well that’s giving me a not-so-demi-urge, to play this game!
bahahahaha
no idea how many people follow the stickied stream thread so I’m fake crossposting here:
https://www.twitch.tv/tuppler
Tulpa is streaming quake fanwads and commenting, come joinnn
I started playing Aria of Sorrow because I have a personal grudge against the Igavanias and I’m like, “I’ve never played Aria, maybe it’s where all the good game design went…”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it’s unsurprisingly boring, just like the rest.
Also, it’s still ridiculously easy to do this:
sigh…
I seriously don’t understand the point of arbitrarily locking stuff behind power-ups that you get by Walking To A Place. Also, what is the need for sub weapons when I can just backdash cancel my way into doubling my attack rate
Most of the level design so far has been “horizontal flat corridor with intermittent enemies who take two or three hits to kill before they can even lift a finger”
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Backdash cancel is sort of an advanced technique for igavanias, which bypasses all the souls/cards collection that makes it crunchy. You almost have to speedrun the games to get back to that level of interesting.
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Dem fur shaders tho. It’s still pretty to look at… especially through component at 480p. Hell, it even has anamorphic widescreen support.
That reminds me that I haven’t turned on my Gamecube in ages… it seems to have become relegated to my PN03 player.
Today I learned that you can backdash-cancel in Aria of Sorrow to double your attack rate, and I really like that game… I think these games are not for demanding skill-driven players; they’re maybe a half-step above something like Dynasty Warriors. Honestly, my favorite level design in the franchise is Dawn of Sorrow because of macro design nonsense that reminded me of the big-picture level construction in Knytt. In other words, I am probably a terrible judge of platforming action games.
What did you think of Order of Ecclesia?
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I thought Order of Ecclesia was the worst one, by far, and that its level design is regressive and mundane at best. Truly, it is the pinnacle of Grinding Tubes connecting damage sponge bosses.
Order of Ecclesia is what you get when you want to make an Igavania game but you don’t want to go through the effort of making it actually feel like Metroid, so then you’re left with lock-and-key nonsense in what is a fairly linear experience
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Portrait of Ruin is the only GBA/DS-era Castlevania game that I liked because it tried to do something interesting with the character switching mechanic used in platforming puzzles
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but but por is the worst and ooe is the second best behind cotm 
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Who’s ready for Bloodstained to suck a lot
(it’s me)
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it’s me
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Wow look at all of these incorrect opinions
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wait hold on
circle of the moon is your favorite?
can you tell me more? I found that game to be a bit…clunky, even though I did finish the whole dang thing.
Circle of the moon is horrendous imo
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The card combination mechanic is kind of neat. There are so many secret walls to break down too. That’s cool.
I’m struggling to come up with anything else though.
oops my opinions suck
CotM > OoE > HoD > AoS > DoS > PoR
CotM has the second best score (behind HoD). weightiest feel by far, and may be the very last gasp of castlevania nes/msx influence in the series before it just became endless attempts to conjure SotN.
OoE is mechanically solid and i really appreciate that game splitting the difference between levels and a big castle. i also love the diversity of environments, more than you could reasonably depict in a single castle.
HoD i like almost exclusively for its music
AoS is fun but the formula is just so fucking tired and i really don’t care for the tactical soul system at all.
DoS is AoS but worse
i’d rather play cv64 than PoR
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That’s close to my own ranking
Circle is fine, it easily has the best level design of those games (not saying much), it also has almost no personality, all of the environments feel generic and cold, not many interesting details, lots of bland stonework. Most of its strengths aren’t what I play these games for. Harmony’s maybe the most literally “remember SotN” of the handhelds but also the most like the NES trilogy atmospherically
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