Anyone else here feel that the evolution of Matt and Derek's Castlevania skeleton sprites as they go through the various eras of Castlevania is a brilliant touch?
If Lords of Shadow 2 had excised the ridiculous modern day plot and just focused in on exploring Dracula's castle it would have been incredible. It's no surprise Nintendo tapped the developers to do Metroid since those sections were freaking awesome.
31:40 - fun fact about Castlevania 3; Grant plays differently in the Japanese version as he can THROW his knives as projectiles, as also referenced when fighting against his evil clone in SotN. I guess since Konami of America thought recruiting Grant to be the "easy mode" of the game, they opted to nerf him and make him do a lame short-range stab similar to Sypha's weak bonk stick.
I really appreciate how you both took to looking ahead and rationalizing the need to grade against the curve for this series. I love when people do such a good job of using the tier list to its fullest potential. Great work Uncle and Muncle!
The whole editing of this video is SUPERB. Having the tier list on one side, the cover in the middle and gameplay in the other side should be the standard for this type of videos. And the skeletons changing every now and then is a brilliant touch.
Bummed that Derek never really bothered with Order of Ecclesia. That’s often considered the best of the IGAvanias and I was excited to hear his take. But I also understand why he was feeling burnt out on Metroidvanias by the time it released.
It's kinda crazy to be talking about CV and skip OoE, just my opinion. I think that's leaning too far in favour of one preferred type of CV. I have bad CV takes (don't like CV IV) but I've definitely played all of them.
God, Harmony of Despair was the hottest shit, for my two cents. Hitting the map button and getting to see the other players doing their own thing exploring the level to grab all the chests before everyone converges on the boss room never got old. The fact that all the characters played differently from each other was just the cherry on top. Man, I wish there was something like that nowadays.
I think I had a phase of jumping on every new XBLA release with co-op and looking for games, and you could see a really neat idea in HoD when you had three other players and were zooming the map in and out and everyone was doing stuff. It's definitely a concept they could have done more with.
Fantastic tier list and the production behind it. I loved how the skeletons were animated and shifted by the game. Combined with the music shifting from game to game made this a great listen to while working on some spooky drawings. The time dedicated to the presentation of this was top tier.
Order of Ecclesia felt like the next evolution of the series, combining Simon's Quest and Symphony of the Night. It was great but I really thought the next game in the series was going to be stellar. But IGA left Konami and that game never came
@@Ka_Fiveprobably going to sound weird given all the great monster designs in the series, especially the warewolves, but my favorite fights are against like... The bosses that are just other dudes that feel like they play like you. Doppelganger, possessed Richter, trevor in curse of darkness etc.
Order of Ecclesia is my favorite game in the franchise, or at least between that and Aria of Sorrow. To me, Order has my favorite story in the franchise, the music and graphics are stellar, and Shanoa's unique way of attacking enemies with magic making a faux-Stamina system made me love this game. Also, hot take, I love the smaller, more linear stages leading to larger, more exploratory levels later because it feels like a mix of Classic/Vintage and Iga vania titles to me.
True, people do not give it the credit it deserves it's a perfect middle ground for the igavania and challenge from the old games. Shanoa is my favorite castlevania character.
Glad to hear Matt loves my favorite 'Vania, Portrait of Ruin! :3 Cool characters, awesome mechanics, great music, and diverse levels (even with the asset reuse in the second half), it's something I play every October between making costumes! XD
It was limited by the game needing more space for graphics (to make a lot of high contrast and bright stuff to make the game visible on original GBA, unlike CotM) but goddamn, Soshiro Hokkai worked some epic magic to make that chipset tune rock.
@@B.-T.There's also a lot of rooms with unique tilesets. Seriously, next time you play it really pay attention to the backgrounds and you'll see a lot of rooms have details unique to them
@B.-T. There's a version of its main theme at the end which is far better because the GBA isn't weighed down by having to handle graphics. The GBA didn't have a GPU to do it for you
The Sharp x68000 Castlevania is my favorite of the old school Classicvania games. Loved that the castle would change slightly based on the calender date. And it arguably has the best werewolf boss fight. Full health it charges at you. At low health it starts ripping off pieces of the background and tosses it at you to try to keep you away.
You guys joked at once point about ranking the cover-art, but I would genuinely love a follow-up episode of you guys literally doing just that! Like a "lightning-round" just rating cover-art, or OST's in general?
Cool video, just a very minor thing: Vampire‘s kiss is the european name for Dracula X SNES, the japanese name is akumajo Dracula XX (double x or double cross)
Even if it is a remake, it's a good feeling that there is an actual new Castlevania game to rank here. Alongside most of the other ones being easily accessible now.
it took me too long to realize just how early Castlevania was as a Famicom game. in the fall of 86, it was basically the first 3rd party game to be as good as Nintendo. and it was by far the best looking and sounding game on the system up to that point.
"If you're watching this video, you're a Castlevania fan" I'm watching it, and I've never even played a single castlevania game, on any platform, ever. I've not even watched the cartoon. I'm not some little kid either, I'm 45, I've had plenty of chances to play them! I just like listening to you talk
To me, the weakest part of the GBA/DS titles is how linear they get around Aria. Symphony of the Night, while sure, slightly worse in pacing, it gave you so much freedom to explore only a couple of hours in, without even mentioning the amount of easily accessible glitches to just casual players, like getting into the Colosseum early by abusing the wolf transformation. But what makes me love it above all the others, is the weird shit in Symphony. The confession room, the room in the outer wall where you need to press up to unlock a weapon early, the switch in the Catacombs that you need the Imp Familiar to activate(which also works in the reverse Catacombs), the sword familiar will turn into a usable weapon after leveling it enough, the fairy will sing to you if you sit in a chair long enough, equipping different capes changing the color of your cape sprite, the fact that consumables have to put in your hand to use, and the fact that some of them will fall to the ground and you need to walk over them to eat. It's all so incredibly charming to me. The GBA/DS titles have some of that, but only by putting them all together do you get the amount of weird stuff and how open Symphony is
wow! this is amazing, i adore how the love and passion you guys have for the series reflected on the ranking and overall discussion, it's nice to see two buddies just having fun talking about cool shit. also, the editing... my gosh THE EDITING! it's sooooooo good and i love it!
40:08 My favorite part about that is that, you have a fight with Trevor later in the game. They had an update 32 bit sprite of him ready, but still went for the nes one! XD
Just streamed Bloodstained Dominique's Curse DLC on stream the other night. I was surprised to find out they call the DLC Classic II and its in the font of Castlevania II. Not only that but they had a lot of SImons Quest ideas but more touched on with fixes. Has a day night cycle, music that so similar you swear its bloody tears, and a equip item that lets you see hidden blocks/floor traps that can highlight in red text when npcs are lying to you. What a great game Bloodstained is.
Portrait of Ruin is eternally my favorite just because it was the first one I played, so I have the fondest memories. Original is also right up there for me.
Honestly I feel like when Simons quest came out, Konami and Nintendo made a cash deal like “ Yeah we can make the game cryptic as hell so yall can sell more Nintendo power subscriptions for tips.”
Harmony of Despair is SO much fun. It is my number one game. It has a discord and someone remade (most of) the game in the Unity engine as a little fan project for the PC. I still play it a few times a year with buds.
For me, dawn being above aria is just herecy. It's a good game, but it meanders around so much and the seal thing was terrible and made some bosses an absolute chore. Not because they were hard, but because you had to do that stupid overly complicated seal before they would die. The new release made it better but just not enough to be better than aria.
@@BewbsOP Having just replayed Dawn on the Dominus Collection, I found it the most frustrating of the DS games. I often had no idea where I was supposed to go next, or what I was missing to advance.
Yeah all of this. I remember liking it a lot more, but after the dominus collection, I would actually place Aria, PoR, and OoE all ahead of Dawn. Luck being broken (making the abysmal soul drop rates even worse), the anime artstyle, and the bosses all being damage sponges really hold it back. Also, no one ever talks about how annoying all the enemies' constant laughing is.
This was awesome guys, thanks. Matt and SSFF talk about Castlevania for almost three hours? Sureeeee. As far as Symphony goes, yeah I agree to agree as well. While it is my favorite out of all of them and I still do a playthrough once a year, it has its issues. The inverted castle feels a bit tacked on but the main reason for that is its pacing. By the time you get there in the game, your character is pretty fn busted lol. Even with the 99 luck code enabled, it still becomes pretty easy to cheese this game as you get further into it (this lowers all your stats but raises your luck to 99 for those that haven't played it, kinda makes the early game a little more challenging). Also, some of the weapons are completely fn broken as well, all of these flaws are rather unfortunate but still Symphony is a masterpiece in gaming and I'm able to look past these flaws with ease.
I always feel like I’m insane because everyone talks about how easy Super Castlevania 4 is and how hard Rondo is but I find 4 FAR more difficult due to tricky platform sections like the waterfall level where you have go back a long way to retry again and again for every misstep that causes you to fall. I found Rondo a lot smoother, though it definitely has harder bosses
The Villa in Castlevaina 64 is amazing not going to defend anything else about it, but fuck was the Villa vibey and other vampire hunters and vampires.
For real, I need a display scheme in Retroarch/Emulation Station that is set up in the same way as the editing display done in this video. Game list on the left at that angle, box art in the middle, attract mode video on the right. Chef's kiss to whomever edited this.
Correction: Castlevania Judgment had a scene in Venezuela, and has a slowly growing but small scene in North America. It has had a few online tournaments now. That is all I can say.
Bloodlines is a late release sure, but its a near perfect game. I think nearly divine was better, it has one of the most interesting settings, WW1 era, and a cool antagonist.
Can't help but feel like bloodlines got snubbed here. Its not my favorite classic castlevania, but in relation to the rest of the list, I definitely think it deserves at least A tier. Also I prefer Portrait of Ruin to Dawn of Sorrow, so I'd probably swap them. Still have to play order of ecclesia though
Came to see their take on Castlevania HD only to find neither actually played it. Literally the reason I scoured my folders and boxes for an Xbox Gold card a year back. The highlight is the soundtrack. They remastered *so many* good songs and made them absolutely divine. My two favorites are the PoR final area theme and Go! Getsu Fuma.
how come UA-cam did not show me this until nearly the end of November??? Now I want Holloween back, but that's not unusual. I just want it more now. Edit: Also for PC users, look for the fan game Castlevania: ReVamped. Its a more search actiony redo of the first game, adding things like double jumps and HP increases and such.
I did not know that Iga and his guys called it "Search Action". That said I have always hated the term Metroidvania. If you want to go that route, just call it a fucking Metroid like. So yeah Matt, I am down with search action.
The skeletons stopped fighting. They lay down their arms. They instantly regretted this, as now they could no longer play video games without arms, and it is also difficult to pick up your arms and reattach them when you no longer have arms with which to do so in the first place.
I only played a few Castlevania games but I knew a lot of those titles and YET you surprised me with titles I've never heared about before! awesome tierlist doods!
2:13:15 We now have Grimoire of Souls, which effectively serves as a story mode of sorts for Harmony of Despair, even if it is a 2.5D hack and slash mobile game with short levels and makes it fit at the end of the timeline without any issues (the game was originally released on Android and scrapped but they brought it back for Apple Arcade and finished the story (10 chapters consisting of about 15 short stages and a boss for each chapter)). Long story short, Arikado is contacted by the Elgos Organisation (a company that since 1999 has been in charge of guarding Dracula's sealed material possessions along with keeping several magic grimoires chronicling the history of Castlevania in order to teach humanity not to fall down the same dark path they keep going down to bring him back) as the grimoires they keep have been going out of control. Teaming up with a mage from Elgos called Lucy Westenra (yes, there's characters named after the Dracula Novel here including the company's director being called "Seward") to use magic that can bring back the heroes from the various grimoires to assist him as he goes through them (eventually giving you Simon, Maria, Shanoa and Charlotte as other main playable characters, while some other characters are only able to be partially brought back as assist characters to help for a short while (e.g. Jonathan, Richter, Adult Maria, Albus and Soma)). The magic of the grimoires going out of control is due to Death trying to use the grimoires to bring back his master and undo the Solar Eclipse seal. There's more to the plot but it's a pretty good addition to the timeline. The game also has interactions between the various characters in the cutscenes between stages where they discuss their respective eras or concepts from those eras (e.g. the Glyphs, the Portraits in Portrait of Ruin, the era that the Belmonts aren't around for, etc) and even uses some of these concepts in new ways for the story.
I played Mirror of Fate recently on 3ds and really enjoyed it! Some of the best graphics on the system. Really cool set pieces, especially in 3d. And there was one recurring boss who's dialogue I really loved. Exploration was shallow, but I liked the forward momentum. Definitely a recommendation, especially on original hardware. Hot take: I kind of like it more than Samus Returns. There's some common DNA between it and their Metroid games. Metroid Dread is still easily my favorite among them.
I'm glad their opinion on Circle of the Moon is of the Moon is very high as I recently just played and really enjoyed it despite its flaws. Also, I'm glad that Matt thinks that Nathan is a cool protagonist.
@JoakimOtamaa Fair enough, the fact that you need to GAIN the ability to run is pretty stupid. Hopefully, if they were to ever possibly do a remake/remaster of the game, they would make running part of the core movement and NOT need you to double tap the Dpad to run.
How did the skeletons started fighting in the first place and why they haven't stop fighting is one of life's greatest mysteries that will never be solved.
I'm happy to see some Dawn of Sorrow love, the game usually gets dismissed solely because of the official art which admittedly is cheap looking compared to Kojima's but otherwise the game takes what makes Aria of Sorrow a banger and improves on it.
I've only ever played Castlevania HD solo on my modded 360 and personally I freaking loved it, twenty minute slices of 'Vania, each stage it's own puzzle to unwind and master try after try, and then having my done fully blown when I hit that zoom out button the first time, and then admittedly a few times after that.
The Japanese version of Dracula's Curse is now my go-to over the NES version because it's a bit easier and those extra sound channels make the soundtrack pop even harder. I can never go back to the NES version now.
I just want to point out regarding the Easter egg scene Derek mentions in Symphony of the Night, Maria specifically asks "Do you know the name Belmont?", and she gets a thought bubble to think of Richter. Alucard gets his own thought bubble thinking of _Trevor,_ because that's the Belmont _he_ knows, and says "Yes, I've heard the name". They never really square that circle in the conversation so they both think they're talking about two different Belmonts. A rare moment of subtle humor in Castlevania, and I like to imagine when Alucard finally meets Richter, his first reaction is "Who the _fuck_ are you?" It is one of my favorite interactions in the series, because it is just so charming. It's also not hidden, I believe you see that scene eventually on every playthrough.
Awesome video, watched it while playing vampire survivors. Of course there's a Castlevania steam sale now.... Mirror of Fate was the only one I didn't own so I picked that up as well as the PC version of LoS2 cuz the 360.version does indeed run like ass. Much love homies.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Check out Derek's channel HERE - www.youtube.com/@StopSkeletonsFromFighting
Matt, you forgot to pin this comment on top
Derek is the coolest skeleton ever.
Derek having to do this whole thing walking backwards
@@thepickles8833
Can't stop the skeleton warriors from moonwalking 💀💀💀💀
Absolute pro
Lol!
someone throw em a hat!
Anyone else here feel that the evolution of Matt and Derek's Castlevania skeleton sprites as they go through the various eras of Castlevania is a brilliant touch?
110% agreed.
It's genius!
Oh I totally didn't mention that until you said, that's awesome
If Lords of Shadow 2 had excised the ridiculous modern day plot and just focused in on exploring Dracula's castle it would have been incredible. It's no surprise Nintendo tapped the developers to do Metroid since those sections were freaking awesome.
@@rootyrootyson2175 Mirror of Fate is the best of LoS trilogy and better than Dread.
31:40 - fun fact about Castlevania 3; Grant plays differently in the Japanese version as he can THROW his knives as projectiles, as also referenced when fighting against his evil clone in SotN. I guess since Konami of America thought recruiting Grant to be the "easy mode" of the game, they opted to nerf him and make him do a lame short-range stab similar to Sypha's weak bonk stick.
If you think about it, the name "Dracula X" still means "Vampire's Kiss"
I like how your two skelly sprites turn HD as it goes on lol
I really appreciate how you both took to looking ahead and rationalizing the need to grade against the curve for this series. I love when people do such a good job of using the tier list to its fullest potential. Great work Uncle and Muncle!
Matt’s done other tier list before and he always does them right.
Oh, no, the villagers absolutely lie their asses off in the Japanese version of Castlevania 2- Koji Igarashi confirmed it in a 2008 interview.
It's definitely intentional that they lie. Still a terrible choice that ruins the game though.
And the graveyard duck always referred to the waterfowl.
The whole editing of this video is SUPERB. Having the tier list on one side, the cover in the middle and gameplay in the other side should be the standard for this type of videos. And the skeletons changing every now and then is a brilliant touch.
Not so great when watching on a phone screen
Bummed that Derek never really bothered with Order of Ecclesia. That’s often considered the best of the IGAvanias and I was excited to hear his take. But I also understand why he was feeling burnt out on Metroidvanias by the time it released.
@@CrowTRobot With the Dominus Collection it's not too late to rectify this Derek!
Symphony and Ecclesia are my favourites. Ecclesia's art and character design are absolutely superb.
It's kinda crazy to be talking about CV and skip OoE, just my opinion. I think that's leaning too far in favour of one preferred type of CV. I have bad CV takes (don't like CV IV) but I've definitely played all of them.
@@RelugusMultiple mini maps and not just just the castle is a huge plus in my books.
Interesting! I'm playing OoE right now and having what's probably the worst time I've ever had playing a Castlevania game.
Hey its Derek! It's him, Derek!
I had the exact same reaction.
I miss uncle Derek... Hope he comes back with a new video soon
My favorite uncle on UA-cam
From stop Dereks from Derek
I was worried something happened to him when I couldn't find much in the way of online updates
God, Harmony of Despair was the hottest shit, for my two cents. Hitting the map button and getting to see the other players doing their own thing exploring the level to grab all the chests before everyone converges on the boss room never got old. The fact that all the characters played differently from each other was just the cherry on top.
Man, I wish there was something like that nowadays.
I think I had a phase of jumping on every new XBLA release with co-op and looking for games, and you could see a really neat idea in HoD when you had three other players and were zooming the map in and out and everyone was doing stuff. It's definitely a concept they could have done more with.
Harmony of Despair still works on Xbox One / Series. You could always try to get a group together.
@kenji6492 Haven't had an Xbox since the 360 or a console in general since the launch model PS4
@ dang. Maybe we’ll get a PC port someday
"The whips and chains, give me more of those." - Matt McMuscles, 2024
Rhianna in that one song
Fantastic tier list and the production behind it. I loved how the skeletons were animated and shifted by the game. Combined with the music shifting from game to game made this a great listen to while working on some spooky drawings. The time dedicated to the presentation of this was top tier.
Shout out to the editor for pulling the best possible clip from the first Castlevania series
Order of Ecclesia felt like the next evolution of the series, combining Simon's Quest and Symphony of the Night. It was great but I really thought the next game in the series was going to be stellar. But IGA left Konami and that game never came
Castlevania Chronicles should be higher it’s only really a remake in the way IV is. It has that really cool Werewolf fight
Any Castlevania with a Really Cool Werewolf Fight(tm) should be at least in the tier before top
@@Ka_Fiveprobably going to sound weird given all the great monster designs in the series, especially the warewolves, but my favorite fights are against like... The bosses that are just other dudes that feel like they play like you. Doppelganger, possessed Richter, trevor in curse of darkness etc.
Calling Super IV is fucking dumb. It's just a retelling of CV1 on SNES. Basic Muricans again...
Order of Ecclesia deserves more love 😢
Chronicles and Drac X Chronicles too
Order of Ecclesia is my favorite game in the franchise, or at least between that and Aria of Sorrow. To me, Order has my favorite story in the franchise, the music and graphics are stellar, and Shanoa's unique way of attacking enemies with magic making a faux-Stamina system made me love this game. Also, hot take, I love the smaller, more linear stages leading to larger, more exploratory levels later because it feels like a mix of Classic/Vintage and Iga vania titles to me.
True, people do not give it the credit it deserves it's a perfect middle ground for the igavania and challenge from the old games.
Shanoa is my favorite castlevania character.
True to his name, those skeletons in fact did not fight
Glad to hear Matt loves my favorite 'Vania, Portrait of Ruin! :3 Cool characters, awesome mechanics, great music, and diverse levels (even with the asset reuse in the second half), it's something I play every October between making costumes! XD
I just hate the art style. Kiddy anime was a huge downgrade compared to the previous gothic style.
Wait, no 'miserable little pile of secrets' tier?
Missed opportunity
Also no "Stupid Disciple" tier.
Chronicles is so damn underrated. The soundtrack alone is worth giving it a playthrough.
Same with Drac X Chronicles too, even if i still prefer the look of the original
I'm glad those two skeletons were stopped from fighting.
I am the Harmony of Dissonance soundtrack defender. It's not as good as other Castlevania soundtracks but it's cool.
It was limited by the game needing more space for graphics (to make a lot of high contrast and bright stuff to make the game visible on original GBA, unlike CotM) but goddamn, Soshiro Hokkai worked some epic magic to make that chipset tune rock.
@@B.-T.There's also a lot of rooms with unique tilesets. Seriously, next time you play it really pay attention to the backgrounds and you'll see a lot of rooms have details unique to them
The actual compositions are good, but the GBA soundchip does them no favors.
@@Chernobog2 Yep. I love the graphics in this game.
@B.-T. There's a version of its main theme at the end which is far better because the GBA isn't weighed down by having to handle graphics.
The GBA didn't have a GPU to do it for you
The Sharp x68000 Castlevania is my favorite of the old school Classicvania games. Loved that the castle would change slightly based on the calender date.
And it arguably has the best werewolf boss fight. Full health it charges at you. At low health it starts ripping off pieces of the background and tosses it at you to try to keep you away.
I'm here to tip my hat to composer Yamane Michiru!
Sadly gotta separate the art from the artist on this one. She's gone a bit... strange in recent years.
Uhoh
Now what
@@Joe90h???
What happen
You guys joked at once point about ranking the cover-art, but I would genuinely love a follow-up episode of you guys literally doing just that! Like a "lightning-round" just rating cover-art, or OST's in general?
Cool video, just a very minor thing:
Vampire‘s kiss is the european name for Dracula X SNES, the japanese name is akumajo Dracula XX (double x or double cross)
Even if it is a remake, it's a good feeling that there is an actual new Castlevania game to rank here. Alongside most of the other ones being easily accessible now.
Portrait of Ruin is my favorite. Blitzing the castle with Richter is always a blast.
it took me too long to realize just how early Castlevania was as a Famicom game. in the fall of 86, it was basically the first 3rd party game to be as good as Nintendo. and it was by far the best looking and sounding game on the system up to that point.
Missed opportunity to call the bottom tier Miserable Piles.
I kinda wish when Derek was talking about the back dashing in SOTN and making the sounds for it his skeleton would've been back dashing around.
Rondo of Blood is the best Castlevania. It's a perfect love letter to classic 'Vania and the difficulty level is nigh-on perfect.
"The whips and chains. Give me more of those." -Matt, 2024
the editing goes hard. good job editor!
"If you're watching this video, you're a Castlevania fan"
I'm watching it, and I've never even played a single castlevania game, on any platform, ever. I've not even watched the cartoon. I'm not some little kid either, I'm 45, I've had plenty of chances to play them!
I just like listening to you talk
Try SOTN at least. What a classic.
@eternalfailure4081: Username checks out
Same here, I've only played Symphony. I just like hearing people delve into the history of something they're passionate about.
Weird asf for that.
To me, the weakest part of the GBA/DS titles is how linear they get around Aria. Symphony of the Night, while sure, slightly worse in pacing, it gave you so much freedom to explore only a couple of hours in, without even mentioning the amount of easily accessible glitches to just casual players, like getting into the Colosseum early by abusing the wolf transformation. But what makes me love it above all the others, is the weird shit in Symphony. The confession room, the room in the outer wall where you need to press up to unlock a weapon early, the switch in the Catacombs that you need the Imp Familiar to activate(which also works in the reverse Catacombs), the sword familiar will turn into a usable weapon after leveling it enough, the fairy will sing to you if you sit in a chair long enough, equipping different capes changing the color of your cape sprite, the fact that consumables have to put in your hand to use, and the fact that some of them will fall to the ground and you need to walk over them to eat. It's all so incredibly charming to me. The GBA/DS titles have some of that, but only by putting them all together do you get the amount of weird stuff and how open Symphony is
I really dislike the healing item usage in SotN.
wow! this is amazing, i adore how the love and passion you guys have for the series reflected on the ranking and overall discussion, it's nice to see two buddies just having fun talking about cool shit. also, the editing... my gosh THE EDITING! it's sooooooo good and i love it!
40:08 My favorite part about that is that, you have a fight with Trevor later in the game. They had an update 32 bit sprite of him ready, but still went for the nes one! XD
Just streamed Bloodstained Dominique's Curse DLC on stream the other night. I was surprised to find out they call the DLC Classic II and its in the font of Castlevania II. Not only that but they had a lot of SImons Quest ideas but more touched on with fixes. Has a day night cycle, music that so similar you swear its bloody tears, and a equip item that lets you see hidden blocks/floor traps that can highlight in red text when npcs are lying to you. What a great game Bloodstained is.
I have no clue about that DLC. Is that for Ritual of the Night or Curse of the Moon 2?
Portrait of Ruin is eternally my favorite just because it was the first one I played, so I have the fondest memories. Original is also right up there for me.
LoS2 is basically "Imagine a Castlevania game where you play Dracula, except instead of the almighty Lord of Darkness he's a total wimp".
Honestly I feel like when Simons quest came out, Konami and Nintendo made a cash deal like “ Yeah we can make the game cryptic as hell so yall can sell more Nintendo power subscriptions for tips.”
Harmony of Despair is SO much fun. It is my number one game. It has a discord and someone remade (most of) the game in the Unity engine as a little fan project for the PC. I still play it a few times a year with buds.
Dawn of Sorrow above Aria? That's a paddlin'.
Dawn gang!
Yeah, that's an awful take
You guys really nail the retro aesthetic in a refreshing way, I love it. Especially the longer videos.
For me, dawn being above aria is just herecy. It's a good game, but it meanders around so much and the seal thing was terrible and made some bosses an absolute chore. Not because they were hard, but because you had to do that stupid overly complicated seal before they would die. The new release made it better but just not enough to be better than aria.
@@BewbsOP Having just replayed Dawn on the Dominus Collection, I found it the most frustrating of the DS games. I often had no idea where I was supposed to go next, or what I was missing to advance.
Also the shittiest story of the series for me. It doesn't even have Castlevania in the game. Completely unnecessary.
Yeah all of this. I remember liking it a lot more, but after the dominus collection, I would actually place Aria, PoR, and OoE all ahead of Dawn. Luck being broken (making the abysmal soul drop rates even worse), the anime artstyle, and the bosses all being damage sponges really hold it back. Also, no one ever talks about how annoying all the enemies' constant laughing is.
Yeah, Dawn over Aria is a horrible take
@@marcschwartz5676 The best thing about Dawn is the music, especially that boss theme that plays with the Puppet Head Guy whatever it was.
In Super Castlevania 4, Simon can also moonwalk up and down stairs like an absolute boss!
Dawn of Sorrow was the first Castlevania game I ever beat. I remember buying it and a guide from GameStop.
Same...except I bought the guide decades later at a used game store.
I could watch those skeleton sprites shmoove all day.
This has been a Great Year for Castlevania.
Man this is great! Thanks guys love the presentation!
This was awesome guys, thanks. Matt and SSFF talk about Castlevania for almost three hours? Sureeeee. As far as Symphony goes, yeah I agree to agree as well. While it is my favorite out of all of them and I still do a playthrough once a year, it has its issues. The inverted castle feels a bit tacked on but the main reason for that is its pacing. By the time you get there in the game, your character is pretty fn busted lol. Even with the 99 luck code enabled, it still becomes pretty easy to cheese this game as you get further into it (this lowers all your stats but raises your luck to 99 for those that haven't played it, kinda makes the early game a little more challenging). Also, some of the weapons are completely fn broken as well, all of these flaws are rather unfortunate but still Symphony is a masterpiece in gaming and I'm able to look past these flaws with ease.
I always feel like I’m insane because everyone talks about how easy Super Castlevania 4 is and how hard Rondo is but I find 4 FAR more difficult due to tricky platform sections like the waterfall level where you have go back a long way to retry again and again for every misstep that causes you to fall. I found Rondo a lot smoother, though it definitely has harder bosses
Thanks for the shout out, Uncle Derek! C64 rocks. Skeletons Riding Motorcycles 4 LIFE
The Villa in Castlevaina 64 is amazing not going to defend anything else about it, but fuck was the Villa vibey and other vampire hunters and vampires.
For real, I need a display scheme in Retroarch/Emulation Station that is set up in the same way as the editing display done in this video. Game list on the left at that angle, box art in the middle, attract mode video on the right. Chef's kiss to whomever edited this.
Correction: Castlevania Judgment had a scene in Venezuela, and has a slowly growing but small scene in North America. It has had a few online tournaments now. That is all I can say.
All that AND it raises the level cap and unlocks queen of hearts in order of ecclesia
Bloodlines is a late release sure, but its a near perfect game. I think nearly divine was better, it has one of the most interesting settings, WW1 era, and a cool antagonist.
Only a few minutes in but I do have to say how much I'm loving the production of the video, absolutely fantastic stuff
Can't help but feel like bloodlines got snubbed here. Its not my favorite classic castlevania, but in relation to the rest of the list, I definitely think it deserves at least A tier. Also I prefer Portrait of Ruin to Dawn of Sorrow, so I'd probably swap them. Still have to play order of ecclesia though
Came to see their take on Castlevania HD only to find neither actually played it.
Literally the reason I scoured my folders and boxes for an Xbox Gold card a year back.
The highlight is the soundtrack. They remastered *so many* good songs and made them absolutely divine. My two favorites are the PoR final area theme and Go! Getsu Fuma.
how come UA-cam did not show me this until nearly the end of November??? Now I want Holloween back, but that's not unusual. I just want it more now.
Edit: Also for PC users, look for the fan game Castlevania: ReVamped. Its a more search actiony redo of the first game, adding things like double jumps and HP increases and such.
3 hours of my two favorite skelly gamers talking about my favorite vampire games? I'm absolutely sitting down and listening to this in its entirety.
Dude, these guys are so charismatic and bounce off each other so well. I didn't even notice those 3 hours going by.
Matt and Derek!! (In Vince voice) _The Megapowers Explode! Here at Transylvania V_ 🤼🎆
I did not know that Iga and his guys called it "Search Action". That said I have always hated the term Metroidvania. If you want to go that route, just call it a fucking Metroid like. So yeah Matt, I am down with search action.
The skeletons stopped fighting. They lay down their arms. They instantly regretted this, as now they could no longer play video games without arms, and it is also difficult to pick up your arms and reattach them when you no longer have arms with which to do so in the first place.
Aria below S tier is insane
you know it’s nice to see that Derek has finally succeeded in his goal of stopping skeletons from fighting
1:16:55 it’s that mentality that keeps us from getting a new Darkstalkers, Derek!!!😂
I only played a few Castlevania games but I knew a lot of those titles and YET you surprised me with titles I've never heared about before! awesome tierlist doods!
2:13:15
We now have Grimoire of Souls, which effectively serves as a story mode of sorts for Harmony of Despair, even if it is a 2.5D hack and slash mobile game with short levels and makes it fit at the end of the timeline without any issues (the game was originally released on Android and scrapped but they brought it back for Apple Arcade and finished the story (10 chapters consisting of about 15 short stages and a boss for each chapter)). Long story short, Arikado is contacted by the Elgos Organisation (a company that since 1999 has been in charge of guarding Dracula's sealed material possessions along with keeping several magic grimoires chronicling the history of Castlevania in order to teach humanity not to fall down the same dark path they keep going down to bring him back) as the grimoires they keep have been going out of control. Teaming up with a mage from Elgos called Lucy Westenra (yes, there's characters named after the Dracula Novel here including the company's director being called "Seward") to use magic that can bring back the heroes from the various grimoires to assist him as he goes through them (eventually giving you Simon, Maria, Shanoa and Charlotte as other main playable characters, while some other characters are only able to be partially brought back as assist characters to help for a short while (e.g. Jonathan, Richter, Adult Maria, Albus and Soma)). The magic of the grimoires going out of control is due to Death trying to use the grimoires to bring back his master and undo the Solar Eclipse seal. There's more to the plot but it's a pretty good addition to the timeline.
The game also has interactions between the various characters in the cutscenes between stages where they discuss their respective eras or concepts from those eras (e.g. the Glyphs, the Portraits in Portrait of Ruin, the era that the Belmonts aren't around for, etc) and even uses some of these concepts in new ways for the story.
Order of Ecclesia not being in the top layer is criminal...
We need more collabs between these two.
I played Mirror of Fate recently on 3ds and really enjoyed it! Some of the best graphics on the system. Really cool set pieces, especially in 3d. And there was one recurring boss who's dialogue I really loved. Exploration was shallow, but I liked the forward momentum. Definitely a recommendation, especially on original hardware.
Hot take: I kind of like it more than Samus Returns. There's some common DNA between it and their Metroid games. Metroid Dread is still easily my favorite among them.
“What is this, a crossover episode “
Haunted Castle is pure jank but that box art never fails to make me lose my shit.
The remake on ds collection is actual fire though
The remake was dope for the ds collection
2:12:40 Harmony of Despair is still listed for purchase and playable on Xbox One and Series consoles through backwards compatability!
Yall forgot you could also play with Richter and Maria on Sotn. That adds on to the Holiest of holy rank.
I don't think they were taking into account the extra playable modes of any game besides Rondo tbh
Maria is only on the Saturn and that's almost a different game with it's visuals, I also think it never went stateside.
02:35:51 - I was wondering when your Simspons reference was coming! 😂
A perfect, more casual companion video to I Finished a Video Game's Castlevania video
I'm glad their opinion on Circle of the Moon is of the Moon is very high as I recently just played and really enjoyed it despite its flaws. Also, I'm glad that Matt thinks that Nathan is a cool protagonist.
I hate the controls in it. Unplayable for me.
@JoakimOtamaa Fair enough, the fact that you need to GAIN the ability to run is pretty stupid. Hopefully, if they were to ever possibly do a remake/remaster of the game, they would make running part of the core movement and NOT need you to double tap the Dpad to run.
Matt Vs Uncle Derek The Halloween Special
How did the skeletons started fighting in the first place and why they haven't stop fighting is one of life's greatest mysteries that will never be solved.
I'm happy to see some Dawn of Sorrow love, the game usually gets dismissed solely because of the official art which admittedly is cheap looking compared to Kojima's but otherwise the game takes what makes Aria of Sorrow a banger and improves on it.
The art style and seal system are ass.
Great rankings. Mercury Steam’s story makes me think of modern Bloober Team’s trajectory. Would love to call that phenomenon the Mercury Steam Effect
I've only ever played Castlevania HD solo on my modded 360 and personally I freaking loved it, twenty minute slices of 'Vania, each stage it's own puzzle to unwind and master try after try, and then having my done fully blown when I hit that zoom out button the first time, and then admittedly a few times after that.
It’s surprising that it’s still legally purchasable on at least Xbox one/series X|S
So good to see the SSFF crossover again! Love Derek, it's him Derek.
The GBA Circle of the Moon forced Nintendo to release GBA SP cause it was unplayable on the original GBA.
You always hire the best editors, I swear.
1:11:50 If they do not wear a piece of armor of some kind, but are riding motorcycles, can they still be considered Skeleton Warriors?
Harmony’s garish colors make a lot more sense played on the original, lightless GBA screen. Circle was basically impossible to play on that thing.
Miss Derek! Wish he was more active on his podcast!
The Japanese version of Dracula's Curse is now my go-to over the NES version because it's a bit easier and those extra sound channels make the soundtrack pop even harder. I can never go back to the NES version now.
I just want to point out regarding the Easter egg scene Derek mentions in Symphony of the Night, Maria specifically asks "Do you know the name Belmont?", and she gets a thought bubble to think of Richter. Alucard gets his own thought bubble thinking of _Trevor,_ because that's the Belmont _he_ knows, and says "Yes, I've heard the name". They never really square that circle in the conversation so they both think they're talking about two different Belmonts. A rare moment of subtle humor in Castlevania, and I like to imagine when Alucard finally meets Richter, his first reaction is "Who the _fuck_ are you?" It is one of my favorite interactions in the series, because it is just so charming.
It's also not hidden, I believe you see that scene eventually on every playthrough.
Learning that Matt and I have the same fave Belmont made me happy.
This is solid! I personally would put Order of Ecclesia and Aria of Sorrow in top tier but great list
Awesome video, watched it while playing vampire survivors.
Of course there's a Castlevania steam sale now.... Mirror of Fate was the only one I didn't own so I picked that up as well as the PC version of LoS2 cuz the 360.version does indeed run like ass.
Much love homies.