If there's any other redeeming quality to Haunted Castle, it's got to be that absolutely priceless walking animation. Constipated (or diarrhea-ridden) Simon on a mission to find the toilet in Dracula's castle.
This explained a non-Castlevania mystery to me. There was an old fangame called G-Type, which gave a remixed R-Type a Gradius weapon system and Gradius enemies, which had a special stage set in Gradius with terrible graphics and terrible scrolling. Now I know it was probably a riff on the Gradius MSX version. Thanks for solving this for me, Mr. Parish.
Excellent, and timely, video! I usually replay Castlevania 4 every Halloween season. It's a fantastic action game, and a wonderful work of art. Even though it's a game from 1991, I feel that no other Castlevania quite captures "gothic horror" like Castlevania 4 does, from the design of its stages, environments, and enemies. The forest level is very dark and foreboding, the castle entryway (the fifth stage) feels intense and unsettling, and the castle dungeon definitely feels like a place that you do NOT want to end up in (especially with all of the skeletons in the background). I would like to make note that, even though I first played the game when I was able 7 years old, I was able to tell even then that the "green slime" was intended to be blood. I just played through the stage last night on the Japanese version, and the stage certainly feels a little different. Maybe it's because I was playing it on the Castlevania Collection, but the stage felt a little bit brighter. On the other hand, the castle treasury level is one of my favorite environments in the series. I love the effect of the ghosts rising up in the background, and how everything glitters and shimmers. It feels like a joyous location, in comparison to the rest of the game. And the background music for the area is fantastic! However, I am not sure if you touched on this in your other video on Castlevania 4, but while the game is much easier than the NES games (and Chronicles), I feel that there are sharp difficulty spikes in the dungeon, clock tower, and final levels. There are certain sections of those areas that seem to be not as well designed as the rest of the game. I am glad that you included Chronicles in this video! It's a terrific remake of the original game. I have actually completed the game on the "Original" mode, and I still have bad dreams about the werewolf boss fight and the doll level. I remember that I was able to finish the game because I stumbled upon the herb power up, and I was able to keep it with me the rest of the way.
Yeah, basically any part in Castlevania 4 that includes instant death feels out of place compared to the rest of the game's difficulty curve. The dungeon level especially where your huge character dies so easily from touching anything spiky, and that pit with the randomly flashing disappearing blocks. Many of my no death run attempts ended there.
@@19Szabolcs91 Yes! My no damage/one life runs also often end at the dungeon level, particularly at the section in which you have to walk over the disappearing blocks while javelins are dropping above you. I find the section in the clock tower in which you have to latch onto the hooks that travel upwards with your whip to be creative, but very frustrating. If you're not in the perfect spot when the upward scroll ends, you're going to lose a life.
I still truly believe that Castlevania Chronicles/Sharp is the most challenging of the legitimately fair Castlevanias. That one definitely made me scream internally the most. I do wish its soundtrack got more callbacks in the later games. I think Tower of Dolls was the only song to go on and make more than one more appearance. God, Haunted Castle’s walk cycle though. I’m grateful for Cross Your Heart, but the “dumped in your pants in public” walk is baffling to this day.
@@willmistretta Yeah, the clock tower stage is definitely the low point of Chronicles, it's total trial and error. It even features the worst song in the whole OST. Other than that, it's a great adaptation of CV1, feels like a more dangerous, more hardcore version of the original. Love how it looks and sounds, the whip's sound effect is very satisfying, and it's a fantastic challenge.
Anything Jeremy does that is Castlevania related is always an instant thumbs up. Super glad to see the Vs. Castlevania bit at the end. I love that version just for the extra challenge as someone that plays through the original game several times a year.
Castlevania Vs was my first taste of Castlevania. Small Utah town inside a plain diner with Castlevania Vs, Asteroids, and Donkey Kong in the corner, me and my buddies seeing how far we could get on a quarter each.
Always like a Castlevania video of yours, Jeremy. Castlevania certainly has a constant of killer music if nothing else. The NES vs MSX comparison is also welcome.
Thanks for the fascinating video. I wonder about the relationship between the MSX and Famicom development teams. The versions are so similar, yet different. True, the MSX hardware had different capabilities, but I bet they could have made at least a competent side scroller if they tried. It feels like the differences were intentional. Perhaps they really didn't know yet what makes a hit a hit and were exploring.
Now I wanna see a Gaiden episode on early puzzle games for NES/FC. Everyone knows about Tetris, but what about the OTHER games Pajitnov worked on to some extent?
I can't say that I'm fond of the design philosophy that leans too heavily on setpieces. I think those are more effective when they have more "regular level" areas to stand out from. It's like having a song with mostly choruses and barely any verses or bridge.
This game was a leap in graphical enhancement for the castlevania series, like almost everyone else - I never knew it even existed until it debuted on PSX as Castlevania Chronicles - I bought it brand new and was 17 when it first came out.
I foolishly sold my copy of Castlevania Chronicles back in the day. And Symphony of the Night. And Super IV...such was the price of keeping the flow of new games to play coming for a broke young guy. I don't remember Chronicles being that exceptionally tough though, I managed to eventually get through it. Castlevania III was always the mountain I could never quite scale, at least until save states let me get enough practice on Dracula without having to go way back to that distant checkpoint, so I could learn his patterns.
If I had an MSX I probably would’ve enjoyed its version. The NES version is great classic that I enjoyed and still enjoy to this day. Super Castlevania is one of my all time favorite games. Great video as always!
Love your content man, excellent work. Please make more Castlevania content and perhaps the future of the franchise or related (Bloodstained), especially given the success of the Castlevania show on Netflix!
While I mostly like Castlevania Chronicles I feel you were not fully honest with it. The Clock Tower level in that game is Haunted Castle levels of BS unfair difficulty, and simply isn't well designed. That stage alone brings the game down a lot for me, but overall I do like it, but it's a biggest enough problem to be noted.
I've seen this comment a few times now and it confused me, because I played through that game on the X68 and don't recall having much trouble with that stage at all. Just looked up my footage of my playthrough and I only died once there. I compared it against PS1 footage and noticed a pretty big discrepancy right away. The falling gears are telegraphed in advance in the X68 version. They're not on PS1. That raises the trial and error factor through the roof.
The MSX game is so bad. It was the last (main series) Castlevania game I played and was a huge letdown. So many bad decisions and just overall poor quality. The fact that teh speed of the game varied greatly based on how many enemies are on the screen is ridiculous. One single bat flies super fast, but 2 skeletons make the game chug slowly.
I also don’t understand why Jeremy doesn’t have 1 million subscribers with the quality of these vids. They will be legitimately used by historians in the future, I’m sure of it.
he's one of the best gaming historians/preservations out there. Between his work in the industry, Retronauts, and these videos, he's a treasure in gaming.
The CunninLynguist what other non-UK video-game historian would even bother to mention microcomputer games, and name drop Jet Set Willy? 😂 They all seem to be Nintendo-centric. And I love Nintendo, but you don’t get a full picture of video-game history without at least the UK & Japan being mentioned, if not loads of other countries who did cool stuff like Brazil.
Something else that I want to add about Castlevania 4 that I love: I love how the music that plays once you beat Dracula segways into the end credit music. It just feels so triumphant, like the music that plays during the ending montage of a movie or TV series.
Haunted Castle was the arcade equivalent of today's pay-to-win releases. Back then, you could have made a killing with that cabinet by just giving players a pamphlet explaining tricks like the life-boost, then letting them play at a rate of 1 penny = 1 credit. That would give them hope of beating it, yet it would still cost them, like, three hundred dollars to do it. You'd be the local guy who made a fortune by having everyone save up pennies so you could launder them into your bank of choice.
A minor comment on the Nemesis/Gradius clip -- that was an MSX(1) game and VK is an MSX2 game. MSX2 had a better VDP with hardware support for vertical scrolling (not much use with VK) but also apparently something (better than nothing) for hardware-accelerated horizontal scrolling (the adjust register). But, I'm not an expert on MSX2, so take this with a lot of salt. The flip-screen gameplay reminded me of Konami's Maze of Galious, but I hadn't realized VK on MSX2 (1986) is older than Maze of Galious on MSX(1) (1987).
@@nate567987 I don't know which sequels you're referring to, because Nemesis 2, 3, Parodius and Salamander were MSX1 games? Space Manbow was MSX2, but I don't think that was related to the Gradius canon. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were MSX2 games with choppy scrolling as you described, and in theory, MSX1 games released after MSX2 was out could've also supported the better hardware if it were present.
Imagine growing up with Msx2 games and then getting an Nes a few years later. The Nes color pallet is awful and feels like a major step back. Scrolling is nice, but the rest of the image is an eyesore. (Msx2 pallete is 512color like Genesis).
Haunted Castle also has a feature where if you pump in another quarter, you can refill your health bar up to 3 times per continue. Or you can fill your health past the visible max from the start.
@@JeremyParish That is interesting. On the version included in Konami Arcade Anniversary I haven't had any issues on Switch. Thanks for the reply Jeremy. On a side note it was neat seeing your write-ups in my Gradius soundtrack pickups from ship to shore.
My top 10 Castlevania games of the original series go: #1 Castlevania Chonicles (Original Mode) #2 Super Castlevania IV #3 Dracula X Rondo of Blood #4 Castlevania Symphony of the Night #5 Castlevania #6 Castlevania Bloodlines #7 Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth #8 Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse #9 Haunted Castle #10 Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest Of the new series I liked Aria and Dawn of Sorrow the best with Harmony of Dissonance being a close 3rd. Didnt really like Circle of the Moon, Portrait of Ruin or Order of Eclessia and all the 3D Castlevanias were only okay. I have nostalgia for them, but they dont hold a candle to the original games.
Boy, you're so much more positive on Chronicles than I am! To me it has so many of the same "gotcha" style hits as the arcade game that you can only avoid if you know they're there. Arranged mode is a godsend for the knockback tweak but even so, that last clock tower segment is one of the worst Castlevania experiences I've had. It is at least very pretty, and the laurel is a very good idea for an item given how brutal the game is, but it sure treads that line of being unfun difficult more often than I'd like.
I think all of these games are pretty decent. Of the 4 games, Super Castlevania and Castlevania Chronicles are my favorites with Chronicles being my favorite Castlevania of the old games followed by Super.
I have vague memories of a DOS Castlvania that looked like the VS one graphically and I never got past like the beginning of level 2 in. Also the future of the series is probably in pachinko given the state of konami these days :
After finally getting to play Haunted Castle via the Konami Arcade Collection...it definitely left much to be desired. I think I'd be mad as hell if I wasted quarters on it back then. Looks and sounds nice enough though. I think with some refinement it could have been a decent quarter muncher....maybe more like magic sword
I don't even understand why Konami made their arcade games so unbelievably hard during that period. I mean, limited continues *in a quarter-muncher?* That doesn't even make sense. It's like they failed to even grasp the essential concept that arcade games need to inspire the player to keep pumping in quarters.
@@jasonblalock4429 they made plenty of all time classic games during this period along with the bad ones. Like Sunset Riders, probably my favourite arcade game ever, I used to be obsessed with playing it on the cabinet at this one restaurant in Spain my family would always go to when we were on holiday. I never knew at the time that it got ports to the SNES and Mega Drive, I was only 5. And the mega drive one would have been dissapointing anyway, it's not great because of the lack of buttons. The SNES port is a lot better. But the arcade version is amazing, I play it on my Switch with a big Hori arcade stick. And the gradius series. Best shooters ever. Nothing beats the feeling of when you've got all the options and powerups and you're just blasting every enemy on screen at once. The twinbee games are great too. And Parodius, the best titles of the best shooter series, easily the best gradius games, and they combine it with twinbee too as you can play as twinbee and shoot bells and all that And the TMNT games. And the Simpsons Arcade. And Metamorphic Force is a really unique cool beat em up, it's insane. Haunted Castle was a mistake. But Konami could fucking rock your face with arcade games back then, they were arguably the best in the arcade. Maybe not definitely the best but they're definitely one of the contenders. I just really wish they'd port more of these arcade games to modern systems. Like ok they've got Sunset Riders, but no Simpsons Arcade or turtles in time? They've ported them to systems before like the 360 so the legal contractual issues with the licenses for them are not insurmountable. Like how now the company that made the Scott Pilgrim beat em up are bringing it to the Switch. So these problems are not impossible to overcome at all And games like Metamorphic Force have _NEVER_ been ported to anything. Why? How hard could it be to release it on the switch and everything else? It's not based on a license, and they wouldn't have to do any work on it, they already pay HAMSTER to port their games to modern consoles, like with Sunset Rider. So do what Capcom did and release a compilation of beat em ups. The Capcom beat em up collection is sit on my face fantastic. But Konami were ever so slightly better at making beat em ups. I'd pay a lot for a simpsons arcade port, and so would millions of others
I played Vs Castlevania in a Pizza Hut in the 80s. This was my first time playing any Castlevania game. And here we are and I’m still obsessed with Castlevania
I love Super Castlevania 4, but it's not a castlevania game to me. There's too many things that break the formula, like being able to whip in any directions. And the jumping is too adjustable. For me the best 2 castlevania games are Bloodlines for the mega drive and Rondo of Blood for the turbographx. They're 16 bit, very pretty and very flashy, but they retain the castlevania gameplay It's like, if you give Mega Man the ability to use his basic blaster in 8 directions, it's not mega man anymore. The whole point of these limitations, like only whipping in 2 directions, is that it adds a big tactical element to it, how you plan routes of how to get through obstacles. Making it so you don't have to think and plan but instead you can just rely on twitch reactions, it takes away what makes castlevania great, to me. Super Castlevania 4 is still a fantastic game. But I dunno how to describe it. I guess it's like Mega Man X. Mega Man X is not Mega Man, it's a whole different robot and time period, both styles play very differently to each other and are great in their own way Or like 2D mario compared to 3D mario. It's that kind of difference, all these series broke off and became their own different pathways So I'm really sad they never made more Super Castlevania games, only the one. Then kept the original castlevania series going for a while, I think the last one is Chronicles on the PS1. Or I guess Rondo of Blood had a remake on the PSP, so that's the last ever castlevania game Then they have a 3rd series, the metroidvania series. They've done tons of games in that series. And of course there's the 3D castlevania series, so there's at least 4 separate castlevania game series. And for some reason they made only one in the Super Castlevania series and then abandoned it. So all we have is romhacks if we want more of that style of castlevania
"I guess it's like Mega Man X." Pretty fair comparison. Dash momentum carrying over to jumps, wall grabs, and smooth vertical scrolling really do make the X games a whole other beast.
Rondo of Blood always seemed like the most logical successor to the NES Castlevanias to me. You can only whip in two directions and have to strategize with the subweapons (which are basically redundant in SCIV). And it has a second playable character who breaks the game plus the branching stages. SCIV and Contra III had several team members who went on to form Treasure - in some ways these games are like prototypes for Gunstar Heroes (like how much they love mini-boss fights).
You went really hard on Haunted Castle here, it isn't that bad of a game. It's actually a fun challenge if you play the K version (Euro/Japan version) and not the M version (BS hard North American version).
A fan based company called Migami Games has done four games you can play via PC. Two are sequels to Haunted Castle and date back to the late 90's, if you can stand playing games that date back to Windows 98 (use compatibility mode). The Lecarde Chronicles games are pretty good.
" They took the tact, to HATE the player" lmao, Haunted Castle delivered that in spades! At least some hard acrade games have unlimited continues, NOPE! NOT EVEN THAT!! A complete time waster of a game to me. Im shocked he had footage of some of the later phases, ive never been past Stage 1!!!
Castlevania for the X68000 wasn't insanely difficult. Haunted Castle, however, absolutely was, particularly if you're talking about the 'M' rom set rather than the 'K' romset that Japan got. I've beaten every other Castlevania game out there with the exception of Vampire Killer -- just haven't tried it yet -- and Haunted Castle and Haunted Castle is, by far, the hardest. The X68000 game just had a little old school difficulty, but wasn't that bad.
I'll never forget walking into a local FuncoLand (I don't think they quite renamed it to GameStop yet) in Brooklyn in December 2001, and seeing Castlevania Chronicles. By the time it came out, the PlayStation was overshadowed completely by the PS2, and everything for it was perceived as budget crap and ignored. My cousin was a huge Castlevania nut, so I picked it up for him as a Christmas gift. I think it was $30 new. To this day, it's one of my favorite Christmas gifts I've ever given, and I'm pretty sure he still has it.
I'm sure glad I never did see Haunted Castle in an arcade, that probably would have scarred me for life! And I still love Super Castlevania IV on the SNES. While it's not a perfect game it was an awesome early showcase of what the SNES could do in graphics and sound! I still remember renting it shortly after it was released and spending quite a while just listening to the music, let alone play the game! I'm sure official PS1 & PS2 backwards compatibility/emulation will come to the PS5 in time. Sony just needs to sort out licensing issues with 3rd parties so they can release downloadable games and wait for sales of the console to hit their first (or second) slump. I'm guessing around this time next year or sometime in 2022.
I enjoy 4 for its atmosphere, but admit the original Castlevania is a lot tighter in design. Still, 4 was my first, and I remember getting to the boss trio before Dracula. The music is so frantic, my brain still struggles to keep up with it 😂
There was another arcade version of the original Castlevania as well that was much closer to the home version - I know, because the one place in town that had any arcade games when I was growing up, the roller skating rink (yes, I'm old) had it and I played it a ton. It probably went a long way towards selling me on the NES game. I want to say the levels may have been remixed some? I'm not 100%, but I do know that it wasn't Haunted Castle.
Akumajo X68000 can never get enough love. People seem content to sleep on this one eternally. Then again, I might have said the same about Bloodlines until very recently, so maybe there's hope.
Haunted Castle was almost good - if it weren’t so brutal and unforgiving, it would have been a lot more fun. The game requires save states on an emulator.
"Many locations have been copied verbatim, which this game uses to throw players off balance or subvert expectations." Yes. I wasn't familiar with Chronicles before last year, when I went to my local Play N Trade (which I often did to unwind after work at that time) and found PlayStation was on with this game paused and the playthrough abandoned. I picked it up and immediately recognized that I was seeing a recreation of Castlevania's opening stage. I think that stage was largely unchanged, maybe some added enemies, but in the second stage, it very abruptly went from being almost exactly the same game to completely new, and it was quite jarring. "That's... That's not how this stage goes!" Pretty soon, I elected to spend my time looking at what else they had in stock at the moment, rather than try to learn a new game in the store.
I have bloodlines and IV and they are great games. One thing that bothers me is when people say bloodlines is equal or better than super castlevania because it’s not. Super castlevania is just a better game. Period.
So great how you quickly review vs. Castlevania, I didn't know what the hell it exactly was. I didn't want to spend the $7.99 to find out and didn't want to spend the 120 seconds it would of taken to find out using the world wide web. Great video!
The NES Castlevania was the first of a very small handful of games I ever got a perfect run, so the existence of a tougher version is certainly interesting.
I never heard of Haunted Castle before! I agree with your analysis of the quarter-eating difficulty and the great music. I’m surprised you didn’t mention that art and animation work as a big plus, though! The statue crumbles into an enemy as you pass, the large Frankenstein monster, etc all look fantastic to my eye. Now I’m going to see if there’s any ROM-hacking variants that minimize the annoying aspects.
I remember Christmas morning opening up this game, I couldn’t put my NES controller down all day & night.. & being the first kid to have this game In my neighborhood, every friend I had was at my house.. I’m 40 yrs old, & every Halloween through years I always play my Castlevania games to have & relive that sweet nostalgia feeling...
20:38 not anymore since Sony IS shutting Off the PS3/PSP and vita stores and discontinuing ALL their products, thank's Sony that Will totaly make me buy a PS5...
Yeah, they haven't completely shut off the tap, but at the moment Sony Europe is calling a lot of the shots, and their boss is extremely antagonistic to the idea that anyone would ever want to play a game that wasn't released within the past few months. There's cause to be concerned for the long-term future of legacy PlayStation content.
MSX Castlevania is pretty much the store brand version of Castlevania: -Looks the same on the service level -Lower quality but does the same job, albeit lacking small details -Harder (seriously, store brand cereal is like eating pebbles)
It’s weird to me that other people don’t love Castlevania for as much as I do. I am a massive super Nintendo fan boy and those early super into new games are legendary to me. I was currently shaking when I realized that not everyone agrees. In retrospect, I can understand why. But every time I even see Castlevania for I am immediately taken back to when it was new and how mind Blowing it was.
I have no idea how you always have an excuse to make a video or Retronauts episode on Castlevania, but I LOVE it Are there still any Castlevanias you haven’t played?
That was excellent. It’s too bad there’s no way to play the MSX version on modern consoles. I hope Konami continues to get M2 to bring classic Castlevania games to Switch.
Castlevania was one of those series I grew up with and played every title around the time of release (rentals, borrowed off friends) but never got super engaged in until I was older. Still I nothing will replace that amazing feeling I got conquering Super Castlevania IV for the first time, passing the control back and forth with my neighbor after each death as was the tradition.
If there's any other redeeming quality to Haunted Castle, it's got to be that absolutely priceless walking animation. Constipated (or diarrhea-ridden) Simon on a mission to find the toilet in Dracula's castle.
Simon's gotta pee and the legions of Hell won't stop him!
Constivania
i love the skeletons dance walking animation
The music was great too
it is a botched mess of a game but i'd be lying if i said it didn't have a certain low-grade charm to it. that time freeze effect is really neat too
This explained a non-Castlevania mystery to me. There was an old fangame called G-Type, which gave a remixed R-Type a Gradius weapon system and Gradius enemies, which had a special stage set in Gradius with terrible graphics and terrible scrolling. Now I know it was probably a riff on the Gradius MSX version. Thanks for solving this for me, Mr. Parish.
that's hilarious
Excellent, and timely, video! I usually replay Castlevania 4 every Halloween season. It's a fantastic action game, and a wonderful work of art. Even though it's a game from 1991, I feel that no other Castlevania quite captures "gothic horror" like Castlevania 4 does, from the design of its stages, environments, and enemies. The forest level is very dark and foreboding, the castle entryway (the fifth stage) feels intense and unsettling, and the castle dungeon definitely feels like a place that you do NOT want to end up in (especially with all of the skeletons in the background). I would like to make note that, even though I first played the game when I was able 7 years old, I was able to tell even then that the "green slime" was intended to be blood. I just played through the stage last night on the Japanese version, and the stage certainly feels a little different. Maybe it's because I was playing it on the Castlevania Collection, but the stage felt a little bit brighter.
On the other hand, the castle treasury level is one of my favorite environments in the series. I love the effect of the ghosts rising up in the background, and how everything glitters and shimmers. It feels like a joyous location, in comparison to the rest of the game. And the background music for the area is fantastic!
However, I am not sure if you touched on this in your other video on Castlevania 4, but while the game is much easier than the NES games (and Chronicles), I feel that there are sharp difficulty spikes in the dungeon, clock tower, and final levels. There are certain sections of those areas that seem to be not as well designed as the rest of the game.
I am glad that you included Chronicles in this video! It's a terrific remake of the original game. I have actually completed the game on the "Original" mode, and I still have bad dreams about the werewolf boss fight and the doll level. I remember that I was able to finish the game because I stumbled upon the herb power up, and I was able to keep it with me the rest of the way.
Yeah, basically any part in Castlevania 4 that includes instant death feels out of place compared to the rest of the game's difficulty curve. The dungeon level especially where your huge character dies so easily from touching anything spiky, and that pit with the randomly flashing disappearing blocks. Many of my no death run attempts ended there.
@@19Szabolcs91 Yes! My no damage/one life runs also often end at the dungeon level, particularly at the section in which you have to walk over the disappearing blocks while javelins are dropping above you. I find the section in the clock tower in which you have to latch onto the hooks that travel upwards with your whip to be creative, but very frustrating. If you're not in the perfect spot when the upward scroll ends, you're going to lose a life.
I still truly believe that Castlevania Chronicles/Sharp is the most challenging of the legitimately fair Castlevanias. That one definitely made me scream internally the most. I do wish its soundtrack got more callbacks in the later games. I think Tower of Dolls was the only song to go on and make more than one more appearance.
God, Haunted Castle’s walk cycle though. I’m grateful for Cross Your Heart, but the “dumped in your pants in public” walk is baffling to this day.
Except those pop off gears in the clock tower. Pretty dang unreactable the first time. Other than that, though, you're right on.
@@willmistretta Yeah, the clock tower stage is definitely the low point of Chronicles, it's total trial and error. It even features the worst song in the whole OST. Other than that, it's a great adaptation of CV1, feels like a more dangerous, more hardcore version of the original. Love how it looks and sounds, the whip's sound effect is very satisfying, and it's a fantastic challenge.
Anything Jeremy does that is Castlevania related is always an instant thumbs up. Super glad to see the Vs. Castlevania bit at the end. I love that version just for the extra challenge as someone that plays through the original game several times a year.
Castlevania Vs was my first taste of Castlevania. Small Utah town inside a plain diner with Castlevania Vs, Asteroids, and Donkey Kong in the corner, me and my buddies seeing how far we could get on a quarter each.
Love this compilation idea. Great video!
Love me some castle mania
Always like a Castlevania video of yours, Jeremy. Castlevania certainly has a constant of killer music if nothing else. The NES vs MSX comparison is also welcome.
Thanks for the fascinating video. I wonder about the relationship between the MSX and Famicom development teams. The versions are so similar, yet different. True, the MSX hardware had different capabilities, but I bet they could have made at least a competent side scroller if they tried. It feels like the differences were intentional. Perhaps they really didn't know yet what makes a hit a hit and were exploring.
There was a Castlevania port for the Commodore 64, so the MSX2 would probably have been similiar.
Anyway, great review, and it's nice to have Chronicles get some exposure. It's a very overlooked game, but a really fun one.
Now I wanna see a Gaiden episode on early puzzle games for NES/FC. Everyone knows about Tetris, but what about the OTHER games Pajitnov worked on to some extent?
I can't say that I'm fond of the design philosophy that leans too heavily on setpieces. I think those are more effective when they have more "regular level" areas to stand out from. It's like having a song with mostly choruses and barely any verses or bridge.
This game was a leap in graphical enhancement for the castlevania series, like almost everyone else - I never knew it even existed until it debuted on PSX as Castlevania Chronicles - I bought it brand new and was 17 when it first came out.
I foolishly sold my copy of Castlevania Chronicles back in the day. And Symphony of the Night. And Super IV...such was the price of keeping the flow of new games to play coming for a broke young guy. I don't remember Chronicles being that exceptionally tough though, I managed to eventually get through it. Castlevania III was always the mountain I could never quite scale, at least until save states let me get enough practice on Dracula without having to go way back to that distant checkpoint, so I could learn his patterns.
If I had an MSX I probably would’ve enjoyed its version. The NES version is great classic that I enjoyed and still enjoy to this day. Super Castlevania is one of my all time favorite games. Great video as always!
Love your content man, excellent work. Please make more Castlevania content and perhaps the future of the franchise or related (Bloodstained), especially given the success of the Castlevania show on Netflix!
a late 80ies arcade machine xD btw, very good video, as usual ^^
This channel is fantastic where has this been
More Castlevania!
I didn't realize the first castlevania had so many remakes
While I mostly like Castlevania Chronicles I feel you were not fully honest with it. The Clock Tower level in that game is Haunted Castle levels of BS unfair difficulty, and simply isn't well designed. That stage alone brings the game down a lot for me, but overall I do like it, but it's a biggest enough problem to be noted.
I've seen this comment a few times now and it confused me, because I played through that game on the X68 and don't recall having much trouble with that stage at all. Just looked up my footage of my playthrough and I only died once there.
I compared it against PS1 footage and noticed a pretty big discrepancy right away. The falling gears are telegraphed in advance in the X68 version. They're not on PS1. That raises the trial and error factor through the roof.
Vr needs a topic on this video NOW
What did I do to piss you off?
@@JeremyParish I'm a fan! So nothing 🤷♂️
Yet you would throw me into a pit of vipers...
@@JeremyParish no. Besides being talked about on there invariably leads to more views. People can make their own mind up
A bit hard to know when I'm watching NES or MSX footage before figuring NES Simon is orange
Looks like they really refined the game with the nes version.
The MSX game is so bad. It was the last (main series) Castlevania game I played and was a huge letdown. So many bad decisions and just overall poor quality. The fact that teh speed of the game varied greatly based on how many enemies are on the screen is ridiculous. One single bat flies super fast, but 2 skeletons make the game chug slowly.
You must play Vampire Killer or any other japanese MSX game in 60 Hz. The framerate is very stable in 60hz
As a Castlevania fan since 1987 I found this vid to be very informative.. ty
I also don’t understand why Jeremy doesn’t have 1 million subscribers with the quality of these vids. They will be legitimately used by historians in the future, I’m sure of it.
He's going to get there. I remember when this channel only had a few thousand. I love seeing success.
At my current growth rate I will hit one million sometime in 2166. Right around the time I wrap up PlayStation 2 coverage.
he's one of the best gaming historians/preservations out there. Between his work in the industry, Retronauts, and these videos, he's a treasure in gaming.
The CunninLynguist what other non-UK video-game historian would even bother to mention microcomputer games, and name drop Jet Set Willy? 😂 They all seem to be Nintendo-centric. And I love Nintendo, but you don’t get a full picture of video-game history without at least the UK & Japan being mentioned, if not loads of other countries who did cool stuff like Brazil.
@@JeremyParish Nah, son. You're going to be king.
If you loop the nes Game about 4 times, every hit becomes instant death.
Something else that I want to add about Castlevania 4 that I love: I love how the music that plays once you beat Dracula segways into the end credit music. It just feels so triumphant, like the music that plays during the ending montage of a movie or TV series.
Haunted Castle was the arcade equivalent of today's pay-to-win releases. Back then, you could have made a killing with that cabinet by just giving players a pamphlet explaining tricks like the life-boost, then letting them play at a rate of 1 penny = 1 credit. That would give them hope of beating it, yet it would still cost them, like, three hundred dollars to do it. You'd be the local guy who made a fortune by having everyone save up pennies so you could launder them into your bank of choice.
OK, why did you have to go and do this? I was off to do something productive, but then I saw this in my feed. There goes 22 minutes of my day. Thanks.
Frickin' right? It's such delicious quality content.
A minor comment on the Nemesis/Gradius clip -- that was an MSX(1) game and VK is an MSX2 game. MSX2 had a better VDP with hardware support for vertical scrolling (not much use with VK) but also apparently something (better than nothing) for hardware-accelerated horizontal scrolling (the adjust register). But, I'm not an expert on MSX2, so take this with a lot of salt.
The flip-screen gameplay reminded me of Konami's Maze of Galious, but I hadn't realized VK on MSX2 (1986) is older than Maze of Galious on MSX(1) (1987).
Gradius had MSX2 sequels that were still chopy
@@nate567987 I don't know which sequels you're referring to, because Nemesis 2, 3, Parodius and Salamander were MSX1 games? Space Manbow was MSX2, but I don't think that was related to the Gradius canon.
But I wouldn't be surprised if there were MSX2 games with choppy scrolling as you described, and in theory, MSX1 games released after MSX2 was out could've also supported the better hardware if it were present.
The way in which you present information I felt I had a pretty good grip on already is very impressive and I enjoy it. Thank you for the work you do.
Would love to see a side video on castlevania clones, especially master of darkness for the master system. Though maybe on nes gaiden down the line?
Imagine growing up with Msx2 games and then getting an Nes a few years later. The Nes color pallet is awful and feels like a major step back. Scrolling is nice, but the rest of the image is an eyesore. (Msx2 pallete is 512color like Genesis).
It’s a testament to this series that I don’t really care what game is being covered; I’ll watch.
Haunted Castle also has a feature where if you pump in another quarter, you can refill your health bar up to 3 times per continue. Or you can fill your health past the visible max from the start.
That works really inconsistently on the Arcade Archives version for some reason. It worked for me once or twice, but not always.
@@JeremyParish That is interesting. On the version included in Konami Arcade Anniversary I haven't had any issues on Switch. Thanks for the reply Jeremy. On a side note it was neat seeing your write-ups in my Gradius soundtrack pickups from ship to shore.
Jeremy Parish is the Carl Sagan of video game journailsm
My top 10 Castlevania games of the original series go:
#1 Castlevania Chonicles (Original Mode)
#2 Super Castlevania IV
#3 Dracula X Rondo of Blood
#4 Castlevania Symphony of the Night
#5 Castlevania
#6 Castlevania Bloodlines
#7 Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth
#8 Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse
#9 Haunted Castle
#10 Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest
Of the new series I liked Aria and Dawn of Sorrow the best with Harmony of Dissonance being a close 3rd. Didnt really like Circle of the Moon, Portrait of Ruin or Order of Eclessia and all the 3D Castlevanias were only okay. I have nostalgia for them, but they dont hold a candle to the original games.
Boy, you're so much more positive on Chronicles than I am! To me it has so many of the same "gotcha" style hits as the arcade game that you can only avoid if you know they're there. Arranged mode is a godsend for the knockback tweak but even so, that last clock tower segment is one of the worst Castlevania experiences I've had. It is at least very pretty, and the laurel is a very good idea for an item given how brutal the game is, but it sure treads that line of being unfun difficult more often than I'd like.
I think all of these games are pretty decent. Of the 4 games, Super Castlevania and Castlevania Chronicles are my favorites with Chronicles being my favorite Castlevania of the old games followed by Super.
I have vague memories of a DOS Castlvania that looked like the VS one graphically and I never got past like the beginning of level 2 in.
Also the future of the series is probably in pachinko given the state of konami these days :
After finally getting to play Haunted Castle via the Konami Arcade Collection...it definitely left much to be desired. I think I'd be mad as hell if I wasted quarters on it back then. Looks and sounds nice enough though. I think with some refinement it could have been a decent quarter muncher....maybe more like magic sword
I don't even understand why Konami made their arcade games so unbelievably hard during that period. I mean, limited continues *in a quarter-muncher?* That doesn't even make sense. It's like they failed to even grasp the essential concept that arcade games need to inspire the player to keep pumping in quarters.
At least that's all you'd lose, a quarter. Imagine if it had been ported to the SNES, $60 for that would have been horrendous
@@jasonblalock4429 they made plenty of all time classic games during this period along with the bad ones. Like Sunset Riders, probably my favourite arcade game ever, I used to be obsessed with playing it on the cabinet at this one restaurant in Spain my family would always go to when we were on holiday. I never knew at the time that it got ports to the SNES and Mega Drive, I was only 5. And the mega drive one would have been dissapointing anyway, it's not great because of the lack of buttons. The SNES port is a lot better. But the arcade version is amazing, I play it on my Switch with a big Hori arcade stick.
And the gradius series. Best shooters ever. Nothing beats the feeling of when you've got all the options and powerups and you're just blasting every enemy on screen at once. The twinbee games are great too. And Parodius, the best titles of the best shooter series, easily the best gradius games, and they combine it with twinbee too as you can play as twinbee and shoot bells and all that
And the TMNT games. And the Simpsons Arcade. And Metamorphic Force is a really unique cool beat em up, it's insane.
Haunted Castle was a mistake. But Konami could fucking rock your face with arcade games back then, they were arguably the best in the arcade. Maybe not definitely the best but they're definitely one of the contenders.
I just really wish they'd port more of these arcade games to modern systems. Like ok they've got Sunset Riders, but no Simpsons Arcade or turtles in time? They've ported them to systems before like the 360 so the legal contractual issues with the licenses for them are not insurmountable. Like how now the company that made the Scott Pilgrim beat em up are bringing it to the Switch. So these problems are not impossible to overcome at all
And games like Metamorphic Force have _NEVER_ been ported to anything. Why? How hard could it be to release it on the switch and everything else? It's not based on a license, and they wouldn't have to do any work on it, they already pay HAMSTER to port their games to modern consoles, like with Sunset Rider. So do what Capcom did and release a compilation of beat em ups. The Capcom beat em up collection is sit on my face fantastic. But Konami were ever so slightly better at making beat em ups. I'd pay a lot for a simpsons arcade port, and so would millions of others
@@mortenera2294 no I didn't
I played Vs Castlevania in a Pizza Hut in the 80s. This was my first time playing any Castlevania game. And here we are and I’m still obsessed with Castlevania
Ah, your bread and butter: Castlevania. Good Wednesday morning.
I've never played Haunted Castle but I would play it in a heart beat over the DOS version of Castlevania.
I love Super Castlevania 4, but it's not a castlevania game to me. There's too many things that break the formula, like being able to whip in any directions. And the jumping is too adjustable. For me the best 2 castlevania games are Bloodlines for the mega drive and Rondo of Blood for the turbographx. They're 16 bit, very pretty and very flashy, but they retain the castlevania gameplay
It's like, if you give Mega Man the ability to use his basic blaster in 8 directions, it's not mega man anymore. The whole point of these limitations, like only whipping in 2 directions, is that it adds a big tactical element to it, how you plan routes of how to get through obstacles. Making it so you don't have to think and plan but instead you can just rely on twitch reactions, it takes away what makes castlevania great, to me. Super Castlevania 4 is still a fantastic game. But I dunno how to describe it. I guess it's like Mega Man X. Mega Man X is not Mega Man, it's a whole different robot and time period, both styles play very differently to each other and are great in their own way
Or like 2D mario compared to 3D mario. It's that kind of difference, all these series broke off and became their own different pathways
So I'm really sad they never made more Super Castlevania games, only the one. Then kept the original castlevania series going for a while, I think the last one is Chronicles on the PS1. Or I guess Rondo of Blood had a remake on the PSP, so that's the last ever castlevania game
Then they have a 3rd series, the metroidvania series. They've done tons of games in that series. And of course there's the 3D castlevania series, so there's at least 4 separate castlevania game series. And for some reason they made only one in the Super Castlevania series and then abandoned it. So all we have is romhacks if we want more of that style of castlevania
"I guess it's like Mega Man X."
Pretty fair comparison. Dash momentum carrying over to jumps, wall grabs, and smooth vertical scrolling really do make the X games a whole other beast.
Rondo of Blood always seemed like the most logical successor to the NES Castlevanias to me. You can only whip in two directions and have to strategize with the subweapons (which are basically redundant in SCIV). And it has a second playable character who breaks the game plus the branching stages.
SCIV and Contra III had several team members who went on to form Treasure - in some ways these games are like prototypes for Gunstar Heroes (like how much they love mini-boss fights).
You went really hard on Haunted Castle here, it isn't that bad of a game. It's actually a fun challenge if you play the K version (Euro/Japan version) and not the M version (BS hard North American version).
I was hoping someone else defended this game. Yeah Haunted Castle is fine. I like it.
Since Metroidvania works 13 will be featuring Castlevania 2 I’m curious if it will be covered next week as a Halloween tie in.
Ooohh this is gonna be good!!
MSX Contra is secretly the best version
A fan based company called Migami Games has done four games you can play via PC. Two are sequels to Haunted Castle and date back to the late 90's, if you can stand playing games that date back to Windows 98 (use compatibility mode). The Lecarde Chronicles games are pretty good.
20:35 Spot on, but not in a good way :/
" They took the tact, to HATE the player" lmao, Haunted Castle delivered that in spades!
At least some hard acrade games have unlimited continues, NOPE! NOT EVEN THAT!!
A complete time waster of a game to me.
Im shocked he had footage of some of the later phases, ive never been past Stage 1!!!
VS Castlevania has dip switches that determine the difficulty level.
Castlevania for the X68000 wasn't insanely difficult. Haunted Castle, however, absolutely was, particularly if you're talking about the 'M' rom set rather than the 'K' romset that Japan got. I've beaten every other Castlevania game out there with the exception of Vampire Killer -- just haven't tried it yet -- and Haunted Castle and Haunted Castle is, by far, the hardest. The X68000 game just had a little old school difficulty, but wasn't that bad.
I'll never forget walking into a local FuncoLand (I don't think they quite renamed it to GameStop yet) in Brooklyn in December 2001, and seeing Castlevania Chronicles. By the time it came out, the PlayStation was overshadowed completely by the PS2, and everything for it was perceived as budget crap and ignored. My cousin was a huge Castlevania nut, so I picked it up for him as a Christmas gift. I think it was $30 new. To this day, it's one of my favorite Christmas gifts I've ever given, and I'm pretty sure he still has it.
I'm sure glad I never did see Haunted Castle in an arcade, that probably would have scarred me for life! And I still love Super Castlevania IV on the SNES. While it's not a perfect game it was an awesome early showcase of what the SNES could do in graphics and sound! I still remember renting it shortly after it was released and spending quite a while just listening to the music, let alone play the game!
I'm sure official PS1 & PS2 backwards compatibility/emulation will come to the PS5 in time. Sony just needs to sort out licensing issues with 3rd parties so they can release downloadable games and wait for sales of the console to hit their first (or second) slump. I'm guessing around this time next year or sometime in 2022.
I enjoy 4 for its atmosphere, but admit the original Castlevania is a lot tighter in design. Still, 4 was my first, and I remember getting to the boss trio before Dracula. The music is so frantic, my brain still struggles to keep up with it 😂
Castlevania Chronicles isn't in the European Playstation Store, sadly, which is a shame because I am fond of that game.
There was another arcade version of the original Castlevania as well that was much closer to the home version - I know, because the one place in town that had any arcade games when I was growing up, the roller skating rink (yes, I'm old) had it and I played it a ton. It probably went a long way towards selling me on the NES game. I want to say the levels may have been remixed some? I'm not 100%, but I do know that it wasn't Haunted Castle.
I count two references to Star Trek IV now, though it could be double dumb-*&$ on me.... :-)
Akumajo X68000 can never get enough love. People seem content to sleep on this one eternally. Then again, I might have said the same about Bloodlines until very recently, so maybe there's hope.
Haunted Castle was almost good - if it weren’t so brutal and unforgiving, it would have been a lot more fun. The game requires save states on an emulator.
"Many locations have been copied verbatim, which this game uses to throw players off balance or subvert expectations." Yes. I wasn't familiar with Chronicles before last year, when I went to my local Play N Trade (which I often did to unwind after work at that time) and found PlayStation was on with this game paused and the playthrough abandoned. I picked it up and immediately recognized that I was seeing a recreation of Castlevania's opening stage. I think that stage was largely unchanged, maybe some added enemies, but in the second stage, it very abruptly went from being almost exactly the same game to completely new, and it was quite jarring.
"That's... That's not how this stage goes!"
Pretty soon, I elected to spend my time looking at what else they had in stock at the moment, rather than try to learn a new game in the store.
That's not a werewolf, it's BLANKA from Street Fighter 2!
I have bloodlines and IV and they are great games. One thing that bothers me is when people say bloodlines is equal or better than super castlevania because it’s not. Super castlevania is just a better game. Period.
So great how you quickly review vs. Castlevania, I didn't know what the hell it exactly was. I didn't want to spend the $7.99 to find out and didn't want to spend the 120 seconds it would of taken to find out using the world wide web. Great video!
The NES Castlevania was the first of a very small handful of games I ever got a perfect run, so the existence of a tougher version is certainly interesting.
Whenever I hear the sound of Simon's whip on the MSX version, I hear the sound of Link's sword from the first Legend of Zelda.
Castlevania chronicles isn't on the pal ps store
Because ofcourse it isn't.
Guess i'll pay 80 bucks for it
Haunted castle is utter poopoopeepee. Honestly one of the worst games I've ever played.
I didn't know about Chronicle; it actually looks sick?
Rondo of blood is almost a boss battle game. The levels are often very short with a boss battle at the end.
Absolutely brilliant video. Thank you for it.
No tricks, Jer giving us a Halloween treat
Hmm, I always thought Castlevania Chronicles was just a port of Haunted Castle. I'll have to try it again.
Oh, it's so much better.
I never heard of Haunted Castle before! I agree with your analysis of the quarter-eating difficulty and the great music. I’m surprised you didn’t mention that art and animation work as a big plus, though! The statue crumbles into an enemy as you pass, the large Frankenstein monster, etc all look fantastic to my eye. Now I’m going to see if there’s any ROM-hacking variants that minimize the annoying aspects.
Thanks for turning down the white noise static blasts
Lemme just pause this so I can fill my coffee before i watch... oh JESUS jeremy what a first frame!
Your glasses shadow looks like evil eyebrows lol
I remember Christmas morning opening up this game, I couldn’t put my NES controller down all day & night.. & being the first kid to have this game In my neighborhood, every friend I had was at my house.. I’m 40 yrs old, & every Halloween through years I always play my Castlevania games to have & relive that sweet nostalgia feeling...
The first stage music of Haunted Castle is my favourite piece of Castlevania music. It's so great in Smash Bros.
20:38 not anymore since Sony IS shutting Off the PS3/PSP and vita stores and discontinuing ALL their products, thank's Sony that Will totaly make me buy a PS5...
Currently, they're only shutting down the web store. Each system's separate store items can still be bought off of its respective console. For now..
Yeah, they haven't completely shut off the tap, but at the moment Sony Europe is calling a lot of the shots, and their boss is extremely antagonistic to the idea that anyone would ever want to play a game that wasn't released within the past few months. There's cause to be concerned for the long-term future of legacy PlayStation content.
Look up Jim Ryan's opinions on PS1 games and prepare to have your blood angried up
MSX Castlevania is pretty much the store brand version of Castlevania:
-Looks the same on the service level
-Lower quality but does the same job, albeit lacking small details
-Harder (seriously, store brand cereal is like eating pebbles)
It’s weird to me that other people don’t love Castlevania for as much as I do. I am a massive super Nintendo fan boy and those early super into new games are legendary to me. I was currently shaking when I realized that not everyone agrees. In retrospect, I can understand why. But every time I even see Castlevania for I am immediately taken back to when it was new and how mind Blowing it was.
I have no idea how you always have an excuse to make a video or Retronauts episode on Castlevania, but I LOVE it
Are there still any Castlevanias you haven’t played?
That was excellent. It’s too bad there’s no way to play the MSX version on modern consoles. I hope Konami continues to get M2 to bring classic Castlevania games to Switch.
The new presentation is very... Prisoners of Gravity-esque. I dig it.
I had to look that up, but the host of that looks remarkably like Victor Garber. There are worse comparisons.
@@JeremyParish It was a very good show, though it's only available in bits and pieces on UA-cam.
Castlevania was one of those series I grew up with and played every title around the time of release (rentals, borrowed off friends) but never got super engaged in until I was older. Still I nothing will replace that amazing feeling I got conquering Super Castlevania IV for the first time, passing the control back and forth with my neighbor after each death as was the tradition.
The sharp shadows in the intro makes Jeremy look like Mark Mothersbaugh from the cover of oh, no! it's DEVO.
BTW, why is it the "Zapf Bat?" Consider the classic symbol font Zapf Dingbats....
Zapf is just German for jewel, isn’t it?
@@JeremyParish Is it? Your explanation is better than mine. But... then why is the font named that?
I looked it up and I am WRONG. I think it is a font reference.
@@JeremyParish Really you had about as much of a chance of being right as I had.
what msx system you use for this
Panasonic A1
Sounds like it is more like Hounted A**h*le 🤔
Especially if the walking animation seems like he's constipated
I beat Simons Quest today for the first time. As a kid it was always beyond me. #lifegoals
Incredible. I don't think there's a single word in this video that I disagreed with.
i saw that fleaman hit in vs. castlevania and just thought oh god the hallway to death is just instant death city
I like the touch of scene transitions being channel switches, it's real creative!
Aaaaaa don't bite me!!!!