Best Castlevania Ever?!?

[Doc Chronic]

This thread is just as the title suggests. What does the smash community feel is the best castlevania game ever made. The castlevania franchise has been around for over 20 years and in that has iterated on nearly every home console, including romps in 2-D and 3-D.

Personally my favorite has to Symphony of the Night. It all really came together for me in this game, as it was launched early in the PSX lifespan. The game was the pinnacle of what 2-D gaming had become, with a deep weapon and leveling system, while maintaining all the killer bosses and spooky ambience known to come form a castlevania game. Overall its totally incredible, what do you guys think??

 

[Uchiha.Sanosuke]

I liked Portrait of Ruin, but that's probably because it's the only Castlevania game I've ever played. It was still a good game though, very nice mechanics.

 

[S2]

Well the vast majority of CV fans are going to tell you Symphony (Sotn). Its just a very well made game. While some people enjoy the other ones more, its basically agreed upon as the masterpiece of the series.
The game has one very glaring flaw which is its difficulty. It needed a hard mode, as its so very very easy. Still the amount of weapons, enemies, secrets, is enough to keep most enthralled in it forever after their first playthrough.


That's not to say the others are bad...

I'd say that the Sorrow sub-series (Aria and Dawn) are very close in terms of quality. But even then, you can tell that SotN's budget was much higher due to it being on a console and not portable. These games also are loved because they have something that's not in SotN - difficulty. They are both moderately challanging. Plus the magic and skills aren't broken like SotNs was.

Rhondo of Blood is also considered the best of the "oldschool Castlevanias". To those who don't know, CV after SotN became Metroid clones - the early games were strictly levels.

Among the 3D games I think Curse of Darkness is the better one. But its understandable if someone prefers Lament more. The two N64 games were retconned (threw out) of the timeline and treated as if they don't exist at this point. They played terribly, so I doubt anyone's going to miss them too much beyond mild nostalgia.

I've played every game in the series and nearly all of them are good. If people have any quetions, I pretty much know this series back and forth.

 

[rockman2k1]

After playing Rondo of Blood recently on the Dracula X Chronicles, I'd have to say that is easily my new favorite Castlevania. Before that it would probably have been Castlevania Chronicles on PSX or Castlevania 3.

I've only played a few of the newer style Castlevania games (Circle of the Moon, Dawn of Sorrow, Symphony of the Night, Harmony of Dissance) and the first two ones on GBA really turned me off from how the Castlevania series was turning out. But Dawn of Sorrow changed that a bit and I want to get my hands on Portriat of Ruin now.

 

[S2]

I've only played a few of the newer style Castlevania games (Circle of the Moon, Dawn of Sorrow, Symphony of the Night, Harmony of Dissance) and the first two ones on GBA really turned me off from how the Castlevania series was turning out. But Dawn of Sorrow changed that a bit and I want to get my hands on Portriat of Ruin now.

Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance were both pretty mediocre.

Circle has since been retconned from the official timeline. It was made by a different development team and wasn't especially loved by fans.

Harmony of Dissonance just plain sucks. It seems to have a few fans, but many CV nuts chalk this one up as possibly the worst one made. Bland story and poor level design are really the culprits here.

HoD was IGA's first game. Every game he did afterwards has been significantly better.

For those who don't know who IGA is, he's the one in charge of the franchise and really spent a lot of work expanding the CV universe. He did not start the series, but took over it. He worked on Symphony and made every game after HoD. He threw out any games that didn't make sense storywise and created the official timeline and canon for the series.

Currently he's working on a 3rd Castlevania for DS. There are some leaked shots if you look hard enough (not that hard, even big sites have them posted). I know IGN put them up in a rumor story.

 

[Zeela12]

Aria of sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, Symphony of the night, and of course, rondo of blood.

Decent story, wonderful music, best characters (Ritcher is my favorite belmont),

haven't tried portrait of the ruin, but it looks really good.

 

[S2]

In case any Castlevania fans haven't heard yet, there is a third DS game in the works

There are some rumored leaked screenshots in this IGN article

http://ds.ign.com/articles/847/847736p1.html

It isn't stated there, but IGA made comments earlier that Next-Gen Castlevanias would take place while Dracula existed (pre-1999) and the portable games would continue the storyline after Dracula is dead (like the two Sorrow games).

We'll have to see if he sticks to that, but enjoy the awesome screenshots in the meantime.

 

[~Krystal~]

Symphony of the Night is it for me.

 

[Thrillhouse-vh.]

Castlevania 64 is the only post SNES Castlevania I've completed, and I own Portrait of Ruin and Aria of Sorrow.

Sad, ain't it?

 

[S2]

A little bit.

64 wasn't a terrible game, it just wasn't good.

If you have a PS1/3/360/PSP you ought to look into SotN. Its seriously one of the best games ever made.

But why didn't you finish Aria? I loved that game. Dawn of Sorrow (the sequel) is even better.