267 replies to this topic

[The Satellite]

I'm looking forward to it. I'll probably play Castlevania 2 next, just to finally get that out of the way and put it to rest. Still don't know whether to play it unmodified or use the Redaction hack...

[Air Luigi]

You will hate it anyway xD I recommend the redaction patch, specially because it has a cool map, and you will understand (and will appreciate) much better the world layout. The lies are still into the game.

Edited by Air Luigi, 31 August 2015 - 05:50 PM.

[The Satellite]

I assume you're talking about this patch, rather than Redaction. This does look a bit more interesting than Redaction, which I only knew of from an AVGN mention of it. I'd link to the page explaining what Redaction is about (not the ROM Hacking page, the actual webpage by the guy who made it), but the download link on it actually contains a ROM, so that's a no-go. I'll quote the changes from the page though:

 

Dialog Changes

• All of the "false hints" have been removed. This game is hard enough to figure out on its own, and the items are too costly to waste.
• Some of the dialog has been moved around in the game to make it flow smoother. Thus, you are no longer told, halfway through the game, that churches heal you.
• Someone in each town will tell you which town you're in. This makes navigation easier.
• Place names now match those found in the game's literature. Ondol is now properly Oldon; Alba is Aldra; etc.
• The really vague hints have been made clearer. You no longer need to know what "a flame flickers inside the ring of fire" means.
• Several more hints have been added throughout the game that help explain what you need to do and where you need to go next.
• Signs are much more descriptive. They tell you the direction to other towns, mansions, and landmarks.
• The prologue explains the story much better.
• The endings have been rewritten so that they are now fitting for how well you do.

Program Changes

• Text is written to the screen a lot faster so you don't have to wait as long to read the messages.
• The transition from day to night is much faster. I took it from 10 seconds down to 4 seconds.
• The Grim Reaper has twice as many hit points as before, though he's still pathetically easy.

Graphic Changes

• A couple extra symbols have been added to the font including arrows and an ampersand. These make the sign dialog more concise.
• Dracula's face has been redrawn. Many people complained that he looked like Death, so I replaced his face with the vampire graphic from the password screen.

So some good changes, but he removed the lies, which is the only disappointment. So maybe I'll play around with both patches and see which one I like better...

[Koh]

So some good changes, but he removed the lies, which is the only disappointment.

Why is that a bad thing?  He's getting rid of a bad game design trope of Fake Difficulty, which was presented to the player in the form of "Denial of information critical to progress."  Why on earth would removing such a terrible design flaw be considered a bad thing o.o?

[The Satellite]

Story context. Some people hated or were afraid of Simon and the Belmont family because they blame him for the curse of monsters upon the land, so they're trying to lead him astray. Sifting through the true and false advice seems like part of the challenge to me.

[Koh]

I'd have to disagree with that because LaMulana.  The game is made much later, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a challenging game, while giving all the information the player needs in the form of tablets somewhere, as well as some NPCs.  Not once in the game is something told to you, only to have it kill you or otherwise render you unable to progress, or backtrack.  The only things that do that are the player's inability to survive, or solve the puzzles in the correct way, in regards to the permanently missable stuff like the Chain Whip or Mace.

Edited by Koh, 31 August 2015 - 07:13 PM.

[Air Luigi]

Yeah TS, I was talking about this one: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1032/  I had a nice experience with this patch.

 

The lies are one of the few great things about Simon's Quest. It's stated in the manual that the villagers are liars. It doesn't matter, the real hints are in books. You don't have to rely in the villagers. It's fun to check and found if they are lying to you xd It's really obvious when they are lying, anyway.

 

Simon's Quest throw all the info to you, really, it just that is very easy to miss some key hint. Figuring the game is nice, the bad part is the linear world layout (backtracking is annoying if you are lost) and the boring enemies. Well, and the lackluster mansions... and the bosses... and and and...

Edited by Air Luigi, 31 August 2015 - 09:11 PM.

[Nicholas Steel]

I started replaying Portrait of Ruin and Circle of Moon.

 

I have to agree that Portrait of Ruin isn't as good as I originally thought it was. The main castle is really boring and the lack of a second version of the castle  really hurt the complexity of exploring the place, the environments just didn't really flow that well and enemy designs feel pretty lack luster. The game also greatly favours heavy weapons throughout the game, like the Axe melee weapon for example.

 

Circle of the Moon is a fair bit better than I thought it was when I last played it. The controls aren't too bad though I 100% hate that turning mid-air cancels your dashing, I also 100% hate that changing direction mid-air causes your character to turn around even when mid-attack (can't jump away while attacking in the direction of a monster). I'm enjoying the music, I'm finding it a lot nicer than other handheld Castlevanias I've played (Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin).

 

Other than that I'm enjoying the monsters and level design, though it does have some room designs that I also dislike in harmony of Dissonance (Constant zig zagging rooms to pad out playing time for example). This game starts off a lot harder than most Castlevanias as well with enemies dealing a lot more damage to you, not being spoon fed equipment items, the first boss basically requires you to grind XP to stand a good chance at beating it etc. (Yes it's attack pattern is somewhat predictable and you can mostly avoid all its attacks, but still, it is healthy as fuck for a first boss)

 

I really like that Circle of the Moon has secrets that are little alcoves in walls that can warp you to an entirely new room, it's nice to have an entrance to a room that isn't at the edge of the current room, it means rooms can be better hidden in this castle than in other Castlevanias. Other Castlevanias hide food and items in walls, but not entrances to new areas, those you open near the edge of the room effectively creating a new hallway to connect the hidden room with the normal room which is lame after doing it for the zillionth time and limits where such a secret can be located in the environment.

 

Are there even items laying around in the Circle of the Moon castle? Or is it all just item drops from enemies? I know there's Life Up, Heart Up and MP Up's to find.

Edited by Nicholas Steel, 06 September 2015 - 09:18 AM.

[Lejes]

There is exactly one equipment item lying on the floor in Circle of the Moon, the Shinning Armor at the end of the Battle Arena. Consumables are nowhere to be found except from enemy drops.

[Air Luigi]

The lacking rewards are exactly the reason because Circle of the Moon is a chore for me... I can pass the generic layouts and unfitting music if at least you can find great rewards while exploring the castle, but finding just hp-mp-heart upgrades is so unexciting, and I hate to grind enemies.

[Nicholas Steel]

I looked in to it and yeah, not too fond of enemies only having 2 items in their drop set (Usually a DSS card and a piece of gear) in Circle of the Moon. Also, is it just me or is Circle of the Moon and Portrait of Ruin written really well compared to Aria of Sorrow and harmony of Dissonance? I don't mean the script is very good, just that the wording and grammar is very well done. In Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow it reads like they hired some teenager to translate and they didn't really have much of a grasp of the English language.

 

I've also come to the conclusion that Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and maybe Symphony of the Night don't do a really good job at handling items. These games tend to feature most of the items hidden in the castle waiting for you to find and collect them, and for me, most of them are completely useless items that are superseded by other items before you even find them. I'll come across a item and without hesitation completely ignore its existence in my inventory the moment I pick the item up. They really needed to either not have so many items because a lot of them seem superfluous, have more of them only drop from enemies instead of being found laying around in the castle or have the player unlock more areas of the castle/levels to explore at a slower pace to allow for a more natural item progression.

 

Circle of the Moon went too far by completely removing items to be found in the game (Except the shining armour), while the rest just didn't really give much thought to how to balance item gimmies and item discoveries.

Edited by Nicholas Steel, 07 September 2015 - 07:13 AM.

[Koh]

Would you say the unlicensed Castlevania DX (E Mo Cheng DX) handled it well?  The items lying around are the 11 keys to the boss doors (they open ANY door, so you can fight the bosses in any order you choose before the final boss), the whip, the interchangeable subweapons  (interchanged in the menu when you have them), and three power ups.  All equippable items are dropped from monsters, and what they drop depends on what room you're in.  All consumable items are dropped from candles, or some bought from the merchants.

 

http://i.imgur.com/vbWzqP1.png

Edited by Koh, 07 September 2015 - 01:47 PM.

[The Satellite]

Played around with Redaction and Re-translation. The Re-translation patch is infinitely better; the map is great, the controllable text speed is nice, the day/night transitions... awesome. Admittedly I miss the "What a horrible night to have a curse!" line, but not enough to lose the other improvements this hack has. I'll be playing this until the end of the game. Thanks for the recommendation!

[Nicholas Steel]

Today I beat Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. So now I've beaten that game and SotN in the Castlevania series.

[The Satellite]

Castlevania 2 down. The Re-translation hack probably helped a bit with this, but I didn't really hate or even dislike it. Did I like it? Not too much. Maybe I expected the absolute worst from all the internet feedback from various internet personalities, especially the Angry Video Game Nerd, and again maybe the hack alleviated many of the issues, but I had some fun with it. Traveling the world, visiting the towns, buying items, finding the clues, collecting the pieces of Dracula... 

 

... but of course it does have problems:

 

- There's the obvious one about grinding hearts to buy items, and losing them after a game over.

- Relevant to game overs, other than losing hearts, death is just a slap on the wrist; you respawn on the last platform you were standing on, like nothing happened. Better than having to go heal at a church.

- I'm also not sure how I feel about fixed healing locations that are so far away.

- Of course, the fake blocks. Not the ones that you can break, but the ones you can fall through, making you throw holy water everywhere to make sure you don't fall.

- So many houses with the other kind of fake blocks you had to break to find its resident. Why? What's the purpose?

- Sore lack of enemy variety. The few unique enemies are sparse and only appear in one or two places, while the rest are mostly skeletons of some kind. It's boring.

- Sore lack of bosses. Only three bosses in the entire game, and they're all ridiculously easy.

- Even with the map in the hack, as well as signs in the towns pointing you toward certain landmarks, there wasn't a very good sense of direction.

- So many pointless dead ends that exist only to make you waste your time.

- The HUD, or lack thereof. Would've been nice to at least show what item I had equipped at the time as well as how many hearts I have as well.

- And the extreme lack of subweapon variety.

 

So it's ultimately disappointing, but not truly awful. I don't hate it, but I don't think I'm too eager to return to it any time soon. I actually did like the music, but there's still a lack of variety. Honestly, that's been a common theme with this game: Lack of variety all over the place. Ultimately I don't think any hack can "fix" this game; to do that, you'd basically have to completely rebuild it, and at that point you might as well just make a new game entirely.