Interestingly enough, the miserable pile of secrets line is actually from a French writer, André Malraux- “A man is what he hides: a miserable little pile of secrets”, which he paraphrased himself later as “What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets.”
"To reject the major facts about a man out of contempt for convention can lead to an exclusive preoccupation with the minor. Admittedly the truth about a man lies first and foremost in what he hides. A remark of one of my characters has been attributed to me: "A man is what he does." Of course he is not only that; the character was in any case replying to another who had just said : "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets." André Malraux, Anti-Memoirs (1968)
I love this fact. It adds context to what Dracula was saying and clarifies his meaning. It also kind of flips the fan reaction on its head, everyone was like "lol what were these writers smoking on" when in reality it was some meaningful writing flying right over our heads.
9:04 You missed the best pat of the whole kickstarter! They said they would make an old-skool styled bloodstained game as a stretch goal and everyone thought it might be a gimmick, but it was in fact an entire second game and it rocked so hard!
Curse of the Moon's SO good! The sequel's more complicated, but great! The Classic modes in Ritual are so cool too! So FOUR great retro spin offs + the main rad game! Tremendous!
@@BunnychanFarabee Bloodstained Ritual of the Night 2 is actually in development right now, but it’s still too early to show anything off. Plus the main director was diagnosed with cancer recently and had to step away from the project while seeking treatment. Meanwhile the rest of the Bloodstained team is sharing his workload.
@@itsaBoomer I'm still confused as to WHY The Succubus decided to imitate Lisa Tepes. There is NO way she didn't recognize Alucard OR the familiar connection until AFTER being beaten down. I almost felt bad for her getting banished that hard, but damn, she made a DUMB move.
@@mrmusickhimself I'm pretty sure she meant that he is indeed as strong as Dracula's son should be, not that she literally only now recognized him. Blame translation.
I heard Civvie say there are four familiars in this game and I got all smug, like "ho ho, he doesn't know about the fifth one" and then he grinded the Sword so much it turned into a new model I'd never seen before so I had to retract that smugness.
@@IkaIka737not much really. Outside of some slight touched up special effects, an added boss fight with Maria, and a redub for psp, there are no other changes.
53:28 Civvie laughs at Dracula being defeated by an open window. I think it's funnier, when, in Rondo of Blood a 12 year old Maria beats him by throwing pigeons at him.
@@gratuitouslurking8610 Having played Vampire Survivors but never paying attention to Castlevania. Boy I sure didn't realize how many references that game had. And for the record, it's just really funny to think of Dracula being beaten by a 12 year old throwing pigeons and not holy doves.
Technically Randy didn't 'make' it, he simply allowed it to exist in it's broken, malformed state. I don't think he's actually completed a single thing in his career.
Maybe you felt like you were tearing apart a classic that you loved, but showing off all the parts of it--the weird things, the cheese, all of it--the way you did just reminded me of how much I loved this game as a teenager, and makes me want to go back and play it again. Thanks Civvie. 🙂
I don't think any other game blew my mind as much as this one did. Back in the 90's coming across all those secrets organically, or by word of mouth, going to school and telling your friends what new quirk you discovered, what new item combination, new way to completely break the game. Finding out there's an entire second castle after beating the first one. That's why this game is fucking legendary. This game (along with Super Metroid obviously) shaped so much of what videogames are today, and still continue to influence the industry to this day.
Can you believe Sony USA refused to allow Konami to publish it at first? They didn't want 2D games in America. So Konami forced the issue saying they wouldn't bring out MGS in that case. Worth looking up the whole saga - madness! 😂
"Had Dracula gotten any kind of characterization before this game?" Yeah,in Rondo of Blood. That one can get a little goofy though since if you fight Dracula as sassy lost child Maria,Dracula gives her the same speech about the evils of humanity he would normally give Richter and her response is effectively just "I have no idea what any of those words mean but you're an asshole". It's great. She's more fun to play to.
I love that the Ettin that was captured in the Hexen episode continues to show up in the background, wandering with its simple Doom AI. It's the little things with Civvie.
I like the world detail where in the Inverted Castle the Chapel turns into a more vampire-appropriate version where crosses are upside down and all angel statues look like they're falling from heaven.
@@QQnowQQlater While you're not wrong (Had them painted in my nails years ago because of the "unworthiness" symbolism) There's no reversing the perception I could say Baphomet is a mistranslation of Muhammed until I'm blue in the face, and even though I'm right. People would still picture a demon with a goat head (Quite goofy when compared to Anubis isn't it?)
@@RadikAlice Nah, that was a reply to the OP; not you, so no biggie. And yeah, people love to commandeer stuff. In Japan, the average perspective of religion isn't really much more than an aesthetic or "cool", so anything in the inverted castle is just coincidence, especially since the inverted castle was to add more content to the game without having to make new content doing that.
@QQnowQQlater Once again, you're right. Evangelion comes to mind Only mentioned the personal tidbit because it was on topic, the things curiosity and a Wikipedia article can do
As you said Civvie, Konami is stupid. Those idiots retconned the story with a mobile game sequel done by a Chinese developer and once again resurrected Dracula with the help of Death, not understanding their own goddamned lore when it was stated that Julius PERMANENTLY destroyed Dracula. The game didnt even last 6 months and was immediately shut down. Not surprised.
Just wanted to say thank you, your videos have helped me through tough times with anxiety, watching your videos always felt like hearing a good friend talking about games and helped me feel better, keep up the good work mate!
@Riboshom indeed, he's an obvious Alucard expy named "D.O." which seems to be a double pun. D.O. being "Original Dracula" backwards just as Alucard is Dracula backwards, and D.O. is pronounced like Dio, making it a JoJo reference when he has a time freeze power.
Robert Belgrade. Honestly I think his performance is near perfect for Alucard, very slightly awkward delivery at times, but he does the voice perfectly.
I'm late with this but did you know almost every single weapon in the game has a secret move and some of them are fucking insane Take your near completed list of weapons and go through each one and try one of the following inputs quarter circle forward -> attack back forward -> attack I'll be surprised if civvie doesn't already know this but it will be a real treat if he doesn't
"Nope, thats the bad ending everyone got in the nineties." Hell, I got it in the early 2000s before I discovered youtube. This single line just feels so validating.
Civvie-ula: Tell me... what... what were SOTN's last words? Sewercard: She said "Do not hate sewer levels, if you cannot play through them, then at least do them no harm"
This game was so entertaining for me growing up. I would scrounge across entire sections of the castle, and check up every source I could to see what I might've missed. One of my favorite details is that if you idle in an area, Alucard will relax. Some of the familiars will also relax such as the Fairy, who'll sit on your shoulder. If you turn into a bat, while using the bat familiar. You'll see a little heart pop up above your familiar, and it'll follow you more closely. With a chance for it's heart to be broken when you turn back. A supremely fantastic game, and one that every gamer. No matter their generation, should play.
In the Japanese version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the faerie/fairy familiar actually sings a song when you idle for long enough. That song was later properly translated to English for the PSP port since that's also where the game was re-localized with better voice actors and script (I love the original cheesy English localization on the PSX, but the new one is just better if you actually want to take the story seriously).
"I don't know how anyone would know to do that." The real secret? Gaming magazines. Tekken had a secret movelist, Castlevania had enitre halves of the game; a lot of it came down to hiding secrets to sell magazine subscriptions. Not that I can complain. As a former magazine subscriber I have to admit having the mags with the secrets on them was a pretty fun time.
So true. I used to wonder if anyone would have ever beaten Majoras Mask if it weren't for Zines. I know I wouldn't have, some of the things you had to figure out were just crazy.😲
You know what's funny, when they first remade Symphony of the Night in Dracula X Chronicles on PSP, they actually made it even more broken. You can easily backdash out of the room where Death takes your stuff and keep it all.
48:10 "awesome, he's got to galamoth, now I can hear him talk about the Beryl Circlet" 49:20 "he... he didn't mention the Beryl Circlet... ok clearly he's just saving it for some kind of last minute joke right? right?" 55:20 "DOES HE NOT KNOW ABOUT THE BERYL CIRCLET???"
for those who do not what I'm talking about, there is an item that heals you for taking lightning damage and it makes Galamoth a joke, and the only reason most people don't get it is unlocking the room it's in requires you to do the "how are you supposed to know to do that" dog and bat thing with the stone tunnel that Civvie ALREADY DID
I'm just glad that you played this on the channel. Let them complain, I liked this video as soon as I saw it on my feed. Castlevania is fucking awesome and thank you for choosing one of the games for Halloween.@@Civvie11
My favourite "style thing" I love to do on replays of Symphony is grabbing the stop watch, going into the first Doppelganger fight, and THE SECOND he shows up, freeze time- because he's one of the few bosses this works on, he's now completely frozen in place. Then I run up and punch him so fast that the animations cut each other off into more punches. Just completely DIO his ass, it's wonderful. He dies before the stopwatch time stop ends, so before even the boss music can start you just melt him with your barrage of punches.
I actually discovered this by accident in my very first playthrough of SOTN lol. Had a stopwatch going in the Doppelganger fight, activated that bad boy, and completely shat on the poor shadow clone that he had to crawl back into his hidey-hole not long after. This repeated itself for the rematch.
The worst part about Konami replacing the meme script is that it's not even more faithful to the Japanese original. They just rearranged the English script a bit.
“The PC Engine, which… is a console” People don’t give the PCE its due, all they think is TurboGrafx16, à la failure. But that’s selling it critically short - the PC Engine was, for a time, the bestselling console/market leader in Japan. With the later CD add-on, it had a pretty long life-cycle, too.
I have one in my living room. I really wanna rig it up to play CD games, burned or from an ODE but they aren't cheap yet lol. I think I already have the whole JP PCECD library on a hard drive somewhere...
It's in the same boat as the Sega Saturn, where it's failure in the worldwide market leads people to believe it was just as unpopular in it's home country, when in actuality it performed very well in Japan. The Saturn definitely deserves a little less credit comparatively, though. The PC Engine was genuinely on top of the market, while the Saturn only had the distinction of "barely beat the N64 in sales."
It got to the point where the time when the Turbografx 16 stopped getting games in the west, stores would stock games that were from Japan, mostly being games that don't require knowing Japanese to play, like Rondo of Blood or Shmups.
I would argue that SOTN is balanced around being broken, if you're not killing the minions of evil with stupidly busted stuff you're playing it wrong, this is why some encounters feel like unfair bullshit.
7:22 I love it, Civvie gets the DS collection and what is the first game he plays on it, Portrait of Ruin. The man might be in lockup for having superb taste.
Best in the series with Dawn close and Ecclesia third. I do not get why people place Ecclesia on top, probably the game system breaks less with overpowered items.
@@Dylanjrvs ...How the heck does it have the worst story? There's some actual intrigue going on with what Albus is plotting, a satisfying twist at the halfway point, and an ending that makes me feel some things, which is more than can be said for most CV stories. It's no Lament, but I really fail to see how Ecclesia's story is losing to nothingburgers like Dawn or Circle...
"What rolls down stairs, alone or in pairs, rolls over the Corner Guard?" Now I'm going to have that Log jingle stuck in my head again. Screw John K, though.
Feeling shitty today. Jilted, depressed, hole burning in the pit of my stomach over some woman. It's no lie to say that just thought, "Hmm.. there's that Civvie video I haven't watched yet." Thanks for 57 minutes of comfort food, Civvie. I'm not even into old games, but as a former fellow New Englander, I always enjoy your videos.
Keep your head up king, that sting hurts like no other I'm sure, but push through... if for no other reason than to spite those waiting to see you falter.
Unbelievably happy to see you playing SotN. I am perfectly divided between 1) indignantly pointing at the screen when you miss "obvious" things I've known forever and 2) picking my jaw up off the floor when you show me some heinous new shit I didn't know existed like at 18:26.
The first time I beat this game I lived in a trailer in the trailer park with a carpet covered in cat shit from the previous tenant. Had some issues with my hot water tank a few hours afterwards... and when I opened up the closet to check it I noticed that someone had scrawled "Alucard" into the garbage wood paneling they called a wall. I doubt anyone reads this but I needed to get that weird coincidence off my chest lol. Thanks for making our day better Civvie. Happy Halloween nerds.
Game facts: The translator for this game is Jeremy Blaustein, who also handled translation for Metal Gear Solid 1 and Snatcher, as well as translation/voice casting/cultural advisor for Silent Hill 2/3/4. He's also the man who came up with the term "codec" for MGS, as in Japan, it was originally referred to as just "Wireless."
His work on the Silent Hill games is absolutely fantastic, he worked closely with Team Silent and vice-versa to ensure that the english script was the most faithful it could possibly be.
Everyone farms up crissaegrim, because its op as hell, but my favorite weapon is actually dropped by the Lions in the library: Fist of Tulkas. Fist weapons are quick and devastating, but this one gives you hadoukens and the thousand hand slap. Absolutely incredible, highly recommend
I kept saying it, it kept popping up: There was HYPER SPECIFIC musical choices and audio cues from older videos that led me to believe CV11 was not only a SOTN fan, but a SOTN lover. Doom 2 and Symphony Of the Night. That's my childhood there, the whole of it, at least the best parts. Thank you for your content dude, thank you for not shying away from your passion.
I did NOT wake up this morning expecting: 1. Civvie to post a friggin Castlevania video 2. Civvie to reference DEVIL MAY CRY in said Castlevania video. If I'm having a stroke, it's a damn good one!
Fuck yeah. This absolute classic of a game. Me and all my brothers loved this game growing up. The OST is absolutely full of fucking bangers. The gameplay is chef's kiss perfect. The memetic dialogue was perfect, and Alucard's VO was unparalleled. (Seriously, his voice is a smooth shot of whiskey. There's a video of the guy being interviewed and sadly he doesn't really remember the experience all that much, and is kind of humorously taken aback by the old SotN fanbase lauding him.) It is still THE BEST Castlevania game ever made, in my opinion. But Civvie, you can't put disrespect on Soul Steal. That sucker will tag EVERY enemy on the screen nearly eight times, and when the screen's full of stuff, this will give you a shit-ton of health. It's really life-saving in desperate moments. Love your content.
I like doing my "relics off"(except essential game progression ones), "no subweapons", "no health and heart upgrades", and "avoid non-dropped gear" runs with this game. I still get good loot from drops so it still is fun. Luck 99 mode is fine and with the lower health becomes more challenging. but with just normal mode plus my self imposed difficulties, it becomes more fun for me, even though grindy.
As a lifelong lover of Castlevania, this was a fun video. The combat isn't balanced, but that was never the aim of the game. The focus was clearly on movement and exploration, and that's where SotN really excels.
I'll be honest as someone who's not really much of a fan of 40k lore, Boltgun was only slightly above average. The gameplay was fine, level design was fine, but the entire experience just felt like fanservice, which is completely lost on a lot of people. I played it because, like Civvie, I had people going "OH YOU LIKE SHOOTERS AND THIS IS 40K YOU'LL LIKE IT" I mean, I didn't *dislike* it...
@ as a fan of 40k, I find it to be a very exploitative product that lacked basic features found in DooM 1993 like painstates and an auto map. It’s also so easy. I beat it on exterminatus difficulty and I am bad at video games.
@@theylivewesleep.5139 Yeah. All correct. I liked it because it conveys the powerfantasie pretty well and really give you the feeling of beeing a space marine with all the gear and weight and what not. Thinking about buying space marine 1 - whenever I have time for such affairs.
I'm almost 40 years old and I played SOTN for the first time in 2021 and it still managed to become one of my favorite games of all time. That Dracula's Castle theme song is also some of the best video game music of all time (and Bloodlines from Rondo of Blood, Castle Corridor from Aria of Sorrow). Great video
Good stuff as always Civvie - I joined the Kickstarter for Bloodstained because of how much I respected IGA and loved these games. It made me really happy to see you mentioned the struggle and love from the community to keep making these types of games.
Man, this game rules! I would watch my older brother play all the time and he'd clue me in on all the little nuances he knew. I still beat it every couple years. Thanks Civvie, brought big smiles to me today
Castlevania is my FAVOURITE IP. I recently even grabbed the collection on Steam. Would love to see *all* the rest of the Castlevania games get ported over to steam. ALL of them, yes, including Castlevania Judgment.
3:28 Dracula: What the hell is that delivery? Richter: what do you mean. Dracula: WHERE IS THE EMOTION WHERE IS THE DRAMA RICHTER ? From one of jehtt's video
The scream I screamed when i saw this pop up in my notifications you cannot begin to imagine how long i was hoping you'd cover this one. Also Civvie being a fan of Terrifier warms my black shriveled worm infested heart.
Surprised to see Civvie had nothing to say about the boss of the inverted alchemy lab Beezlebulb; a creative take on the 'Lord of the Flies' demon being just a giant rotting corpse held up by hooks whose only means of attacking is attracting giant flies with an occasional maggot dropping from it's body to try to poison you. Up there with Legion in Castlevania monster designs.
Am happy to see you happy Civvie-11. I love seeing your passion for games you personally love, even if there not fps games. Hell I tried this game out because of how often you mentioned it in your videos. And as a Metroid and Hollow Knight fan, I adored sotn (as well as the classic castlevania games). God bless you man and thank you for your work.
You touched during the video on this, but to me, my fav part of this game is how much weird stuff is in it. The one wall you have to push to acces an item, the sword familiar that turns into a weapon after being leveled up enough, the confession room in the chapel, the fact that the fairy will sing to you if you sit down long enough, the spells being tehnically all available from the start but needing to know the correct input to cast them, the switches in both clock towers that have to be hit a certain amount of times to unlock a room. So much cool one time stuff, almost no other game in the series comes close to this or how open the game is in general, even if they are more tightly designed and balanced.
Why did I not get a notification for this when I'm literally subscribed!? Castlevania is one of my favorite gaming franchises ever! Civvie playing a Castlevania game was an unexpected surprise and a surprise I am extremely happy to see.
Two things worth mentioning about Bloodstained. While it did meet every Kickstarter goal there were a few that they just weren't able to actually deliver on, which is unfortunate although the game did still deliver a massive wealth of additional content, but also they didn't just make Bloodstained Ritual of the Night. They also made Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 1 and 2 which are the absolute best classic style Castlevania games out there. So from one Kickstarter we got 3 fantastic games and a RotN2 is confirmed to be in the works
Notably I think they gave up on the Vita version of the game, and IIRC the Switch version had a hell of a lot of problems that took a while to get fixed (and I hear it's more or less fine now). But yeah otherwise Bloodstained delivered more or less everything, even if it took a good bit. And that's not even getting into the Curse of the Moon games (which are quite beloved too)
@@AnAverageGoblin absolutely. It is right up there with Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow for my favorite Castlevanias. Also it having a built in randomizer gives it a bunch of bonus points too.
@@AnAverageGoblin how much do you like IGA's style of Metroidvanias? Ritual of the Night is practically IGA's greatest hits in one game (though a good amount SOTN and Dawn/Aria with its systems). Just as fun to move around and explore too. With the current version you get them Randomizers, Retro Modes, other playable characters and so on. Also the OST is fantastic.
I love this game with its insane depth and weird mechanics. It feels like every time I play it or watch a video about it, I learn a new secret. There’s just so many personal touches packed into this game, you can really tell it was made with serious love and passion. Symphony of the Night is easily one of my favorite games ever.
We love your FPS videos but YES more of this!! Would have loved if you touched a bit on how a lot of the weapons have hidden attacks by doing Street Fighter like motions.
41:17: One Crissaegrim obtained! Now I hope you get two, equip one in each hand, and then mash square and circle rhythmically to create the most unholy of vortexes! Now I'll press play to see if Civvie does this. Loving this video.
I always thought the slowdown after bosses was programed for dramatic effect, but if civvie says it's legit lag, well, he has been in more sewers than i've ever seen, so I wont argue with the guy.
9:50 tbf, being half-Dracula, the Vampire Killer would probably hurt Alucard. I don't remember which game in the series that said it but wielding the VK if you aren't a Belmont and thus aren't protected by the soul of some chick, is lethal to the user.
Portrait of Ruin. Not being a Belmont when using the VK whip can be detrimental to your health, which is how John Morris kicked the bucket between Bloodlines and PoR. And the whip woman was Sara, Leon Belmont's fiance.
You missed the actual best item from the library, the Ring of Varda that grants a major boost to all stats. Two of them make you nearly unstoppable. It gets dropped by the big skeletons there.
Civvie says it's the first save on the memory card and the Ring of Varda is only on subsequent playthroughs, so I would chalk this up to lack of footage.
This is how I know Civvie knows what he's talking about when he says a game is good. Every time he rants and raves about how good a retro-throwback boomer-shooter is, I'll give it a shot and go, "yup, everything Civvie said was 100% objectively correct," but when Darthcorporalsaiyan2005 fellates the newest battle royale Fortnite clone and I give it a shot and I'll just sit there going, "paid review." But then I play a game, fall in love with it, and then Civvie goes on about how amazing it is, and that's how I know I'm not just being brainwashed and the game is actually just that good.
Weirdly fucking specific but I know what you mean. Same with SsethTzeentach and his extremely specific reviews you won’t understand entirely until you play a game he recommends or is talking about in the review.
Thanks Civvie! I love this game, and have played it every year just before Halloween for probably the last 18 years. And I seem to find something new about the game everyone I play it. Notes: -Holy water is best -Shields are only useful for doing the quick movement that speed runners use. Look it up, it's a great way to move long distances fast. -You don't have to crouch to get to the room with the jewel knuckles. Just stand there. -For Galamoth, use the Beryl Circlet. It heals you when you take lightning damage. Makes that boss way easier.
To this very day, SOTN is a testament of how far you can take 2D sprite-based visuals when you combine them with stong sound design. Many games since then have tried to emulate its art, many with much more powerful engines, and most have failed. And by Dracula's dark heart do I love to hear Civvie gush about games he likes!
Well Civvie, I for one DO like the Crazy Arthur mask. I think that it needs to be permanent. As permanent as your past mistakes. Lasting forever. And ever. And ever. Never to be undone.
So as a kid my friend and I rented SOTN from Blockbuster to play for a sleepover, mind you neither one of us had ever played a Castlevania,. He and I were very confused booting up the game and being put right at the "Final Stage" and restarted like 6 times until we called our other friend and he had to explain it to us and also told us to stop trying to use the damn Red Rust.
Ahh great video my dude. SOTN really is such a great game. It's got vibes, it's got killer art, killer soundtrack, a million secrets, and it's just so dang fun to play. I think you've inspired me to play it again.
A Castlevania? In this year? In this climate? In this economy?
Fuck yeah
Fuck yeah indeed
Vlad the Castle is on fire!
May I see it?
Can I see it?
@@Amitlu no
3:24 Richter's VA, Scott McCulloch, who also voiced Chris on the first resident evil, died in 2000
Rip
😔
we never got to see him punch any boulders...the world is too cruel
@@dantepizza6310he punched the boulder of our hearts, partner.
I feel like not enough people realise that the infamous dialogue in both RE1 and SOTN involved the same actor.
And Dracula's VA, Michael Guinn, also voiced Harry Mason in the first Silent Hill. He's still alive at this present moment though.
Interestingly enough, the miserable pile of secrets line is actually from a French writer, André Malraux- “A man is what he hides: a miserable little pile of secrets”, which he paraphrased himself later as “What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets.”
"To reject the major facts about a man out of contempt for convention can lead to an exclusive preoccupation with the minor. Admittedly the truth about a man lies first and foremost in what he hides. A remark of one of my characters has been attributed to me: "A man is what he does." Of course he is not only that; the character was in any case replying to another who had just said : "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets."
André Malraux, Anti-Memoirs (1968)
I love this fact. It adds context to what Dracula was saying and clarifies his meaning. It also kind of flips the fan reaction on its head, everyone was like "lol what were these writers smoking on" when in reality it was some meaningful writing flying right over our heads.
9:04 You missed the best pat of the whole kickstarter! They said they would make an old-skool styled bloodstained game as a stretch goal and everyone thought it might be a gimmick, but it was in fact an entire second game and it rocked so hard!
And it got an even better sequel too
And its music kicks so much ass. Truly THE Castlevania spiritual succesor.
Gosh, I would totally Kickstarter for another Bloodstained sequel. I love Miriam so much.
Curse of the Moon's SO good!
The sequel's more complicated, but great!
The Classic modes in Ritual are so cool too!
So FOUR great retro spin offs + the main rad game! Tremendous!
@@BunnychanFarabee
Bloodstained Ritual of the Night 2 is actually in development right now, but it’s still too early to show anything off. Plus the main director was diagnosed with cancer recently and had to step away from the project while seeking treatment. Meanwhile the rest of the Bloodstained team is sharing his workload.
Dracula: "Tell me....what were Lisa's last words?"
Alucard: "AHHHHHH! IT BURNS! SOMEONE PUT ME OUT! I'M ON FIRE! AHHHH!"
Dracula: "....wow."
MARABOX INFERUX!!!
@@itsaBoomer I'm still confused as to WHY The Succubus decided to imitate Lisa Tepes. There is NO way she didn't recognize Alucard OR the familiar connection until AFTER being beaten down.
I almost felt bad for her getting banished that hard, but damn, she made a DUMB move.
@@mrmusickhimself I'm pretty sure she meant that he is indeed as strong as Dracula's son should be, not that she literally only now recognized him. Blame translation.
@@ASDER412 OR the writers just forgot.I mean she lives there it's just one of those things that cross ones eyes if they think about it too hard.
I heard Civvie say there are four familiars in this game and I got all smug, like "ho ho, he doesn't know about the fifth one" and then he grinded the Sword so much it turned into a new model I'd never seen before so I had to retract that smugness.
@@dreziv tbf, it looks like he's playing the original NA release, which lacks the green fairy and nose demon
@@RockyPixel Rookie mistake.
@@RockyPixel Fairy, Demon, Ghost, Bat, and Sword. As far as I know, they're all in the original NA release?
good God how much weapons and mechanics were changed with different releases?@@dreziv
@@IkaIka737not much really. Outside of some slight touched up special effects, an added boss fight with Maria, and a redub for psp, there are no other changes.
The FPS man plays a Castlevania?
*Metroid Prime inches forward in the distance.*
We get Civvie reviewing Metroid before GTA 6, wild!
Shit meme but I had to.
He's already played a GameCube game, so that's one step even closer
Not only that, but PrimeHack exists, which makes it possible to play the Prime games with modern keyboard and mouse controls.
@@NerfPlayeR135 Objectively the best way to play the Prime Trilogy, even with the Remaster.
Fake fan. He referenced Aria of Sorrow in a gag way back
What's this?!? Civvie reviewing a non DOS 90s jank shooter from Russia? Truly these are strange times.
there are still some left . do you rember xs ?
Civvie uses the DraculAx
Now I wanna see me a Slavjank Metroidvania
This gives me hope for Pro Monster Bash.
SPOOKY 😂
53:28 Civvie laughs at Dracula being defeated by an open window. I think it's funnier, when, in Rondo of Blood a 12 year old Maria beats him by throwing pigeons at him.
They’re doves of peace, which makes it even better.
@@CallofDutyBlackOps28 If she blessed those Doves then no WONDER they're dangerous, they're like Holy Homing Missles.
Hitchcock would be proud. 😀
@@CallofDutyBlackOps28 If Vampire Survivors has taught me anything, is that birds are nothing to joke at.
@@gratuitouslurking8610 Having played Vampire Survivors but never paying attention to Castlevania. Boy I sure didn't realize how many references that game had.
And for the record, it's just really funny to think of Dracula being beaten by a 12 year old throwing pigeons and not holy doves.
I like the idea that Alucard was so determined to destroy draculas castle, he went there packing a neutron bomb
Of course Soldier appreciates packing a neutron bomb to face off against a shitty dad and its death-trap castle lol
33:33 "Humans made atomic bombs and the Borderlands movie."
Are we really sure that Randy is human, though?
He is sleaze in human form
His body is 2/3rds grease instead of water.
His lore race is Grease Golem
Technically Randy didn't 'make' it, he simply allowed it to exist in it's broken, malformed state.
I don't think he's actually completed a single thing in his career.
Just another one of Nyarly's disguises.
“WHAT IS A MAN, CV-11?!”
"A miserable little pile of gaming knowledge!!"
A featherless bipedal
A Man Chooses
The pinnacle of evolution
Enough talk... have at you!
Maybe you felt like you were tearing apart a classic that you loved, but showing off all the parts of it--the weird things, the cheese, all of it--the way you did just reminded me of how much I loved this game as a teenager, and makes me want to go back and play it again. Thanks Civvie. 🙂
Ah, I was wondering if we'd get a Sterling-esque "HIT THE LEVER!" clip whilst discussing Konami. Civvie knows what's up.
Good to know I'm not the only one who noticed it.
I don't think any other game blew my mind as much as this one did. Back in the 90's coming across all those secrets organically, or by word of mouth, going to school and telling your friends what new quirk you discovered, what new item combination, new way to completely break the game. Finding out there's an entire second castle after beating the first one. That's why this game is fucking legendary.
This game (along with Super Metroid obviously) shaped so much of what videogames are today, and still continue to influence the industry to this day.
Can you believe Sony USA refused to allow Konami to publish it at first? They didn't want 2D games in America. So Konami forced the issue saying they wouldn't bring out MGS in that case. Worth looking up the whole saga - madness! 😂
"Had Dracula gotten any kind of characterization before this game?"
Yeah,in Rondo of Blood. That one can get a little goofy though since if you fight Dracula as sassy lost child Maria,Dracula gives her the same speech about the evils of humanity he would normally give Richter and her response is effectively just "I have no idea what any of those words mean but you're an asshole". It's great. She's more fun to play to.
Dracula's reaction to getting killed by her is hilarious too
You’re thinking of Rondo of Blood
That is definitely not Bloodlines.
@henrynelson9301 I did wonder that later when I realized I couldn't remember what Rondo was about. It had to be one of them.
@@DGneoseeker1 They sure did call it Bloodlines in this game, though. Inexplicably.
I love that the Ettin that was captured in the Hexen episode continues to show up in the background, wandering with its simple Doom AI. It's the little things with Civvie.
Some of us notice and appreciate these things.
That's what it gets for randomly warping to the cells lol
timestamp
44:50, center-right column of cells @@DoveAlexa
I like the world detail where in the Inverted Castle the Chapel turns into a more vampire-appropriate version where crosses are upside down and all angel statues look like they're falling from heaven.
That goes so hard, God. Pure genius
Google St Peter's cross, and maybe rethink that...
@@QQnowQQlater While you're not wrong (Had them painted in my nails years ago because of the "unworthiness" symbolism) There's no reversing the perception
I could say Baphomet is a mistranslation of Muhammed until I'm blue in the face, and even though I'm right. People would still picture a demon with a goat head (Quite goofy when compared to Anubis isn't it?)
@@RadikAlice Nah, that was a reply to the OP; not you, so no biggie. And yeah, people love to commandeer stuff. In Japan, the average perspective of religion isn't really much more than an aesthetic or "cool", so anything in the inverted castle is just coincidence, especially since the inverted castle was to add more content to the game without having to make new content doing that.
@QQnowQQlater Once again, you're right. Evangelion comes to mind
Only mentioned the personal tidbit because it was on topic, the things curiosity and a Wikipedia article can do
As you said Civvie, Konami is stupid. Those idiots retconned the story with a mobile game sequel done by a Chinese developer and once again resurrected Dracula with the help of Death, not understanding their own goddamned lore when it was stated that Julius PERMANENTLY destroyed Dracula. The game didnt even last 6 months and was immediately shut down. Not surprised.
Fun Fact. All the enemies in the reverse library are based on Wizard of Oz. That battlebot is Tinman, then Lion and the bouncing Scarecrows on sticks.
Just wanted to say thank you, your videos have helped me through tough times with anxiety, watching your videos always felt like hearing a good friend talking about games and helped me feel better, keep up the good work mate!
Oloko, o joeveno
Same here. It is like hearing a friend be sincere and brutally honest with things.
I feel the same. Been watching civvie for like 4 years now.
While something like this does help. Don't sell yourself short, the strength to endure it was entirely yours
Plus one I also find similar help from these videos :)
When this video is over, you have to watch it again upside down to get the true ending.
For anyone curious about Alucard’s voice actor, he still does v/o work. He recently voiced the vampire boss and end credits in Lunacid
Didn't they bring him back for Bloodstained? I vaguely recall the Kickstarter mentionning himm
@Riboshom indeed, he's an obvious Alucard expy named "D.O." which seems to be a double pun.
D.O. being "Original Dracula" backwards just as Alucard is Dracula backwards, and D.O. is pronounced like Dio, making it a JoJo reference when he has a time freeze power.
Heck, Robert Belgrade has even reprised the role of Alucard in the Castlevania fan game Castlevania: The Lecarde Chronicles 2.
Robert Belgrade. Honestly I think his performance is near perfect for Alucard, very slightly awkward delivery at times, but he does the voice perfectly.
His voice is amazing. The dialogue is a bit goofy, but the VA did a great job. Alucard had a power and presence.
I'm late with this but did you know almost every single weapon in the game has a secret move and some of them are fucking insane
Take your near completed list of weapons and go through each one and try one of the following inputs
quarter circle forward -> attack
back forward -> attack
I'll be surprised if civvie doesn't already know this but it will be a real treat if he doesn't
"Nope, thats the bad ending everyone got in the nineties."
Hell, I got it in the early 2000s before I discovered youtube. This single line just feels so validating.
Civvie-ula:
Tell me... what... what were SOTN's last words?
Sewercard:
She said "Do not hate sewer levels, if you cannot play through them, then at least do them no harm"
Civvie: *looks at the ever-growing pile of broken keyboards and game discs* nah, that ship sailed LONG ago.
This game was so entertaining for me growing up. I would scrounge across entire sections of the castle, and check up every source I could to see what I might've missed. One of my favorite details is that if you idle in an area, Alucard will relax. Some of the familiars will also relax such as the Fairy, who'll sit on your shoulder. If you turn into a bat, while using the bat familiar. You'll see a little heart pop up above your familiar, and it'll follow you more closely. With a chance for it's heart to be broken when you turn back.
A supremely fantastic game, and one that every gamer. No matter their generation, should play.
My favorite familiar interaction is when you transform with the Ghost, and it gets confused and just nopes offscreen
In the Japanese version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the faerie/fairy familiar actually sings a song when you idle for long enough. That song was later properly translated to English for the PSP port since that's also where the game was re-localized with better voice actors and script (I love the original cheesy English localization on the PSX, but the new one is just better if you actually want to take the story seriously).
It's good
"I don't know how anyone would know to do that."
The real secret? Gaming magazines. Tekken had a secret movelist, Castlevania had enitre halves of the game; a lot of it came down to hiding secrets to sell magazine subscriptions. Not that I can complain. As a former magazine subscriber I have to admit having the mags with the secrets on them was a pretty fun time.
So true. I used to wonder if anyone would have ever beaten Majoras Mask if it weren't for Zines. I know I wouldn't have, some of the things you had to figure out were just crazy.😲
My head canon is Maria doesn't find Alucard for another year, after he turns 401.
There's a retranslation patch you can apply to the JP version, it also means that you can get every familiar.
You know what's funny, when they first remade Symphony of the Night in Dracula X Chronicles on PSP, they actually made it even more broken. You can easily backdash out of the room where Death takes your stuff and keep it all.
You could've done that in the og version as well. I have been doing it since the ps1 days
@@milosmisic89 Really? Most people talk about the other method which involves taking damage from a warg across the room.
You can actually do that in the SoTN and RoB bundle thats sold nowadays
@@nutsquats yeah i believe it's the exact same as the psp version
@@nutsquats yeah, but I'm pretty certain it's using the remake that was on PSP anyway, because if I recall that had the new voice acting as well.
48:10 "awesome, he's got to galamoth, now I can hear him talk about the Beryl Circlet"
49:20 "he... he didn't mention the Beryl Circlet... ok clearly he's just saving it for some kind of last minute joke right? right?"
55:20 "DOES HE NOT KNOW ABOUT THE BERYL CIRCLET???"
for those who do not what I'm talking about, there is an item that heals you for taking lightning damage and it makes Galamoth a joke, and the only reason most people don't get it is unlocking the room it's in requires you to do the "how are you supposed to know to do that" dog and bat thing with the stone tunnel that Civvie ALREADY DID
@HelixSnake I WENT THERE AFTER GALAMOTH, ALL RIGHT?
@@Civvie11 NO SHIELD SLIDING???
Berry circle is serious business
I'm just glad that you played this on the channel. Let them complain, I liked this video as soon as I saw it on my feed. Castlevania is fucking awesome and thank you for choosing one of the games for Halloween.@@Civvie11
My favourite "style thing" I love to do on replays of Symphony is grabbing the stop watch, going into the first Doppelganger fight, and THE SECOND he shows up, freeze time- because he's one of the few bosses this works on, he's now completely frozen in place. Then I run up and punch him so fast that the animations cut each other off into more punches. Just completely DIO his ass, it's wonderful. He dies before the stopwatch time stop ends, so before even the boss music can start you just melt him with your barrage of punches.
I'm gonna have to do this on my next run.
lmaoooo that's genius
Omae wa mou...twinkudeiru.
I actually discovered this by accident in my very first playthrough of SOTN lol. Had a stopwatch going in the Doppelganger fight, activated that bad boy, and completely shat on the poor shadow clone that he had to crawl back into his hidey-hole not long after.
This repeated itself for the rematch.
I'm gonna be honest I'm so bad at this game that I thought that's how you were supposed to beat him
The worst part about Konami replacing the meme script is that it's not even more faithful to the Japanese original. They just rearranged the English script a bit.
That succubus not only ate the holy rod, she gobbled it in every orifice
Librarian giving middle fingers when you boost him will forever be my favorite thing in videogames
Holy shit, how have I been playing this game for 25 years and never noticed this?!
“The PC Engine, which… is a console”
People don’t give the PCE its due, all they think is TurboGrafx16, à la failure. But that’s selling it critically short - the PC Engine was, for a time, the bestselling console/market leader in Japan. With the later CD add-on, it had a pretty long life-cycle, too.
Justice for PC Engine.
I have one in my living room. I really wanna rig it up to play CD games, burned or from an ODE but they aren't cheap yet lol. I think I already have the whole JP PCECD library on a hard drive somewhere...
It's in the same boat as the Sega Saturn, where it's failure in the worldwide market leads people to believe it was just as unpopular in it's home country, when in actuality it performed very well in Japan.
The Saturn definitely deserves a little less credit comparatively, though. The PC Engine was genuinely on top of the market, while the Saturn only had the distinction of "barely beat the N64 in sales."
It was a pretty good console, it had Splatterhouse, Zero Wing, and all that goodness.
It got to the point where the time when the Turbografx 16 stopped getting games in the west, stores would stock games that were from Japan, mostly being games that don't require knowing Japanese to play, like Rondo of Blood or Shmups.
There’s a great Castlevania themed mod for GZDOOM source port called Castlevania : Simon's Destiny
Such a great mod. It honestly does feel like a Castlevania game.
PRO SIMON'S DESTINY WHEN, CIVVIE?
Was that the one by Batandy, with the Rondo-style level title cards?
Yeah I immediately thought why wouldn't this be his Halloween pick.
I recently discovered this mod and yes, it's very good.
The Crissaegrim is so good and iconic despite being a pain in the ass to get that it was made Alucard's main weapon in Lords of Shadow 2.
-Teo
I would argue that SOTN is balanced around being broken, if you're not killing the minions of evil with stupidly busted stuff you're playing it wrong, this is why some encounters feel like unfair bullshit.
7:22 I love it, Civvie gets the DS collection and what is the first game he plays on it, Portrait of Ruin. The man might be in lockup for having superb taste.
Best in the series with Dawn close and Ecclesia third. I do not get why people place Ecclesia on top, probably the game system breaks less with overpowered items.
@@miltiadiskoutsokeras9189 It's one of the more difficult entries, that might be why. It's my least favorite of the 7 Castlevania "Metroidvanias".
@@NinjaRunningWild I like it, but it is not better than the first two IMHO
@@miltiadiskoutsokeras9189 I didn't like OoE much either. Very boring level design to boot and the worst story of all the Metroidvanias
@@Dylanjrvs ...How the heck does it have the worst story? There's some actual intrigue going on with what Albus is plotting, a satisfying twist at the halfway point, and an ending that makes me feel some things, which is more than can be said for most CV stories. It's no Lament, but I really fail to see how Ecclesia's story is losing to nothingburgers like Dawn or Circle...
Civvie's quandary about the value of a game with no balance is exactly why humanity invented randomizers.
this comment needs more likes! MOAR!
Death is Dracula's is close friend in the same way my "Aunt Kitty" was my aunt Patty's close friend in their one-bedroom apartment.
"What rolls down stairs, alone or in pairs, rolls over the Corner Guard?"
Now I'm going to have that Log jingle stuck in my head again.
Screw John K, though.
Feeling shitty today. Jilted, depressed, hole burning in the pit of my stomach over some woman.
It's no lie to say that just thought, "Hmm.. there's that Civvie video I haven't watched yet."
Thanks for 57 minutes of comfort food, Civvie. I'm not even into old games, but as a former fellow New Englander, I always enjoy your videos.
Keep your head up king, that sting hurts like no other I'm sure, but push through... if for no other reason than to spite those waiting to see you falter.
Unbelievably happy to see you playing SotN. I am perfectly divided between 1) indignantly pointing at the screen when you miss "obvious" things I've known forever and 2) picking my jaw up off the floor when you show me some heinous new shit I didn't know existed like at 18:26.
The first time I beat this game I lived in a trailer in the trailer park with a carpet covered in cat shit from the previous tenant. Had some issues with my hot water tank a few hours afterwards... and when I opened up the closet to check it I noticed that someone had scrawled "Alucard" into the garbage wood paneling they called a wall. I doubt anyone reads this but I needed to get that weird coincidence off my chest lol.
Thanks for making our day better Civvie. Happy Halloween nerds.
That is some wierd coincidences. Good thing its all just happenstance. Right?
🫡
Let it be known that we have read this.
It might have been a breakable wall 🧱
Game facts: The translator for this game is Jeremy Blaustein, who also handled translation for Metal Gear Solid 1 and Snatcher, as well as translation/voice casting/cultural advisor for Silent Hill 2/3/4. He's also the man who came up with the term "codec" for MGS, as in Japan, it was originally referred to as just "Wireless."
He was a genius.
His work on the Silent Hill games is absolutely fantastic, he worked closely with Team Silent and vice-versa to ensure that the english script was the most faithful it could possibly be.
Everyone farms up crissaegrim, because its op as hell, but my favorite weapon is actually dropped by the Lions in the library: Fist of Tulkas. Fist weapons are quick and devastating, but this one gives you hadoukens and the thousand hand slap. Absolutely incredible, highly recommend
I love this game i play through every few years.... oh man you showed em the jewel knuckle that thing will get you through 80% of thr game easy
FUN FACT! In the 2004 film, Van Helsing, at Dracula's masqurade, when he 'introduces' the main character, music from SOTN plays in the backgroudn
I am in disbelief, but wanna see it?
@RadikAlice I genuinely love Van Helsing. It's on netflix
What song exactly is it?
@YngolSonofYsgramor castle dracula, according to IMDB
ua-cam.com/video/g1BQrq2rZ8g/v-deo.html, at 4:16 it plays the first 4 notes
I kept saying it, it kept popping up: There was HYPER SPECIFIC musical choices and audio cues from older videos that led me to believe CV11 was not only a SOTN fan, but a SOTN lover.
Doom 2 and Symphony Of the Night.
That's my childhood there, the whole of it, at least the best parts.
Thank you for your content dude, thank you for not shying away from your passion.
I did NOT wake up this morning expecting:
1. Civvie to post a friggin Castlevania video
2. Civvie to reference DEVIL MAY CRY in said Castlevania video.
If I'm having a stroke, it's a damn good one!
OMG REALLY!?
Bro you’re surprised by the devil may cry reference? I’m suprised by the fucking REN AND STIMPY reference like wtf
Fuck yeah. This absolute classic of a game. Me and all my brothers loved this game growing up.
The OST is absolutely full of fucking bangers. The gameplay is chef's kiss perfect. The memetic dialogue was perfect, and Alucard's VO was unparalleled. (Seriously, his voice is a smooth shot of whiskey. There's a video of the guy being interviewed and sadly he doesn't really remember the experience all that much, and is kind of humorously taken aback by the old SotN fanbase lauding him.)
It is still THE BEST Castlevania game ever made, in my opinion.
But Civvie, you can't put disrespect on Soul Steal. That sucker will tag EVERY enemy on the screen nearly eight times, and when the screen's full of stuff, this will give you a shit-ton of health. It's really life-saving in desperate moments.
Love your content.
I like doing my "relics off"(except essential game progression ones), "no subweapons", "no health and heart upgrades", and "avoid non-dropped gear" runs with this game. I still get good loot from drops so it still is fun. Luck 99 mode is fine and with the lower health becomes more challenging. but with just normal mode plus my self imposed difficulties, it becomes more fun for me, even though grindy.
My fav game of all time being reviewed by my fav Gamer channel... ON MY BIRTHDAY
Happy birthday, man.
happy birthday :)
cool, happy birthday bro
Happy birthday! :)
Yo, Happy Birthday, man!!
As a lifelong lover of Castlevania, this was a fun video.
The combat isn't balanced, but that was never the aim of the game. The focus was clearly on movement and exploration, and that's where SotN really excels.
Can't throw a brick with the message "Boltgun has gotten an expansion" throught one of civvis windows without my buddy superfly.
Bad expansion for a bad game
@@theylivewesleep.5139 I liked it - thought the endboss had extremely obvious cheese potential and I ran into a horrible bug.
I'll be honest as someone who's not really much of a fan of 40k lore, Boltgun was only slightly above average. The gameplay was fine, level design was fine, but the entire experience just felt like fanservice, which is completely lost on a lot of people.
I played it because, like Civvie, I had people going "OH YOU LIKE SHOOTERS AND THIS IS 40K YOU'LL LIKE IT"
I mean, I didn't *dislike* it...
@ as a fan of 40k, I find it to be a very exploitative product that lacked basic features found in DooM 1993 like painstates and an auto map.
It’s also so easy. I beat it on exterminatus difficulty and I am bad at video games.
@@theylivewesleep.5139 Yeah. All correct. I liked it because it conveys the powerfantasie pretty well and really give you the feeling of beeing a space marine with all the gear and weight and what not. Thinking about buying space marine 1 - whenever I have time for such affairs.
Gotta say, was NOT expecting SOTN to be your Halloween pick. Really showing our age here, bub.
Oh man. I've waited so long for Civvie to play Castlevania: Symphony of Eating Ass to Acquire Dracula's Tunic.
I'm almost 40 years old and I played SOTN for the first time in 2021 and it still managed to become one of my favorite games of all time. That Dracula's Castle theme song is also some of the best video game music of all time (and Bloodlines from Rondo of Blood, Castle Corridor from Aria of Sorrow). Great video
Good stuff as always Civvie - I joined the Kickstarter for Bloodstained because of how much I respected IGA and loved these games. It made me really happy to see you mentioned the struggle and love from the community to keep making these types of games.
I didn't join the Bloodstained Kickstarter because I was burned from Mighty No. 9, but I'm glad Bloodstained succeeded.
Man, this game rules! I would watch my older brother play all the time and he'd clue me in on all the little nuances he knew. I still beat it every couple years. Thanks Civvie, brought big smiles to me today
This is like the polar opposite of Ross's Yuppie Psycho video, feels like Civvie doesn't have a clear disdain for anime inspired games.
to be fair
Yuppie Psycho is complete ass.
Castlevania is my FAVOURITE IP. I recently even grabbed the collection on Steam. Would love to see *all* the rest of the Castlevania games get ported over to steam. ALL of them, yes, including Castlevania Judgment.
3:28
Dracula: What the hell is that delivery?
Richter: what do you mean.
Dracula: WHERE IS THE EMOTION WHERE IS THE DRAMA RICHTER ?
From one of jehtt's video
"I WENT TO JULLIARD, BELMONT!"
"Dracula's Fucking Castle"
"Dracula's WHAT Castle?"
Civvie covering Symphony of the Night??
The next hour of my day just opened up!
The scream I screamed when i saw this pop up in my notifications you cannot begin to imagine how long i was hoping you'd cover this one.
Also Civvie being a fan of Terrifier warms my black shriveled worm infested heart.
I think- I think you need to get that checked.
I hope you scared your animals.
@poptop89 nah the clown's pet demon told me it's fine
@@somethingelse9087 my cat is more offended when I sneeze so
Surprised to see Civvie had nothing to say about the boss of the inverted alchemy lab Beezlebulb; a creative take on the 'Lord of the Flies' demon being just a giant rotting corpse held up by hooks whose only means of attacking is attracting giant flies with an occasional maggot dropping from it's body to try to poison you.
Up there with Legion in Castlevania monster designs.
Pro Castlevania is something I didn't realize I needed but I'm glad I received as a birthday present from my favorite correctional facility inmate
Am happy to see you happy Civvie-11. I love seeing your passion for games you personally love, even if there not fps games. Hell I tried this game out because of how often you mentioned it in your videos. And as a Metroid and Hollow Knight fan, I adored sotn (as well as the classic castlevania games). God bless you man and thank you for your work.
You touched during the video on this, but to me, my fav part of this game is how much weird stuff is in it. The one wall you have to push to acces an item, the sword familiar that turns into a weapon after being leveled up enough, the confession room in the chapel, the fact that the fairy will sing to you if you sit down long enough, the spells being tehnically all available from the start but needing to know the correct input to cast them, the switches in both clock towers that have to be hit a certain amount of times to unlock a room.
So much cool one time stuff, almost no other game in the series comes close to this or how open the game is in general, even if they are more tightly designed and balanced.
24:27 this was such a beatdown it almost could have been inducted into the Cyberdemon Humiliation Hall of Fame, or at least a notable mention.
Why did I not get a notification for this when I'm literally subscribed!?
Castlevania is one of my favorite gaming franchises ever! Civvie playing a Castlevania game was an unexpected surprise and a surprise I am extremely happy to see.
The sound design in this game has always blown me away. It’s just SO fucking good
Was not expecting you to play Castlevania
Civvie had mentioned in older videos (eg Powerslave) that apart from the boom shoot, metroidvania is his other favorite game genre.
was not expecting him to be *good* at Castlevania :o
I mean, he played duke nukem (the original one)
@@bluebay0 Also it's a very small tidbit, but the Pro Doom 2 video had the title screen music of SOTN hitting when he gets the Super Shotgun.
@GuntanksInSpace Ah so that's where Civvie got that church choral music from! I wouldn't have known because I've never played the game. Thank you.
It was foretold in the exophobia vid when he mentioned Metroidvania’s where his second favorite genres…
Done way, way earlier with Powerslave video where he admitted Aria of Sorrow is his favorite igavania.
Waiting for the losers no one likes to arrive and demand you call it Search Action even though its the lamest name ever
@@eightcoins4401 Yeah, like why do we need to erase the genre's history to make it a valid name? Do they not know how language works?
@@eightcoins4401 Search action is also just what they call it in Japan. Either way, it's all semantics.
@@eightcoins4401 Nah, I'm going with Civvie's joke name of Obsessive Compulsive Simulator.
Two things worth mentioning about Bloodstained. While it did meet every Kickstarter goal there were a few that they just weren't able to actually deliver on, which is unfortunate although the game did still deliver a massive wealth of additional content, but also they didn't just make Bloodstained Ritual of the Night. They also made Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 1 and 2 which are the absolute best classic style Castlevania games out there. So from one Kickstarter we got 3 fantastic games and a RotN2 is confirmed to be in the works
Notably I think they gave up on the Vita version of the game, and IIRC the Switch version had a hell of a lot of problems that took a while to get fixed (and I hear it's more or less fine now).
But yeah otherwise Bloodstained delivered more or less everything, even if it took a good bit. And that's not even getting into the Curse of the Moon games (which are quite beloved too)
@GuntanksInSpace there was also a roguelite mode that fell through and the Switch version was originally supposed to be Wii U.
@@AnAverageGoblin absolutely. It is right up there with Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow for my favorite Castlevanias. Also it having a built in randomizer gives it a bunch of bonus points too.
@@doomdimention9787 Oh dope, you sold me on it.
@@AnAverageGoblin how much do you like IGA's style of Metroidvanias? Ritual of the Night is practically IGA's greatest hits in one game (though a good amount SOTN and Dawn/Aria with its systems). Just as fun to move around and explore too. With the current version you get them Randomizers, Retro Modes, other playable characters and so on.
Also the OST is fantastic.
ross's game dungeon and a civvie video on the same day? both 50+ minutes ... is it my birthday?
I didn't know I needed to watch Civvie cover SOTN, but I love it!
'having a church in your vampire castle seems weird' Someone hasn't read Dracula
This game, Bloodstained, hollow knight and salt and snctuary are epic
I’m so for Civvie covering more Metroidvanias!
THIS.
A PLEASANT SURPRISE INDEED
I love this game with its insane depth and weird mechanics. It feels like every time I play it or watch a video about it, I learn a new secret. There’s just so many personal touches packed into this game, you can really tell it was made with serious love and passion. Symphony of the Night is easily one of my favorite games ever.
We love your FPS videos but YES more of this!! Would have loved if you touched a bit on how a lot of the weapons have hidden attacks by doing Street Fighter like motions.
Can’t wait for Diddy to become a canon Dungeon character in the lore
Count Diddula
Cringe
@@OnTheArchipelago making fun of a criminal isn't cringe.
41:17: One Crissaegrim obtained! Now I hope you get two, equip one in each hand, and then mash square and circle rhythmically to create the most unholy of vortexes! Now I'll press play to see if Civvie does this. Loving this video.
I remember doing that, it makes the weapons even more broken.
Richter summoning two bosses from Rondo as his goons. Nice touch 29:17
The Minotaur uppercut is also from Rondo
I always knew you were a fellow Castlevania kid. Even went for the purple cape. I see you, Brother.
I always thought the slowdown after bosses was programed for dramatic effect, but if civvie says it's legit lag, well, he has been in more sewers than i've ever seen, so I wont argue with the guy.
9:50 tbf, being half-Dracula, the Vampire Killer would probably hurt Alucard. I don't remember which game in the series that said it but wielding the VK if you aren't a Belmont and thus aren't protected by the soul of some chick, is lethal to the user.
Portrait of Ruin. Not being a Belmont when using the VK whip can be detrimental to your health, which is how John Morris kicked the bucket between Bloodlines and PoR. And the whip woman was Sara, Leon Belmont's fiance.
You missed the actual best item from the library, the Ring of Varda that grants a major boost to all stats. Two of them make you nearly unstoppable. It gets dropped by the big skeletons there.
I think they only let you get one from the big skeletons.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine I've gotten two, but even with the ring of arcana, the drop rate is ow.
Civvie says it's the first save on the memory card and the Ring of Varda is only on subsequent playthroughs, so I would chalk this up to lack of footage.
This is how I know Civvie knows what he's talking about when he says a game is good.
Every time he rants and raves about how good a retro-throwback boomer-shooter is, I'll give it a shot and go, "yup, everything Civvie said was 100% objectively correct," but when Darthcorporalsaiyan2005 fellates the newest battle royale Fortnite clone and I give it a shot and I'll just sit there going, "paid review."
But then I play a game, fall in love with it, and then Civvie goes on about how amazing it is, and that's how I know I'm not just being brainwashed and the game is actually just that good.
Weirdly fucking specific but I know what you mean. Same with SsethTzeentach and his extremely specific reviews you won’t understand entirely until you play a game he recommends or is talking about in the review.
Thanks Civvie! I love this game, and have played it every year just before Halloween for probably the last 18 years. And I seem to find something new about the game everyone I play it.
Notes:
-Holy water is best
-Shields are only useful for doing the quick movement that speed runners use. Look it up, it's a great way to move long distances fast.
-You don't have to crouch to get to the room with the jewel knuckles. Just stand there.
-For Galamoth, use the Beryl Circlet. It heals you when you take lightning damage. Makes that boss way easier.
To this very day, SOTN is a testament of how far you can take 2D sprite-based visuals when you combine them with stong sound design. Many games since then have tried to emulate its art, many with much more powerful engines, and most have failed.
And by Dracula's dark heart do I love to hear Civvie gush about games he likes!
5:02 Maria isn’t Annette’s sister except in Dracula X, she is actually a distant relative of Richter.
Well Civvie, I for one DO like the Crazy Arthur mask. I think that it needs to be permanent. As permanent as your past mistakes. Lasting forever. And ever. And ever. Never to be undone.
So as a kid my friend and I rented SOTN from Blockbuster to play for a sleepover, mind you neither one of us had ever played a Castlevania,. He and I were very confused booting up the game and being put right at the "Final Stage" and restarted like 6 times until we called our other friend and he had to explain it to us and also told us to stop trying to use the damn Red Rust.
Ahh great video my dude. SOTN really is such a great game. It's got vibes, it's got killer art, killer soundtrack, a million secrets, and it's just so dang fun to play. I think you've inspired me to play it again.
This is absolutely my fave game of all time. I always knew you were a man of taste, Civvie, and this clinches it.