Castlevania General

So, a discussion in the Hyrule Warriors thread got me thinking:

What would most of you say to a Castlevania Warriors / Akumajo Dracula Musou.

I think it'd be a great way to bring in a lot of characters from all across the series....even though there'd be a buttload of Whip users.

It'd also b a great chance to get a bunch of characters who don't get much love from Konami (but plenty from the the fans).

So Sonia, maybe Reinhart and Carrie, Nathan, etc.

I want Juste beating monsters up with a chair.

Hahaha Castelvania Warriors has come up a few times. It's definitely something the fans want, and we'd probably have if Konami wasn't dead.

I've said before that there's no need to worry about there being too many whip users. They could each have their own flair to it.

Simon would be barbarian style, using it more like a flail that crashes to the ground and cracks the earth, with a lot of punches and kicks mixed in to his attacks that send mooks flying.

Trevor would be the tricky finesse fighter, with keep-away swings and at least one feint where he backsteps and throws a handful of daggers. He could also dual-wield whips for his final attack strings like in the show.

Sonia would be the Magic Knight, with basic whip attacks that give way to blasts of ice and fire for combo finishers.

Richter would just use Hydro Storm over and over again.

Alucard, Sypha, Shanoa, Jonathan and Charlotte, Eric, Soma and Maria could round out the hero roster. I imagine Alucard's the Jack of All Stats, Sypha's the Squishy Wizard with tons of devastating attack spells, Shanoa would be all Storm of Blades incarnate with her floating weapons, Jonathan and Charlotte would have unique team attacks that could lead to flashy combos, Eric's there just because we need a spear wielder, Soma's there just because he's popular, and Maria because we need a return to her Bare-Fisted Monk powerset that I really like.

Nathan could be the "summoner," since you never need to use anything else after you get Uranus.

Speaking of Circle of the Moon I...kinda think it's underrated after playing through a good amount of it, honestly.

It's not a bad game. It was just hampered by the limitations of the hardware — the GBA lighting just wasn't good enough for that game.

If there was any actual gameplay element that sucked, it was the drop rate for items. Especially the cards.

Having play circle of the moon...yeah is underated.

I will said there is some issue here and there with the game: for one the story feel very excuse plot even by castlevania standars. the Cards system is good actually and many combination are good(neptune plus serpent render the entire water level irrelevant) but some....no really(the one were you get exp by walking is pretty terrible) but what make it awfull is how the drop: some are got specifict monsters like serpent that you get killing earth demons or apolo that you get by killing arch demons which is drop rate is fucking damn insane. You can honestly past the game without getting some card because of it.

But I think the worst of the card system is you dont know what efect you get, in some way is fun because the efect can be surprising but it also can be a bitch like mandragora plus venus that get you healing if you are static: I didnt know about it and I spend right until the dragon zombie evading and getting worry about health because no only the card drop are abysmal, any damn object are here and getting potions is hard as hell.

That being said, the castle is fun, the music is hella catchy specially the boss fight and speaking off, the boss here are probably the best, they are really toughs as hell and take a eternity to die but they were some of the more fun I have for a while and yes, even the damn zombie dragons were entreating afterwards. Sure not all of them were equally engaging(the iron golem for example and Camilla fight is....meh) but they really stand up if you compared to Aria of sorrow for example.

Simon Belmont and Alucard are coming to Brawl Halla.

What? It's news.

The issue with the visuals is not really a problem anymore on systems with backlighting, which is basically what you'd be playing it on now.

I had some trouble adjusting to the controls in the first few hours and it was the initial reason I couldn't get into, but once I got past that it turned out to be a pretty enjoyable game.

The card system does suck big ones though. I decided if the game was gonna be that awful with the drops I'd just use the glitch instead.

I decide to use the guide since I found the card drop and which monster get it pretty damn insane, also the card should have a bigger impact in the story really.

The problem is, even if you know which monsters drop what cards

a) the drop rates are trash

b) the best cards are locked behind the arena which is an extremely difficult area to survive let alone farm anything effectively

Oh yeah, I finish the game without the arena card and apolo because the later is such a fucking bullshit to get I decide to just go after dracula.

And it work, if you want to beat him I recomend neptune+serpent,mandragora,golem and them pluto, it work for me.

The drop rate is the main complaint I have with Circle of the Moon. Drop rate should not be below one percent.

Edited by Aquaconda on Sep 10th 2022 at 9:47:02 AM

Oh, the hours I spent in that game smacking falling candle-men around...

Yeah, you can live without the Arena cards, but the ones from the Metal Slime candle bastards are a LOT better.

I would like to see the card system expanded in another game. Maybe expand the ways you can get them and another card type or two to increase the combos you can make.

Been playing Bloodlines. Neat Classicvania, and they shit they pulled off on the Genesis is amazing. I don't know how they pulled off the rotating in Stage 3's boss, and the gear boss in Stage 4 is a standout of sprite animation.

Edited by Karxrida on Sep 11th 2022 at 7:31:31 AM

Maybe more card catagories, but fewer cards.
In circle, its basically Action + Attribute, with 10 cards each, for 100 spells.

Maybe a rework could turn give us Action + Attribute + Target.
8 Actions, 8-10 Attributes, and three Targets(self/enemy/environment) would give us 200-240 spells.
Could take some of the traditional relic ability upgrades and roll them into cards/spells to make that aspect more magic-themed as well.

If that's too much, maybe splinter the set off.
Take some of the Action cards and split them off into a weaker Passive category that you set and forget. Save the Combo System exclusively for the active Action spell/effects.
Then you could have your fun magic attacks, and still keep stuff like minor elemental resistance, or minor elemental whip damage, or stat bumps.

I'm afraid if we stray too far from the Dual Setup System, then we're basically just re-engineering Soma's soul system with different flavour.

However the card system got reworked, I think we can all agree that drop rates should be way better, and combo/card descriptions should be greatly improved.

The card system was pretty neat.

Has it ever been explained why Dracula revives every 100 years?

And wouldn't those early resurrections add years to the in-between times between Dracula's rampages?

The 100 year thing just seems to be however long it takes for Dracula's full power to return on its own.

The early resurrections don't seem to have anything to do with it one way or another since those always involve outsiders performing sacrifices to empower Dracula. Fortunately, the early resurrection attempts usually don't have enough sacrifices to bring Dracula back to full strength.

The N64 Castlevania ovo188 are one of the only exceptions to this, thanks to Dracula's servants using Cornell's manbeast power as the fuel.

Edited by M84 on Sep 12th 2022 at 2:38:05 AM

Indeed. The 100 Years part seems to be how long it takes him to return naturally, but as we've seen throughout the franchise (as early in the timeline as Curse of Darkness) Dracula can be brought back at pretty much any time.

It's kinda the reason why I think COTM and the n64 duology should be part of the timeline.

It makes 100% sense that the era with no Belmonts is the era where Dracula's resurrections suddenly get kicked into high gear.

Also, I was wondering: is anyone going to make a Grimoire Of Souls page? Like, even Castlevania: Order of Shadows has a page. And there's nothing special about that.

I will said the best thing is rework the card system to higher the drop and making them less bullshit or having card to be story based(and issue since circle is a excuse plot a best) or some other way.

Also, I dont think dracula should be the final boss but carmila, let have her using and artefact to gather dracula power(probably dracula heart) and making a ritual to gather more and more power, you fight her, the ritual goes out of control and she become a monster to defeat in the end.

Just finished watching another Grimoire of Souls Livestream by a dude named Stocke (who's other videos I've posted here a few times).

He rambles on a lot and sometimes spends 10-15 minutes talking about other things before continuing dialogue (hence his videos being 3-5 hours long, with the last one being 6 hours), but it was interesting to see someone else play through GOS.

Most notably, he clicked onto Hermina being a Lecarde before she officially revealed it due to an interaction with Alucard where she mentions coming from a demon hunting family that specializes in Swords and Spears (so Alucard Spear reference), which I must have missed in the last video I watched.

Also, once Death reveals himself to be Seward, he immediately noticed the resemblance between the former◊ and Zead◊, Death's last human disguise. And like, look at them: Seward is straight up just Zead with hair.

Finally, watching this video again made me realize something: Why does Elgos seem to know enough about the other heroes when Alucard, who's been around far longer is missing a lot of info on them (he was totally in the dark about Shanoa, Jonathan and Charlotte)? Maybe because the organization is secretly being lead by the one other being who's been around longer and Alucard, and has borne witness to every single battle these heroes have been involved in. Which actually creates an interesting point: Death has been in every single Castlevania game, the only character barring Dracula himself who can say that. If we assume that all battles against Dracula were chronicled by Elgos via Death, then it's possible that there were a a few adventures that we never saw the books of.

I know I've brought this up before, again and again, but I feel like this is a viable option. There was always room for these guys, and IGA was wrong to kick them out.

Edit: A slight ammendment to this post. Death was not in the original version of Castlevania: The Adventure, nor in it's sequel, Castlevania Belmonts Revenge. He was in the remake of the original however, by virtue of that game having a lot more bosses.

It does explain why there's so little mentioned about Christopher if we go by the original version. It's one of the few times Death was absent from the plot. And apparently, Soleil's actions while under mind control were kept on the down low so the fact that he's the first Belmont to be controlled by Count Dracula and years before Richter isn't public knowledge. Poor Richter. So he still gets to be the guy who helped revive Count Dracula purely because no one knows about Christopher's son.

Anyway, most of my ideas still work I think.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Oct 1st 2022 at 12:15:29 PM

Lets celebrate Halloween with this old rap favourite!

Trevor Belmont! Vat the hell do you want?!