It’s funny that 1989 also saw the release of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap. That game feels much more like a successor to Castlevania II than Konami’s own attempt.
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the nuance here is i just think that this was the right decision and as a result cv3 is amazing. they could have doubled down on cv2 and it is possible we wouldn’t be talking about cv in that timeline, ya know?
my last thought about this is how is making a sequel to cv2 more inspired than making a sequel to cv1
i guess i’m imagining the space where they never followed up cv1 and just made increasingly more cv2-ish stuff and idk, i the only real way to avoid that form of creative retreat (which for my money would apply equally to an attempt to follow up cv2) so to speak might be to actually entirely discard cv2 and do something innovative again
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It was definitely the right choice, but I’m still disappointed by it.
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it (cv2) does rule
i need to make more progress in cv2, i’ve not been able to get particularly deep yet
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That’s a great point. In my mind they didn’t need to make an enhanced version of the first game because the first game is already a perfect version of itself. The sequel has an air of unrealized potential that I wish had been explored. Almost no other Castlevania game is like it* but many are like the first.
*Ecclesia shares the most DNA I think
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you can view it that way, but i think the way i view it is cv2 is a legitimate experiment* and observing the results of that experiment allowed cv to be refined into something really excellent (i love all of rondo, bloodlines, sc4, symphony for various reasons, and harmony of dissonance is amazing). cv1 is gold but like you said, it is perfect in a way, how do you actually follow it up?
and as noted earlier in this thread, my response is, cv3, that’s how you follow it up, this thing is absolute GOLD
but yeah, like, cv3 is a targeted attack, it is pretty clearly not an experiment. it already knows what it is going for
to what you said, maybe cv2 is partly unrealized specifically because it was not the correct direction to try and take what was great about cv1 in
dracula’s advocate
\* something for which you are not sure about the outcome ahead of time
sorry! i said i wasn’t going to talk about this more but then i did. i guess castlevania is really the only thing i’ve been playing at any recent point
also yes ecclesia kinda rules but interestingly it feels actually less RPG-ish than the previous 4 games in various ways whereas cv2 feels like it is hugely leaning into that space
if i keep editing the same post it doesn’t count as writing more, right
uh i will revist this post after i play more of 2. game is hard
honestly i feel so soulsy about 3. idk what it is, it just feels like such a stepping stone on the way to demon’s souls. i feel the same way about cv1 but 3 just feels like… there are so many situations in 3 where it’s like, this is total bullshit, but there’s a sort of puzzle to how you can get by without taking damage that really strikes me as being a touchstone (or at least a touchstone of a touchstone) for core souls mechanics
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I still think it’s funny that my (legal middle) name is based on a series that I only really like starting with SotN
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I’m so glad I started tugging on this thread with you.
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three is my favorite castlevania after portrait of ruin
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I just dug up my old DS lite and it happened to have Portrait of Ruin in it so I started playing and yeah, this one is a great one
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We’re all playing Castlevania lately it seems like. I just finished Simon’s Quest (for the second time ever) on that M2 collection that came out several years ago.
Simon’s Quest was the only Castlevania I had access to growing up so it’s kind of my favorite despite its flaws. I like the structure of the game and I adore the music. I don’t like how you basically need a guide to get through it until you’ve memorized the correct sequence of everything. I do love how weird it is compared to every other Castlevania until Symphony of the Night set a new standard. But I love all the whip upgrades, the sub weapons, how each of Dracula’s parts will do something for you if you equip it (use that rib as a shield!), the basic experience system, the bizarre clues you sometimes find hidden in walls. The whole game is a real vibe.
I also really liked how the sub weapons don’t seem to use hearts except for one or two of them that sometimes do. I spent much of the game tossing holy water and later sacred flame. It trivializes much of the combat but the game is more about the big picture adventure stuff.
And I absolutely love how anticlimactic it is when you finally reach Dracula’s castle. You expect a huge battle but the place is empty. Dracula himself can’t get a hit in when you use the sacred flame on him.
I have never managed to get through the game fast enough to get the “good” or “neutral” endings so maybe I’ll play it again sooner rather than later and see if I can get my time down.
I moved on to Castlevania 3 next since I’ve already beaten 1 before and 3 is probably the one I’ve spent the least time with overall, outside of the Japanese versions. I like how it starts out like a super charged version of 1. It’s doing everything that first game did but bigger and better and then some. Has the whole character switching mechanic. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it but it won’t hold the same special place for me that Simon’s Quest does.
The M2 collection is really great. I’m planning on save stating my way through all of these games eventually.
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I think if I were going to try to do a follow up to Simon’s Quest I would expand Dracula’s castle to be more like how it is in the later games: multiple areas requiring special gear or abilities with new enemies in each area and stuff. At the same time I’d expand the whole adventure aspect of exploring the surrounding countryside by tying it directly to your progress in the castle. Pushing deeper into the castle would cause changes to the countryside, towns and manors, say new pathways between areas open up, places that were previously inaccessible are now open, new merchants appear etc.
All of which would lead to new items or abilities that would help you push deeper into the castle which could trigger another set of world changes. I think with proper signposting to prevent a lot of unnecessary backtracking you could do three or four big cycles like that with the countryside towns and manors, and the castle itself, undergoing progressively more dramatic changes until it all looks quite different from the beginning of the game.
Expand the moveset and combat with new items and abilities that unlock with each cycle and the game would have a nice Metroid flavor to it. That’s how I’d approach it.
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This is an odd discussion for me as CV II and III are both most easily described as experiments where they tried stuff, some of which worked and some of which did not. This may qualify as a hot take but III probably hurt the series more than any other entry as it put them on the path of multiple playable characters with different movesets and I don’t think they ever figured out how to actually balance around that (I most recently played Bloodlines and large chunks of the game don’t even feel designed for the spear guy).
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i played through symphony to portrait earlier this year and i gotta get back to portrait i was having fun 90% playing Charlotte and once again blasting everything Sypha style (and occasionally summoning Jonathan to give me a boost or hit something with an axe)
i played through a fuckload of interesting games in the first half of this year that i just did not share any of my thoughts about here so i guess i have quite a lot stored up for conversations like this which i love. it’s honestly cuz i hate these threads, i dislike megathreads and everyone here puts so many fucking good posts about weird interesting games in them and i can never keep up and never want to share unless im caught up and it drives me crazy. Either stop constantly being so smart & engaging with your casual gameplay observations, or make bespoke threads for them, or fuck off all of you!!! (<3)
anyway, i honestly love the arc of CV 1-2-3 i don’t see 3 as a retreat from 2, but rather as an advancement of 1 using the fruits of 2’s experiments. i feel this is something video games often do, like im working my way through From Software’s back catalog and they do this shit all the time. (or like look at the early Super Mario Bros. series) i’m very into the idea of trying an unusual framework to see what it generates, then returning to a familiar one to ground your new ideas as you refine them
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The best way to play symphony of the night is to get bored around the time you gotta fight your doppelganger and then just watch someone else play through it, grinding in that library for the stupid ass sword for a billion hours
I like playing the game in Maria mode though so ??? I guess it’s an okay game. Just on the Sega Saturn only.
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look i love that game but you’re not wrong. the only motivation i had during the whole inverted castle was to see like 30 more cool enemy sprites and animations.. shoved into bad arbitrary encounter setups in copypaste mirror levels because they made too much fucking game but not enough design to keep it in
this playthrough was actually the first time i ever got the crissaegrim/valmanway and go figure it was pretty quick lol. like maybe 15 cumulative minutes of farming. it is hysterically broken but so were the 5 other doomsday weapons i was already carrying around 
shield rod is cooler anyway!
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Looking back, I was insanely lucky my first time through SotN to get the Crissaegrim without any grinding. Just got it as a normal drop.
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All your attacks as Maria do double damage in the inverted castle, as if they knew.
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if im thinking of the same spot, you only have to do the falling blocks when picking the route alucard is on. i love this game but that specific screen sucks so bad i don’t ever want to do that route again
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yeah i was gonna say that falling blocks stage is exclusive to the alucard route, entirely optional
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