Game Debate #97: Castlevania Symphony of the Night

[phart010 | 1,707]

6 hours ago, wongojack said:

I played the Xbox digital version which is still for sale and even goes on sale from time to time.  Has the original dialog, but there were a few of the cut-scenes from the exterior castle missing (those images of the castle flying into the sky and/or flipping over).  It also added an optional enhanced graphics feature and a way to re-size the screen using adjustments to the horizontal and vertical edges.

It played fine on the Xbox, and I never even once wished I was playing the original.  Probably the biggest problem is the D-Pad on the X controllers aren't that great, but the analog worked pretty well most of the time.

Not sure why they couldn't have put the Saturn content into the Xbox version, but, by the end, I was done playing the game anyway.

There is a physical version of the Xbox version on a Konami compilation disk, but you will have to pay to get that.

If you didn’t experience the extra areas from the Saturn, you didn’t miss anything. The Saturn port and extras were not done by the same team that made the original game on PS1. So the extra stuff is uninspired

[Sumez | 2,967]

18 hours ago, Kguillemette said:

"Easier" maybe? It feels so smooth and welcoming and fair compared to the NES games, where halfway through the original I'm ready to rage quit.

CV4 is *way* harder than cv1 for sure!

[koifish | 556]

5 hours ago, Sumez said:

CV4 is *way* harder than cv1 for sure!

When does it get hard? Have tried to get into it a few times, but so far the only hard part seems to be not getting bored and booting up Bloodlines instead. Is there a spike somewhere that gets interesting?

[Sumez | 2,967]

The game is really long, and I think at least the entire second half of the game is pretty lethal given how few lives you have to make do with. Especially the torture dungeon stage is full of one-hit kills, including that dumb bridge right before the boss. I've never been able to get past that stage without a game over. CV1 I did in one life after a day.

[TDIRunner | 2,744]

On 4/14/2022 at 12:43 PM, MagusSmurf said:

The Metroidvania games from Aria of Sorrow onward are generally better.

 

After finishing SOTN, I was reading about the other Metroidvania games and decided to give Aria of Sorrow a try.  This game hooked me much quicker than SOTN and I'm really enjoying the small improvements made to the controls and inventory system.  I played about 2 hours in my first evening.  Unfortunately, the next day I went to boot it up and found that the battery in my GBA Everdrive had died and my game save was gone.  I have a new battery on the way, and I guess I'm going to have to start over, but I fell in love with this game almost immediately.  

[GPX | 1,370]

1 hour ago, TDIRunner said:

After finishing SOTN, I was reading about the other Metroidvania games and decided to give Aria of Sorrow a try.  This game hooked me much quicker than SOTN and I'm really enjoying the small improvements made to the controls and inventory system.  I played about 2 hours in my first evening.  Unfortunately, the next day I went to boot it up and found that the battery in my GBA Everdrive had died and my game save was gone.  I have a new battery on the way, and I guess I'm going to have to start over, but I fell in love with this game almost immediately.  

I’ve played and completed all the Castlevanias on the GBA and DS, and I tend to agree that these ones have a more quicker hook to them. Maybe because a more relatively simplistic formula compared with SOTN? I can’t be entirely sure as my memories are a bit hazy with the portable versions. Although I do recall Portrait of Ruins on the DS was my less preferred as that was more action-oriented than the others.

[phart010 | 1,707]

8 hours ago, TDIRunner said:

After finishing SOTN, I was reading about the other Metroidvania games and decided to give Aria of Sorrow a try.  This game hooked me much quicker than SOTN and I'm really enjoying the small improvements made to the controls and inventory system.  I played about 2 hours in my first evening.  Unfortunately, the next day I went to boot it up and found that the battery in my GBA Everdrive had died and my game save was gone.  I have a new battery on the way, and I guess I'm going to have to start over, but I fell in love with this game almost immediately.  

I would recommend spending the extra money to get one of these rather than getting a bunch of cheap ones from China

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00004YK0L?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_image

Edited February 7 by phart010

[TDIRunner | 2,744]

2 hours ago, phart010 said:

I would recommend spending the extra money to get one of these rather than getting a bunch of cheap ones from China

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00004YK0L?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_image

This is what I ordered.  Should be here tomorrow.  I need to see how many other flash carts I own use batteries.  

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003CU3E2Q?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

 

[fox | 1,668]

Aria and Dawn are fantastic.  Almost as good as SotN.  The ability to use enemy skills is a lot of fun to experiment with, makes you want to find them all.

[Sumez | 2,967]

Order of Ecclesia is the best of all worlds. It has the enemy skills of the Sorrow games, a big nonlinear castle similar to SOTN, but also linear stages and challenging enemies more akin to classic Castlevania, making it much less of a walkover. Anyone who thinks SOTN isn't great because its too easy should play that game! 

[fox | 1,668]

23 hours ago, Sumez said:

Order of Ecclesia is the best of all worlds. It has the enemy skills of the Sorrow games, a big nonlinear castle similar to SOTN, but also linear stages and challenging enemies more akin to classic Castlevania, making it much less of a walkover. Anyone who thinks SOTN isn't great because its too easy should play that game! 

I played thru it just over a year ago.  It is a good title, but the level design takes a hit.  Instead of an interconnected world, it is broken down in about 20 or so bite size areas, most of which are very basic with little room for exploration.  Heck a couple of them are just a straight hallway.

The last third of the game is a rather meaty castle, which makes up for a lot of the early filler areas.

[Sumez | 2,967]

Yeah, that's basically what I meant. It does both, and manages to maintain a better difficulty balance for it