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Just saw these - some newly-translated developer interviews from back in the day that cover SOTN, Akumajou X68000 (the one that was remade as Castlevania Chronicles) and Rondo of Blood: http://shmuplations.com/symphony/ http://shmuplations.com/akumajox68000/ http://gosokkyu.com/post/79456686343/akumajou-dracula-x-chi-no-rondo-interview-lead
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Sep 19, 2014 02:58
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quote:Hideo: It’s been good. The feedback we’ve gotten from the mail-in comment postcards has been very good too. However, when we made Akumajou Dracula x68000, our idea of the average x68000 user was a hardcore game player, someone who’s really good at games. So there have been some complaints from users who have found it too hard and can’t get past the second stage. An interesting thing is how difficult the original X68000 game was. Konami not only made the PS1 game easier in Arranged mode, they even toned down the difficulty on Original mode too. Most people don't realize that. In the X68k version the enemies were faster, their hit boxes were larger (the tails on the peeping eyes would hurt you, for example), the dolls were more evasive, you took more damage on earlier levels, etc. I hope this isn't  but if you can play the X68k game on an emulator give it a shot, it's ridiculous.
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Sep 19, 2014 06:04
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Also level two in particular has two points that are quite difficult in the game in general so I can understand the complaints. I actually beat it on an emulator years ago and I don't even know how after playing the PSX port.
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Sep 19, 2014 06:56
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Goddammit, IGA: http://au.ign.com/articles/2014/09/19/tgs-2014-castlevania-symphony-of-the-nights-koji-igarashi-puts-independent-dream-game-on-hold
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Sep 20, 2014 00:52
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What a dummy. Kickstarter is zero risk and people would be throwing money at him.
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Sep 20, 2014 00:56
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:Goddammit, IGA: I can't blame him for not wanting to do a Kickstarter, considering how often those run over budget and end up with the developers living on noodles in relatives' garages for months on end.
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Sep 20, 2014 00:57
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:Just saw these - some newly-translated developer interviews from back in the day that cover SOTN, Akumajou X68000 (the one that was remade as Castlevania Chronicles) and Rondo of Blood: Cool quote:Hagihara: The PSX has less limits for development than any previous system. If you think you can do it on this system, you probably can. It has tile and line functions that allow you to do things easily, even without specially prepared software tools. That aspect was very convenient. that is so god dang cute. Like I know that's where they and the tech were at at the time but imagine these guys in 1997 poring over the dev kits all "my god, this tile technology is unsurpassed... and what's this? Lines?"
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Sep 20, 2014 01:23
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You go, Iga, you go feed that family.
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Sep 20, 2014 01:29
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Bongo Bill posted:I can't blame him for not wanting to do a Kickstarter, considering how often those run over budget and end up with the developers living on noodles in relatives' garages for months on end. Yeah, I don't blame him for being concerned about his livelihood, it just sucks that he got dragged back into mobile gaming so quickly. I mean, when he quit Konami he straight up said "I spent two years working on mobile games that were all cancelled because I'm bad at making modern social games" yet here we are. I do think the mobile space is slowly trending towards more traditional game-y games, and old-school guys like Yoshiki Okamoto have managed to adapt, but in the unlikely event that IGA does produce some big hit, he's gonna get sucked into that machine forever.
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Sep 20, 2014 01:35
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:Yeah, I don't blame him for being concerned about his livelihood, it just sucks that he got dragged back into mobile gaming so quickly. I mean, when he quit Konami he straight up said "I spent two years working on mobile games that were all cancelled because I'm bad at making modern social games" yet here we are. I don't think IGA is going to ever do anything big on mobile, but that's also concerning because that might look bad.  Anonymous Robot posted:What a dummy. Kickstarter is zero risk and people would be throwing money at him. There's more risk than normal for him, being Japanese.
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Sep 20, 2014 01:40
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Some CV news: -Dracula X (SNES) is coming to the NA Wii U Virtual Console this week (October 2), and Circle of the Moon (GBA) will be out next week (October 9) -Gamestop is doing a Konami PC sale that includes Lords of Shadow 1 ($7.50) and 2 ($10): http://www.gamestop.com/browse/pc?nav=16k-3-konami,28zu0,138c
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Sep 29, 2014 11:57
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:Some CV news: Ah, drat it. I was on the fence about the Wii U but I guess that seals it.
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Sep 29, 2014 13:41
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Full Battle Rattle posted:Mirror of Fate had good art direction, I thought. I especially like the Simon redesign. Unfortunately I don't think the GoW style gameplay translates very well. I felt like the enemies took too much time to kill and absorb damage a little too well. It doesn't feel like the whip has enough 'weight'. Still, if it's cheap and you're really into the series there's worse entries. There was a lot wrong with the Lords of Shadow series, the art direction wasn't one of them.
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Sep 29, 2014 13:44
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Full Battle Rattle posted:Ah, drat it. I was on the fence about the Wii U but I guess that seals it. That's the sucky dracx you know
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Sep 29, 2014 19:11
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Maybe he wants a copy of Circle of the Moon that you can actually see or doesn't look washed out. Also SNES DracX has better music.  (Loss of Cross A Fear notwithstanding.)
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Sep 29, 2014 19:13
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Better music in no way makes up for everything else in that port.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:15
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The only reason the SNES Dracula X sucked was because the US got it instead of the original game back in the day. Now that you can easily get both there's no need to hold anything against it. It's just an alternate version of Rondo of Blood with different stages.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:16
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Phantasium posted:The only reason the SNES Dracula X sucked was because the US got it instead of the original game back in the day. Now that you can easily get both there's no need to hold anything against it. It's just an alternate version of Rondo of Blood with different stages. Are you trying to tell me the final Dracula fight in Dracula X is actually fun.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:17
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ChaosArgate posted:Are you trying to tell me the final Dracula fight in Dracula X is actually fun. The final Drac fight is utter bullshit but everything leading up to that is pretty okay.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:19
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I've played through (almost) all the non-metroid, non-arcade Castlevanias a while ago, my impressions were: Castlevania 3 (Japanese version) has the best 'retro' music. The non-Japanese version is hard as balls and NOT in a good way (e.g. Dracula himself is piss-easy), the difficulty curve is all messed up. Play the Jap version if you can. Castlevania 1 has aged the best, the difficulty curve is perfect. Bloodlines has the best overall style, the best 'new style' music. Gameplay rocks! Rondo of Blood is overrated and not as good as Bloodlines. Maria mode was really fun, though! Super Castlevania 4 is OK but I found it the least enjoyable of all. Music sucked apart from the first stage. A bit too much emphasis on 'dark' with too little 'gothic cool'. Kubla Khan fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Sep 29, 2014 |
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Sep 29, 2014 19:21
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ChaosArgate posted:Are you trying to tell me the final Dracula fight in Dracula X is actually fun. It's not nearly as bad as people remember. I had horrid memories of that fight until I replayed the game last year, and he is loving easy to trivialize with axes. Sure if you're standing in the wrong spot one hit is almost guaranteed death but there ARE right spots.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:22
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Phantasium posted:The only reason the SNES Dracula X sucked was because the US got it instead of the original game back in the day. Now that you can easily get both there's no need to hold anything against it. It's just an alternate version of Rondo of Blood with different stages. I remember playing Drac X after SCIV and I thought "Why the gently caress can't I swing in 8 directions this is loving bullshit" and I instantly hated it.
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Sep 29, 2014 20:02
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Hakkesshu posted:I remember playing Drac X after SCIV and I thought "Why the gently caress can't I swing in 8 directions this is loving bullshit" and I instantly hated it. I remember playing it after Bloondlines and thinking it sucked too.
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Sep 29, 2014 20:32
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I hope I get to play IGA's dream game before either of us die. God, I crave more classic IGAvanias. Order of Ecclesia is soooo good. 
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Sep 29, 2014 22:00
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Phantasium posted:The only reason the SNES Dracula X sucked was because the US got it instead of the original game back in the day. Now that you can easily get both there's no need to hold anything against it. It's just an alternate version of Rondo of Blood with different stages. Boring generic level design, worse bosses, no Maria, different item crashes, fewer stages, lovely Dracula... yeah that's an "alternate version" I guess?
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Sep 30, 2014 09:59
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Former Human posted:Boring generic level design, worse bosses, no Maria, different item crashes, fewer stages, lovely Dracula... yeah that's an "alternate version" I guess? If you're being overly critical, sure. But you're still comparing it against the original instead of it being it's own thing, where there are definitely worse Castlevanias. Not living up to Rondo of Blood does not make it unique, since many don't.
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Sep 30, 2014 14:17
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SNES Dracula X, by virtue of being SNES Dracula X, just invites unfavorable comparisons to what are probably the two best classic Castlevanias. It's not bad, but it's hard to come up with a compelling reason to play it, and it'll probably always be a series black sheep on par with Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. For what it's worth, I actually like the final boss fight better than Rondo of Blood's—it's at least interesting, even if it is super bullshit hard.
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Sep 30, 2014 21:50
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Phantasium posted:If you're being overly critical, sure. But you're still comparing it against the original instead of it being it's own thing, where there are definitely worse Castlevanias. Not living up to Rondo of Blood does not make it unique, since many don't. I do think it gets a bad rap but there seriously aren't many traditional CV games that are worse than Dracula X... the Game Boy games and CV2, I quess, and that's it. It's amazing to think that Rondo, Bloodlines and the X68000 game were all made at more or less the same time by different teams and they all managed to do a great job.
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Sep 30, 2014 23:10
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:I do think it gets a bad rap but there seriously aren't many traditional CV games that are worse than Dracula X... the Game Boy games and CV2, I quess, and that's it. Haunted Castle, ughhhh.
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Sep 30, 2014 23:37
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The weirdest thing about SNES Dracula X is that it's actually a sequel to Rondo in Japan. It had new artwork and everything but Konami used the Rondo art and such for all the US packaging and marketing. Also Annette is inexplocably blond in both versions but not in Rondo. Not understandingnhow anyine can say with a straight face that the SNES version has better music though. It's impressive that some tracks (like Bloody Tears) almost equal the PC Engine game in technical quality but it has not even half the music and most of it truncated compared to the original tracks. The new game over/completion tracks are cool but don't really fit with the rest of the game. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 23:41
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Sakurazuka posted:Haunted Castle, ughhhh. Oh yeah, that game is pretty bad. The MSX game isn't great, either.
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Sep 30, 2014 23:49
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:Oh yeah, that game is pretty bad. The MSX game isn't great, either. It remains important though for having the first appearance ever of Bloody Tears.  But man does that game suck, some cool enemy designs though.
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Sep 30, 2014 23:54
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Neo Rasa posted:The weirdest thing about SNES Dracula X is that it's actually a sequel to Rondo in Japan. It had new artwork and everything but Konami used the Rondo art and such for all the US packaging and marketing. Also Annette is inexplocably blond in both versions but not in Rondo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzrvBANyArs vs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR0UjAQIX6E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z2L-daa2Uo vs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRHXEtfawVo Hmm, hard to call, really. I know I used to say I rpeferred Dracula X, especially for Bloodlines, but nowdays I wouldn't be able to make a call.
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Oct 1, 2014 00:07
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I have nothing to say about Dracula X other than as a kid I was really bored and also stupid so I hosed up using the Key at the right moment and instead used it to beat Dracula to death.
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Oct 1, 2014 00:59
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Yeah, the key is actually a pretty broken item in Dracula X, you can do some funny poo poo with it.
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Oct 1, 2014 01:28
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Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, Symphony of the Night, and Mirror of Fates are on sale on PSN this week. Additionally, all of Harmony of Despair's DLC is on sale too. Might finally pick up that Getsu Fuma level and have some fun. e: oh apparently lords of shadow 1&2 are on sale too The Grimace fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Oct 1, 2014 02:57
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Phantasium posted:If you're being overly critical, sure. But you're still comparing it against the original instead of it being it's own thing How is that being overly critical? The SNES was more than capable of reproducing the gameplay of the original (minus the redbook audio) but inexplicably Konami threw out all of it and remade the whole game but made it worse. quote:where there are definitely worse Castlevanias That's certainly damning it with faint praise.
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Oct 1, 2014 06:58
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There's nothing inexplicable about it. NEC kept a lot of developers from directly porting PCE games to other platforms, so they'd make new games using the old assets in order to play both markets.
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Oct 1, 2014 07:06
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So how would I go about playing Rondo if I had a mind to do so?
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Oct 1, 2014 07:45
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Pope Guilty posted:So how would I go about playing Rondo if I had a mind to do so? The original untranslated game is on Wii Virtual Console for about $9. There's also Dracula X Chronicles for PSP, which contains both a 2.5D remake of Rondo and an emulated version of the original, plus a SOTN port with a new translation and some other extras. The game is on both NA and EU PSN but only the NA version works on Vita for some stupid reason, so you'll have to buy with a NA account if you want to play on Vita/Playstation TV. I think it costs around $15-20?
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Oct 1, 2014 08:05
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