GAF picks the best (metroid) Castlevania.

The ones that came after SotN were all great and Aria came close to it , it was innovative and unique , but none of them match the brilliance of SotN. No nostalgia here it's 100% fact.
 
SOTN is just plainly one of the best games ever made (in my opinion).. but the GBA ones that I played were all great. Didn't get to try any DS CastleVanias yet.
 
SOTN was my... 4th? I think metroidvania, still my favorite.

Aria would be second. Dawn is disqualified for that shitty shit shit "draw the pattern" mechanic on bosses.
 
SOTN is probably best, but I think I easily got the most time out of Harmony of Despair and had the most fun with it. I really wish they'd release a sequel. It can't be hard, just re-using a bunch of old assets. I'd imagine the first game made them plenty of money.
 
I don't like the term best because that's subjective but for arguments sake my top 3 in no order:

1. Symphony of the Night
2. Circle of the Moon
3. Order of Ecclesia

SotN because I like how it built upon Rondo's Blood formula while adding new elements + its art design. Circle of the Moon for its difficulty, pacing and the DSS system; Order of Ecclesia for being a modern take on Simon's Quest formula with regard to exploration mixed in with its RPG elements and flexibility.
 
Order of Ecclesia, in my opinion, came off as the game that came the closest to having Metroid-style exploration, while also having a nice challenge and actual platforming. So that gets my pick.
 
I embarrassed to say I've only played SOTN out of all of those, but based on the replies in this thread, I'm glad that's the one that I've played.
 
For me, it's Portrait of Ruin. Such a fun game. You got a lot of weapons and spells, and the team mechanic was cool. Plus, it has the most bonus modes out of any Castlevania games, and all of them bring something interesting with them, which I also thought was great. Oh, and the music is an eargasm.
Dawn of Sorrow takes second place cause of Julius mode, then it's a tie between SotN and Aria.

Also, I don't think Order of Ecclesia truly qualifies as a Metroidvania.

It removes one major factor that all the other games have, which is non-linearity. In OoE, you have levels that are given to you and that you have to complete in order to unlock new ones. Only about a third (if that) of the game is taking place in Dracula's castle.
Also, the best idea ever to obviously take from PoR is making re-colored versions of the same level. Also, fuck bosses with autoscrolling. Oh, and the healer guy is an asshole.

It's a weird hybrid between Metroidvania and Classicvania, without being truly successful at it. Although I have to give it that its difficulty was just right.

For the same reason, I would remove Harmony of Despair, which is no Metroidvania in the slightest. It has set levels that you complete, no real exploration. You only carry over powerups. It also is like crack. It's bad, but you can't help but play it.

Creaking said:
and the combat was faster than the other games
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No way, lol.
"HI IM SHANOA IM GONNA SLASH 3 TIMES AND THEN I GOTTA STAND AROUND FOR 5 MINUTES TO RECHARGE MY MANA KTHX"
 
TreIII said:
Order of Ecclesia, in my opinion, came off as the game that came the closest to having Metroid-style exploration, while also having a nice challenge and actual platforming. So that gets my pick.
Click to expand...

Wait what? If anything, it's the least of the Metroid-style exploration as you say.
 
I've been playing SotN for the first time in quite a few years and have been enjoying it a lot. It controls so well, the animation is incredibly fluid and the pixel art is phenomenal:
castlevania-chapelmurhsk9w.png
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Specifically I'm playing via RetroArch with the Mednafen PSX core, which is very accurate and looks especially great for 2D games. I'm using the fan translation which makes the cutscenes a bit easier to understand, has item names that are more consistent with later games, and uses a better font; all making the experience even better. I sort of miss the goofy english dub, but the Japanese voice acting is better.

I rank AoS, SotN and OoE at the top while the others are still really good, even underdogs like PoR and HoD. I think I'd put Aria at the top overall since it seems the best put together. The inverted castle in SotN doesn't have the greatest enemy placement and navigating ceilings is weird after awhile. OoE has the tightest combat, but I wish it had more castle instead of the broken off areas at the beginning.
 
Noisepurge said:
OP should count the votes!
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Planning to. I'm waiting for the thread to die first :)

FWIW, my vote is for Aria. I bought a DS for Dawn, and fucking loved it because it perfected Aria's formula and had better graphics, but Aria wins because of music, story and originality.

I will say - I'm a sucker for customization. I love how you can customize the colors in SotN, like the menu and Alucard's cape. Eggplant purple FTW.
 
Symphony of the Night. Best castle construction by far, best visuals (though the DS games are no slouches), and definitely the best music, by virtue of it being on a CD system. The system is messy and the difficulty is unbalanced to be on the easy side, but I think it leads to the richness of the game, which is something that the later games lacked, despite being more coherent.
 
Of the three I've played (AoS, DoS, and SotN), I've gotta give it to Aria of Sorrow. My first Castlevania game, as well as my favorite.
 
I'd put Order above Aria. Then Symphony. Symphony was groundbreaking, and the spell system was a neat little twist, but Order renewed my faith in the series after Dawn. It's the most fun to play, but that might be because it's more platformy than the others. I could see why people would put Aria above it, depending on preference.
 
Red Arremer said:
No way, lol.
"HI IM SHANOA IM GONNA SLASH 3 TIMES AND THEN I GOTTA STAND AROUND FOR 5 MINUTES TO RECHARGE MY MANA KTHX"
Click to expand...

Sounds like you didn't play very far in. You're a little short on mana at first (which doesn't take long at all to recharge) but it quickly expands to become reasonable after you level up a few times. The actual slashing is the fastest that's been in a Metroidvania, especially if you dual wield something like the rapier glyphs.

I like it because it means that sometimes you have to go on the defensive, which isn't common in any of the Metroidvania games.
 
TreIII said:
Order of Ecclesia, in my opinion, came off as the game that came the closest to having Metroid-style exploration, while also having a nice challenge and actual platforming. So that gets my pick.
Click to expand...

To be fair, Circle of the Moon had a good amount of platforming, especially in the machine tower.

Fox archers and Medusa heads...
 
Creaking said:
Sounds like you didn't play very far in.
Click to expand...

I 100% completed it several times (including a couple of NG+ runs), and Albus mode, and beat boss rush with all 3 characters (Shanoa, Albus and Shalboa), and I also speedrun the game (casually).

So... no, of course, I didn't play very far in.

The actual slashing is the fastest that's been in a Metroidvania, especially if you dual wield something like the rapier glyphs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the slashing is fast with the rapier glyphs, but the swords are about as fast as those in the other Metroidvanias, and the "spells" are about as fast as in other Metroidvanias. You have to wait the same amount of times between your slashes overall as you do in the other games, the dual-handed slashing just gives you the illusion of "faster combat", while in fact, it has been slowed down significantly because of the fact you have the mana bar.

I like it because it means that sometimes you have to go on the defensive, which isn't common in any of the Metroidvania games.
Click to expand...

I think it's really stupid and whoever thought it up should be slapped with a mana bar.
 
Order of Ecclesia did some changes to the formula so I'll give it to that game. Also Shanoa for President.
 
For me it's a really close one between CotM, AoS, and SotN. SotN is the classic, love it, can't remove the nostalgia goggles if I tried, CotM is one of the only ones to actually give me a decent challenge, and AoS was...god damn, it was the total package. Fun as hell to play, beautiful pixel art, wonderful music, great story...the first of these types I 100%'d. I beat SotN a lot but never got around to 200.6% until the XBLA release.

Actually, no. Fuck it. I'm giving the "Best" trophy to AoS.
 
My pick:
#1 - Circle of the Moon (GBA - 2001)
#2 - Aria of Sorrow (GBA - 2003)

Circle of the Moon is so SO good. The only thing I wish it had was a 2nd play through using the "other" guy. :)
 
Jazzy Network said:
No way Portrait is worse than Harmony. Try playing Harmony again.
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I've replayed it several times, before and after PoR. It's always passed off as just a bad SotN clone, but honestly it has one of the better maps of all the handheld Castlevania games, and it's far and away the most underrated and unfairly criticized of the group imo. Underwhelming bosses and weak soundtrack aside I think it's really good.
 
OOE is my sentimental favorite and gets my vote (I'm partial to games with female leads) but I guess SOTN is the standard bearer for all Metroidvania games.

Nice to see Aria get some love here. I should probably track down a copy, really enjoyed Dawn of Sorrow.
 
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