GDQ is doing a solid block of Castlevania tonight if you're up and bored.

I grabbed a copy of Circle of the Moon on eBay, which came in last week. I found navigation and progression to be a bit more of a chore than Aria of Sorrow or Symphony of the night. I'm currently at 91%, just got the key to the final fight. All that's really left now is the Battle Arena, not sure if I'm feeling up to that punishment. Meanwhile, my wife has been hooked on Aria of Sorrow, so we've had several Castlevania evenings.

The Eva Monkey wrote:I grabbed a copy of Circle of the Moon on eBay, which came in last week. I found navigation and progression to be a bit more of a chore than Aria of Sorrow or Symphony of the night. I'm currently at 91%, just got the key to the final fight. All that's really left now is the Battle Arena, not sure if I'm feeling up to that punishment. Meanwhile, my wife has been hooked on Aria of Sorrow, so we've had several Castlevania evenings.

The game is short and not very hard, but the second form of Dracula is incredibly frustrating. You need to have good AoE damage to make it easier, but even then it's still a bit of a challenge. Plus Dracula's final form is ridiculous, probably the worst Dracula in the series along with the SotN one.

I never bother with those extra modes, just play them a bit for fun before abandoning the game.

I actually think the boss rush is the best part of Harmony of Dissonance. Those dash buttons make bosses incredibly fun to plow through and without the hassle of navigating the worst castle design in the series.

A.T. Fish wrote:The game is short and not very hard

Circle of the Moon took me longer than Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow. I want to say I died a lot in CotM, not sure if it was as much as I died in SotN, just that I died a lot in that too. I got severely stuck in CotM around level 20, looking for Adramelech.

My current ranking:

1. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
2. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
3. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
4. Castlevania: The Adventure

I've also got Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, and Castlevania: Bloodlines to play/finish, and I've got a copy of Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance in the mail which I'll be playing soon.

I'm hoping to get through Harmony, and the three DS titles by the end of the year. I'm putting together a Castlevania fan panel, which I'm hoping to debut at one of the winter cons, possibly MAGFest.

COTM moon is weird because a lot of it's initial difficulty really depends on your luck with the card drops you get. Like I remember Dracula was easy for me on my first run because I had the unicorn and whip cards I think and it made like a really OP guided missile attack. And if you use the cross boomerang thing to it also makes a big difference in general. Like the difficulty of CoTM really can vary a lot depending on what you use or get. Like I doubt I would've beaten final dracula when I was kid without those 2 cards I had gotten.

The Eva Monkey wrote:Adramelech

Yeah, I recall getting frustrated around there as well. I think that's about the time I started going back through earlier areas with a checklist to grind for card drops though.

zlink64 wrote:I doubt I would've beaten final dracula when I was kid without those 2 cards I had gotten.

Yeah, I just spammed him with Summon Lightning Bird until he died.

Just completed Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. The good, bad, best endings and bracelet wearing stuff was kind of annoying, and I still don't understand the point of the collectibles, but I got seriously hooked on it and binged through it in about three days.

My current ranking:

1. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
2. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
3. Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
4. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
5. Castlevania: The Adventure

Now, onto the DS Castlevanias... I'm going to enjoy having a map right in front of me.

SotN did the same thing with the gold and silver rings, which was likely originally inspired by Miyazaki's take on Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. Aria did roughly the same thing as well by requiring the giant bat, succubus and flame demon souls in the Grahm fight, and it's a theme that will be repeated frequently as you continue with the metroidvanias.

What!? circleof the moon>>>Harmony of Dissonance. I could just be nostalgic though circle was my first.

You plan on playing Castlevania: Harmony of Despair?

zlink64 wrote:What!? circleof the moon>>>Harmony of Dissonance. I could just be nostalgic though circle was my first.

I'm with you. Harmony of Dissonance is the title I like the least in the series. It's basically a remake of SotN, and I didn't really care for SotN either.

In what possible way is it a remake of SotN that CotM isn't as well? I don't get it.

zlink64 wrote:What!? circleof the moon>>>Harmony of Dissonance. I could just be nostalgic though circle was my first.

A.T. Fish wrote:I'm with you. Harmony of Dissonance is the title I like the least in the series. It's basically a remake of SotN, and I didn't really care for SotN either.

My ranking is personal, and subjective, it's how I enjoyed them, it's not an objective ranking of quality. If I were taking quality and history into account, I would probably rank SotN higher than AoS, but because I played AoS first, I enjoyed it a lot more. AoS was like my SotN, if that makes sense.

As for CotM vs HoD, I enjoyed both, but CotM felt slower and tedious. It took me close to two weeks to beat, and just over two weeks to finish the arena and get the remaining cards. But with HoD, I got hooked and breezed through it in three days, and half as many hours (~9 vs ~18). I go for that, I like short and sweet. Also, a couple of bosses in CotM really drove me nuts.

zlink64 wrote:You plan on playing Castlevania: Harmony of Despair?

Definitely. My goal is to get through all of the Metroidvania titles in time for a Castlevania fan panel at MAGFest early next year. I'm planning on playing through the DS titles next.

NemZ wrote:In what possible way is it a remake of SotN that CotM isn't as well? I don't get it.

I think there's two main things, the Rings are analagous to the Bracelets, in that you have to equip both at certain points, and in both you have two castles to explore. However I liked how HoD did the two castles better, rather than being upside down, like in SotN, they were parallel to each other, like in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. Not to mention you find out about the two castles a lot earlier in the story. I liked that.

NemZ wrote:In what possible way is it a remake of SotN that CotM isn't as well? I don't get it.

The protagonist is an Alucard clone, there's a missing person in the castle and random encounters with another character, and there are two castles. I read somewhere that Igarashi wanted it to be similar to SotN, he worked on both SotN and HoD, but CotM was made by different people (and apparently Igarashi didn't like it).

Edit: It's on wikipedia.
"Koji Igarashi produced Harmony of Dissonance with the intent of "creat[ing] a game that was similar to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night", the critically acclaimed PlayStation game that he had worked on."
Source.

The Eva Monkey wrote:My ranking is personal, and subjective, it's how I enjoyed them, it's not an objective ranking of quality. If I were taking quality and history into account, I would probably rank SotN higher than AoS, but because I played AoS first, I enjoyed it a lot more. AoS was like my SotN, if that makes sense.

As for CotM vs HoD, I enjoyed both, but CotM felt slower and tedious. It took me close to two weeks to beat, and just over two weeks to finish the arena and get the remaining cards. But with HoD, I got hooked and breezed through it in three days, and half as many hours (~9 vs ~18). I go for that, I like short and sweet. Also, a couple of bosses in CotM really drove me nuts.

Of course, I'm not judging it objectively, my opinion is based on personal preference too. Your experience with these games kind of surprises me, because mine was very similar, only in reverse. I think it took me around four days to finish CotM, whereas HoD took me around three weeks, including a period I spent without playing because I wasn't even enjoying it anymore.

A.T. Fish wrote:The protagonist is an Alucard clone

The character design is the problem? He's more of a fusion of Alucard and Richter that just a clone.
And he plays very differently, sticking to just a whip, items and a small set of spells rather than a gazillion equipment choices... and of course the double dash buttons makes him feel much more nimble and twitchy.

The plot and second castles I'll give ya, but not the main character.

I played CotM way back when it came out and loved it to bits, but then I tried it again recently and just couldn't into it at all, mostly because I hate double-tapping to run.

Monk Ed wrote:mostly because I hate double-tapping to run

This is probably my biggest pet peeve with CotM, and possibly one of the big tipping points between it in HoD. I loved dashing and sliding EVERYWHERE. If only I could have air dashed.

Received Portrait of Ruin and Order of Order of Ecclesia for DS for Christmas.

Just completed Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin today. I really enjoyed having two swappable/combinable characters, of different skill sets and genders. I also really enjoyed having portraits/alternate portraits to complete rather than the second castle like in SotN/HoD. I really enjoyed having a dedicated screen for map/navigation, and I liked how they were generous/deliberate with teleportation rooms. Grinding was not as easy/satisfying as in some others, like Circle of the Moon, but overall, a really solid game, definitely one of my favorites.

My current ranking:

1. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
2. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
3. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
4. Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
5. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
6. Castlevania: The Adventure

I'm debating whether or not to jump into Order of Ecclesia or pick up Dawn of Sorrow. As I really enjoyed Aria of Sorrow, I really want to pick up Dawn.

Both Dawn and Ecclesia are great games but I'd recommend playing Dawn first since it has a more familiar setting. Once you experience the novelty of Order of Ecclesia going back to Dawn of Sorrow might seem like a step down.