@@jeremygreen2883I'm excited that I keep hearing that. My broke ass needs paper soon. Dominus Collection has been on my wishlist for a while. Along with Vampire Survivors and Blasphemous 2 + Mea Culpa
@@quadpad_musicEvery Mario, Sonic, Zelda and countless others. At least Spyro and Rayman had new main villains. Would be like having Batman facing only The Joker. Gets boring.
I find it interesting how Simon in the first game’s Japanese manual actually looks like how his in game sprite looks. I kinda like it tbh it definitely fits the kinda character Simon’s supposed to be when this game was originally made.
Vampire Killer is super cheap on lives because Konami has two cheat cartridges for MSX and each had cheat codes for different sets of Konami games. Vampire Killer gets a level select and the ability to set how many lives you have up to 100.
I just finished the last of the platformer games of my Castlevania franchise retrospective (where I played most of these versions too) so when I saw this video I was super excited. Great video! To push on my nerd glasses though, at 35:54 minutes you say that no Castlevania games to your recollection have ever hidden enemies in candles, but actually in Castlevania legends for the gameboy in a late level they have rooms FILLED with candles hiding spiders and slimes. That game also has candles that when hit send you into a pit of infintietly respawning enemies which is just a glorified death. It is one of the most obnoxious aspects of that arguably decent gameboy game. Also finishing the video, Yesss glad you love chronicles as much as I did. Arrange mode is so fun and having played all of these games over and over again and coming in prepared it felt already mastered (though I get what you mean with the gotcha moments) really enjoyed this vid and I'll check out more of your stuff!
Castlevania 1's short length makes it super easy to memorize too. On a good day, I can go no death all the way up to the end of block 5. At which point Death is literally in front of me and it's a crap shoot if I start to look like him or not. Normally, depending on if I kept the holy water up until then. Though I agree with Castle 3. I replayed all routes recently in prep for finally doing a Simon's Quest video and hot fuck can it get miserably on the Alucard route.
I had always thought Castlevania chronicles was just a reskin of the first game. I was pleasantly surprised by how many monsters and design elements I would see in later Igavanias got their start here.
46:50 i'm...almost there with you. Bloodlines is mine personally, but only for the limited continues. most games in the series have a second quest. I believe Chronicles goes up to a 6th run.
Weirdly enough, I feel like Bloodlines would be the easiest of the 16-bit games if it had unlimited continues. The way I've been recommending the series to friends has been the legacy collection, and I've usually just been telling them to make save states at the start of stages if it gives them trouble. Especially since doing that is on par with abusing the password system anyways. Except the save states save you a few minutes.
@@NovaZoneTV not on Expert mode, that's for sure. i typically don't like using savestates so i think it says something that out of those games bloodlines is the only one i haven't beaten without them, even on normal.
Lowkey, the best thing of Cv1 is finding out strategies that not only kill bosses, but get the job done faster. Like in stage 1, you might be inclined to use the axe because it immediately hits the vampire bat... *but* you can happen to use the stopwatch, sit at the door (or the step next to it) and use the stopwatch as the bat comes down its arc and just mash the whip or turbo buttons and he can die in like 1 or 2 cycles
Castlevania on the NES is by far my favorite version. It made me fall in love with 8-but games. The gameplay is so satisfying once you get it right (although I had to beat Rondo of Blood before I could actually get it down) and I love the environmental storytelling. It’s one of the most important games of all time. I find that I prefer it over Super Castlevania IV because I had some trouble with the whip in that game going limp. And I’m not huge on the level design, and I don’t find the music super atmospheric, even if it is technically excellent. I find the third game nails the atmosphere the best with the music and visuals. Fun fact: the best selling PS1 game in Japan was actually released after the PS2 was. I think we all know what franchise is big enough to do that in Japan. So that was not exactly true with every game.
It seems like the west is better at naming video games. Imagine my shock when i found out that the iconic "Resident Evil" is called biohazard in Japan and Fatal Frame is called "Project 0". The budokai series is simply called "DBZ 1,2,3" in the Japan and i've also recently found out that the Budokai Tenkaichi series was originally called "Sparking". Needless to say, Castlevania is just much more catchy&unique than the more mundane sounding "Devil's Castle", the localization team just messed up by using numbers after 2.
Biohazard is way better than Resident Evil, and I quite like Devil’s Castle Dracula, although Castlevania is very fitting for the series and is probably better, but I like both names. Either one works, but so many of the names make no sense if directly translated like Dracula X, Devil’s Castle Legend or Dracula Legend. They did the best they could, except for Super Castlevania IV which is one of the dumbest names for a game ever. I feel like it should’ve been Castlevania 1-3 being called the same, Super Castlevania, and Rondo of Blood being called Castlevania 4.
@@thomasffrench3639 CV3 was a prequel, it shouldn't have been numbered. They should've called CV3 Legends and called the gameboy game CV Prelude. The problem with bloodlines is that it chronologically takes place after SOTN and yet it was released before SOTN, it was smart of the Konami to drop the numbers after CV2. *On a sidenote:* The problem with BIohazard is that its a generic word and gives you the mental image of anthrax or infectious waste from hospitals. Resident Evil just makes you think of the video game series and nothing else.
@@NovaZoneTV Alucard: Hi, Dad. Sorry I was late. I was doing stuff. Maria: It's ok, I'm stuff. Alucard: OMG MARIA NO Dracula: Haha Maria you are banging my son
@@NovaZoneTV Actually, Haunted Castle is NOT a version of Castlevania 1, despite being the same title in Japan, but storywise, this is actually a sequel to Castlevania 2, as the NES game ended with Dracula rising from his grave in the best ending, and Dracula kidnapping Simon's Wife in the beginning of Haunted Castle. It's possible that after the humiliation of being killed off by the same person who resurrected him, Dracula took it personal and wanted to kill Simon's wife, so that no more Belmonts would haunt him. Not only that, but Haunted Castle was released in 1988 in Japan, while Castlevania 2 was released in Japan in 1987, despite the release order being reversed in America. Also, it would make sense to have Dracula kidnap Simon's Wife after being killed a second time, only to then be killed off in the end of Haunted Castle, because how else would Dracula be resurrected in the end of Castlevania 2, yet is dead by the beginning of Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance; not helping that Haunted Castle's soundtrack found a second life in the main games?
1:01:00 The Wolf Boss has been confirmed as a glitch; automatically set to the most difficult setting of the X8600 console version. PSX QC was bad, as it impacts both OG & Arranged modes.
I don't know if anyone mentioned what the freeze glitch is in the first NA Rom of the original game. It is basically a glitch that happens because there is too much stuff in the screen. You can actually make this happen in any level. Using the cross in areas with Medusa Heads and other enemies is an easy way to trigger it. Especially if you have a double or triple shot and are spamming crosses. I have. Triggered it in the second stage before when goofing around.
A few things to point out that Nova looked over for Vampire Killer: 37:45 The reason the prices are so high here is because Nova picked up a Black Book, these items increases the prices at the shop. Inversely, there are White Books that decrease them. I have no idea how Nova didn't catch on to this or notice that the shop has different prices. 38:50 You don't need the Dagger to beat Dracula, he's piss easy even with the Leather Whip. You can quickly kill him in less than 6 minutes. Even with a health disadvantage you're damage output will quickly outpace his. Have we fought the same boss? 40:35 You can dodge the bats by hiding out in the bottom corners of the arena. That said however, you can just tank the bats anyway since they don't deal that much damage to begin with. One positive Nova looked over was that Vampire Killer was the first Castlevania game to allow a player to jump down a screen without instantly dying. This was huge on the second stage and made it alot more fun to play. That said however, I do have to agree with quite a few of Nova's points, I am a bit guilty of using maps to know what walls to break so I didn't have the same struggle when playing this game as him.
I'll take the L on the final boss related stuff. Playing late at night, being in a bad mood, etc. probably made me less fair to it than I should've been. But in my defense on the shop keeps & books, I can't name a single other game with a mechanic where random ground items increase the price of items. It's just flat out not something I would think possible, especially not in a Castlevania game (even if this was before the series standards were codified).
@@NovaZoneTV That's fair on the books, a ton of other items in the games you can pick up do things you have no idea on what they do unless you experiment or look it up. Vampire Killer is like the grandfather of SOTN, with the father being Castlevania 2.
How will you cover the other games? Are you going to separate it by Era(Trevor Era, Christopher era, Richter Era, etc.) or in release order? Or are you just going to make a video based off the connected stories or just start at the beginning? Also a tip would be to mention the differences between versions of games, as I’ve not seen anyone completely miss regional differences in games. The biggest example is that Ninja Gaiden II Famicom is actually harder than the NES version and for Castlevania, that using passwords in Japanese version of Bloodlines resets lives and continues. I always learn this stuff and it’s disappointing that it’s not common knowledge like the differences between Castlevania III’s regional differences.
Haven't really decided since none of them are on the plate for the near future. I only made this one because it was on my mind at the time. A few like the Sorrows are easy to put together, and Symphony I'll probably put on its own since it was the first Castlevania I fell in love with. Castlevania II is the only one I'm sure of. I want to talk about the numerous fan recretations of it. The original NES & Famicom versions are covered enough, and I don't like it enough to ONLY talk about those. While the fan patches and remakes are far more interesting and could use exposure.
@@NovaZoneTVmakes sense. It would be interesting to see the Christopher and Trevor confusion. I’ve seen forum debates about it which eventually goes into shitting on Igarashi’s timeline.
Castlevania on DoS is probably the best that could have been done until Commander Keen came along. That was the first platformer to do smooth scrolling on DoS.
15:56 funnily enough, I find bosses (except Death) to be the easiest part of this game 17:21 I feel like you could also easily say "same spot, holy water spam Frankenstein" as well. Medusa also falls into that category and the Mummy requires exactly one jump to the right but then it becomes "same spot, holy water spam mummy"
Killer video my dude! Small side note about Death fight and boss fights in Super CV4/sub weapon choice Triple holy water absolutely destroys Death on the NES with proper timing. He won't even get a chance to move and the fight is over in less than 10 seconds. HOWEVER, it still stands that getting there with triple sub weapon anything is still rough. In super CV4, triple cross is basically broken. As a SCV4 speedrunner, you legitimately do not use anything else and a lot of the strats are fairly beginner friendly.
CV1: I did know that holy water absolutely wrecks Death. Destorys most the CV1 bosses. Wanted to make more of a point about the forgiving design of the cross given right before a difficult fight. Although striving to maintain a triple holy water for that long to be rewarded with an easier boss is a good example of how Castelvania incentivises you to play well. SCV4: tbh, idk if I've ever kept a triple cross for too long in Super 4? Usually I'm so focused on whip stuff I don't stress about it. Might try that next time I play Super 4.
@@NovaZoneTV Appreciate the response! That makes more sense then why it was presented the way it was for your CV1 section. Second, for Super CV4, definitely catch some speedruns {shameless plug, I run it as well, just not one of the tops). It's easily one of my favorite games { and series} in general, and after seeing an AGDQ run and the power of triple cross, I had to start giving it a shot myself.
Castle is the translation for 城 in this case. Konami has always Castle as the translation whenever they have written the Japanese in English as has other Japanese companies.
Was looking for a good start for Castlevania 1. Tried the NES version before, and while I like the look, music and gameplay loop the arcade design was too much for me. Guess I'll go with the SNES version.
"A World God Only Knows" I enjoyed it. Anime adaptation is accurate to the manga, but check the wiki or MyAnimeList before watching it because some chapters are in OVAs and a few manga chapters after season 2 were skipped, but still canon to the final season.
Not to defend a bad port but a small trivia bit: back during the time of the computer ports? Side-scrolling was hard to archive. One of the first to ever achieve the smooth side-scrolling without too much jittery or slow down? John Carmack, yeah that John Carmack of Doom. He and his buddies in the company that would eventually become iD tried to sell a prototype for Nintendo for a computer port of Mario and got denied, so they made their own series instead, Commander Keen. But yeah, the computer ports were very bad at the time.
You seem to have messed up somehow playing the Java Castlevania. I also played it, and it had proper whip/sub system. Maybe you were oressing the sub button the whole time, and it just used whip when you had no subs in posession. It also had a bonus mode where you could use the subs eithout consuming hearts, IIRC, but lacked whip.
I'll take your word for it. I was jumping between a bunch of emulators so it's very possible I messed up with that. I was gonna say "next time I play it I'll check" but realistically I'm never playing Castlevania on Java again 😅.
@@NovaZoneTV the whole mobile Castlevania thing is a little deeper - there are, at least 2 java versions of Castlevania 1: the first one was an episodic relase (divided in, IIRC, 2 parts), it worked in 128x128 resolution and had NES graphics. The second one is the one you reviewed. I played both, I believe you can still find them on pirate websites.
Should say 88. I have this weird tick where my hands type things against my will. Happens most on google where it says stuff like "hot b00bs" or "Gex 2 100% walkthrough" 😔 someday i hope we find a cure.
25:27 watching you select the video and audio drivers and go "certainly the bottom options are the best ones right?" No my dude, those are manually-selected drivers lol It's the equivalent of "you need to tell me whether you have an NVidia or Radeon graphics card, and what model, because I am too dumb to figure out which one you have" so that it knows which drivers to mount.
The rom was hidden inside this folder. It's titled "Castlevania1.jar". The games are sorted alphabetically. Java emulators aren't too hard to figure out, just google a tutorial. However, if you're playing on a large screen it's still displayed as a phone sized thing. archive.org/details/1000_J2ME_Games_Pack
Much appreciated! Subscribed. I played it and it was awful. Any chance you can provide the Amiga link? I'm having issues finding and running the right ROM.
@Boopers lol yeah. The phone version sucks dick. I got my rom from WowRom and the emu I used was 'WinUAE'. The rom should be called an Amiga 500 rom and end with .adf. It's been a few months since I played the Amiga version, so I've forgotten all the settings and stuff. This was the one that took the least time to setup of the PC ports so the YT tutorials should be good enough.
I've been playing the dead cells dlc, definitely check that out if you havent Also, what do you say at 7:30? I can't make it out I know that chronicles has up to a sixth loop
I haven't given Dead Cells a go yet. I didn't hear about the DLC until I was uploading this and checking relevant Castlevania tags. I'll likely give it a go eventually, though between this video and the recent, Gal Guardians I've had my Castlevania fix for at least the next few weeks. Maybe around the end of the year once I see a sale for it. 7:30 - "Since the series seldom has a main character for more than 2 adventures, I'd argue the greater narrative follows Dracula more"
Chronicles (my favourite) was my introduction to the series and AVGN actually. Those rave remixes are awesome. Super Castlevania has great controls but dull music with the exception of Simon's Theme. I find it harder than NES version and Chronicles. I have only played NES, SNES and PS1 versions. NES/Famicom must be the one in canon because so many later games have the same bosses as a reference, most of the time with Dracula's parts from CV2.
As soon as you compare Simon's Quest to VK you realize they actually (localization aside) did a decent job with Simon's Quest. Also: God bless your soul for suffering the arcade game
I'm surprised you said Castlevania 4 is your least favorite one. I find Castlevania 4 to be my favorite one out of the Simon Belmont games!! I have also beat Chronicles and the original Castlevania!! I love Chronicles and the Original one too. However, Castlevania IV is still my fave game in the series. I get that Chronicles plays a bit more like the original Castlevania where on the Super Nintendo Simon gets new moves where it does make the game easier. Anyway, I enjoyed your video!!
Just to be clear, I said it's my least favorite of the 16-bit games. Meaning Chronicles, Bloodlines, Rondo of Blood, and Super 4. I'd still call 4 about equal to 1 for me. That's mainly because I REALLY LOVE Bloodlines and Rondo.
@NovaZoneTV oh very cool I miss heard. Rondo of Blood and Bloodlines are also amazing games. Yeah technically all those games are just rehashs of the same story. It totally makes sense..
@@NovaZoneTV The graphics are good for EGA standards, they didn't use the wrong palette for CGA like they did with TMNT, the game is very playable, the choppiness is okay for me, especially considering how choppy some other game conversions were, the music is also really good for Tandy, and AdLib Standards, Roland Sound could've been added, but it wasn't a major problem. Besides, EGA monitors could only show 16 colors at a time, and I don't really care about some of the color choices on some of the sprites. The hit detection COULD BE WORSE TOO, Like the Amiga version, the hit detection ain't the best on it, the medusa head enemy's hitbox stretchs behind the sprite in the Amiga, also in the first stage the zombies can come at you at exactly the same distance away from you, so you can't avoid getting hit. BTW You can press CTRL + S to save, CTRL + Q to pull up a menu, hit start over, then hit continue saved game, then you continue from your last save.
@@NovaZoneTV Also I have a few lower res versions of the mobile port, not as low res as that one you show in the video, but it's still lower resolution, and the other version with the more realistic look, I have 3 lower res versions of that version, the picture you show appears to be higher res though, the low res one you show looks very interesting, also I wonder if part 2 exists with music on any version I've got, I've only got one part 2 version unfortunately, and it's the low res version I have, it also is lacking music.
@@NovaZoneTV Hey, I figured I'd tell you, if you have a "DOSBox 0.74-3 Options.bat" file; that's how you change machine settings, changing the graphics to tandy will make tandy settings not be numbervania. You'll have to get used to all the settings, and it does required knowledge about old machines, as setting that to ega will mean that it is an EGA monitor being emulated, I usually only change the machine, aspect, scaler, rate, tandy, and tandyrate settings in the configuration file.
The holy water is at the start of the stage. The cross is after the final checkpoint. If you die in the final two rooms, you can still get the cross. Using the holy water is thus a reward for making it the whole stage without dying. While the cross is a reasonable substitution.
Dead ass used save states like crazy in the collection 1-3, no shame lol. I'm pretty good at KH, final fantasies, FromSoft games, Tekken but put my ass in a scroller with 3 lives and medusas? No thank you. I saved after every stage switch just in case lol ain't putting in no passwords like some kind of filthy pilgrim!
kinda. when a video shows up in your recs, there's a little 3 dot thing in the corner of a thumbnail. If you click on that, there's a "Don't reccomend channel" button. Doesn't work immediately, but typically it gets the picture after a few times. Makes my viewing experience a lot more nice over time.
The premise of this video is pretty interesting, and the content includes some interesting, non-trivial points... but the creator really needs a script editor (or maybe a year or two of remedial English classes)-my dude, you devolve into incoherent word salad way too much.
15:06 Actually in Castlevania NES Mermaid jumping on you during this stage can happen...... only on Hard Mode (aka second run after finish the game the first time), this actually put me off guard and blocked me for a while the first I played on Hard until I realise this game is cleverly design, after analyzing more I realise the mermaid actually only Jump on the same spot as where there is a Candle, so I could predict where they are going to spawn, this still didn't help for that first section where you have to traverse a pit of water on a slow plateform.... then I realize that CONVINIENTLY the first Candle contain the Watch, put 2 and 2 together and this is how this part went from seemingly brutal too actually pretty easy..... I love the design of this game XD
This video is now outdated because we now have a remake of Haunted Castle
Played it, beat it... It was a solid version.
@@jeremygreen2883I'm excited that I keep hearing that. My broke ass needs paper soon. Dominus Collection has been on my wishlist for a while. Along with Vampire Survivors and Blasphemous 2 + Mea Culpa
"How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man?!"
- The entire story of Castlevania
"Welp, time to learn from the lesson." - Soma Cruz, good endings.
Cause the stories are crap XD
Also MegaMan.
And Crash Bandicoot.
@@quadpad_musicEvery Mario, Sonic, Zelda and countless others. At least Spyro and Rayman had new main villains. Would be like having Batman facing only The Joker. Gets boring.
Dracula: “I love the young Belmonts.” 🧛🏻♂️🫀🩸
“I had to stop at Death”
Don’t we all
Skill issue, I’m different
@@o0Hidden0o bro's different 💯
Love the shoutout for the guy that made the logo! That was really nice of you
I find it interesting how Simon in the first game’s Japanese manual actually looks like how his in game sprite looks. I kinda like it tbh it definitely fits the kinda character Simon’s supposed to be when this game was originally made.
Vampire Killer is super cheap on lives because Konami has two cheat cartridges for MSX and each had cheat codes for different sets of Konami games. Vampire Killer gets a level select and the ability to set how many lives you have up to 100.
I just finished the last of the platformer games of my Castlevania franchise retrospective (where I played most of these versions too) so when I saw this video I was super excited. Great video! To push on my nerd glasses though, at 35:54 minutes you say that no Castlevania games to your recollection have ever hidden enemies in candles, but actually in Castlevania legends for the gameboy in a late level they have rooms FILLED with candles hiding spiders and slimes. That game also has candles that when hit send you into a pit of infintietly respawning enemies which is just a glorified death. It is one of the most obnoxious aspects of that arguably decent gameboy game.
Also finishing the video, Yesss glad you love chronicles as much as I did. Arrange mode is so fun and having played all of these games over and over again and coming in prepared it felt already mastered (though I get what you mean with the gotcha moments) really enjoyed this vid and I'll check out more of your stuff!
14:40
Yeah, I wouldn’t consider it anywhere near one of the hardest on the system. Dracula’s Curse however…
Castlevania 1's short length makes it super easy to memorize too. On a good day, I can go no death all the way up to the end of block 5. At which point Death is literally in front of me and it's a crap shoot if I start to look like him or not. Normally, depending on if I kept the holy water up until then.
Though I agree with Castle 3. I replayed all routes recently in prep for finally doing a Simon's Quest video and hot fuck can it get miserably on the Alucard route.
Great video! Appreciate the hard work done in the sake of being thorough. This Wall Meat is for you, good sir.
Always love some Castlevania videos. What people have to say.
Can’t wait to see more Castlevania vids from you in the future
I remember getting Chronicles when it first came out and played it a bunch on my psone with the LCD screen attached!! Good times!!
I had always thought Castlevania chronicles was just a reskin of the first game. I was pleasantly surprised by how many monsters and design elements I would see in later Igavanias got their start here.
I always thought Simon in Chronicles looked like Liono from Thundercats
46:50 i'm...almost there with you. Bloodlines is mine personally, but only for the limited continues.
most games in the series have a second quest. I believe Chronicles goes up to a 6th run.
Weirdly enough, I feel like Bloodlines would be the easiest of the 16-bit games if it had unlimited continues.
The way I've been recommending the series to friends has been the legacy collection, and I've usually just been telling them to make save states at the start of stages if it gives them trouble. Especially since doing that is on par with abusing the password system anyways. Except the save states save you a few minutes.
@@NovaZoneTV not on Expert mode, that's for sure. i typically don't like using savestates so i think it says something that out of those games bloodlines is the only one i haven't beaten without them, even on normal.
Play the Japanese version, it gives you unlimited continues.
Lowkey, the best thing of Cv1 is finding out strategies that not only kill bosses, but get the job done faster.
Like in stage 1, you might be inclined to use the axe because it immediately hits the vampire bat... *but* you can happen to use the stopwatch, sit at the door (or the step next to it) and use the stopwatch as the bat comes down its arc and just mash the whip or turbo buttons and he can die in like 1 or 2 cycles
Castlevania on the NES is by far my favorite version. It made me fall in love with 8-but games. The gameplay is so satisfying once you get it right (although I had to beat Rondo of Blood before I could actually get it down) and I love the environmental storytelling. It’s one of the most important games of all time. I find that I prefer it over Super Castlevania IV because I had some trouble with the whip in that game going limp. And I’m not huge on the level design, and I don’t find the music super atmospheric, even if it is technically excellent. I find the third game nails the atmosphere the best with the music and visuals.
Fun fact: the best selling PS1 game in Japan was actually released after the PS2 was. I think we all know what franchise is big enough to do that in Japan. So that was not exactly true with every game.
Bro called Slogra & Gaibon "Pterodactyl and Firebrand" 💀💀💀
45:57 that is actually false, there is a Castlevania game in Japan with a number higher than 2.
I spent 10 mins on the Castlevania Wiki checking every Jp name... just to realize it's fucking pachislot🤣💀
@@NovaZoneTV I’m about to blow your goddamn mind: Akumajou Dracula X: Chi no Rondo.
@@NovaZoneTV I’m serious btw
It seems like the west is better at naming video games. Imagine my shock when i found out that the iconic "Resident Evil" is called biohazard in Japan and Fatal Frame is called "Project 0". The budokai series is simply called "DBZ 1,2,3" in the Japan and i've also recently found out that the Budokai Tenkaichi series was originally called "Sparking". Needless to say, Castlevania is just much more catchy&unique than the more mundane sounding "Devil's Castle", the localization team just messed up by using numbers after 2.
Biohazard is way better than Resident Evil, and I quite like Devil’s Castle Dracula, although Castlevania is very fitting for the series and is probably better, but I like both names. Either one works, but so many of the names make no sense if directly translated like Dracula X, Devil’s Castle Legend or Dracula Legend. They did the best they could, except for Super Castlevania IV which is one of the dumbest names for a game ever. I feel like it should’ve been Castlevania 1-3 being called the same, Super Castlevania, and Rondo of Blood being called Castlevania 4.
Really shit take that a different culture with a different language is worse at names lmao.
@@thomasffrench3639 CV3 was a prequel, it shouldn't have been numbered. They should've called CV3 Legends and called the gameboy game CV Prelude. The problem with bloodlines is that it chronologically takes place after SOTN and yet it was released before SOTN, it was smart of the Konami to drop the numbers after CV2.
*On a sidenote:* The problem with BIohazard is that its a generic word and gives you the mental image of anthrax or infectious waste from hospitals. Resident Evil just makes you think of the video game series and nothing else.
8:37 Hotel Castlevania
I can't believe I said that whole thought process without thinking of Adam Sandler (the one true Dracula)
@@NovaZoneTV Alucard: Hi, Dad. Sorry I was late. I was doing stuff.
Maria: It's ok, I'm stuff.
Alucard: OMG MARIA NO
Dracula: Haha Maria you are banging my son
@@NovaZoneTV Actually, Haunted Castle is NOT a version of Castlevania 1, despite being the same title in Japan, but storywise, this is actually a sequel to Castlevania 2, as the NES game ended with Dracula rising from his grave in the best ending, and Dracula kidnapping Simon's Wife in the beginning of Haunted Castle. It's possible that after the humiliation of being killed off by the same person who resurrected him, Dracula took it personal and wanted to kill Simon's wife, so that no more Belmonts would haunt him. Not only that, but Haunted Castle was released in 1988 in Japan, while Castlevania 2 was released in Japan in 1987, despite the release order being reversed in America. Also, it would make sense to have Dracula kidnap Simon's Wife after being killed a second time, only to then be killed off in the end of Haunted Castle, because how else would Dracula be resurrected in the end of Castlevania 2, yet is dead by the beginning of Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance; not helping that Haunted Castle's soundtrack found a second life in the main games?
1:01:00 The Wolf Boss has been confirmed as a glitch; automatically set to the most difficult setting of the X8600 console version. PSX QC was bad, as it impacts both OG & Arranged modes.
I don't know if anyone mentioned what the freeze glitch is in the first NA Rom of the original game. It is basically a glitch that happens because there is too much stuff in the screen. You can actually make this happen in any level. Using the cross in areas with Medusa Heads and other enemies is an easy way to trigger it. Especially if you have a double or triple shot and are spamming crosses. I have. Triggered it in the second stage before when goofing around.
A few things to point out that Nova looked over for Vampire Killer:
37:45 The reason the prices are so high here is because Nova picked up a Black Book, these items increases the prices at the shop. Inversely, there are White Books that decrease them. I have no idea how Nova didn't catch on to this or notice that the shop has different prices.
38:50 You don't need the Dagger to beat Dracula, he's piss easy even with the Leather Whip. You can quickly kill him in less than 6 minutes. Even with a health disadvantage you're damage output will quickly outpace his. Have we fought the same boss?
40:35 You can dodge the bats by hiding out in the bottom corners of the arena. That said however, you can just tank the bats anyway since they don't deal that much damage to begin with.
One positive Nova looked over was that Vampire Killer was the first Castlevania game to allow a player to jump down a screen without instantly dying. This was huge on the second stage and made it alot more fun to play. That said however, I do have to agree with quite a few of Nova's points, I am a bit guilty of using maps to know what walls to break so I didn't have the same struggle when playing this game as him.
I'll take the L on the final boss related stuff. Playing late at night, being in a bad mood, etc. probably made me less fair to it than I should've been.
But in my defense on the shop keeps & books, I can't name a single other game with a mechanic where random ground items increase the price of items. It's just flat out not something I would think possible, especially not in a Castlevania game (even if this was before the series standards were codified).
@@NovaZoneTV That's fair on the books, a ton of other items in the games you can pick up do things you have no idea on what they do unless you experiment or look it up. Vampire Killer is like the grandfather of SOTN, with the father being Castlevania 2.
How will you cover the other games? Are you going to separate it by Era(Trevor Era, Christopher era, Richter Era, etc.) or in release order? Or are you just going to make a video based off the connected stories or just start at the beginning?
Also a tip would be to mention the differences between versions of games, as I’ve not seen anyone completely miss regional differences in games. The biggest example is that Ninja Gaiden II Famicom is actually harder than the NES version and for Castlevania, that using passwords in Japanese version of Bloodlines resets lives and continues. I always learn this stuff and it’s disappointing that it’s not common knowledge like the differences between Castlevania III’s regional differences.
Haven't really decided since none of them are on the plate for the near future. I only made this one because it was on my mind at the time. A few like the Sorrows are easy to put together, and Symphony I'll probably put on its own since it was the first Castlevania I fell in love with.
Castlevania II is the only one I'm sure of. I want to talk about the numerous fan recretations of it. The original NES & Famicom versions are covered enough, and I don't like it enough to ONLY talk about those. While the fan patches and remakes are far more interesting and could use exposure.
@@NovaZoneTVmakes sense. It would be interesting to see the Christopher and Trevor confusion. I’ve seen forum debates about it which eventually goes into shitting on Igarashi’s timeline.
@@thomasffrench3639The best timeline videos I've seen is from GamerThumbTV. Christopher is after Trevor and before Simon, 1591 or 1597.
Please keep making videos comparing different versions of Castlevania games for each game.
Eventually, I plan to. I really wanna delve into the fan remakes/fixes of Simon's Quest. Since obviously Konami hasn't redone it themselves.
Castlevania on DoS is probably the best that could have been done until Commander Keen came along. That was the first platformer to do smooth scrolling on DoS.
15:56 funnily enough, I find bosses (except Death) to be the easiest part of this game
17:21 I feel like you could also easily say "same spot, holy water spam Frankenstein" as well. Medusa also falls into that category and the Mummy requires exactly one jump to the right but then it becomes "same spot, holy water spam mummy"
Killer video my dude!
Small side note about Death fight and boss fights in Super CV4/sub weapon choice
Triple holy water absolutely destroys Death on the NES with proper timing. He won't even get a chance to move and the fight is over in less than 10 seconds.
HOWEVER, it still stands that getting there with triple sub weapon anything is still rough.
In super CV4, triple cross is basically broken. As a SCV4 speedrunner, you legitimately do not use anything else and a lot of the strats are fairly beginner friendly.
CV1: I did know that holy water absolutely wrecks Death. Destorys most the CV1 bosses. Wanted to make more of a point about the forgiving design of the cross given right before a difficult fight. Although striving to maintain a triple holy water for that long to be rewarded with an easier boss is a good example of how Castelvania incentivises you to play well.
SCV4: tbh, idk if I've ever kept a triple cross for too long in Super 4? Usually I'm so focused on whip stuff I don't stress about it. Might try that next time I play Super 4.
@@NovaZoneTV Appreciate the response!
That makes more sense then why it was presented the way it was for your CV1 section.
Second, for Super CV4, definitely catch some speedruns {shameless plug, I run it as well, just not one of the tops). It's easily one of my favorite games { and series} in general, and after seeing an AGDQ run and the power of triple cross, I had to start giving it a shot myself.
chronicles seems underappreciated. Shame it came out at the wrong time.
I love that game!
Aku Majou Dracula can be best translated into: Dracula's Demon Fortress.
Devil Castle Dracula in some translations but I don't Japanese.
Castle is the translation for 城 in this case. Konami has always Castle as the translation whenever they have written the Japanese in English as has other Japanese companies.
Welp, Haunted Castle just got reimagined and it’s amazing. Props to M2.
I'll definitely give it a go soon. Gotta stay focused on irl junk for a bit, but maybe at the end of the month, I'll play it.
@@NovaZoneTV I’ll look forward to it, also great video. 👍
Was looking for a good start for Castlevania 1. Tried the NES version before, and while I like the look, music and gameplay loop the arcade design was too much for me. Guess I'll go with the SNES version.
Chronicles is my favourite version.
My favorite is Vampire Killer, I wish they put one up’s in the levels though.
51:55 Still like their pun names though.
Hehe, Paula Abghoul and Fred Ascare.
Castlevania legends has hazards in candles
What is the anime on 44:43 called
"A World God Only Knows"
I enjoyed it. Anime adaptation is accurate to the manga, but check the wiki or MyAnimeList before watching it because some chapters are in OVAs and a few manga chapters after season 2 were skipped, but still canon to the final season.
You cna actually change the sound font in the og Sharp version in a hidden menu in Chronicles
Great video! Thank you.
Okay at 18:15 vash jumpscared me so hard I did not expect to see him lmao
Not to defend a bad port but a small trivia bit: back during the time of the computer ports? Side-scrolling was hard to archive. One of the first to ever achieve the smooth side-scrolling without too much jittery or slow down? John Carmack, yeah that John Carmack of Doom. He and his buddies in the company that would eventually become iD tried to sell a prototype for Nintendo for a computer port of Mario and got denied, so they made their own series instead, Commander Keen. But yeah, the computer ports were very bad at the time.
You seem to have messed up somehow playing the Java Castlevania. I also played it, and it had proper whip/sub system. Maybe you were oressing the sub button the whole time, and it just used whip when you had no subs in posession. It also had a bonus mode where you could use the subs eithout consuming hearts, IIRC, but lacked whip.
I'll take your word for it. I was jumping between a bunch of emulators so it's very possible I messed up with that. I was gonna say "next time I play it I'll check" but realistically I'm never playing Castlevania on Java again 😅.
@@NovaZoneTV the whole mobile Castlevania thing is a little deeper - there are, at least 2 java versions of Castlevania 1: the first one was an episodic relase (divided in, IIRC, 2 parts), it worked in 128x128 resolution and had NES graphics. The second one is the one you reviewed. I played both, I believe you can still find them on pirate websites.
Watching this after Dominus Collections gorgeous remake of Haunted Castle makes me wonder if you'll actually like the game now XD
As a Vietnamese, I salute you!
Cảm ơn
One does not simply hit his weak point for massive damage.
42:15 I don't think Castlevania 2 was released in 1998
Should say 88. I have this weird tick where my hands type things against my will. Happens most on google where it says stuff like "hot b00bs" or "Gex 2 100% walkthrough" 😔
someday i hope we find a cure.
25:27 watching you select the video and audio drivers and go "certainly the bottom options are the best ones right?" No my dude, those are manually-selected drivers lol
It's the equivalent of "you need to tell me whether you have an NVidia or Radeon graphics card, and what model, because I am too dumb to figure out which one you have" so that it knows which drivers to mount.
Can you post the link to the mobile game? Im interested in trying it out.
The rom was hidden inside this folder. It's titled "Castlevania1.jar". The games are sorted alphabetically.
Java emulators aren't too hard to figure out, just google a tutorial. However, if you're playing on a large screen it's still displayed as a phone sized thing.
archive.org/details/1000_J2ME_Games_Pack
Much appreciated! Subscribed. I played it and it was awful. Any chance you can provide the Amiga link? I'm having issues finding and running the right ROM.
@Boopers lol yeah. The phone version sucks dick.
I got my rom from WowRom and the emu I used was 'WinUAE'. The rom should be called an Amiga 500 rom and end with .adf. It's been a few months since I played the Amiga version, so I've forgotten all the settings and stuff. This was the one that took the least time to setup of the PC ports so the YT tutorials should be good enough.
@@NovaZoneTV appreciate it man 👍 keep up the great content
I've been playing the dead cells dlc, definitely check that out if you havent
Also, what do you say at 7:30? I can't make it out
I know that chronicles has up to a sixth loop
I haven't given Dead Cells a go yet. I didn't hear about the DLC until I was uploading this and checking relevant Castlevania tags. I'll likely give it a go eventually, though between this video and the recent, Gal Guardians I've had my Castlevania fix for at least the next few weeks. Maybe around the end of the year once I see a sale for it.
7:30 - "Since the series seldom has a main character for more than 2 adventures, I'd argue the greater narrative follows Dracula more"
We need more attention for pretty gay bondage Simon.
another swag vid. love the cont
Someone else who knows about that weird maid yazuka anime. Great vid btw
I was expecting a 1 note gag type of show... but man it just kept surprising me.
Why did youtube once again didnt show me a video on my subscribed page...
I watched this since its already 999 views. Might as well make it a thousand
Has anyone pointed out yet that it says Castelvania?
Probably not since I retitled it a few days ago. Fixed
Chronicles (my favourite) was my introduction to the series and AVGN actually. Those rave remixes are awesome.
Super Castlevania has great controls but dull music with the exception of Simon's Theme. I find it harder than NES version and Chronicles.
I have only played NES, SNES and PS1 versions.
NES/Famicom must be the one in canon because so many later games have the same bosses as a reference, most of the time with Dracula's parts from CV2.
As soon as you compare Simon's Quest to VK you realize they actually (localization aside) did a decent job with Simon's Quest.
Also: God bless your soul for suffering the arcade game
i honestly cand see how someone prefers chronicles over... anything
this is dope
Akumajou X68000, beat that shit on NOMIS name entry, all loops. Second favorite game of the whole ass series.
54:26 😂😂😂
I'm surprised you said Castlevania 4 is your least favorite one. I find Castlevania 4 to be my favorite one out of the Simon Belmont games!! I have also beat Chronicles and the original Castlevania!! I love Chronicles and the Original one too. However, Castlevania IV is still my fave game in the series. I get that Chronicles plays a bit more like the original Castlevania where on the Super Nintendo Simon gets new moves where it does make the game easier. Anyway, I enjoyed your video!!
Just to be clear, I said it's my least favorite of the 16-bit games. Meaning Chronicles, Bloodlines, Rondo of Blood, and Super 4. I'd still call 4 about equal to 1 for me.
That's mainly because I REALLY LOVE Bloodlines and Rondo.
@NovaZoneTV oh very cool I miss heard. Rondo of Blood and Bloodlines are also amazing games. Yeah technically all those games are just rehashs of the same story. It totally makes sense..
I miss the old NovaZone
Asia changed me. I eat rice with my breakfast now.
Is it weird for me to like the DOS version?
I respect everyones opinions on art. It's all subjective. But kinda, yeah. Made me wanna barf
@@NovaZoneTV The graphics are good for EGA standards, they didn't use the wrong palette for CGA like they did with TMNT, the game is very playable, the choppiness is okay for me, especially considering how choppy some other game conversions were, the music is also really good for Tandy, and AdLib Standards, Roland Sound could've been added, but it wasn't a major problem. Besides, EGA monitors could only show 16 colors at a time, and I don't really care about some of the color choices on some of the sprites. The hit detection COULD BE WORSE TOO, Like the Amiga version, the hit detection ain't the best on it, the medusa head enemy's hitbox stretchs behind the sprite in the Amiga, also in the first stage the zombies can come at you at exactly the same distance away from you, so you can't avoid getting hit. BTW You can press CTRL + S to save, CTRL + Q to pull up a menu, hit start over, then hit continue saved game, then you continue from your last save.
@@NovaZoneTV Also I have a few lower res versions of the mobile port, not as low res as that one you show in the video, but it's still lower resolution, and the other version with the more realistic look, I have 3 lower res versions of that version, the picture you show appears to be higher res though, the low res one you show looks very interesting, also I wonder if part 2 exists with music on any version I've got, I've only got one part 2 version unfortunately, and it's the low res version I have, it also is lacking music.
@@NovaZoneTV Hey, I figured I'd tell you, if you have a "DOSBox 0.74-3 Options.bat" file; that's how you change machine settings, changing the graphics to tandy will make tandy settings not be numbervania. You'll have to get used to all the settings, and it does required knowledge about old machines, as setting that to ega will mean that it is an EGA monitor being emulated, I usually only change the machine, aspect, scaler, rate, tandy, and tandyrate settings in the configuration file.
Thx!
1:07 🙃
Specifically on Castlevania NES. Who cares beating Death with the cross? Holy Water nails him like all the bosses before.
The holy water is at the start of the stage. The cross is after the final checkpoint. If you die in the final two rooms, you can still get the cross. Using the holy water is thus a reward for making it the whole stage without dying. While the cross is a reasonable substitution.
Dead ass used save states like crazy in the collection 1-3, no shame lol. I'm pretty good at KH, final fantasies, FromSoft games, Tekken but put my ass in a scroller with 3 lives and medusas? No thank you. I saved after every stage switch just in case lol ain't putting in no passwords like some kind of filthy pilgrim!
why did youtube reccomend me this vid?
is there anyway to block certain channels?
kinda. when a video shows up in your recs, there's a little 3 dot thing in the corner of a thumbnail. If you click on that, there's a "Don't reccomend channel" button.
Doesn't work immediately, but typically it gets the picture after a few times. Makes my viewing experience a lot more nice over time.
@@NovaZoneTV bro i've been doing that for like 2 hours now and still getting some random ass videos..
@@NovaZoneTV i for one am glad youtube recommended me this
your algorithm is based, nothing you can do about it😢
@@danielg4854 😢😢
RIP Goatse
I'm happy one person caught it, mortified someone knows it
@@NovaZoneTV Was the original troll link :P way before the PG rickroll lol
Clickbaited 😎 goated
Fish brain over here 🐟
The premise of this video is pretty interesting, and the content includes some interesting, non-trivial points... but the creator really needs a script editor (or maybe a year or two of remedial English classes)-my dude, you devolve into incoherent word salad way too much.
Aaaasnd now this video is out of date.
I'll update after they make DOSvania Rebirth. Avoid the 2nd out of date moment.
15:06 Actually in Castlevania NES Mermaid jumping on you during this stage can happen...... only on Hard Mode (aka second run after finish the game the first time), this actually put me off guard and blocked me for a while the first I played on Hard until I realise this game is cleverly design, after analyzing more I realise the mermaid actually only Jump on the same spot as where there is a Candle, so I could predict where they are going to spawn, this still didn't help for that first section where you have to traverse a pit of water on a slow plateform.... then I realize that CONVINIENTLY the first Candle contain the Watch, put 2 and 2 together and this is how this part went from seemingly brutal too actually pretty easy..... I love the design of this game XD
::sigh:: ANOTHER hour long video that could have been half the length
Third
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