Lunar Threads

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is now available on NA Wii Virtual Console! This is the first time the "true" version of the game is available on home consoles in North America. It's one my personal fave's and many consider it to be the best in the series, so I HIGHLY recommend you give it a shot.

This caught my eye this morning. I'm not exactly a huge Castlevania fan, but even I have been wondering what all the hubbub is about. I'll probably download sometime this week.

It probably looks nicer than it did on the Turbo Duo, and it costs a lot less than it would be on ebay.

Also Castlevania Drac X Chronicles on PSP has the original which you can play on TV if you have a tv-out cable that supports games.

While we have a Castlevania thread, I'd like to share this:
http://www.konami.jp/kojima_pro/gc_2009/us/castlevania/

The trailer for the new game looks amazing! There's a mask of light that grants life, and a mask of darkness that causes death, and the protagonist's wife was killed by Dracula's minions. So he's on a quest to find the light mask to bring her back and kill every last bit of evil along the way. Hideo Kojima was involved in the project, but he said in an interview his contributions were minor suggestions like "make the hero's face look more heroic" right. Also Patrick Stewart did narration work.

Awesome.

It's a great game. I would get it myself, but it's already on the psp remake I bought earlier.

I found out about this yesterday and am so glad I still have Wii points left over from when I bought Castlevania Adventure Rebirth! ^_^

Of course, I've already beaten the original Rondo (beaten every currently released Castlevania except for Dracula X and proud of it), but I still want to actually have this one so I can play it on a TV. I plan to get it ASAP, which is Friday when I can force my Wii over to a friend's hourse to use the internet. XD

localflick wrote:While we have a Castlevania thread, I'd like to share this:
http://www.konami.jp/kojima_pro/gc_2009/us/castlevania/

The trailer for the new game looks amazing! There's a mask of light that grants life, and a mask of darkness that causes death, and the protagonist's wife was killed by Dracula's minions. So he's on a quest to find the light mask to bring her back and kill every last bit of evil along the way. Hideo Kojima was involved in the project, but he said in an interview his contributions were minor suggestions like "make the hero's face look more heroic" right. Also Patrick Stewart did narration work.

Awesome.

The Castlevania fanbase is actually really divided about Lords of Shadows though. Most don't care for what they've seen of Lords of Shadow thus far. I personally think that it looks AMAZING, but that's just me. This is suppose to be a "rebirth" of Castlevania anyway and really isn't catering to fans. It's trying to bring in new fans.

Anyway, like I said, Lords of Shadows looks amazing in my opinion. My only gripe about it is the enemies. They are really generic looking and I don't like them. Here's the most recent screenshots and some renders of the enemies that aren't in that trailer:
http://www.vg247.com/2010/03/02/castlev ... ing-shots/

LoS does look amazing, but I wish they would show us something new already. I'm getting tired of all the "will it have the Castlevania feel?" speculation going on. They could help stop that by releasing actual gameplay footage. I never played the N64 vania's, but I thought LoI and CoD were decent games....just very flawed. Nice to see that Konami is stepping up to develop a big, well hyped 3D Castlevania game.

And I am a fan of the IGAvania's too, so I hope they don't push them to the side and forget about them.

1) Haven't been following LoS... (I think it might prove that I'm too jaded and Japan-style old-school for my own good. ) What if the reluctance to provide footage is the video game equivalent of not screening a new movie for film reviews...?

2) Assuming there should be a two year gap between announcements of new exploration-style Castlevanias, we're overdue. Konami can keep making 'em forever as far as I'm concerned.

3) Downloaded VC Rondo, I want to encourage imports on VC. I'm finding it difficult; have I gotten rusty...? The cutscenes enevitably remind me of Sega CD Lunar; it's a good thing.

1) True....I just feel they need to prove that their is something in this game for the fans. I know they are trying to bring in new fans, but they can't forget about the old ones. That being said, I don't think they are going to forget about the older fans. Dave Cox seems like a nice guy and keeps stressing in every interview that they are not.

2) Just wanted to thank you for not saying "Metroidvania-style". I hate that term. IGAvania isn't much better though.....

3)I wish we got more imports on VC. I have Sin and Punishment and Rondo of Blood downloaded, but nothing else really interests me. Except for maybe SMB: the Lost Levels.

I was looking at Rondo of Blood yesterday, and I know it's a hard game but I've never played the original. Is it hard to figure out any of the items because it's in Japanese. This is for those of us who don't know a lick ofJapanese. I could always just get the 3D remake on PSP, which also has Symphony of the Night unlockable as a bonus.

Lords of Shadow was not developed to be a Castelvania game when it began, but they decided to turn it into a Castlevania game. If the classic music doesn't find it's way in there that will be a problem, and frankly the game may look baroque or medieval but it seems like a weaker God of War clone. They should have gone further with the way the whip looks, and the attack animation. I'm on the fence.

The last Castlevania game on the PS2 (Castlevania: Circle of Darkness) didn't get much play from me because the play mechanics just sucked, and the first one was more enjoyable to me even though it was very flawed. I haven't even gotten far in Order of Ecclesia.

I think the original RoB has much smoother gameplay than the remake. It's more challenging too. Enemies move faster and the backflip requires better timing. I know absolutely nothing about the Japanese language and had no problem getting through it. The gameplay is your typical old-school Castlevania, so there isn't any armor or healing items (except wall meat) that you need to understand.

So, Rondo on the VC is a straight port of the original JPN version?
*sigh*
I was hoping that they'd get around to syncing to ENG audio this time around.
A waste of a good effort, I'd say...

^
If anything, you can play Rondo in English on the PSP if you get Dracula X Chronicles. I personally prefer to have a direct port, but maybe I'm the only one. ^^;

Silver Phoenix wrote:I was looking at Rondo of Blood yesterday, and I know it's a hard game but I've never played the original. Is it hard to figure out any of the items because it's in Japanese. This is for those of us who don't know a lick ofJapanese. I could always just get the 3D remake on PSP, which also has Symphony of the Night unlockable as a bonus.

The PSP remake also has the original Rondo translated into English as an unlockable as well.

I know absolutely nothing about the Japanese language and had no problem getting through it. The gameplay is your typical old-school Castlevania, so there isn't any armor or healing items (except wall meat) that you need to understand.

And I second this. There's nothing you really need to know. The only thing you won't understand are the anime cutscenes, but you can read up on that if you don't know the story.

You're not alone....I also prefer a direct port. I played the heck out of both versions of RoB on DXC, but I wasn't a fan of the original not being full screen. I still have a hard time listening to the "fixed" Dracula battle dialogue on SotN too.

whitedragon_nall wrote:I still have a hard time listening to the "fixed" Dracula battle dialogue on SotN too.

That's funny. I have Dracula X Chronicles and still have the PSX version of Symphony of the Night on my PSP because while it's cool to play as Maria, the voiceovers make me crazy. I hate the way Alucard sounds.

I think the drac x chronicles version is translated from the Japanese PSX version. The Japanese Saturn version had 2 more playable areas, Maria played differenly, and you could select any of the three characters right from the start. It would have been really cool if that version was in it but it is what it is.

Well, I did get Rondo yesterday for the Wii. I haven't actually touched it yet since I'm in no big hurry to play it since I've beaten it before. ^^;

Personally, I thought Yuri Lowenthal as Alucard was weird at first, but after playing through Castlevania Judgment and the port of Symphony of the Night that's on Dracula X Chronicles, the voice grew on me. I actually don't mind Yuri Lowenthal as Alucard now.

The funny thing is, I was going through my Symphony of the Night PSX disc about a month ago trying to rip voice tracks from it, and I honestly didn't realize how terrible the voice acting was in the game. Yeah, I knew it was bad, but I appreciated it's bad voice acting when I actually played through it the first time. It made the game funny, actually. Now I think I prefer the PSP Symphony of the Night voice acting though. o_o;

I don't think the new voices are bad...I actually think they are better. I was just a little upset the infamous speech was gone. It still lives on in the hearts of all Castlevania fans though.

I think you should link to a video for the sake of the original.

whitedragon_nall wrote:I don't think the new voices are bad...I actually think they are better. I was just a little upset the infamous speech was gone. It still lives on in the hearts of all Castlevania fans though.

I agree. I honestly think Alucard's original voice was too deep. Yuri Lowenthal is just about right for someone like Alucard. AND I WAS SOOOOO UPSET THAT THE INFAMOUS SPEECH WAS GONE! It made me sad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMTizJemHO8

^ will always be better than the following miserable little pile of secrets!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O41sbOaZkLk (look at 1:33)

No matter how better the new voice acting is in ^ one.

Flesshhhh. Huuumans. It's so bad it's good. Love it.

“What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets”, to quote André Malraux, 20th century French author, adventurer and statesman. Castlevania didn't quite reproduce it correctly, to say nothing of its suitability to a story set in 1792.

It's hilarious, of course. But I'm so glad someone went back and made it sound like the characters were actually speaking to each other. Also, I'm glad it sounds like it was recorded in an actual studio.