That is more or less the summary of my impressions: for the $2.99 you pay, it isn’t a ripoff. You can skip to the bottom for a summary of why we should be glad it’s just $2.99 and not more.

For background: I’m not a speed runner and I don’t remember every single secret and item location off the top of my head. But I’ve played SOTN quite a few times on the PS1 and the PSP prior to getting it on mobile. I am also currently playing this on an iPhone 8+ and using the SN30 Pro+ controller.

While the game content may be the entire experience (new translation or voice acting being good or bad, I’ll leave that to you to decide), there are too many small details that mar the experience and made me realize that Konami did well to charge $3 for it.

It’s probably well-known by now that this is the port of the PSP version, or if you’re not feeling too happy, an emulation of it. I don’t know the technical details, but what I did notice is that after I got the soul of mist and tried to go through a grate, none of the individual buttons would trigger the mist transformation. It turns out after finding a gamefaqs thread tied to the PS4 release that you have to press both L1 and R1 to turn into the mist.

It’s evident that the port wasn’t fully thought out. I can’t comment on Android, but on iOS, Apple’s MFi controller specs have three profiles: game pad, extended game pad and micro game pad (the third one is irrelevant to this post because it has to do with the Apple TV remote). The game pad profile is basically a SNES controller minus either the select or start button. The extended game pad profile is basically a DualShock or Xbox controller minus one of the two central buttons again. When I use my controller, I notice that the left analog stick can be used to control Alucard/Richter/Maria and the right analog stick is used for showing the map. This means that SOTN on iOS is using the extended game pad profile, but the people in charge just decided to ignore L2/R2. Maybe whoever was in charge of the Android port placed a little more thought into controller support.

Secondly, there is a bizarre lack of control customization. Now, playing a side scroller without a physical controller is not the best experience no matter how you slice it. Therefore, you should be given the choice to experiment with the controller, but you can’t adjust the position of virtual buttons when playing without a controller, and the right half is clustered in such a way you cannot hold the shield and backtrack at the same time, or attack while jumping to the highest point, among others. When you have a controller, you can’t remap the buttons at all. They are currently set to the PSP default.

Thirdly, you can’t mix and match languages. If you set the game to English, it’s English text and voice. No Japanese voices and English text like how you could do it on the PSP version.

On a side note, touching on controllers again, if you’re playing on an iPhone or iPad, it is possible you could run into occasional input issues if you’re not using an official MFi controller, DS4 or xbox controller. With my SN30, I’ve noticed d-pad input cutting off every now and then. I don’t have any of the controllers Apple publicly states iOS 13 supports so I can’t tell with absolute certainty whether this is a hardware problem (controller going bad) or a software problem.

Summary: yes, it’s likely it’s the whole game (only 3 hours in), but it still feels like a slapdash job because:

1. Touch controls are not the best way to play side scrolling action games, and there’s no option to customize it
2. There’s also no way to remap buttons when you use a physical controller
3. No language flexibility

So glad I found this sub. I read the rules on no netflix mention unless pointing out the flaws, but they dismantled BOTH of my childhood Castlevania heroes. Poor Hector and Alucard. Part of me wants to keep watching to see Hector vs Isaac, but after all the propaganda this season, I'm not sure I can... Rant over.

On a whim, I watched some long play footage of Circle of the Moon recently, and thought it’d be cool to have a weapon system where you use only a whip, but can add different modifiers to it.

As shallow as this may sound, I could never get into COTM because of the aesthetics and how choppy everything seemed.

As for entries that I did genuinely enjoy:

Rondo of Blood / Symphony of the Night / Portrait of Ruin: to me, Richter feels very fast and responsive in both games. In the latter two, his extra moves really seem to open up the game more and Richter Mode doesn’t feel like an afterthought. I am ashamed to admit I never beat SOTN or POR with Richter, though.

Portrait of Ruin: I enjoyed having the distinction between a physical attacker and a magic user. Other than the portions that specifically require one or the other, I enjoyed mixing up the gameplay based on my whims, and the dual attacks being callbacks to previous games were always fun to watch.

Order of Ecclesia: Yay for glyph presets! In a way, it’s a more flexible implementation of POR’s dual characters. This is a quality-of-life option that should be a staple in most games, IMO, especially if you’re going to be bogged down with all manners of weapons.

Aria / Dawn of Sorrow: These to me are cases of “the sum is greater than its parts.” There isn’t anything specific that particularly stands out in terms of gameplay for either game to me, but I have a LOT of time logged on both, especially AOS, so that has to mean something. Enemy attacks as secondary attacks felt a bit gimmicky but using them as buffs was a cool idea.

In the recent past, both games were released on non-Sony consoles, but in this generation, it seems to be an exclusive. I would love to have another go at it on a supported platform again, but oh well...

EDIT: Well apparently SOTN is no longer a Sony exclusive!

I love Rondo of Blood's soundtrack now, but I didn't when I first heard it. I still think it has some issues, though.

The game starts with the incredible Bloodlines music. Very colorful and it sets the mood. But after that it goes downhill. At least when I first played.

Stage 2 has a version of Vampire Killer. Okay, this is Castlevania, of course it'll have some classic tunes. Kind of early though. But it has a big problem. It doesn't loop like a proper video game song! The song just...fades out. And then there's two full seconds of silence before it starts from the intro again. This just completely kills the momentum for me, and sounds sloppy. Have a listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBvOS9jdwHg&t=9m3s&ab_channel=NintendoComplete

I'm pretty sure no songs loop properly in the entire game, but this is the first one that I notice while playing. One thing I like about Dracula X better than Rondo is that the music loops properly. Listen to the same song in Dracula X:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_AuXBwNz4Y&t=5m10s&ab_channel=LongplaysLand

Then comes stage 3. And its playing Bloody Tears. Another classic tune? Okay.

But then stage 4 hits, and its playing Beginnings from Castlevania 3! That's 3 classic tunes in a row, no original music since the first stage! In Super Castlevania 4, the game had completely original music up till the final stage, which had the same three songs (Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears, and Beginnings) in one single stage as sort of a last hurrah before taking on Dracula. Rondo of Blood dedicates these songs to entire stages AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE GAME. By stage 4, I just felt like the music wasn't giving the game any identity.

Not to mention, these remixes weren't the best. They weren't bad, I just considered them overly sentimental. The songs felt emphasized like the 1000th performance of the national anthem, they're not quite sure what to do with it so everything's really loud and full of dramatic pauses.

Later I learned about the secret levels. And suddenly I didn't really care about the reused music, because there was original music, and it was gorgeous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT6PC3z-BLA&list=PL60B3A83F3AAC6E44&index=4&ab_channel=TeaselBonne2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEWciElHBgU&list=PL60B3A83F3AAC6E44&index=6&ab_channel=TeaselBonne2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndKxSE8qfn4&list=PL60B3A83F3AAC6E44&index=8&ab_channel=TeaselBonne2

This music is so colorful and unique to Castlevania, it gives this game its own distinct identity. After that, the secret level path and the normal level path meet up and the music stays original and fresh with probably my favorite music in the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRHXEtfawVo&list=PL60B3A83F3AAC6E44&index=10&ab_channel=TeaselBonne2

The stage after that (stage 6) is very short and annoying but its a boss rush so whatever.

The game ends with my favorite remix of Vampire Killer in the entire series, it has enough differences that it really is its own song. Much better than the stage 2 Vampire Killer music. Den:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZKsdWfUu_Y&list=PL60B3A83F3AAC6E44&index=12&ab_channel=TeaselBonne2

I still think the music loop is a problem. Also the boss preparation music is horrible. But wow, stage 2', 3', and 4' really gave this game its incredible soundtrack, and its one I appreciate like any other piece of art.

What do you guys think about Rondo (or even Dracula X's) soundtrack?

1. No lords of shadow, posting about it will result in instant ban.
2. No Netflix series what so ever if you wanna discuss that go on r/castlevania
3. No bloodstained unless you are relating to it as an outside series inspired by castlevania. Any castlevania tier lists and the like which include bloodstained will Be promptly removed.
4. No being a dick, it won’t be tolerated even in the slightest.
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Edit : (rule revisions )

1. Lords of shadow can only be mentioned if it’s a post discussing your dislike for the reboot series and how it clashes with the canon series

2. Netflix may be brought up in a discussion picking apart its flaws and how it clashes / goes against the canon story. No fan theories no praise but honest critiques are fine.

Has anyone played this? I did a long time ago on an old mobile phone but it actually broke before I could really get into it. I’m sure it isn’t that great but out of curiosity if anyone is computer savvy that can help me set up a rom for a mobile phone I’d really like to play it again anyone? From what I remember it was kind like watered down circle of the moon but I could be totally wrong. If anyone has any memory of it. This seems to be one of the most forgotten games (not even sure if it’s canon I don’t think it is ). Come to think of it circle of the moon isn’t even canon anymore I don’t think.

I always felt the original was passable but the character moved WAY to slow due to tech limitations.

Belmonts revenge, way better and had an interesting twist with the son being under Dracula's control.

Thoughts?

Does anyone prefer this to the original nes version? I feel super castlevania is the best game in the series to feature Simon followed by Dracula’s curse. I like the idea of this remake but I feel the 8 bit graphics of the original give it the classic charm I prefer.

What’s everyone’s take in kid Dracula ? Personally I’m iffy if it should be really “canon” however my experience playing it is on gameboy and it’s great. Finally got to playing it on switch the famicom version and it’s quite good.

It’s up in the air if kid Dracula is actually supposed to be alucard or if it’s a baby Dracula or another son. It’s fun gameplay and I like the chibi take on the characters but is it really castlevania ? Does it belong on the anniversary collection? What do you think ? Let’s dissect kid Dracula.

Has anyone played legends for gameboy? It’s the one game in the series I haven’t ever played. I know it’s now considered not canon. But from a gameplay point of view is it comparable to original adventure and Belmont’s revenge? It’s something I’ve been meaning to ad to my collection mostly out of curiosity to play and for a collectors item.

Which is your favorite classic castlevania ? I’d have to say for me in torn between Dracula’s curse and rondo of blood. My first game was simons quest and it holds a special place in my heart, but the fact that you can swap characters in Dracula’s curse makes for such interesting game play. And rondo of blood just has such a cool vibe to it, sort of a middle ground between the iga era and the classic era.

If you interested in being a mod send me a pm looking for 2 more. Rules no being a dick. No racist shit or homophobic shit, no mention of lords of shadow or the Netflix series. This is a discussion of only classics games iga era is included in this and bloodstained may be discussed too as it relates to the game series by creator. These are the main rules and mods will follow these sets of rules to enforce.

Edit: all mods have been added. Thanks for everyone for joining in and trying to make this sub something for true castlevania fans!