Castlevania symphony of the night

Just get a cheap sports game and use the swap trick to play any pirated game.

It IS super easy. Even if you deliberately deny yourself overpowered gear and abilities, it's still won't challenge your reflexes or pattern recognition skill at any point unless you completely refuse to use armor and shields to only rely on dodging and doing damage with standard swords.
That being said, I personally consider it to be THE best game of all time in human history, simply because of consistency despite being experimental, haunting art style despite being weebshit, engaging and super fun gameplay despite being one of the easiest games ever made, and huge non-linearity despite being an essentially RPG-platformer.
Oh and god-tier music, consistent with locales and art style. And sound design. And fucking everything.
And if you think that game is too short, there is collectathon built in, luck mode, richter mode, axe armor mode, and maria mode in later re-releases. It's chock full of content.
And little things like being able to sit in chairs, look into spyglass, listen to fairy's singing and play game's music in CD-player with hidden bonus track in it.
Like I dunno, it's perfect. I just don't use armor and broken weapons like crissaegrim if you want decent challenge, no other game comes close to SOTN's greatness.
It's also one of very few games that does exploration right. For searching every nook and cranny you get interesting and unique items, rather than stupid shit like gold or healing potions most "exploration" games offer nowadays.

This faggot sounds like absolute hipster, but his rating is 100% spot on.
AoS heavily suffers from being GBA game.
OoE heavily suffers from being rushed or underfunded or some shit, because of insane amount of reused assets and giant empty rooms with nothing but mobs in them.

Yeah, I've heard that Konami didn't bother to print many copies of it for PAL at all. Meanwhile here in NA, they shipped plenty, and it sold well enough to get a Greatest Hits print as well.

Could be worse though. You could live in Australia and be into vidya.

You did save Richter instead of kill him, right?

Yes and no.
The OST suffers (it still has some good tracks tho) and the artstyle is obviously less elegant, however as a trade off it's EXTREMELY visually coherent, much more than SOTN, everything being 2D (i think there's a couple of rudimentary 3D effects somewhere? not sure) really benefits the look of the game, it's one "whole" visually.
Additionally the gameplay is tight as fuck.
Way more than SOTN, in my opinion.

...

You're super autistic dude.
Because lore and gameplay shouldn't really come hand in hand. Richter in SOTN has unexplained dagger dash that makes him 100% fucking invincible, travels huge distances super fast, deals bullshit damages and practically makes him a super man, since you can fly both horizontally and vertically with it. Oh and Maria is even more powerful despite the fact that Belmonts are supposed to be the strongest humans.
Oh and Julius is pathetic piece of shit, despite supposedly being the strongest Belmont ever.
Even so in DOS where he's supposedly recovered his bearings, even if you accept that he's 50+ old man, he's still too fucking pathetic.

No imagine AOS with all its consistency and lack of reused shit being made on PS1 or at least NDS. And then tell me it doesn't suffer from being confined into piece of shit that is GBA.
How DOS managed to be gigantic downgrade from AOS is beyond my comprehension. I don't even take into account shitty art style or retarded plot, game itself is a downgrade in every single aspect, except maybe the music.

i played it last year like you did and it still holds up

although i prefer Classicvania type more though

Am I the only one who loved playing as Sega Saturn maria?

I think she's included in the PSP version if i'm not mistaken.

I bet you loved god mode + bfg in doom too.

PSP version has brand new adult maria, who is basically Ryu.

There was a shit ton of cool shit related to the stuff you would have to avoid, though. Like all the item related spells, or the actual spells. It would be nice if they made it more difficult so you had a reason to use them other than cheesing through the game.

Really.
That's interesting, i need to give that version a try.
Gotta fix/change my PSP battery, it's been my "shitting" handheld for years now and the battery is so busted up at this point it dies before i can even finish a shitting session.

Oh never mind it's the other way around.
Saturn Maria fights like Ryu from street fighter.
PSP Maria fights like Rondo Maria, i.e. by summoning shit.
Both are using her adult sprites.

Well that's fucking lame, i want to punch shit.
Yet another reason why Shanoa is best girl.

I remember galamoth being the hardest boss in game, and I didn't have lightning eating bracelet or whatever on me, so he did pretty heavy damage on my ass. So I actually relied on using some broken ass combinations I had at the moment, don't really remember what. Something related to shield rod combo.

Well Alucard has a bunch of knuckle weapons, some even allow him to do special moves and even kicks. I remember you get something really early in reversed castle that allows you to go hokuto no ken on enemies.

isn't playing as richter hard mode?

To be fair saturn maria required you to memorize all her moves with no movelist and it was pretty difficult to pull off shit like hiryuu and invulnerability reliably. Would have been neat to have the option to play as that version of her in other versions.

Yeah, SOTN has some decent fist weapons, the one you're thinking of are the Jewel Knuckles.
You get the Jewel Knuckles by killing a Sword Lord in the Outer Wall, they can carry you for a decent chunk of the game, as their DPS is amazing.

AoS is definitely superior to SOTN in terms of fist weapons, it has fist weapons that have more interesting animations, you can also get Kaiser Knuckle, the best fist weapon in the game, if you play it on hard more.

No, Richter is easy mode since half of his moveset turns him into literally superman and his item clashes are all screen cleaners, except maybe for knife one.
Luck mode is considered hard mode, which it really isn't, since your stats get inflated by leveling and gear anyway.
Axe armor is considered dante must die mode, but I'm pretty sure you can still break the game with it.
Maria is some broken shit made for you to have fun by porting team, not the original devs.

I only played a bit of it, and remember her annihilating everything even more effectively than Richter.
Saturn's Richter also had edited sprite to make him look more like his portrait, I have no idea why it isn't used in PSP version.

FUCK no.
Richter is goddamn insane in SOTN, he's an one man bloodsucker exterminator army.

I thought axe armor didn't lock you into the armor, so that challenge was completely optional. It was also necessary because of how terrible the movement with the armor on was.

Also gonna post this, just because it's funny as fuck.

HH HHM HM HM HM HM YOU CAN'T HIT ME

I don't remember, wasn't axe armor mode literally the mode where you play as a mob? Or was it Alucard who could change into a mob at will?

his vampire killer does a LOT of damage in the first castle and DOUBLES in the inverted castle, he can super jump and air dash with no mana cost and his item crashes are MUCH stronger than anything alucard can get. If anything Richter is easy mode.

Saturn maria is a glass cannon that dies very fast if you don't know her moves, also she has a mana bar that fills slower than alucards and all her special moves feed off of it, even her super jump. overall I'd still say Richter is better and yeah I fucking loved his alt costume in the saturn version, bullshit how it's exclusive to that version

Change into a mob at will.

Didn't even know that existed! The other way to do it is to force yourself to remain on level 1 through cheating.

Reverse castle would be the Fist of Tulkas, which has a rapid punching move and also a hadouken.

Luck mode is front-loaded difficulty because of the random crit chance being super-common, use a fast hitting weapon and things melt pretty fast..

There's an axe armor mode in Portrait of Ruin, which requires insane grinding to even access.

Fug I somehow missed this post, it looks interesting.

/thread

OP is clearly a fagot and ought to lurk more.

Personally though my dream CV game is one where you start outside of the castle, like OOE and you can travel around Europe, dealing with the Church and other problems, before heading to the castle, which has it's rooms shift over time, some rooms being secret ones, and it's possible to encounter death early, as from a technical perspective, Death is the one who makes the monster respawn when you leave a room. The encounter would also have his bodyguards (Slogra and Gaibon) different times of day result in different monsters being out, as well as determining the strength of the monsters based on Lunar phases, and the castle is actually host to vampires (of varying types from folklore) and when you get to the castle keep, a stage like in Castlevania chronicles where you work your way through Dracula's harem, then the iconic Dracula Brides, Carmillia, succubi lilith etc… before you fight with him.

The Dracula fight itself, depends on difficulty, time of day, and how many days it's been since Castlevania appeared, triggering certain variables at certain times, and in addition, this will also determine how you kill Dracula, because if you don't have a weapon akin to the Vampire Killer Dracula shrugs off a number of ways he can be hurt, and if you kill him with such means, he may escape, or he turns into mist and fucks off elsewhere, you can kill him like this, but per canon, his resurrection comes earlier because you didn't beat him hard enough.

The hardest fight is fighting him at night during a full moon, where before you even fight him, he pretty much forces you into a boss rush as a number prior bosses are summoned into his chambers to fight, then, he does the iconic glass drink, and Throws the glass right into your fucking face at top speed, inducing the blindness condition as he then decks you. Following this, he turns the stage into that nightmarish platform shit from Dracula X and begins the usual teleportation routine, and by that I mean sometimes he does the light beam teleport, and other times after the 2-3rd hit you get in when you smack his head, he turns into mist and turns back to retaliate with a kick. he fights similar to Serios CV fighter Dracula, but the notable feature of this fight, barring difficulty of terrain and limited maneuverability is that he has 3 forms to total, though if the fight occured on the blood moon, you'd have to deal with 4. The second form is the well known werebat form, though it's been made more difficult via using the same kind of tactics Soma-Dracula uses in the bad DOS end, then his third form which is the one from SOTN giant chair demon thing, the COM one, or the one from CVIII which was that bird god thing. The 4th form is pretty much Serios 3rd form Dracula/the one in DXC where he shits all over hydro storm users and being popping Dark meggidos.

Though, theoretically the hardest Dracula fight would involve him:
After that, most of the human form is Serio tier I'd gather.

Oh my FUCKING GOD FUCK OFF.
Why the fuck do we always get the biggest autists on Holla Forums, fucking actual, RL autistic people, not even meme autists, look at this goddamn mess.

TL;DR mister Wilde?

did you go to the inverted castle?

oh I've seen that but I just assumed that was TAS.

Mecharichter is next level, it would indeed make sense that you'd think this is a TAS at first glance.

I got this when I got a the ROM from emuparadise

This one I think?
m.emuparadise.me/Sony_Playstation_ISOs/Castlevania_-_Symphony_of_the_Night_(E)/51897

Do you have any context?
Who's the voice ect ect.

Also the voice really freaked me out like some malware from the 90's

It's Alucard's voice actor.
It's just an easter egg, it happened if you put the CD into a CD player, attempting to play it like it was a music CD.
His voice would play, and then (some? i forgot if it's just some of all) of the tracks from the OST would play out.

It actually plays a secret soundtrack.

This one.

good luck against Galamoth

all you have to do is get behind him and use the dagger item crash.

He folds in a matter of seconds…

It is and should be.

Really easy, but really damn well made, and it's the first of its kind. It's pretty much fantastic in every way.

If you think it's short, it's because you will probably play it again. Try Luck Mode and Richter. Maria if you play the Saturn version.

I did it. It was hard and took a while.

I avoided using the item crashes with Richter to make things harder, but against Galamoth that barely matters. Pretty difficult no matter what.

Right, that makes sense then.

Storytime!

As you can see, this is a PlayStation black disc. Cut #1 contains computer data, so please don't play it. But you probably won't listen to me anyway, will you?
(The disc then proceeds to play a hidden music track really fucking loud)

Fist of Tulkas mah nigga. I always go straight to the inverted library and kill lions until it drops.

Game's ezpz, also started the tradition of Castlevania no longer being about the Belmonts, "they can't use the whip anymore because reasons".

I should clarify that the archive only contained an audio file no actual game data

...

Excuse me, autistic user, but would you happen to have a link to this?

Only by retards who grew up with it and are still blinded by nostalgia. Symphony of the Night was always trash and it's been superseded by just about every Metroidvania made after it.

Does it rebalance?

The only thing superseeded here is your ass.

You might be able to make that claim if Richter was the main character, but the reality is that Alucard waddles around like a snail and the transformations needed to make navigation slightly more tolerable have obnoxious animations every time and their high MP drain means you constantly shift in and out of them. Then they added in that shitty backdash mechanic to make up for the fact that movement is too slow instead of really addressing the problem.

Slow movement isn't a mistake exclusive to Symphony of the Night either, it seems to occur in quite a lot of games that attempt to ape Metroid.

The mistake that games like Demon's Crest and Symphony of the Night make when they try to translate linear action levels to an open-world structure is that they never put enough enemies in and/or increase the movement speed. The slow, deliberate speed of the classic Ghosts 'n' Goblins and Castlevania series works for them because there is always frenetic action going on with things trying to kill you and dangerous stages, and more importantly there's only one direction to move in. The problem with Igarashi's Castlevania games is it takes forever to move between said hazards, and when you have the option between different directions to go in when you're exploring, it really slows things down. The pacing is really dull most of the time as a result.

So if you're going to make a huge world to explore, it really makes said exploration more enjoyable to have a run button or something, as Super Metroid or Castlevania: Circle of the Moon did it. It makes the process of backtracking over something you've already explored quick and painless, especially if you've already sapped that area of everything interesting. What's astonishing is that Super Metroid figured this out back in 1994 but Igarashi was unable to pick up on it when he ripped the game off wholesale for Symphony of the Night.

Holy shit OP, is english your third or fourth language ?

Can confirm that even with bare fists and no items allowed the game is a pathetic joke.

Post videos

Why?

I disagree, i actually think the slow movements are intentional.
SOTN isn't meant to be (in a casual playtrough) a fast paced game, rather the pacing is moderate, the animations reflect this.

AoS perfected the pacing of SOTN by starting off more or less medium pace like SOTN is, but by the end giving you abilities to pretty much zoom trough to entire map at mach speed (Black Panther soul).
You're misunderstanding the key pacing of these games.
Again, look at AoS.
Starts off slow, but towards the end becomes fast.
I think that's the peak of the formula in terms of speed progression without casting aside the premise that initially these games are about moderate speed instead of fast.

I see it like a RE, or Onimusha game, sorta, the slower movement speed works out thematically.

All I'm getting out of phrases like "misunderstanding the pacing" and "meant to be" is that Igarashi's Metroidvanias aren't meant to be fun. Slow jogging through the exploration of a giant area full of non-threatening enemies is boring. Those fast movement abilities only ever come near the end of the game long after they were sorely needed. Circle of the Moon did it right by making sprint the very first thing in the game you come across. Super Metroid did it even more right by making a run button a fundamental game mechanic.

To prove that you're not a lying fuck.

I'm more embarrassed by your own incredulousness. It's not a claim that's hard to swallow if you've actually played through Symphony of the Night before. Are you really that bad at video games?

Best track in the game.

Gorgeous presentation, but removed everything I loved from Castlevania.

It's a good game, aesthetically. But one I'm only going to play if I want to play something that looks and sounds good.

I had to gimp myself by not using the holy water held item. That thing can pretty much lay waste to entire boss fights alone.

So you're a lying fuck.

I like how this game has lots of Tolkien references.

This. It's something I play when I want to stroll casually through some beautiful scenery with great music. It's great to wind down with.

Daily reminder that the Saturn content will never be ported to the PS1 version, including Maria or the new areas and items.

Did you go through the reverse castle? In any case, the following games fleshed out a lot of things SOTN did right. And yeah, it's still a masterpiece. Only autists complain about difficulty when it did everything else right.

kek

Reused assets wouldn't bother me if they had a lot more original content, which they mostly don't. I mean, they're a lot of cool original monsters, that's why I don't think it was underfunded. I like to think about the reused assets as tributes rather than reused for lack of budget.

It's in that romhack site. There are multiple romhacks that do that, they also remove the aura in enemies like the vampire, and that alone makes the game look 3 times better.

In the saturn version you obtain shoes that makes you run a lot faster.

I find slow jogging to be part of the exploration. What's the point on exploring if you can move at the speed of light? Yet, once you complete most of the game, you should be able to move fast and, again, the Saturn version fixed that problem.

I was never bothered by the run speed of characters in Metroidvanias. Sometimes, I wonder if the people who are have awful attention spans.

Most of it is easy. There are a few bosses near the end that can be legitimately difficult, but there are so many easy ways to break the game's difficulty that it hardly matters, unless you limit yourself from using them.
It seems like you not only got the bad ending and missed the second half of the game, but you hardly did any exploring beyond what was required to "beat" the game.

In my case it was the perspective of having played a superior game before Symphony of the Night. Played all the GBA games before I finally got around to it and when I did I was utterly unimpressed.

I've played that one. I was honestly more bothered by having to double-tap the pad every time I wanted to run over enjoying how fast you go while running.

Did it both you in Symphony of the Night? Did it bother you in Kirby games?

But it wasn't in Symphony?
In most Kirby games, you only have to press sharply on the pad to get running. Also, you're running in a straight line most of the time. Kirby's walk speed isn't as frustratingly slow as Nathan's, either.

It was a good experiment, but a shit metroidvania/classicvania

The reason that bothers me is because that should have been the normal movement speed. Also
It's shit.

Sotin isn't even in the top ten best Castlevania games. Also, it killed the amazing Classicvania formula in favour of lazy level design and imbalanced gameplay. Fuck IGA and fuck Metroid babbies.

Circle of the Moon is better than any of the IGAvanias.

Richter's sprint control in Symphony of the Night works the same.

So, what are good games like SOTN and the rest of the Metroidvanias? I'm not talking Shantae or Guacamelee. I hate the lack of weapons in those games, as collectibles, I mean, not to mention that they work more like metroid than Castlevania.
.gif is a hue game that haven't been released yet.

But reading about it I just noticed
Still, better than nothing, I guess,

That makes sense if the environments are uninspired and empty, but as long as they're atmospheric and you have something to do in them (grind/hunt for items/secrets in SotN), backtracking is pleasant. In fact you develop a kind of comfy relationship with the locale that becomes one of the most memorable and appealing experiences of the game.

I think backtracking being "bad" is a huge misconception propagated by speedrunners and lazy professional reviewers. It's a plus if the gameworld is sufficiently rich.

It's honestly amazing to me that anyone wants to ape the fucking shitty mechanics of Igarashi's games to the extent of in that GIF. Play La-Mulana.

Backtracking is best handled like it is in Super Metroid: new abilities open up ways to traverse the world much faster than before either through enhanced movement or opening up shortcuts. Symphony of the Night fails at this spectacularly in the giant slog of the upside-down castle.

Never heard of one complain about backtracking.

What about the thing with the bat form that makes you go fast?

The problem with the animal form speed special moves is they suck up MP too fast and when you run into something you revert back to human form.

I don't recall it being that big of an issue when I last played. Maybe it's because I had enhance MP regen item equipped at all times.

The streamlining of Super Metroid makes it really dull and obvious. The baroque clutter of SotN is exactly its appeal. It feels alive instead of contrived.

The squeaky-clean Miyamoto design school has completely worn out its welcome at this point. Whenever I start a game and play through an obvious hidden tutorial where I'm forced to jump on the goomba, I groan.

No it really doesn't the Saturn content is fucking trash.

It was more an action RPG than a Metroid, there was grinding, leveling, shopping, status ailments, items, armor, equipments,.
It is true that exploratory avilities such as mys, bat, echo, and wolf were MASSIVELLY underused and it'd be really cool to see them all implemented in a proper Metroidlike game.
Aside from that the game had the exploration and hidden secrets to uncover, furthermore, combat while simplistic had those magic spells that where fun to use every now and then even if some of them were kind of shitty the game, even without it's beautifull presentation is still pretty decent even if it can't even be compared to Metroid
The thing that made this a Classic in the tip of everybody's tonges is that it was a "Metroidvania" game and there was no other "metroidvania" like it besides Metroid back then
Look at the Indie market today and you'll see tons of Metroidvanias poping all over the place, that's because the genere of 2d exploration with back trackig si very popular and back when SOTN came out, it practically had no competition

Super Metroid doesn't play anything like a Miyamoto game you retard.

>Was thinking of emulating but handhelds are way comfier than PC I mostly game on PC to

Sick of this shit.

Here is a fuzzy alien demonstrating how to do something.

YAY! You figured out how to do it too! I am le clever game designer! :D 100% of our focus group figured out to walljump! Follow the fuzzy puppet! :D

Baby game for baby retards.

The magic spells are actually pretty broken, quad spirit summon and health steal in particular.

Any parents that threw away game systems are trash. That's basically like throwing away precious childhood memories.

Also just emulate user, it's not that bad.

My dad fucking hated games with a passion. I remember buying my own GBA but had no money for games I was banking hard on one of my relatives getting me games for christmas or something

So apparently you just ignored my whole post. La.Mulana is nothing like what I'm looking for. Not saying is bad, but it's not a fucking metroidvania. That term should only be used for Castlevania games with Metroid elements, since SOTN Castlevania did it's own thing and the only thing similar to metroid is just the Map.
Fuck you and your recommendation, user.

Wheter is good or not, is stupid. The extra content wasn't much, but it's extra content nonetheless, that include the ability to play with the 3 characters FROM THE BEGINNING, new weapons and 2 new areas and 2 new bosses plus some new enemies. Shit, it fills areas of the castle that should have been filles, and they were planned, you even have traces of that in the PS1 game, like the empty hole with a save room in the castle corridor or the fact that the long corridor in marble gallery would be pointless to explore otherwise.
Anyone who says that the extra content is shit is probably because they don't know runes or they never played it in the first place.

This. It borrows concepts from Metroid, but I insist that it is it's own thing.

It does. Super Metroid might be the best metroid game, but it's exactly a Miyamoto formula game.

This shit makes me so mad.

...

This only happens twice in the entire game and both times it's to demonstrate how to use a relatively advanced move that you don't even need to know to beat the game. Just to get 100% of the upgrades or do speed runs.

What the fuck is this shit? Is unironically liking the Saturn version and pretending it's good the cool new hipster in thing?
You aren't going to find a bigger Saturn fanboy than me it's my favorite console of all time, so it pains me to say this it really does but Nocturne in the Moonlight is fucking shit. It's an absolutely disgraceful port.
Some of the new bosses they added were kind of decent, and Richter is a cool novelty i'll give you that.

I'm not saying the Saturn Version is better, idiot, although it do a lot of things better than the PS1 version BECAUSE IT WASN'T RUSHED, the only problem the Saturn Version have it's that it came on Saturn. All your complains are mostly technical aspects, while shitting on the new content for some reason.
Then explain this, what the fuck is the leftover Area in the castle corridor? There was something obviously planned to be in there.
That's your personal opinion. It's better than the PSP version one, at least. Not to mention that they actually gave Richter his correct "Castle Lord" sprite.

>mom cunt: Son I gave your sega away to poor black people and I literally gave away your computer to a pawn also the computer with windows 10 that I bought using my now busted credit card is broken can you fix it :^))))))))
>Also I'm now a jobless highschool dropout.

Yeah, if you can at least do the soul steal spell reliably, your skill with the rest of the game is a moot point for at least a fair portion of the game. Its mostly an issue of being able to do them reliably, but anyone who played a lot of fighting games would probably love those spells.

Still a cool idea, and it is nice to see a game reward good technical ability with powerful attacks. Problem is that the game isn't balanced with the player using those in mind.

Think it was windows vista, same shit

Buy a PSP (or 3.60 vita, good luck) and slap some gba emulators on it. 3DS might work too, I haven't tried any emulators on it.

...

Speaking of framerates.
Did original on PS1 actually run at 60 fps or it's some emulator magic? I do remember it being fluid as shit, is this why?
Does PSP version also run at 60?

...

SOTN is one of those game changer kind of games where future sequels build off of the style of game. It is therefore outdated in some aspects because it is rendered a template in its own franchise.

Then just make an original character instead of bringing back one just to make her nothing like why she was liked in the first place.

What the shit.
Did anyone complete the game with hard mode patch? Is it legit balanced difficulty, or just "lol get fucked fgt" nonsense?

Where did you even find that?

She grew up, user, that's what happen when you grow up, not to mention the radically different art style, not to mention that since the game included Richter Maria is a logical choice.
It's not like the SOTN Maria didn't have anything in common with the original one, she just knows how to fight now, which is obvious if you were under the care of one of the greatest fighter that ever lived, and her spells are "grown" versions of her original summons. I don't get the complain, is her with better moves. Do you seriously want her to just shoot doves?

I've been meaning to play it. Are you on luck mode?

It's in the most famous romhacking site, how can you miss it?

SOTN was inferior to Super Metroid on its release and continues to be inferior, especially since it hasn't aged nearly half as well as the game it so blatantly ripped off.

...

The very fact that people even attempt to elevate SotN to the same level is disgusting.

Yes I am. Literally everything two shots me, while taking 5-10 hits to die.

By that logic, Super Metroid and Metroid "ripped off" two dozen maze exploration games on home computers. SotN evolved the formula enough to be innovative. The stat/element RPG elements alone did that.

If Castlevania copied the aesthetics of Metroid, had Richter fighting an alien, and called itself Undertale, THEN it would be a ripoff.

Try normal. That damage you take can't be good, it's a damn skeleton.

But MUH DIFFICULTY.
Also I want that 99 luck, because I remember filling item encyclopedia on normal mode was huge pain in the ass with rarer items. I'm planning to 100% this shit all over again.

Nigga just go away, make metroid thread or something. We like STON better, deal with it.

Pure cancer.

You have to think that back when it was released most console games were a 3D that was ugly, cluncky and slow as fucking shit. Most retards were obssesed with those godawful terrible jrpgs. This game was a breath of fresh air and a huge nostalgia boner at the same time

How did the addition of stats and leveling evolve the Metroid formula?

It marked the difference between it and Super Metroid.

Maybe as you collect stuff it will get better. Try using spells to wreck the skeletons. As far as I'm aware, spells were also re balanced, though. romhacking.net/hacks/psx/patches/2896readme.txt

This nigga makes it sound challenging gamefaqs.com/ps/196885-castlevania-symphony-of-the-night/faqs/30576

OP is a faggot.

Castlevania thread?
Anyone know how should I emulate SOTN? never played it, but i played all other castlevanias. The only one I haven't played.

epsxe

I'm currently emulating the original on pSX 1.13
It runs absolutely beautiful at 60 fps.
You can enable or disable dithering and screen filtering, but that's about it. It is primarily sprite-based game so I don't thing you want to increase internal resolution.

That being said PSP version that comes with rondo of blood remake has more content and like 3 different VA sets, so you might look into that. Dunno if it runs at 60 fps though.

Well to be fair the only thing I did that doesn't coincide with that guide was use spells occasionally. Still I don't think it would have been much harder. Most of the bosses in Symphony of the Night are utterly fucking retarded and barely make any effort to actually kill you. The only time you really need to put some effort in learning patterns is against Death and the 2nd Doppleganger fight (until you figure out its jump-in AI exploit).

Are the Japanese prices still reasonable? Obviously you'll miss out on the legendary english dub but you also get singing fairy and Norio Wakamoto.

Except in visuals.

Bad translation. Marsil is Laevatein, Crissaegrim is Valmanway, Ring of Varda is Skull Ring and not "the one to rule them all", etc.

Richter can sprint, and in the Saturn version Alucard can find an item that lets him do the same.

3DS wouldn't be my first pick for emulation specifically. I'd get it for DS and 3DS first and foremost. GBA is OK too if you inject to the VC "emulator".

Did they turn it into OoE hard absurdity?

I wouldn't even bother 100% unless they also added a NG+ mode. Also would've been nice if they'd kept the OP items but confined them to that.

Mednafen. and are both ZSNES-tier fags.

Well okay and Galamoth obviously. But that's a really half-assed optional boss made in a desperate attempt to say "see, this game can be hard!" I think I beat it with bat crash attacks one time.

Absurdity of OoE comes from fucking huge empty rooms with mob swarms in them.

That's exactly what luck mode is. Except you can play it right off the bat.

I think it's your shit that is znes-tier m8o.

I personally never found OoE that challenging except in the hidden areas.
They modified some of the OP items and completely removed some. They also went around in things like making Galamoth lighting not elemental so you don't cheese him with veril circle.
Although I'm about to emulate it with mednafen, I don't see how the game would benefit from it.

You're thinking that game developers back then had the same mindset than the ones right now? "Muh difficulty" autists didn't exist back then, or at least weren't as vocals, which is why SOTN is so praised.

Nah it's pretty self-evident. Galamoth is a lazily designed boss that's hard just for the sake of being hard.

No. About as far as SotN goes with "NG+" is that after you clear the game once you can buy the duplicator and find the ring of varda as a drop, plus a couple more things. But there's no true "NG+" like Aria and Dawn have where you can carry weapons and items over to a new game.

Have you played hard mode? It's especially awful on a fresh save.

By having a quality emulator of course.

Don't listen to this faggot about Mednafen. He doesn't appear to understand what bloated, plugin-based, or even NG+ is. Mednafen lacks a GUI, but is accurate and just werks.

I don't think luck mode counts as NG+, that would mean carry over your items and the such. There are "fresh start" NG+, but that doesn't really apply here.

Yeah, I think it was pretty easy still.
I actually found mednafen to be fucking shit for a lot of reasons unless you use it with retroarch and that makes the requirements for it higher.

You can add a GUI with mednaffe.

I like the game but fucking hell this tickles my autism bone.

I can agree with the sentiment that it simply had no competition at the time of release and that's why this game is looked back on so fondly, there are many games that suffer from this, Elder Scrolls is probably the most famous of these, it is nowhere near where it could be for it's niche immersive rpg subgenre, the games sell very well and no company wants to compete with it, which personally wracks my fucking brain.

I'd give more examples but then diehard fanboys would derail the thread.

In terms of UI I'd understand but the emulation side is what actually counts and it's good at that. Using it through RetroArch also doesn't push the requirements much higher unless you're using that stupid "increase internal resolution" hack that's not even in mainline Mednafen, and for good reason.

I didn't take that bait mate.

But that's wrong. The genre is Metroid-likes.

People still commonly refer to it as metroidvania, that's a term I can't agree with at all, even the fucking wikipedia page calls it metroidvania.

I don't think Metroid-like is a good name either, we don't call platformers Donkey Kongies.

But we do call cabal shooters cabal shooters and roguelikes roguelikes.

...

Metroidvania is it's own thing. It should be a fucking genre, but the faggots using the term just make metroidlikes.

The thing i, those games borrows a lot from metroid, more than they do from games like SOTN, particularly the lack of stats and swapable weapons, which is my biggest hook.

That's entirely subjective. I like grinding, leveling and stats, so it's ok for me.

Why would you emulate a game if not for at least increasing the internal resolution? You don't need to do that on SOTN, though.

I guess so, but I don't find those optimal, maybe it's because I knew the term roguelike before I knew that Rogue was a game, but I knew what Metroid was before the genre had a name.

Roguelike flows better than Metroid-like anyway, Roguelike 2 syllables, commonly written as one word, metroid-like 3 syllables, has that fucking dash in the middle.

Maybe if I say meaningful my point will be more easy, none of the RPG elements are meaningful, they add nothing to the genre itself, Metroid's item based progression and secrets rewarding players for returning to sections of the world with new equipment, meaningful.

The RPG elements are meaningful for me. Shame they aren't for you.
Also, item based progression have been done so many times before that I'm sick of it. I want RPG elements again and yet any "metroidvania" game I found follows the damn item progression bullshit.

You still rely on items to gate progression in Igavania, even though you may enjoy the grind and rpg elements these aren't core to the genre.

That's not exactly what I mean. SM allowd you to unequip upgrades, and that's cool, but at the end of the day you had 4 weapons to choose from. SOTN and the other games have a lot of weapons to choose from and their usefulness is irrelevant when your level is high, so you can use them all if you want.
It's core for a metroidvania. Otherwise it would be just metroid-like.

To play it as it originally looked, but also because nowadays you have to pay some scalping faggot for the privilege.

But item progression is a goddamn key part of Metroid! You go exploring, find upgrades to access new areas and gradually open up a big world.

I actually think the game should've ditched level-ups entirely, like how CVHD does. That is all about the items you have.

This is what I've always wanted to see too. A game where power is determined entirely by equipment.

Then play it on the actual hardware. You don't even have to buy the game, piracy is pretty easy on PS1. If all you care for is the game and not the collection aspect, buy a cheap PS1 and pirate it. I exclusively use emulators to upscale games and changing the aspect ratio.
And it's also a key part of metroidvania. I admit that maybe I didn't use the right word, but you can't deny that the item progression in Metroid and castlevania are completely different, specially when Castlevania relies in more than the items.
Castlevania HD do have a level system, I just never could figure out how it worked.

No, it's only core for igavanias, Cave Story doesn't have it, Momodora doesn't have it, my point is that if you took the genre to as minimalist as you could the grinded equipment and stats would be stripped right out, equipment/skills/ugprades that gates progression wouldn't.

Did you play Metroid yet?

Other than the stupidly pointless grind of souls in Ara of Sorrow and D of S what content wasn't gated by abilites gained through exploration or story progression and not grind, it's something you can enjoy but it's not important if you wanted to make that game, unless you are using Metroidvania as a term for games that follow Symphony of the night, in which case don't, just call it Igavania, Metroid not important here, no Metroid games use this sort of junk. and I'm using the term junk properly.

Imagine Portrait of Ruin level 1 mode with actual game balance. That's the kind of game I want to try.

Well Cave Story doesn't even play like Metroid. Only total fucking retards call that one a Metroidvania. Now La-Mulana, there's a Metroid-like.

Fair enough. And yet, haven't found a single game like it.

You can say the same about OoT Level 1 cap, though.

I was about to say that. I don't even remember how much you can backtrack in Cave Story, but I think you can backtrack a lot, not just "need", but "can".

You're not getting it, fans love the easily digestible grind of the series.

I guess it is more story gated progression over equipment, hey I haven't played that game in over a decade.

there's the upcoming Bloodstained Ritual of the Night, that's a non Castlevania game with a similar premise in terms of stat/skill/equipment grind.

Since when? Your characters can sometimes upgrade themselves (charlotte's book gets more weapons and damage as you bind spells to it for example), but your HP and other stats do not change except through equips, or through food items temporarily.

That's got its own caveats. I only have so much space for game consoles, and disc-based ones age horribly, eventually emulators will be the only way, so it's critical that the emulators are up to snuff before then. "Enhancements" are counter-productive to that goal, look how awful at N64 emulators are even today.

You mean OoE. Also that game has its own balance problems. It starts out hard, gets super-painful around Ruvas Forest and a bit onwards, but then slopes down and down as you get certain glyphs. Also the game has a needless AP mechanic.

So I tried this mednafen thing.
I played up to the same point I did in pSX and noticed some differences:
The game is rendered in weird ass windowed fullscreen mode with huge ass black borders everywhere and some real janky framerate that feel like it's sub-60.
Sound is also weird, while majority of sound effects are fine, non-dialogue voice clips, as when get hit or casting spell sound muffled for some reason.
I dunno what's so special about it, to me it seems inferior to pSX.

And even if I remove filters it still renders in this weird fucking mode.

I'm currently playing on mednafen myself and I don't have any of those problems. Try Mednaffe and tweak the options.
I upscaled the resolution, actually, so some sprites look better defined, like text. Also, I believe the black borders are the best option, since just stretching the game is shitty.

With SHIFT + F1 you can check the fps. It's running at 60-59.

I know, I really want it to be good.

Hell, you're right, I don't know what I thought it had a level system.
More than needless it's not used correctly. The AP is there to limit how much you use your glyphs, but it becomes irrelevant mid game.

...

But yeah mednaffe is pretty good.
And after getting a couple of levels and some basic equipment game returned to being walk in the park even with hard mode patch.
Nevertheless it's still the best fucking game, and I'm gonna 100% it.
I just dunno if I should stick to mednaffen or return ot pSX.

Yeah, same. I mean, sure, a damn skeleton makes 13 of damage, but it's not like they hit you a lot. I'm actually really careful this time around, so I haven't been hit by a lot of things, I guess that if you get distracted you can die.
It's your choice, it doesn't really make a lot of difference.

...

Basilard seriously breakes the game in the beginning, specially if you use it with Dark Metamorphosis.
You know, people say that soul steal it's game breaking spell, and although most spells are, I think Dark Metamorphosis can break the game in an even worst way.

AoS where I live is about $25 average still. I got my own copy for $12.

Integer scaling. You can't make a pixel 2.5x bigger without applying bilinear filtering (looks bad but maybe preferrable to letterboxing) or having varying pixel sizes per line (absolutely atrocious looking).

Also you should be using it through RetroArch.

Not hearts. AP is attribute points, basically Shanoa's proficiency with a particular element. When maxed you do 300% damage. It does take a while to get there though, maxed at 65535.

Basilard also works a treat in luck mode thanks to the rapid dealing of hits, and that they're often crits. Also what pairs even better with Dark Metamorphosis is the knife subweapon and the blood cloak, and Muramasa if you can get it early..

lol. I didn't put much time into play Richter I just figured it was a challenge mode for people who wanted something more akin to the classicvanias.

This meme really needs to die. Classicvania was dead in the water regardless, if anything IGA saved 2d Castlevania even it wasn't in a form you personally liked. Konami insisted that the franchise make the leap to 3d and the AAA Castlevania team was making Castlevania 64. IGA was only allowed to make SoTN because he said he could reuse assets from earlier games and make the game on a shoestring budget. Konami expected it would be a massive flop because 2d in 1997.
If the IGAvania's didn't exist it wouldn't bring back classicvania the only thing you would be left with are the 3d games.

This

Nah.

...

which one is the best version and why is it not translated yet?

Save the game in-game to your memory card and migrate the memory card to another emulator.

You can convert memcards between emulators? I might look into it.
What is the best PS1 emulator that isn't mednafen?

Saturn version is shit. Play either vanilla or PSP one.
I don't know if PSP version runs at 60 frames per second or not. If it doesn't, no amount of bells and whistles can compare it to the original then. If it does, it's probably the best, since you can get both jap and PS1 voice overs for it over shitty remade ones.

emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Mednafen#Memory_cards

PCSX is another accurate emulator. There's also ePSXe which should be fine for playing SotN.

I think all three of them use the same memory card format (mcr) so it should be all good.

youtube.com/watch?v=HWhcBv0RyTY

You'll have to find the memory card files and move them to the correct folder of the new emulator.

Yeah freezes don't happen with PCSX, but holy hell game looks like garbage no matter what I do with fucking plugins. It's either pixelated mosaic, like those indie shits on steam, or ugly filtered mess with diagonal lines and broken transparency, or flat out broken picture where Alucard looks different whether he's looking left or right.
I'll try epsxe now, but my hopes are pretty low, since it looks like it uses the same plugins as PCSX.

And fucking epsxe can't maintain 60 fps. On i7/gtx760.
Holy shit.

How the hell are you unable to maintain 60 FPS with ePSXe on that kind of setup? I could maintain 60 FPS on everything I wanted to play with 2006-2010 era integrated graphics and a really shitty AMD CPU, and still can now with an FX-8320E CPU and an RX 460.

Well framerate counter says it's 60, but actual movement is janky as hell. I dunno how it is called, in comparison both mednafen and pcsx show proper smooth 60 fps. With epsxe it almost looks like as if frame skipping was on or something.

Check your video-plugin settings because there is a check-box for frame skipping.

It's obviously unchecked yo, but nvm fixed my problem.

Fucking hell, it's as if I'm trying to play VTMB all over again before it got patched.
At least now it runs perfectly and doesn't freeze. If it was not for the SOTN's glory, I'd just drop this shit entirely.

it has some curious filters too

Lecarde Chronicles 2 when

Disgusting.

Makes you wonder why does it even exists. I guess demand breeds supply.
On the other hand you can sorta fine tune amount of blurriness of default bilinear filter.

The best thing about retroarch so far is its performance, it apparently works even better than stand alone mednafen.

PCSX isn't accurate, you'd only use PCSX-Rearmed on ARM devices. Just go RetroArch/Mednafen on PC.

Mednafen doesn't do good UI but it does do top quality emulation cores, a lot like bsnes.

fuck you, Konami

Am I retarded? How the fuck do I find this game?

I just don't look for it lol. It looks like shit, borrowing all the wrong elements.
Good thing about SOTN is exploration, not one move combat.
Good thing about Dark Souls is again exploration, not rolling and stamina management.
Fucking indie retards.

OoE had good combat compared to SOTN and its other derivates, but guess what exploration was complete joke.
Darks Souls 2 and 3 killed DS1's god-tier exploration as well.
I consider SOTN to be evolution from super metroid not because of shitty RPG elements or reduced platforming aspect, but because when you explore in metroid you find what? A statistical upgrades - more HP, more missiles, more bombs, whatever.
When you explore in SOTN or Dark Souls you find brand new shit with brand new functionality.
Armor that can break spikes! Rod that can cast unique spells with shields! Fucking undead summoning sword from Murkok's books!
Same for DS - unique spells, unique looking armor sets, weapons with unique movesets, it's so fucking satisfying.

Do you think that indie game will have it? No it won't. It's shit.

Not even mad you didn't answer my shit cause that Drac pic is so sick. You're probably about 1000% right. A man can dream though.

Play Valdis Story if you haven't yet.
Its exploration aspect might not be as good, but it's there and the combat is pretty good.

What is with this places fetish for OoE? Is it because of waifu bait? I always thought that game was shit compared to AoS, DoS, CotM, and even Portrait of Ruin.

Yes, waifus and elitism, because OoT is quite a bit harder than other igavanias.
It has great music and art style however.

It didn't even seem that hard. I remember breezing through it till I got to a particularly hard boss in draculas castle, and then just dropped it because I didn't feel like grinding out levels since the game up until that point was bland as fuck. The only level I remembered is a part where you walk through a sunken ship with fungus people in it, and a mansion where you find the guy on the box cover when he's all possessed and shit

You don't need to grind anything ever in that game user, prepare for git gud police.

My copy got all fucked up and I remember having to go back and forth between the town and linear levels made the game feel pretty lame. Playing with roms also never really worked for me. So there's basically no chance I'll ever look at it again, even with that shit.

Just get the psp version. Physical is way too expensive for older games unless you get lucky.

I think it is because it's a throwback to Castlevania's Gothic roots and also the last game in the 2D series.

The ending is bittersweet and is resonant with it being Iga's last game.

Okay there's also Harmony of Despair but that's just kind of a weird clusterfuck, not a proper 2Dvania.

To think 3 years ago you could import a copy for about $40. Australian. Even now you'll probably be able to do way better than whatever lunacy is being asked on eBay or Gametraders.

Play it again if you get your hands on a DS or 3DS.
It'll click for you.
You didn't understand it the first time you played it, wich is normal, i consider it the hardest metroidvania to get into and click with the pacing and overall design.
It's like a dish with a complicated taste, you gotta eat it a couple of times before you understand the appeal.

I'm no exception, the first TWO times i tried out OoE i dropped it towards the first 1/4 of the game.
Only on my third playtrough it finally clicked.

I just checked ebay, it's like $60. If they were $700 I would sell my copy for $300.

It has the best combat and the best character designs. My least favorite DS Castlevania is Dawn of Sorrow.

Couldn't say it better my fellow shit eater.

saturn version is better, you filthy sonygger

castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Koji_Igarashi

"I understand why fans who've never played the Saturn version would be interested in those features, but I really, really don't feel good about them. I couldn't put my name on that stuff and present it to Castlevania fans." - Koji Igarashi on the Saturn Version

Yes, the game designer of SotN has explicitly stated that the Saturn version is dogshit and all its extra content is dogshit.

Your response?

Nice ruse you contrarian piece of filth, but the Saturn version is trash and people have played it see and

To be fair Igarashi is a massive hack and any of his comments on game design are to be taken with a grain of salt.

I notice a tendency of talented game designers fucked over by konami being called hacks left and right.
How about you do your goddamn research before spouting shit?
Only DOS is flat out bad game and even then it has redeeming qualities like music or beautiful backgrounds.
Fuck you.

lol, is this supposed to be an argument? I've played almost all of Igarashi's games and I know his history. Everything original he's ever had a hand in has been half-assed. And no, his role in Rondo of Blood was actually quite minor. The real talent at Konami that got fucked over was the team behind the NES Contras, Gradius II, many Goemon games, Circle of the Moon, etc. Hacks like Igarashi and Kojima were the cancer.

Should have stopped here actually. You are gravely afflicted with bad taste.

You do know it's on PSN, right? And Xbox Live. You don't have either of these things?

It never was. It's not even the best Castlevania game. It's a good game but the level design is mediocre, and it gets even worse as the game progresses. The best thing about it is the soundtrack.

It's not any kind of translation at all as the terms were completely changed. A bad translation would be something like calling a "Barrier Suit" a "Varia Suit". Changing a boring Skull Ring into a more interesting Tolkien reference is good localization.

jesus christ Holla Forums really is going downhill

What can you do, it's the contrarian fad to try and fit in.
It'll pass.

Later games at least try to keep the original names, even if they had such atrocities as "Ronginus Spear". Besides I'd rather have a Norse weapon of destruction over a boring old Tolkien sword.

There's plenty you could complain about. Too many "go left" rooms of repeated baddies, a half-assed castle, terrible pattern recognition bosses, unbalanced as fuck. I generally prefer the other 2 games, Portrait is the best one.

Every time I play through Portrait of Ruin it really pisses me off how much its potential was wasted. It could have been so much better.

Bunny must die
There was also this tohou fangame that was a metroidvaina where you fought the other touhous and steal their powers ala megaman. I wish I could remember the name of that one. The game was shown off in the very first SGDQ when it was still good.

Hod wasn't even bad. It was just STON clone with richter and alucard combined into single character. Its main problem was horrible color palette that you can fix nowadays.

This is bad game design, user. I prefer the tight challenge and non-backtracking lunacy of the linear castlevanias.

This isn't the game that I am trying to remember but this really scratched the linear castlevaina itch I had. It played like looser Rondo of blood but you can float like you are in mist form from SoTN but throw projectiles that eat up your hearts. The only thing is that you get all the subweapons pretty early on.

mega.nz/#!QRQkhJjQ!Uis4xp5n353Pnodr5MFh4Ku1VND2khi3zNGwehN2Wv4