buy and carry shitloads of potions for instant healing and which are actually useful (which is too easy), yet at the same time kind of worse because healing potions just aren't something you can depend on in CoTM, they could just as well have removed them from the game.

>>11950261
Wow, only now, 25 years after getting the game, do I learn that there exists a full healing potion in CoTM, I have never seen that thing before.

>>11950334
>you talk as if they're really available.
I literally said you can buy them infinitely. Since they are only rare item drops, it's fine to not cap the item limit.

>yet at the same time kind of worse because healing potions just aren't something you can depend on in CoTM
It's good because it forces you to actually get good instead of standing in front of the boss and consuming potions when your health bar drops. They exist as a clutch you need to save and use wisely/with caution.

>>11950334
>you talk as if they're really available.
I literally said you can't buy them infinitely. Since they are only rare item drops, it's fine to not cap the item limit.

>yet at the same time kind of worse because healing potions just aren't something you can depend on in CoTM
It's good because it forces you to actually get good instead of standing in front of the boss and consuming potions when your health bar drops. They exist as a clutch you need to save and use wisely/with caution.

>>11950334
>>11950360
Items in CotM are there to rely on in Thief Mode anyway.

>>11950334
>yet at the same time kind of worse because healing potions just aren't something you can depend on in CoTM, they could just as well have removed them from the game
CotM has multiple modes for a reason.

>>11948342
AoS doing the mogging.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPuLrQSGU2E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y49Zj1glD8Y&list=PLFei0o9npcoC7t9Eielt4YAl7cyEK0_VH&index=7

>>11950360
>It's good because it forces you to actually get good instead of standing in front of the boss and consuming potions when your health bar drops.
Sure.

>They exist as a clutch you need to save and use wisely/with caution.
Except you would be extremely unlikely to have any to work with without grinding and metaknowledge.

>>11950385
How's Thief Mode? I only ever managed to unlock Magician.

>>11950595
>How's Thief Mode?
My personal favorite.

>>11924632
>giving you a list and then expecting you not to try and fill in the list is kind of counterintuitive.
this isn't the problem as much as there's no coherent way you can engage with the system that isn't completionist grinding. if you just play the game as intended you're only going to get a handful of random gimmicks and just be better of setting the 25%damage boost and forgetting about the system entirely. there should have been away to target and build around a niche.

>>11950595
>How's Thief Mode?
You get a TON of drops due to high luck stat.
Basically, you barely have to farm anything. This comes at a cost of being otherwise weak in the beginning, but it's nothing you can't fix.

>>11950810
Aaah, so it's like Luck Mode in SoTN. That sounds fun actually.

>>11950948
>it's like Luck Mode in SoTN
SotN luck mode was retarded.

>>11950446
>Except you would be extremely unlikely to have any to work with without grinding and metaknowledge.
You just use the weaker ones at the beginning and save the more powerful ones for later on...?

>>11950975
It's fun.

>>11951003
You would be lucky to stumble upon more than 300hp worth of healing items in a blind run of CoTM (ergo almost nothing), it's EXTREMELY stingy with drops for restorative items.

Thankfully, you don't really need them.

>>11949956
>he needs to grind to beat Dracula
top lel

>>11932143
Before I was so rudely interrupted by my fag-ass ISP, and while I still have Harmony fresh in my mind, I want to talk about how much I like how the game looks and sounds.

HoD has a very strong and saturated palette with a lot of contrast, as a way to compensate for the GBA's then lack of a lit screen. Some may call this garish, but I think it's gorgeous and distinct, it almost feels like the strong colors of old NES games but with modern shading, and it helps provide a lot of variety. I may generally like AoS more, but many of its locales are a bit plain and grounded, whereas HoD gets vivid with more than just its colors, it feels very otherworldly, particularly with the Room Of Illusions and Skeleton Caves.

HoD has a LOT of cool background detail, with many rooms having cool and distinct designs which you will then just not see anywhere but one place, and what's more is that there'll be two versions of it, thanks to the two different castles, so you'll get a more sinister and dilapidated version of it which looks gothic and gnarly as hell, I love this.
The sharp colors and contrast is maybe a bit harsh on the eyes in some senses, but that's just adds to surrealism and particularly hostile atmosphere.

HoD does not have very high definition sound samples for its music, but the compositions are excellent, and I've honestly grown to love the abrasive nature of the rough samples, they fit the abrasiveness of the visuals very well.

>>11953805
>I may generally like AoS more, but many of its locales are a bit plain and grounded, whereas HoD gets vivid with more than just its colors
AoS has the blandest castle of the GBA trilogy. HoD has a few very gorgeous rooms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-A1NWI5Y1U&list=PLCBFCB11FD122D30C

>>11953892
I like it better than CoTM's castle, which has an appeal in how it feels unbelievably massive, but with any given area, most of the rooms and hallways look largely the same, and I feel there isn't always enough visual variety or gameplay variety to make this scale feel worth it. HoD and AoS have smaller feeling castles, AoS makes better use out of smaller space, while HoD makes its castle double in size, akin to SoTN but with much more difference and new variety.

If there's something I like about CoTM though it's that there's LOTS of secret areas, though most of them also aren't too terribly interesting, usually being just single room or small area where there's a HP, MP, or Heart upgrade. Those do add up though.

Solution for playing a Hard Mode new game in Dawn Of Sorrow, use a Save Editor to edit your savefile so that it's set to Hard Mode.
Unfortunate that it's necessary, but there it is.

Also, I forgot that the purple spear knights in Dawn Of Sorrow will sometimes throw their spear at you... and then they don't have a spear anymore so they start shimmying away.

>>11921928 (OP)
is there anything else to do in this after the chaotic world ending (besides 100% all souls)? is doing a playthrough with julius worth it?

>>11954059
you can get the boss rush items. julius mode is about a half hour, may as well play it. fighting through the bosses powers him up. apart from that, there's also hard mode, no use mode where you can't use items, and no soul mode where you can't use souls that aren't mandatory for progression (except for tsuchinoko oddly).

>>11954059
As a kid it was fun to play around with souls and equipment in New Game plus, but these days I feel basically satisfied after clearing it on a Hard Mode new game.

Julius Mode is different, but it's really just a throw-in because there's no real progression. You've got all your movement abilities to get around at the start, so you can go basically anywhere right away, but there's no items or conventional leveling, so there's no point to go around exploring.
The goal of Julius Mode is to go and kill all of the bosses, and you get powered up some for each boss, then you go and kill Graham, and that's it.

Julius Mode was more elaborate in Dawn Of Sorrow, because you get three characters to switch between like back in Castlevania 3 : Dracula's Curse, and it plays as an alternate continuity.

>>11954072
oh and hard mode has some exclusive equipment, but honestly they're not that useful. the death scythe is great for graham's third phase though, you can hit him while ducking to completely avoid the hands.

>>11954157
You can do that with a number of the longer swinging weapons, like for instance the Osafune sword.

>>11921928 (OP)
Lacks some of the charm with how varied the assets in SotN were but other than that it is certainly one of the best ones.

>>11954562
Kinda does, SoTN had some particularly grandiose locales, like the Chapel for instance. AoS's chapel is alright, but it can't really compare.
Playing DoS right after completing AoS, I do want to say that DoS makes some significant improvements here and there.

>>11954157
Death's equipment, or at least the scythe, increases the soul drop rate

>>11921928 (OP)
>>11921934
Its a piece of shit on a notoriously crap handheld.

>>11954673
Barely any at all, the Luck stat in AoS and DoS does do more than it does in HoD, but in practice it's not enough of a difference to make a difference. If i recall the math right, the highest possible Luck Stat possible, with max level (99), most Luck boosting gear, Luck boosting souls, even the temporary Luck boost from the Sky Fish soul, you don't even break a +2% increase in chance.

The items which make a tangible difference is the Rare Ring and the Soul Eater Ring, they will increase drop rates for items and souls respectively.

>>11954674
Cope and seethe.

>>11953964
Underrated post. So fucking dumb you can't simply start a new game on hard from scratch.

>>11953964
>Dawn Of Sorrow,

To play Dawn of sorrow? you mean to deal with those annoying magic seal every boss battle? no thanks. I have it in Steam and those magic seal were a pain and after beating it i never played it again. Too bad they did not put a option to disable the magic seals, so they can go in automatic.

>>11954775
There's a bunch of patches that remove touch screen functions for the DoS rom.

>>11954779
On Steam? where?

>>11954782
https://www.nexusmods.com/castlevaniadominuscollection/mods/16
https://www.nexusmods.com/castlevaniadominuscollection/mods/13
https://www.nexusmods.com/castlevaniadominuscollection/mods/14
https://www.nexusmods.com/castlevaniadominuscollection/mods/7

>>11954775
>To play Dawn of sorrow? you mean to deal with those annoying magic seal every boss battle?
There's various patches to remove that from the ROM file, and I think there's even one for the Steam version.

I tolerated those seals back in the day, but only begrudgingly, and I'm so glad I can play the game without them, they were such "roadbumps" for enjoying the game.

yadayada not retro i know but can we talk about this game anyway? just finished it and it's real good for the most part. loved the combat what with how they brought back and improved upon dual wielding (although it seems you can't combo with two different glyph types, not that you'd really want to what with weaknesses/resistances being more important than usual). the bosses especially were great (eligor particularly is dope) if hard, but i feel like they should've put the crab boss later (maybe wallman in his place?), because i hit him for five minutes before looking up how to beat his last phase, wasn't expecting some to be more puzzley. although i think it worked in the final fight, but maybe i'm just saying that because i don't want to dodge the fucking homing rain attack in dracula's monster form. rest of his attacks are reasonable but i don't get what they expect you to do there other than fly over him and pray.

speaking of, the story was decent if a bit obvious but y'know how albus is the first boss with a glyph? so i was expecting that to be the last dominus glyph and you have to absorb it off him to save him, so instead of doing that i beat him normally to get the bad ending. turns out that was just a totally different glyph actually, i did reset and get it though considering they let me save but it's fucked up how you actually have to kill him for a change when he literally did nothing wrong apart from the villager kidnappings, even there somewhat. not as fucked up as the actual bad ending at least. oh on that note i don't like how half the sidequests are just "get this item from a rare treasure chest in one of the areas or farm it off an enemy" but other than that, the village is pretty comfy.

>>11921928 (OP)
All I remember is anime high schoolers. Fucking gay weeb game.

I think Circle of the Moon is a pretty cool guy. Eh whips and doesn't afraid of anything.

>>11957095
That's a nice gay highschooler in your picture.

>>11957205
Play through the first 30 minutes of Aria of Sorrow and then come back. It's made for japanese 12 year olds.
Weeb shit.

Praise Jesus!
Kyrie Eleison!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BROhaM0hrQ8

>>11957245
I have played all three GBAvanias extensively, and I am of the opinion that they are generally successively better with each installment, but also that they differ enough from each other in style and execution that it's easy to see why some would like one much more than the others and maybe also dislike some.

Your complaint is mostly gay and retarded, because Castlevania has been very big on prettyboy protagonists ever since Symphony at the very latest, and that Alucard, Nathan, Juste, and Soma, are all some variety of pretty boy.
Nathan is just a little less bishounen, but he still looks like he isn't old enough to grow proper facial hair, and like he's maybe only a few years older than Soma.

Nathan also has a comparatively more anime look than Soma does in AoS, where all the portraits were painted by Kojima.
If you were talking about DoS I could at least sort of see your complaint.

>>11957245
>It's made for japanese 12 year olds.
As opposed to all the other Castlevania games?

>>11957264
So let's put them on the faggot-o-meter. A zero is Duke Nukem paying strippers and saving chicks - and a ten is you sucking your grand pappys dick behind the gas station, like you did last Friday.

Castlevania 1: 3
Castlevania 2: Somewhere between 2 - 4
Circle of the Moon: 5
Aria of sorrow: between 7 - 9

Fill in with data from your own gaydar. And if you'd like to, add some DS Castlevania games as well.

>>11957308
personally i'd give a 10 to the guy shitting up a castlevania thread with discussions of sodomy who also saves images of progressivist fanfiction to his computer, but that's just me.

>>11934715
The balore soul and the giant yellow skeleton among the best souls? what a joke. In fact, they are very bad. The demon lord one and the valkirye one deserved those positions.

>>11921995
>better music
lol no

>>11957331
I just googled "castlevania gay" and found it. There were LOADS of pictures. I wonder why.

>>11957514
Balore costs a lot of MP, but it's extremely strong and can one shot a lot of stuff. Yellow skeleton can multi hit. Valkyrie would be ok, but it's slow and actually grinding it can be a pain, I forget if it can multi hit. Demon Lord… Which one do you mean, the purple demon? I forget what it does, but anyway it's very late in the game and by this point you have lots of stuff that can outclass it.
This is for red souls only just in case