If this is the generic Vania thread, I started playing Shantae:2: Risky's Revenge this weekend. It's okay? Not as tight as I'd like, and it being a GBA game ported to PC, the UI is kinda big and blocky and hard to read.
I kinda wanna beat it just to say I did and then delete it, because I'm not sure how much I'm enjoying all the backtracking and running around.
Though I did enjoy the exchange where someone does Shantae a favor, and she goes "Thanks! (Kiss)" and the guy is like "Why did you just say (Kiss) at me?"
I tried all 3 right up front for about 15-20 minutes each, and decided I liked Aria the best of the 3, so I stuck with that one. I'm planning on going back to the others afterwards.
+2
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I played them once on a GBA collection, then parted with them. They're fun, but nothing compelled me to want to play them again, unlike SotN or even PoR.
I haven't played every single one in the series, but out of the ones I have played, I'd probably put Aria in my top 3. I haven't finished it yet. I put it on hold to play Dread, but I was absolutely loving it.
I'd probably rate my top 3 as such:
1) Order of Ecclesia
2) SotN
3) Aria of Sorrow
+2
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Order is definitely closest to SotN in tone, but Aria trying to be like SotN with that goofy anime style really put me off, unlike PoR which takes the anime aesthetic and just runs with it. If you're gonna look cartoonish, have a plot to match.
Apparently lots of people consider Dissonance the worst out of the 3, and the one of the worst metroidvanias in the franchise...and I'm just sitting here thinking, why? Because I honestly think Circle is well in the running there, even considering how early it their first crack at it on the GBA. Just some incredibly poor design decisions there.
Order is definitely closest to SotN in tone, but Aria trying to be like SotN with that goofy anime style really put me off, unlike PoR which takes the anime aesthetic and just runs with it. If you're gonna look cartoonish, have a plot to match.
Wasn't it Dawn of Sorrow that switched to a more anime style?
+3
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Order is definitely closest to SotN in tone, but Aria trying to be like SotN with that goofy anime style really put me off, unlike PoR which takes the anime aesthetic and just runs with it. If you're gonna look cartoonish, have a plot to match.
Wasn't it Dawn of Sorrow that switched to a more anime style?
They all kind of blur together for me. Either way, PoR was the first "anime" one I really clicked with.
Yeah, Aria isn't really anime-y. It looks nearly identical to SotN except for maybe a bit of lower res background and such, due to hardware limitations of the GBA.
Harmony of Dissonance also looks very much like SotN. And Aria. I'd clump those 3 together as having a similar art style. The difference with Harmony being the absolutely bonkers color palate. But the graphics themselves, palate not withstanding, looks a lot like SotN.
I snagged a few Metroidvanias this Halloween season. Many of them went on sale. Mummy Demastered, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, and Blasphemous. I got those on PSN.
And on Steam, Record of Lodoss war is on sale right now too. And holy crap that game is beautiful. It might be the best looking pixel art Metroidvania I've ever seen.
Apparently lots of people consider Dissonance the worst out of the 3, and the one of the worst metroidvanias in the franchise...and I'm just sitting here thinking, why? Because I honestly think Circle is well in the running there, even considering how early it their first crack at it on the GBA. Just some incredibly poor design decisions there.
I always thought of Harmony as … fine? It doesn’t have so much of the collection gameplay as some others, which may be good or bad, there are a couple of annoying things in castle design (I know at least one point you can get stuck and have to backtrack A LOT to get unstuck). You play as a mechanically generic belmont guy who has some screen killing magic spells that are absolutely op against bosses.
I didn’t hate it but it didn’t blow my mind. I liked it more than circle.
+1
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
I'm finding Circle serviceable, and I'll finish it because I like the kind of gameplay this kind of game offers, even when it's a bit stiff. I tried the Dread demo (my 5 year old was jumping up and down and squealing; I'm still trying to get him to understand that it was just a demo), and I really like what they're doing in that game up to where I got.
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Apparently lots of people consider Dissonance the worst out of the 3, and the one of the worst metroidvanias in the franchise...and I'm just sitting here thinking, why? Because I honestly think Circle is well in the running there, even considering how early it their first crack at it on the GBA. Just some incredibly poor design decisions there.
I always thought of Harmony as … fine? It doesn’t have so much of the collection gameplay as some others, which may be good or bad, there are a couple of annoying things in castle design (I know at least one point you can get stuck and have to backtrack A LOT to get unstuck). You play as a mechanically generic belmont guy who has some screen killing magic spells that are absolutely op against bosses.
I didn’t hate it but it didn’t blow my mind. I liked it more than circle.
Yeah I agree it's very, very fine. It's visuals probably being the most notable thing about it. I was just real surprised by how much I enjoyed it, and it was kind of palette cleanser after Circle.
I agree that navigating the castle is really unintuitive. Though honestly I like how the double-castle design is a lot more involved than that in Symphony.
I think as a kid I was really put off by Harmony of Dissonance's sound, stemming from their decision to use mostly the GBC sound chip for the audio to free up processing power for the graphics.
Circle has some grade A bullshit decisions but Harmony just felt completely uninspired, one-note and rushed. There's barely any challenges even before you get the broken magic, nor did any of the areas or most enemies stand out or feel distinct. If you've got the stomach for overcoming something a bit more frustrating, then at least Circle stands out.
Harmony of Dissonance also looks very much like SotN. And Aria. I'd clump those 3 together as having a similar art style. The difference with Harmony being the absolutely bonkers color palate. But the graphics themselves, palate not withstanding, looks a lot like SotN.
They overcompensated a bit for the original GBA's screen, but not too much. You really need to play under some color correction for the intended effect. (In a way that you probably shouldn't for Circle...)
Finally beat Risky's Revenge. It was okay? It gets better halfway through but then near the end they start throwing ideas at you that feel very rushed.
Here's underwater traversal and fetch quests. Here's an autoscrolling shooting level. Here's an entirely dark room.
You mostly play Risky's because it's in the same series as Pirate's Curse. Gameplay wise it's not super remarkable, aside from being the best DSiware by miles.
That’s the way of things for most of the series. The first game was on game boy color, so I can imagine it was conceived to deal with limited buttons, and then it became a signature thing.
Pirate Curse and Seven Sirens do some to move away from that, though.
There were actual timed combo inputs for dance transformations in the GBC original. Risky simplified that to just holding a button and waiting. Also at least half the point is belly-dancing cheesecake I'm sure.
38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
I want to say that Circle was the only Castlevania game that was hard in the main game until Order of Ecclesia, but I might be forgetting some of them.
The Mummy Demastered is a good time though it's hilarious to have what is presumably a pixelated Russel Crowe pipe up and deliver extremely videogamey advice.
"You picked up an ancient and mysterious artifact! You can use it to hang from ceilings by pressing ZR."
The Mummy Demastered is a good time though it's hilarious to have what is presumably a pixelated Russel Crowe pipe up and deliver extremely videogamey advice.
"You picked up an ancient and mysterious artifact! You can use it to hang from ceilings by pressing ZR."
In my mind, he was brought in to voice act the line. It took him13 tries before he stopped pronouncing it "zurr."
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
0
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
Finally beat Risky's Revenge. It was okay? It gets better halfway through but then near the end they start throwing ideas at you that feel very rushed.
Here's underwater traversal and fetch quests. Here's an autoscrolling shooting level. Here's an entirely dark room.
That's because they were rushed + size constraints. Some backstory:
So, Risky's Revenge was supposed to come out on GBA (was actually called Risky's Revolution at the time). For whatever reason it didn't happen (I'm assuming they couldn't find a publisher) so it just kind of stayed a tech demo of sorts. Then they finally released Risky's Revenge on the DSi-Ware store using a lot of the ideas they had developed for the GBA game. From the wiki article:
As revealed in the November 2009 issue of Nintendo Power, the game was originally intended to be released in three episodic parts. However, WayForward later issued an official press release confirming that Risky's Revenge would ditch its original episodic content plan.
My guess here - the bulk of the game is actually episode 1. They had intended to do two more similarly-sized episodes but for whatever reason (budget?) everything was just crammed together. That's why you'll kind of notice the forest is like the only real dungeon and then the desert is like a boss rush tower and the mermaid stuff is all weird misc stuff. I'm pretty sure that's because both of those were intended to each be an episode but they had to stick *something* in there to tell their whole story so they did whatever they could manage in the time/money constraints they had. Plus they had to contend with the DSI-ware shop having an absurd ~50mb size limit (if I'm remembering right).
It's a real shame because the game *is* good but yeah, you can DEFINETLY feel how quick it just rushes through the second half.
By comparison, Shantae 1 and Pirate's Curse both had publishers so they are much, much more polished (though Shantae 1 is GBC and thus full of jank and also STUPID hard.. but it's definitely a full length game). I always kind of felt Half-Genie Hero had a bit of the Risky problem, likely due to the Kickstarter not funding all of the episodes they had planned (they got like 2/3 of them?), though it funded much more than Risky was able to do so it still felt decently sizable. And also Seven Sirens I haven't played enough to comment on :P (but I think it started as a mobile game and I can sorta kinda feel that...)
All that said, it was still actually the first Shantae game I played and I loved it enough to really get me into the series.
Mummy is a perfectly fine one of these so far, but the presentation is lacking something. Maybe it's because it's set in the modern military genre so the new powers are just better guns and stuff so far.
Posts
I kinda wanna beat it just to say I did and then delete it, because I'm not sure how much I'm enjoying all the backtracking and running around.
Though I did enjoy the exchange where someone does Shantae a favor, and she goes "Thanks! (Kiss)" and the guy is like "Why did you just say (Kiss) at me?"
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I'd probably rate my top 3 as such:
1) Order of Ecclesia
2) SotN
3) Aria of Sorrow
Wasn't it Dawn of Sorrow that switched to a more anime style?
They all kind of blur together for me. Either way, PoR was the first "anime" one I really clicked with.
And on Steam, Record of Lodoss war is on sale right now too. And holy crap that game is beautiful. It might be the best looking pixel art Metroidvania I've ever seen.
I always thought of Harmony as … fine? It doesn’t have so much of the collection gameplay as some others, which may be good or bad, there are a couple of annoying things in castle design (I know at least one point you can get stuck and have to backtrack A LOT to get unstuck). You play as a mechanically generic belmont guy who has some screen killing magic spells that are absolutely op against bosses.
I didn’t hate it but it didn’t blow my mind. I liked it more than circle.
Yeah I agree it's very, very fine. It's visuals probably being the most notable thing about it. I was just real surprised by how much I enjoyed it, and it was kind of palette cleanser after Circle.
I agree that navigating the castle is really unintuitive. Though honestly I like how the double-castle design is a lot more involved than that in Symphony.
They overcompensated a bit for the original GBA's screen, but not too much. You really need to play under some color correction for the intended effect. (In a way that you probably shouldn't for Circle...)
Here's underwater traversal and fetch quests. Here's an autoscrolling shooting level. Here's an entirely dark room.
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Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
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Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
Pirate Curse and Seven Sirens do some to move away from that, though.
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"You picked up an ancient and mysterious artifact! You can use it to hang from ceilings by pressing ZR."
In my mind, he was brought in to voice act the line. It took him13 tries before he stopped pronouncing it "zurr."
That's because they were rushed + size constraints. Some backstory:
So, Risky's Revenge was supposed to come out on GBA (was actually called Risky's Revolution at the time). For whatever reason it didn't happen (I'm assuming they couldn't find a publisher) so it just kind of stayed a tech demo of sorts. Then they finally released Risky's Revenge on the DSi-Ware store using a lot of the ideas they had developed for the GBA game. From the wiki article:
My guess here - the bulk of the game is actually episode 1. They had intended to do two more similarly-sized episodes but for whatever reason (budget?) everything was just crammed together. That's why you'll kind of notice the forest is like the only real dungeon and then the desert is like a boss rush tower and the mermaid stuff is all weird misc stuff. I'm pretty sure that's because both of those were intended to each be an episode but they had to stick *something* in there to tell their whole story so they did whatever they could manage in the time/money constraints they had. Plus they had to contend with the DSI-ware shop having an absurd ~50mb size limit (if I'm remembering right).
It's a real shame because the game *is* good but yeah, you can DEFINETLY feel how quick it just rushes through the second half.
By comparison, Shantae 1 and Pirate's Curse both had publishers so they are much, much more polished (though Shantae 1 is GBC and thus full of jank and also STUPID hard.. but it's definitely a full length game). I always kind of felt Half-Genie Hero had a bit of the Risky problem, likely due to the Kickstarter not funding all of the episodes they had planned (they got like 2/3 of them?), though it funded much more than Risky was able to do so it still felt decently sizable. And also Seven Sirens I haven't played enough to comment on :P (but I think it started as a mobile game and I can sorta kinda feel that...)
All that said, it was still actually the first Shantae game I played and I loved it enough to really get me into the series.
I just realized that in Zero Mission, Samus has the same effect, and probably for the same reasons.
I did like the dungeon with all the door puzzles.
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I need me some vampire magic.
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SO. MUCH. BOOB BOUNCING.
Like, even the elderly woman NPC in the main town has some boob bouncing, geez.