Best and worst Castlevania games IYO?

DasPhillipBrau

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With LoS2 out, interest in the saga seems to have grown back to a healthy state, I'm very happy about this since I'm a huge fan of the saga and I admit that things were kind of dead.
Anyway, I'd like to know, which Castlevania game is the best in your opinion, and which one is the worst?
Give some insight.


For me: Best would be Portrait of Ruin, I simply LOVE games with tandem setting and mechanics, plus the variety in enviroments, inventory system, collectibles, plot and quests, it's just a game with a lot to do, huge replay value.

Worst: Harmony of Dissonance, by far...no words can explain the hatred I feel towards this game.
The game is plagued with huuuuuge backtracking issues because of how poorly the dual castle thing was implemented, all those multiple roads and areas at the same time were overwhelming in a bad sense, and both the areas and bosses were completely unrewarding, seeing how only 1% of the game bosses actually give you something after you beat them.
There's only 3 powerups in the game (the slide move, double jump and super jump) and the boss fights were terrible, extremely easy, some of them didn't even attack or move (literally, legion corpse).
But the normal monsters were hard as hell, you could lose over half your HP in 2 areas, and since Juste has no inmunity timer after being hit, if you get stuck in the middle of a large enemy, you're dead in seconds.
Plus the horrible, horrible music, and the fact that Juste looks and moves like a clown.

Yeah, I really hate that game.
 

Weaver

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Symphony of the Night is probably my favourite. I will say the 3 games on the DS were fantastic. I mean, maybe Order of Ecclesia wasn't as good as the other two, but it was still a solid castlevania game IMO.

My least favourite (that I've played) is Castlevania 64 (simply titled Castlevania). It just... was bad. The transition into 3D was wonky and the controls were kind of bad. And this was what I thought back when I rented it. I can only imagine how terrible it's aged.
 

DasPhillipBrau

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Weaver said:
Symphony of the Night is probably my favourite. I will say the 3 games on the DS were fantastic. I mean, maybe Order of Ecclesia wasn't as good as the other two, but it was still a solid castlevania game IMO.

My least favourite (that I've played) is Castlevania 64 (simply titled Castlevania). It just... was bad. The transition into 3D was wonky and the controls were kind of bad. And this was what I thought back when I rented it. I can only imagine how terrible it's aged.
C64 was bad but it kind of grew on you...C64 along with Pokemon stadium were my first 2 N64 games, and I had to stick with them for a looong time.
At first I didn't had the transfer pak (which was required to save in C64), so I would play the game "roguelike", one day I got to level 5 (really hard thing to do) and my brother came in out of nowhere and simply unplugged my controller.
And guess which was the ONLY way for a N64 to redetect a controller...
 

thetoddo

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Castlevania 3 for both. It all depends which character you use, Alucard makes the game way too easy but the other 3 are different enough in playstyle that it really makes the level design shine.
 

Artina89

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Castlevania: Symphony of the night ranks as one of my favourite games of all time, and I believe is definitely the best Castlevania game that I have played, a close second being the first Lords of shadow game, and I absolutely adore the soundtrack for both games, and I own the soundtrack to both Lords of shadow and Lords of shadow 2 and I must say that Oscar Araujo has done amazing work with the music in the series and it sets the atmosphere well, and Symphony of the night soundtrack is a classic, I can listen to it over and over again (And have done over the years) and I have never tired of it.

My least favourite is probably Castlevania 64. I didn't like the environments, and I despised the controls. I completed it once and never went back to it again.
 

SmallHatLogan

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My favourite is probably Rondo of Blood. Fun and challenging but not as rage inducing as the first or third games. Once upon a time I would've said SOTN but I'm kind of over it and its clones.

Least favourite is one of the gameboy games. I forget which one.

Castlevania 64 is pretty bad but I have some nostalgia for it.
 

DasPhillipBrau

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SmallHatLogan said:
My favourite is probably Rondo of Blood. Fun and challenging but not as rage inducing as the first or third games. Once upon a time I would've said SOTN but I'm kind of over it and its clones.

Least favourite is one of the gameboy games. I forget which one.

Castlevania 64 is pretty bad but I have some nostalgia for it.
Here's hoping the gameboy game you claim to be your least favorite is HoD...

Did the main character dressed in red and white?
 

WhiteFangofWhoa

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Favourite: Dawn of Sorrow, probably the first one they'd done in forever that was even close to Symphony of the Night in the looks and sound department, and Soma wasn't completely unbeatable after getting to level 40 or so. Much better balance and variety overall, and I stand by the idea that Portrait of Ruin's dual character system was inspired by Dawn's Julius mode.

My favourite non-Metroidvania would be Castlevania 3 despite its crazy difficulty. Probably the only game I've ever finished the second quest for because I liked it so much no matter how many times I died.

Least Favourite: The Castlevania Adventure. All the control problems of the original with twice the number of instant death pits and half the visual variety, also you now lose your whip upgrades if you take a single hit. Because the first game wasn't frustrating enough for some people, I guess.

Not a big fan of the reboot series so far TBH, it seems to have lost its identity. I'd have much preferred a game made of the battle of 1999 or a retooling of Castlevania Legends' plot to just scrapping everything and starting over. And apparently Dracula's stuck in modern times now? WTF?
 

Chester Rabbit

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From the ones I played
1.Castlevania Dracula X (honestly I just like it more than Rondo it feels much more like an updated traditional Castlevania game)
2.Symphony of the Night
3.Lord of Shadow
4.Lords of Shadow 2
5.Castlevania 3

Least Favourite (As in I don't like it at all)
6.Super Castlevania (bleh it?s a pretty ugly game that lacks a lot of the Castlevania identity with very generic bland gritty visuals and it?s just so easy)
 

Ratty

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Well, most of the games[footnote]This is discounting the couple of mobile phone games and other spinoffs like Judgement, the Kid Dracula series and the wonderful Pachinko Machines.[/footnote] in the Castlevania series can be broken into three categories: Classicvanias, Metroidvanias and 3Dvanias and comparing the three is apples and oranges. So I'll just list what I think is probably the best from each, though I adore almost all the games in the series.

Classicvania-
Castlevania III This is not only one of the best games on the venerable NES, it is possibly the best game in the Castlevania series, which is really saying something. The the levels and enemies are so well designed that the game is a true work of art based solely on the gameplay mechanics. Add to that beautiful visuals and music and you've got a true controller-chucking (but oh so satisfying) classic.

Metroidvania-
Symphony of the Night Here is a game that's just bursting with ideas, every new area feels like it has a story, so many things are hidden or hinted at in the beautiful artwork, the gameplay is incredibly fun and the soundtrack organically changes to everything from symphonic gothic mood music to rock to disco.

3Dvania-
Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness The N64 games[footnote]I should say game since LoD is essentially "Castlevania64: The suites actually let the dev team finish the game this time edition"[/footnote] get a lot of flack because they failed to live up to expectations of being 3D Metroidvanias upon their release.[footnote]Because a lot of people had then only recently gotten into the series with SOTN, thus they assumed the other games in the series would be Metroidvanias as well.[/footnote] But they were never trying to be, rather they're a nearly perfect translation of the feel of Classicvania to 3D. Legacy of Darkness in particular hasn't been topped since imo, and is great for its time and even today.
And least you think I'm being blinded by Nostalgia, I only played it for the first time about 3 years ago.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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If we're going by the different styles, this is how it is:

Classic: Best: Super Castlevania IV, Rondo of Blood
Worst: Legends

Metroidvania: Best: Symphony, Ecclessia, Sorrow
Worst: Circle, Harmony (though they are still very good)

3D: Best: Lament of Innocence
Worst: Castlevania 64, Lords of Shadow 2.
 

StriderShinryu

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Best: Castlevania 4, Dracula X (with Castlevania 2 as an honorable mention)
Worst: Castlevania 1 (not a bad game, but later games have done everything it did better)
 

RJ 17

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What? No love for Castlevania HD? The arcade CV with 6 player co-op? Come on! :p

Seriously though, HD is actually pretty fun if you've got a group of friends to play with. It's pretty much just a dungeon-loot grinding game that lets you play as a bunch of CV protagonists and has a selection of levels from various CV titles.

But to get to my actual answer...

Best: Symphony of the Night (actually surprised more people haven't claimed this one as their over-all. I thought most people considered it to be the best of the bunch :p). God, I can't tell you how many hours I logged into that game over countless playthroughs. I still remember the "HOLY SHIT!" feeling of finding out there was an entire second half to the game that I didn't know about for my first three playthroughs. Mind you I got the game when it first came out on the original PS, back in the day when game guides weren't easy to come by unless you had a subscription to a gaming magazine...which I didn't. :p

Worst: Simon's Curse. Poorly executed, designed, and translated, this game was just awful. Just watch AVGN's review of it as he pretty much sums up all the complaints about the game in his humorous way. The worst offense is that nothing's explained to you, such as the "wear this ring and crouch for 10 seconds against this rock until a little tornado comes and whisks you away" bit. Thank god for Nintendo Power back in the day or that game would have likely been unbeatable.

That, and you can literally just walk right past Death and skip his fight all together.
 

Hero of Lime

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Super Castlevania is my favorite, it's just so fun to play even if it is a bit on the easy side. Watch the AVGN's episode on this game to get me opinion of it, for lack of a better word, it's good.

Then it would be the first game on NES, it's hard, but it has great design and perfect use of forcing a player to take each room as a real challenge to get through. I hate to be asking people to watch another person's opinions on games, but Egoraptor's Sequelitis on Castlvania 1 best explains why it can be seen as a great game.

Number 3 in my list would oddly enough be the third in the series. Castlevania III. Being similar to the first game would probably explain why I like it so much.

After that, well I haven't played any other games in the series, I guess I am a sucker for the classic Castlevania games. I would like to try Symphony of the Night at some point though.
 

Signa

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Aiddon said:
If we're going by the different styles, this is how it is:

Classic: Best: Super Castlevania IV, Rondo of Blood
Worst: Legends

Metroidvania: Best: Symphony, Ecclessia, Sorrow
Worst: Circle, Harmony (though they are still very good)

3D: Best: Lament of Innocence
Worst: Castlevania 64, Lords of Shadow 2.
I only enjoyed the Metriodvania style games, and you named my best and worst in order.

I actually just replayed Circle and Harmony, and they are really good games still, especially for being portable. Harmony is easily the worst MV style game though. I think they took the criticism from Circle (that it wasn't enough like Symphony) and did their best to make it look like Symphony, while failing on every other level. I still had fun beating it last week, but of the 7 games I've played, still the weakest.
 

SmallHatLogan

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DasPhillipBrau said:
SmallHatLogan said:
My favourite is probably Rondo of Blood. Fun and challenging but not as rage inducing as the first or third games. Once upon a time I would've said SOTN but I'm kind of over it and its clones.

Least favourite is one of the gameboy games. I forget which one.

Castlevania 64 is pretty bad but I have some nostalgia for it.
Here's hoping the gameboy game you claim to be your least favorite is HoD...

Did the main character dressed in red and white?
Game Boy, not Game Boy Advance. Harmony of Dissonance is definitely the worst of the SOTN-type games though.
 

go-10

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best for me is Order of Ecclesia hands down it was a mix of the old stage style Castlevania with the new Metroid influences in each one it was perfect and kept me playing for months until I got everything in that game only to do it again as the dude, it truly was a great game

other than that I would say Symphony of the Night, I loved Alucard, the music, the art style, the stage design, the bosses. After FF VII this is probably my favorite PSX game. I would rate it higher than OoE but unlike that game SotN didn't push me to get absolutely everything in the game, I basically spammed the shit out of Soul Steal and the fire familiar

worst would have to be either Simon's Quest or Castlevania Judgment. Both games were atrocious and boring as hell.
 

Skops

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Best: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. It's just best of the ClassicVanias and the challenge is the greatest and most satisfying of them all.

Worst: Castlevania Chronicles. Something just feels so off playing this, I can never quite figure it out. It's also the 3rd time you're playing through the events of Simon Belmont in Draculas Castle. It's okay if you re-imagine the events once and make it better like with Super Castlevania 4, but to do it again, and do a worse job... No. Just don't even try. But they did.
 

Colt47

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Aiddon said:
If we're going by the different styles, this is how it is:

Classic: Best: Super Castlevania IV, Rondo of Blood
Worst: Legends

Metroidvania: Best: Symphony, Ecclessia, Sorrow
Worst: Circle, Harmony (though they are still very good)

3D: Best: Lament of Innocence
Worst: Castlevania 64, Lords of Shadow 2.
I swear, Lament of Innocence is the only good 3d castlevania I've ever played. The whip in that game was probably the best feeling version of the weapon since Super Castlevania IV. Also... Castlevania 64 and the damn exploding flask... That was just evil incarnate.