Game Debate #174: Castlevania / Legacy of Darkness(N64)

[Reed Rothchild | 9,548]

[Sumez | 2,967]

Is it too late to change this to a double-poll featuring both games? Legacy of Darkness was such a massive improvement over the first "version" of the game, that it's totally unfair to have this one represent it
The original CV64 would get a "not very good" for me, but the existance of all the elements that could potentially be good, and a respectable idea for how to take the series into 3D bumps it up to a 4/10's "meh"

Wrote my thoughts in this post (and on LoD a few posts later): 

 

Quote

There's so much cool stuff in this game, especially when you get past the two first incredibly boring stages, but I can't for the life of me imagine a tester playing through all of this mess and saying "Yeah, this is exactly what the game should be like, let's ship this!". I'm sure the devs just gave up under the pressure of deadlines and hoped for the best, releasing what they had.

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by Sumez

[DefaultGen | 5,413]

I never beat it but just thought it was kind of okay. I thought it was going to be unplayable but I dunno an action adventure game in a cool gothic castle can only be so terrible.

[OptOut | 8,889]

I've only played the second version, so I'm basing my score on that, but it was very average and not particularly engaging IMO.

I played it for a bit, a few hours maybe. I guess I should get back into it and give it another go, but it wasn't a game demanding my attention.

[PII | 1,886]

CastleVania In Name Only.

[GPX | 1,370]

I played a Castlevania on PS2 with its 3D venture and couldn’t get into it. So I completely ignored playing the 2 versions on N64. The game mechanics coupled with the console limitations in the early 3D era isn’t quite the right match I feel. 

[Sumez | 2,967]

The PS2 and N64 approaches to 3D Castlevania are completely different. On paper I much prefer what they went for on N64, but the execution is rough at best. I'd have loved to see this idea taken further, honestly.

[spacepup | 2,405]

I wanted to like this game, so much.  It is rare for me to rate such a 'popular' series game so low, but I gave this one a 4.  Going off the metric listed, 4 is definitely how I feel.  

I can see what they were going for, and with a lot more work and refinement, it could have been decent.  I don't think the game is HORRIBLE, as in it is definitely playable.  There are some sections of the game that are interesting.  But it's not very memorable and the world feels kinda clunky.  It doesn't stand out as anything special of a 3d action adventure, and it doesn't really stand out in the Castlevania series, for sure, so there just isn't much there to keep me coming back. 

[Webhead123 | 679]

The early Castlevania games are some of my all-time favorites. I tried booting this game up for a few minutes and...no. Just no. Nothing about it feels like Castlevania anymore, except maybe the basic atmosphere of monsters and a mansion full of traps. The graphics and sound are unappealing and the controls were pretty lousy.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,548]

10 hours ago, Sumez said:

Is it too late to change this to a double-poll featuring both games? Legacy of Darkness was such a massive improvement over the first "version" of the game, that it's totally unfair to have this one represent it
The original CV64 would get a "not very good" for me, but the existance of all the elements that could potentially be good, and a respectable idea for how to take the series into 3D bumps it up to a 4/10's "meh"

Wrote my thoughts in this post (and on LoD a few posts later): 

 

 

Good call.  Updated.  Does it give you permission to answer the second poll if you already submitted?

[Sumez | 2,967]

Yup  

[Gloves | 11,794]

Never played either.

[spacepup | 2,405]

I ranked the first one, as mentioned above.  Legacy of Darkness, I only played a little bit of it, a long time ago, so I can't really give it a proper ranking.  I would consider trying it again just for curiosity, and from what I remember they refined / improved a few things, but it still wasn't amazing.

I know sometimes the transition from 2D to 3D is pretty rough.  I think this is one where they just really struggled with it, and giving the same 'vibe' that makes Castlevania really special.  

[TDIRunner | 2,744]

Never played any 3D Castlevania.  

[CMR | 520]

9/10 for both.  Still the best 3D Castlevania to date.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

I'd take Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night over these any day. 4/10.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

8 hours ago, Gloves said:

Never played either.

You didn't miss anything.

[Tanooki | 4,936]

4/10 - CV64

9/10 - Legacy of Darkness

I've described my issues with the poor design mechanics, bugs, questionable camera problems, bad physics, invisible kill points to crush you on the old game.  Not to mention it was only part of the intended larger project out under a year later.  It's an ok game, but it's not good either let alone great, and the alternative is what someone should look to do but I wouldn't avoid it entirely either if you can get it cheap, emulate, flash kit it.

LoD though, the full package.  Ironed out the problems of the other, but did add a choice of 4MB being used where you can get a smoother frame rate, or high res which kills the frame rate to appear prettier... like GunNac pick your poison.  The main game with the wolf man is just very well designed, good fun stages, lots of newer spaces like the opening ship to play out on that one.  Then as it advances into the other parts of the larger game you get to play as the knight rescuing kids which in turn opens more such as a non-bugged messed version of original Castlevania 64 with both those characters.  It's a game that keeps on giving and adding more to do for your money, time, and efforts.  It has been the only pretty well done 3D Castlevania game, which largely isn't saying much given 2D has just treated it well SOTN style or not.  But for a Castlevania game it's quite good, for a N64 game it's great.

[elprincipe | 142]

Sad that these were made instead of a follow-up to Symphony of the Night. The usual N64/Playstation combination of ugly graphics, poor controls, maddening camera, and lots of empty spaces to run around in versus the awesome action of the 2D games. At least the music is quite good, otherwise even as a massive Castlevania fan I probably couldn't have made it to the end of the first game.

[fcgamer | 4,729]

Second one was excellent, what the first one was supposed to be. I'd take either of these over sotn any day.

[spacepup | 2,405]

Somewhat of a hot take, but hey, you do you.  Everyone has their own interests / preferences of course.

I think SOTN is leaps and BOUNDs better than either of the N64 games, but we all like what we like.  I know not everyone is into SOTN - though I feel it is pretty much the best Castlevania game I've played.  Though the GBA entries are pretty solid also.

[koifish | 556]

On 10/9/2023 at 2:06 AM, Sumez said:

The PS2 and N64 approaches to 3D Castlevania are completely different. On paper I much prefer what they went for on N64, but the execution is rough at best. I'd have loved to see this idea taken further, honestly.

I'm going to agree with this. When I first played 64, I thought "wow this is garbage!" and tossed it. Then I came back to it again, and I said that this game is like when you like a game, except for "that part" which you dread on every replay...excpet here the entire game is "that part". Like there was a cool game here but every single part makes you angry for different reasons. So I left it again.

Third attempt, I recognize how cool parts of it are. The enemies and bosses are cool, and Reinhardt weapons and attacks feel like what you'd want a Belmont to play like in 3D. Even the subweapons feel like what you want them to (for the most part, I'll comment on this later). In the combat things feel so right sometimes that it's hard to then come back and face how awful the camera and platforming are. You were dead on when you pointed out that the game aggressively prevents you from accurately perceiving jump distance. It's even worse because of how many jumps are over bottomless pits or are otherwise instant game overs. Even on the first level you will never make a jump that isn't a bottomless pit. Castlevania games of old knew that you have to let people walk before they run, and the majority of serious bottomless pits come up starting in 2nd level and beyond. This one has a ton of them in the first level, and the jumping control AND the camera AND the depth perception all suck eggs. It's shocking how bad it is and it really ruins the game right from the get go. But don't worry, you'll find plenty of things to make you angry as you continue onward, and it won't often get better.

I haven't played a lot of LoD. I have it, and I have a controller pak save for it from I don't know when, but I remember nothing. I won't speak on it until I revisit it.

I strongly agree; Forget people remaking games that are already good or doing stupid meme ports of bad games to switch. Some brave soul PLEASE fix this game! And fix the depth problem by making it on 3DS

 

Some major changes I'd make:

-make subweapons visually impactful, they are too small and hard to appreciate (aside from the 3D version of the cross being badass)

-add more music and less ambient tracks. this is castlevania, not a movie!

-dunno how you fix the camera to be honest, just start with "not this"

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by koifish

[Sumez | 2,967]

On 10/11/2023 at 12:19 AM, elprincipe said:

Sad that these were made instead of a follow-up to Symphony of the Night

SOTN has had 7 follow-up games. I think we're alright.

I find it sad that these games never had any follow-ups. I'd have loved to see where they would take it.

14 hours ago, koifish said:

I haven't played a lot of LoD. I have it, and I have a controller pak save for it from I don't know when, but I remember nothing. I won't speak on it until I revisit it

You should! We agree much about the first game, so I think you'll also find that they improved a lot of those aspects in the second one, while still remaining the same core game. It's still not a great game, but at least that one gives you more space to enjoy the aspects of it that are actually cool!

My only gripe is that they completely changed the Villa stage making most of it irrelevant. It was one of the most annoying stages in CV64, but also one of the more interesting ones.
I'd have loved to play the original version with the improvements of the newer game, but even playing Reinhardts's unlockable story, you still get the altered version of that stage. That mode otherwise reinstates the levels removed in Cornell's story - so it's really close to just 100% making the older game superfluous.

EDIT: Wait, did I remember it wrong, and maybe Legacy of Darkness *does* have the original versions of the shared stages when playing Reinhardt? I think maybe it does, in which case, yeah, don't play CV64 ever!  

Edited October 12, 2023 by Sumez

[fcgamer | 4,729]

19 hours ago, spacepup said:

Somewhat of a hot take, but hey, you do you.  Everyone has their own interests / preferences of course.

I think SOTN is leaps and BOUNDs better than either of the N64 games, but we all like what we like.  I know not everyone is into SOTN - though I feel it is pretty much the best Castlevania game I've played.  Though the GBA entries are pretty solid also.

I grew up on primarily the first and third Castlevania games on the NES (rented the second one a few times, one of the very few occasions when we were allowed to rent games). We also then got Castlevania IV. 

I remember when SOTN came out and was popular, but my brother and I had an N64 at that time. I don't remember when we got the N64 Castlevanias, it definitely wasn't when they first came out or anything though. The second one I think I might have gotten for Christmas from my brother. Later we got a PlayStation and of course SOTN was one of the titles we picked up initially, as well as Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider II, etc.

My issue about SOTN is that it took Castlevania in a direction Castlevania should have never gone. People love to hate on Castlevania 2 on NES (I actually always liked that game), and SOTN is basically a revamped version of that sort of game. The music, atmosphere, gameplay, etc is fun, but I remember later getting Circle of the Moon or whatever it was for the GBA and quickly deciding I had enough of that crap. Then there were six or seven other games designed in the same style, and what the original SOTN game did have, i.e. uniqueness, suddenly became lost. It's just poor man's Metroid, or poor man's U-Fouria.

The second N64 Castlevania is basically what the first was supposed to be, and it is quite a fun game for what it is (was?). I'm not going to touch the issue of N64 aging poorly, but yeah I had fun with it, and at least it didn't set the stage for ruining* one of my favorite franchises from the early days.

*Many people will argue about how good SOTN and that style game is, and that's fine if it's your sort of thing; however, an analogy would be akin to when a band you like gets big and then drastically changes the style of music, into something that you feel is subpar to their original style, i.e. "selling out". That's basically Konami and SOTN, with the way that the series went from that point forward.

 

[spacepup | 2,405]

I'm thrilled they went the SOTN direction, personally.  I love that style of game, and I love the sequels that came after it.  Sometimes, it is nice when the developers try out different things.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes people prefer the original format, and sometimes they like the change.

But alas, this thread is about the N64 games - I tried to rate them on their own merit, and not just in comparison to SOTN or other castlevania games.  It can be a bit difficult, given just how much I loved SOTN and other Castlevania games.  

In either case, I like seeing companies try out different things and taking series in different directions.  As opposed to Mario Kart (which is certainly a fun game, no knocking it there) which is basically the same game over an over with new tracks.  It's wildly successful so they have no reason to change it up of course.