Castlevania Collection

[Ayen]

The only thing I don't like about Castlevania 64 is that you don't get the full game if you play it on easy. What's even the point of having an easy difficult, then?

[Wolf Kanno]

The only thing I don't like about Castlevania 64 is that you don't get the full game if you play it on easy. What's even the point of having an easy difficult, then?

Bloodlines did the same thing. Considering the series has a rep for being difficult, I'm not surprised. Even the Metroidvania titles did things like this with their being a Normal ending and an actual True ending that usually involves doing something counter productive during the penultimate boss fight.

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In Collection news...

I finished Castlevania Adventure and holy hell am I grateful this collection has save states because I doubt I would have the patience to beat this game without them. The game is just clunky and bad with too many choke point areas that rely on RNG more than skill to proceed unmolested. The most annoying enemy in the games are either bats or the monsters that shoot fireballs at a diagonal since there is no way to counter them effectively. Making matters worse is that Belmont's hit box is larger than his sprite so it was annoying to think an attack would slide past you or that you cleared jumping over an enemy only to have the game act like Chris is twice his size and get hit regardless. The most obnoxious part is the platforming. Chris is just too slow and his jump is more awkward thanks to the inconsistent hit box. The third stage is one giant level of being chased by spikes and trying to clear the level ASAP which is a nightmare with his sluggish controls. The only saving grace of this game's original design is that all of the bosses are complete jokes once you pick up their patterns. Even Dracula is pretty easy. I checked out Belmont's Revenge, the Game Boy sequel and that game has already fixed most of the problems from this game by making Chris's mobility on par with the NES Belmont's and bringing back sub-weapons. I'll tackle that game once I finish Dracula's Curse.

Dracula's Curse has certainly lived up to its reputation as the hardest entry in the franchise, but more importantly, it has some of the coolest design elements. I now understand why Igarashi references and emulates it so much when he became the series producer. I'm doing the Alucard route, and I'll concede that Alucard is probably the worst of the three companions. He can only use the Stop Watch as a sub-weapon which is traditionally the most useless, his other ability is to turn into a bat which is nice for clearing tricky platforming sections but it consumes hearts the longer he's in the form and he instantly transforms back if he's hit. His main mode of attack is firing off fireballs like his daddy, and you need to find weapon power ups to get the full three fireballs. These fireballs are also weak and you're often better using Trevor. The only really plus with his attack is that two of his fireballs shoot in a diagonal direction meaning he can at least attack more annoying enemies like bats and ghosts. He's also next to Trevor in the tanky department, taking less damage than Sypha and Grant are.

What's interesting about this game is that beating certain stages gives you the option to choose the following stage with multiple paths to play the game. What's really interesting is that the stages still have an interconnected feel to them. So for instance, you rescue Grant in the Clock Tower after you beat him, but the exit to Drac's castle collapses in the cutscene you obtain him. So instead of just assuming the Clock Tower is beaten and jumping you into choosing the next stage, you actually have to leave the Clock Tower just as you came in, so you have to retread your steps. Some stages also overlap and so you might end up traversing parts of other levels as an intermediary stage to reach stages with actual bosses or stage choice sections. This game is incredibly ahead of its time.

My only real beef with it at the moment is the controls for using stairs is actually far more finicky than they were in the previous two games and not hitting the button correctly will simply have any character not named Grant walk off a ledge to a cheap death. Considering the high amount of vertical stages in the early portions of this game, it amounted to about 80% of my actual deaths. This brought back a lot of memories of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls where the majority of my deaths was simply falling to my death. Overall, I'm having a blast with this game because while it's hard, it doesn't quite feel as cheap as Castlevania Adventure did.

[Wolf Kanno]

Dracula's Curse is beaten, though I may do one more playthrough to get Sypha's ending and see how badly she breaks the game. This game was pretty intense and the final stretch within Castlevania itself was pretty brutal due to some tricky platforming I often skipped thanks to Alucard's bat transformation and the sequential boss fights. The two most brutal boss battles in this part had to be the one with a spirit that summons three different bosses for you to fight in a row, and then Dracula himself who also had three phases. Outside of skipping annoying platforming sections and being a cheaper way to deal with diagonal placed enemies, Alucard was pretty useless in the fighting department for all of this.

I'll probably tackle Belmont's Revenge next before jumping into the 16-bit era Castlevania titles.

[Wolf Kanno]

Doing the Sypha route in Dracula's Curse, and I must say that I am really impressed with this entry. It may have actually unseated the original Castlevania as my favorite of the Classicvania series, though Rondo of Blood is also quite excellent as well. Sypha is the most unique of the trio in that she's the only character to get unique sub-weapons in the forms of her spells, and like the Belmont's, said sub-weapons are game changers in boss battles. She's not as clunky as I thought she would be, though she is incredibly flimsy in taking damage. If I had to give any mark against the title besides making Alucard kind of useless, it's that the game has a bad habit of recycling bosses. That spirit enemy I mentioned in my last post actually pops up earlier in her path except he only summons the Mummies and the rematch with the Cyclops in that fight. I will give props for the reworked Medusa fight. She's pretty brutal in this one since she can turn you to stone and then hit you for triple damage. The ghost ship was interesting to say the least.

On the Game Boy front, Belmont's Revenge is a massive improvement over The Castlevania Adventures. Christoper finally has the movement speed of a typical Belmont, a new slide move when going down ropes, the ability to use the Axe and Holy Water sub-weapons and he no longer loses his whip upgrades when he takes damage and instead loses them when he dies. Several returning enemies have also been significantly nerfed with bats and those fireball spewing blobs now being slower and positioned in stages with larger space to maneuver around. The game has a bit of a Mega Man vibe since it begins with you having to conquer four other themed castles before being able to enter Dracula's castle proper. This game also has a minor plot to it, with Christopher having to track down his son who has been possessed by Dracula's spirit to use the Belmont power to resurrect him this cycle, making Christoper one of only two Belmont's to face Dracula twice within their lifetimes along with Simon Belmont. Assuming you don't count the Bad Ending's to the Soma entries. The game is significantly more user-friendly at the cost of being a bit on the easy side. Course this may be due from me coming off of Dracula's Curse...

[Wolf Kanno]

Ugh, I'm on a really nasty stage in Dracula's Curse. I am starting to realize that Alucard isn't so useless since his bat form made certain sections of the game a breeze. I finally saw Sypha's ice spell though and it's pretty neat. It will actually freeze enemies and some of their projectiles at which point Sypha can strike them once to end them. I need to figure out a better way to get around a section involving stairs, the true evil of Dracula's Curse, and the fire breathing dragon skulls. I guess I should be grateful the section doesn't have Medusa Heads.

In Belmont's Revenge, I finished the Stone Castle which actually had a few interesting gimmicks going for it. Like a section where the stage goes dark and these roly poly enemies become active during this time. The trick though is that the room only goes dark if you destroy the candles in the room. The boss was also a bit tough since he had better range than I would like and two phases. When he first appears, he's a sluggish knight in heavy armor, but once he loses about 2/3rds of his health, his armor is destroyed and he turns into a speedy smurfer with air slash style attacks. Started the plant castle and this stage is already the toughest in this game. Just too many rope sections dealing with hard to hit bone throwing skeletons.

Decided to take a quick peek at the last three installments as well.

Kid Dracula - Is super adorable and plays more like a linear Mega Man than a Castlevania game seeing as Kid Drac uses fireballs to attack and the cutesy graphics are far more reminiscent o Mega Man's art style. The Frankenstein enemies with bows in their hair are my favorite.

Castlevania IV - Feels a bit over designed in some places and Simon's traditional stiff animations feel a bit awkward compared to the graphics, but even Rondo of Blood had this issue. The music is pretty snazzy though as well as the opening. Need to get used to the new whip mechanics, but they are appreciated. The game also has some funky game elements that take advantage of the Mode 7 effects as well. Fun fact: Super Castlevania IV is not an actual sequel. It's a remake/re-imagining of the original Castlevania. It is also the third version of the game and the second remake proceeded by Haunted Castle for the arcades, and followed by Castlevania Chronicles for the PC.

Bloodlines - Looks better than Castlevania IV to be honest, but CIV has the better music quality which is a damn shame because Michiru Yamane (Suikoden III and all of the Igarashi Castlevanias starting with SotN) debuted as the series composer in this one. The music is good but the quality could be better. Besides that, Bloodlines is just a bit odd in some strange ways. You collect crystals instead of hearts for sub weapons, and sub-weapons are given a dedicated button to use them. My only other gripe with the game besides the audio is that some of the bosses have poor damage cues. I guess I'm used to the games giving me more of an audio cue for when a hit lands. I had a boss in the first stage that I didn't even think I was actually hurting them because despite hitting them a bunch of times, I never got my audio cue so I kept thinking it was going to have a second stage to the fight where I can do real damage. The redesigns for some of the classic enemies are actually pretty cool such as the Fishmen.

[Wolf Kanno]

Belmont's Revenge is complete. A significant improvement over the first GB entry. This one even has a minor plot element concerning Christopher's son. The Cloud Castle, much like the Crystal Castle, felt more like a Mega Man level than a Castlevania one. In fact, the two Game Boy titles more or less feel more like a Mega Man titles overall. While the castle bosses were pretty manageable, Dracula's castle was another story. The levels were a bit easier despite a few new enemy types I could have lived without, but the bosses in these stages were ridiculous. The first one is a strange Dragon Worm that is digging through a tunnel area and you have limited chances to hit his head which is his only weak spot. He doesn't actually fight you, instead the stage scrolls left and he takes you out through collision damage which is often more painful than attacks. Took a few attempts to get that one beat. In stage two, you have a showdown with Soliel, Christopher's son, who has a mean magic sword move that hovers in the air for a bit before flying down towards you. He hits hard with his whip as well. Funny enough, his most damaging attack is simply colliding with you. This fight took quite a while to get his pattern down. Holy Water for the win.

Finally, you square off with Dracula, and he might be the most difficult version I've faced in the franchise so far. He has one lousy attack. He surrounds himself with orbs that protect him from damage, which is BS to begin with since his head is the only part of his body that takes damage. Anyway, after they float around him for a few second, he sends them flying out in a circular pattern that tries to hit you before he teleports away to another platform. His stage also has spikes, and platforms that are safe spots, but usually leave you in the pathway of his attacks. The real bitch of this fight is that he can kill you with just four hits and his shield gives him generous range. So even trying to just hit him before he erects it fully can often make you take a stray hit. Making this worse, is that he's tanky, just like his NES counterparts. So you have to practically hit him like eighteen times to finally off him and you whip projectile is useless. I imagine this fight would have been easier had I gained the Axe sub-weapon instead of the Holy Water. Anyway, I beat him by being a cheating little bitch and save scummed after every hit just because his attack pattern is a bit too hectic to dodge with consistency. Can't imagine the zen like state you would need to beat him. The ending is standard for the series but I must say that the music for this entry was quite exceptional.

In Dracula's Curse, I finally obtained Sypha's Lighting spell sub-weapon and combined with Trevor's triple cast Holy Water, these two completely decimated the bosses in Dracula's castle. I'm now on the final level and look forward to seeing how much Sypha changes things. Like seriously, Death was a handful in my first playthrough but Sypha crushed him like a bug. Likewise, I'll probably never understand how difficult the Doppelganger fight is because I've always managed to get their with triple Holy Water which just tears through that bosses health like tissue paper. If I've learned anything, the Cross is a great weapon in the Metroidvania entries, but Holy Water followed by the Axe are the real game breakers of the Classicvania series.

I may tackle Kid Dracula next just to finish off the NES entries and also because it's the most different entry.

[Wolf Kanno]

In Dracula's Curse, I whooped Drac's ass with Sypha. She's an absolute beast with her Lightning spell. Started a new file and going for the Grant ending now. I'm honestly addicted to this game.

Started Kid Dracula so I can finish off the NES entries and because it is different enough from the rest of the collection to be a bit o a palette cleanser. Very quirky game. Starts off pretty easy and then got crazy difficult in the last few stages. I'm currently trapped on the final level dealing with an annoying mid-boss who is difficult to maneuver around. The game is quite charming though and I love the cute chibi versions of classic Castlevania enemies. I also got to mee the original carnation of Golamoth whom most of you probably remember from Symphony of the Night as that massive monstrosity that can actually kill an end game Alucard. My favorite boss so far in the game was the Statue of Liberty from the New York level, which is actually a tough level but she's one of the easiest bosses because she doesn't fight you, and instead makes you play a quiz game instead. Course a lot of her questions involve the U.S. so she's actually pretty easy for me but I adored the change of pace.

Once Kid Dracula is out of the way, I'll finally try out the two Castlevania titles that taunted me throughout my childhood. Super Castlevania IV and Castlevania: Bloodlines. Overall, I've been really satisfied with this collection and I'm only truly sad because I know I'll probably never get anything this good out of Konami ever again.

[Wolf Kanno]

Kid Dracula is finished. Final boss and his level was a pain, because it was basically three boss fights and a slew of instant death traps. If the final boss killed you, you had to start the whole level over again... The ending was super cute though, especially with the Belmont reference.

Starting Super Castlevania IV which has been interesting. Definitely easier than the NES entries and the graphics are pretty nice. The controllable whip is a tad bit broken however which constitutes to why the game feels easier though it's nice to finally get the jump on Bats and Medusa Heads. The music has been pretty nice as well with a few surprising tracks that don;t feel like something you would hear within the series like the music of Stage 3. Be interesting to see what else is unique about this title.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm on Stage 6 of Super Castlevania IV and you can really tell this game was an early SNES title. They hadn't quite got the color palette down and the game abuses Mode 7 effects like nobodies business. Though to be honest, the spinning rooms have been kind of neat so far. I've been finding the levels more challenging than the bosses. There have been some really sadistic level design in places which is typical of the franchises, but the bosses are kind of all one note and not terribly memorable like their NES counterparts. It has been neat to see the introduction of a few enemies that become pretty popular in later installments such as the plant enemies, the possessed furniture, and some others. The music has been the real treat here partially due to being a little softer than usual, which combined with the drab color palette, gives the game a more spooky and eerie vibe than other entries. I think Simon's Quest was the only other entry that gave off this kind of unsettling vibe of the early installments.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well Super Castlevania IV has a similar difficulty curve as Kid Dracula. Starting off pathetically easy and then get a massive difficulty spike within the last few levels. The Clock Tower level was a pain, which is traditional of the franchise. While not the worse example, I do feel they did a good job bringing back the Mummy boss from the NES era and making his fight a bit more challenging. You fight him on the clock face and his real method of attack is simply knocking you off it rather than just wiping out your health.

The final level was a doozy as it was basically a boss gauntlet with the series introduction of Slogra and Gaibon. Gaibon wasn't too bad thanks to the whips ability to finally hit targets above Simon, but Slogra was a nightmare. He's basically a Dragoon with a very generous invincibility frames. He basically comes crashing down the ceiling and if you hit him, he jumps off screen again and tries to dragoon jump you again. The only difference after the first hit is that once he lands this time, he's immune to all damage for a few seconds which gives him plenty of time to take cheap shots at you until it wears off and the whole process starts over. Staying ducked down helps, until you break his spear and he starts using his beak to body slam you at which point his invincibility frames makes him super cheap as he can just crash down and then immediately charge you with no real way to get out of the way since Simon still moves around like his NES counterparts. Took forever to beat him.

What do you get for beating these two? You get to fight Death, and this might be one of the most difficult versions of him in the franchise. He thankfully only has one form and takes damage pretty badly unlike the tanky Slogra. But he makes up for it with lightning fast scythe projectiles, a damaging scythe swipe attack and when he throws his scythe at you you're drawn towards Death like a black hole and the collision damage hurts like hell. To make matters worse, even though he's a sitting duck after throwing the scythe outside of the annoying vacuum effect, your sub-weapons can't be used against him during this attack.

Finally it's time for Dracula, whom takes a little getting used to. He now launches one giant fireball out you in his first phase but this ball will split into three or four once it hits or in the case of trying to jump over it, it will split into three and change trajectory into the air. So the only strategy is to hit it and then hold down the attack button to keep the whip in front of Simon and hope you've got both the timing and distance right to have the whip block the smaller projectiles. His second phase has him send out a fire ball that moves erratically around the room at the same speeds as Death's mini scythes but unlike those, it doesn't home in on you and if you hit the damn thing, it will launch mini fireballs in a circular pattern before dissipating into Wall Meat which is what ultimately makes this fight the easiest of the bunch. His third phase has him create walls of fire and summon two annoying fire spirits that slowly follow you around and explode into a wall of fire when hit or collided with. This is oddly enough the hardest phase of the entire fight. He jumps back into his second phase for a bit after this, and his fourth and final phase has him teleport spamming as usual and summoning four pillars of lightning which are easy to dodge compared to their fire incarnations in Castlevania III. Overall, Super Castlevania IV is pretty neat but a game I wished I had played back in the day in order to appreciate it more. I honestly feel the NES entries were better overall. I can kind of agree with the design flaws of the more versatile whip and the fact sub-weapons just don't have any punch in this entry whereas they would make or break you in the earlier entries if you didn't have the right one. The game just felt way too easy compared to the other games I've played on this collection. I will tip my hat off to it for a great soundtrack and some cool visual effects. Honestly, Castlevania has a pretty awesome soundtrack and I love the fact that during the climatic battle with Dracula, Simon's theme will start playing when you've got him down to his last phase. Not quite as memorable as Super Metroid's finale, but Super Castlevania IV does a pretty cool attempt as well.

Now I just need to beat Bloodlines. The only trophies I need are the two remaining endings for Castlevania III, and the two endings for Bloodlines, so here's hoping I like Bloodlines enough to play through it twice with both characters.

[Wolf Kanno]

Bloodlines has been the real odd man out of this bunch next to Kid Dracula. The best I can describe it would be to say it feels slightly like a knockoff game where a different studio was making their own version of the game because it was popular, yet at the same time, the production values are way too good to be simply a knockoff. In fact, I would almost say this game was likely developed by the same team that did the Game Boy titles since it has a few minor elements in common such as collecting gems and having a third tier weapon upgrade that downgrades once you take a hit.

Visually, the game looks better than Super Castlevania IV but I much prefer the SNES MIDI sound font over the Genesis one. Most likely due to growing up with one of them over the other. If Super Castlevania IV was a game meant to take the series formula and make it more user freindly, then Bloodlines is really more about letting Sega fans experience what Castlevania really is. This game is way tougher and feels more like the NES entries just with fewer instant kill deaths. Enemy placement is sadistic. What's kind of disappointing is the smaller repertoire of sub-weapons. There seem to only be four of them: The Axe, Holy Water, Bladed Boomerang, and some strange magic bubble orb thing which is broken as all hell and seems to be a bit special on how you acquire it. Like SCIV, the sub-weapon got relegated to its own button which took a bit of getting used to and Morris can swing on objects though the game never really tells you how to do it, and unceremoniously throws you into situations where you need it. The sprite work in this game is top notch though and I find the locations and levels more interesting than SCIV. My favorite secret I discovered which ended up making me restart the game just to implement it, is that if you change the BGM and SE tests to certain ones in the options menu and hit start, whenever you get the third tier weapon upgrade, the music changes to either Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears, or Beginnings. Neat little secret and great arrangements of all three I might add.

Going back to levels. This game is pretty unique and follows Belmont's Revenge in the fact the game doesn't take place solely in Dracula's castle. Instead, the dynamic duo chase Elizabeth Batherly across Europe during WWI although you won't realize it's WWI until Stage 4, when you come across a German Munitions Factory and the skeleton enemies start wearing picklehaubes. It's been a weird game so far but still enjoyable.

[Wolf Kanno]

Bloodlines is finished, and holy hell was that an uphill battle. I haven't tried Eric Lecarde yet, but looking at the opening demo with him, I get the distinct impression this game was really made for him and not poor John Morris because Morris is just not agile enough to deal with some of the trout this game throws at you. Versallies was easily one of the worst levels with an obnoxious mini-boss placed right before the actual final boss whose sole purpose is to beat you up as much as possible before dealing with them. The final level does this annoying but visually cool trick where the screen splits into three positions to show the full stage but technically the stage is still mapped to one of them but now you can't quite tell where its safe to jump to. The next part featured the whole area being upside down which made the platforming really obnoxious and brought back sweet memories of Mega Man V's Gravity Man stage.

What awaited me was an annoying seven stage boss rush as I met up with Death who forced me to re-fight three of the game's bosses before tackling him. He was fortunately a watered down version of his SCIV fight pattern. Before I could take on Elizabeth Batherly, I had to face up against Medusa, and Batherly would have been obnoxious if I hadn't farmed crystals until I got the super homing ball sub weapon to nail her teleporting ass in place. Dracula wasn't too bad. His first form is his basic fight structure from previous games of teleporting and then launching some fireballs. His second form turns him into a mini version of Death who loves to fly around and launch fireballs at. Not too bad. His final form is some demon like creature that feels like the unholy love child between his final form from the first game and his final form from the third one. He was obnoxious and I thankfully had enough of the super homing ball attack to take out most of his health. The ending was pretty subpar for a Castlevania game, but it's apparently because the full ending is unlocked in Expert Mode.

Overall, I enjoyed Bloodlines a bit more than SCIV, but neither of them hold a candle to Rondo of Blood on the PC Engine. Ranking the Classicvania titles:

1. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
2. Rondo of Blood
3. Castlevania
4. Simon's Quest
5. Bloodlines
6. Super Castlevania IV
7. Belmont's Revenge
8. Kid Dracula
9. The Castlevania Adventure

[Wolf Kanno]

Looks like the circle is complete for the handheld entries. At least if you own a Switch.

Now if we can just get the N64 and PS2 collections, we'll be complete.

[Kimbasu]

I only own GOG.com account and Nintendo console. Because i dont like DRM games.
From little i played. Castlevania collection was ok on Steam (not that i have that anymore).
Though Castlevania 4 is the OG. Hands down the best in the series.
- Best music
- Best graphics
- Best gameplay