Geez, these collections really are somewhat necessary. I was checking pricecharting.com just to see what some of the GBA/DS cartridges cost, and they are off the charts. Just Castlevania Double Pack (which was $20 at release) and Order of Ecclesia complete in their boxes could net nearly $300 total. Yeesh. Make these games accessible!
I’m sure if they bothered to do the advance collection the ds collection will probably come. The only real thing is what to do with touch screen mechanics (which IIRC is only even a bog issue with some alternate character modes).
So am I the only person who thought Harmony of Dissonance was a better game in no magic mode?
Fuck off Dracula. Beat him finally in Circle of the Moon, which I never did as a kid. He has way too much health, and so his randomly flying around last form takes forever to kill. Used Cockatrice and Uranus to summon giant chickens to murder him.
Booted up Harmony of Dissonance and...it feels real squished and like they over-corrected on the complaints on the screen being too dark in Circle of the Moon? Like everything is weirdly bright and blocky. Didn't like it.
Booted up Aria of Sorrow. Never played this one, so I'm looking forward to biting into it. The style and look is really good. You can tell this was built years into the GBA's life.
Fuck off Dracula. Beat him finally in Circle of the Moon, which I never did as a kid. He has way too much health, and so his randomly flying around last form takes forever to kill. Used Cockatrice and Uranus to summon giant chickens to murder him.
Booted up Harmony of Dissonance and...it feels real squished and like they over-corrected on the complaints on the screen being too dark in Circle of the Moon? Like everything is weirdly bright and blocky. Didn't like it.
Booted up Aria of Sorrow. Never played this one, so I'm looking forward to biting into it. The style and look is really good. You can tell this was built years into the GBA's life.
Well I mean...You gotta remember, it was originally made for the OG GBA, so they kinda had to overcorrect there. The problem is now you're playing it on a Switch (or whatever) which has, ya know....lights.
Is there not some kind of original-looking darker filter included?
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AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
edited September 2021
I could never play HoD because the crazy blue highlight around the main character was super distracting. It was probably OK on the original GBA, but I was playing on the SP by the time I tried HoD and it looked horrible there too.
In the HoD version in the collection, I sometimes had one or two question marks that were on the right edge of the screen, outside the border of the game window. Any idea what these are or how to access them?
In the HoD version in the collection, I sometimes had one or two question marks that were on the right edge of the screen, outside the border of the game window. Any idea what these are or how to access them?
I checked and I still don't know what it is but under the pause menu settings, it's Gadget Settings. All it says is "Displays obtainable collection items in the current area."
Nintendo Console Codes
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Fuck off Dracula. Beat him finally in Circle of the Moon, which I never did as a kid. He has way too much health, and so his randomly flying around last form takes forever to kill. Used Cockatrice and Uranus to summon giant chickens to murder him.
Booted up Harmony of Dissonance and...it feels real squished and like they over-corrected on the complaints on the screen being too dark in Circle of the Moon? Like everything is weirdly bright and blocky. Didn't like it.
Booted up Aria of Sorrow. Never played this one, so I'm looking forward to biting into it. The style and look is really good. You can tell this was built years into the GBA's life.
Well I mean...You gotta remember, it was originally made for the OG GBA, so they kinda had to overcorrect there. The problem is now you're playing it on a Switch (or whatever) which has, ya know....lights.
So I 100% believe it was an issue, but I played Circle of the Moon on an OG GBA back in the day and never had an issue.
Circle of the Moon released in March 2001 and Harmony of Dissonance in June 2002. Aria of Sorrow released in May 2003 and cleaned a lot of things up. Metroid Fusion came out in November 2002 and it's way better put together than most of the Castlevania games.
Holy shit did Konami crank out these games like they were COD or Madden. They took three years off for the DS games and it really show. All three DS games were fantastically made and a collection of them would be incredible.
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Also apparently I didn't know the European release of that one was just called Castlevania here.
I think Konami had a habit of naming the first Castlevania game on any system just Castlevania, at least in the UK.
First N64 game? Castlevania.
First GBA game? Castlevania.
First PS2 game? Castlevania.
You know, just to make sure it's real easy to talk about them.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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HedgethornAssociate Professor of Historical Hobby HorsesIn the Lions' DenRegistered Userregular
In the HoD version in the collection, I sometimes had one or two question marks that were on the right edge of the screen, outside the border of the game window. Any idea what these are or how to access them?
I checked and I still don't know what it is but under the pause menu settings, it's Gadget Settings. All it says is "Displays obtainable collection items in the current area."
Yeah, it's displaying special collectables in the area: I think relics, spellbooks, and furniture (less certain about that last one). The question marks turn to icons when you've obtained the item in question.
Hedgethorn on
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HedgethornAssociate Professor of Historical Hobby HorsesIn the Lions' DenRegistered Userregular
Fuck off Dracula. Beat him finally in Circle of the Moon, which I never did as a kid. He has way too much health, and so his randomly flying around last form takes forever to kill. Used Cockatrice and Uranus to summon giant chickens to murder him.
Booted up Harmony of Dissonance and...it feels real squished and like they over-corrected on the complaints on the screen being too dark in Circle of the Moon? Like everything is weirdly bright and blocky. Didn't like it.
Booted up Aria of Sorrow. Never played this one, so I'm looking forward to biting into it. The style and look is really good. You can tell this was built years into the GBA's life.
Yeah, I beat that final fight in Circle of the Moon myself a few days ago. I have no idea how you're supposed to reliably get hits on Dracula's final form without Uranus summons, and I have no idea how anyone would ever find Uranus without a guide telling you to go back and farm the first boss room.
So am I the only person who thought Harmony of Dissonance was a better game in no magic mode?
Only played through it once and my impression was it was lacking in many ways, so sure, maybe this helps.
Well in the base game bosses just flat out die to magic like it is nothing and it trivializes things a lot, playing as joe average Belmont rather than Juste the Wizard makes a lot of the fighta a lot more interesting.
My main problem with the game was there was one spot where you could miss something and have to spend 20 minutes backtracking later on to get it (it was before you unlocked multiple ways to go between castles) which was annoying as hell.
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38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
Fuck off Dracula. Beat him finally in Circle of the Moon, which I never did as a kid. He has way too much health, and so his randomly flying around last form takes forever to kill. Used Cockatrice and Uranus to summon giant chickens to murder him.
Booted up Harmony of Dissonance and...it feels real squished and like they over-corrected on the complaints on the screen being too dark in Circle of the Moon? Like everything is weirdly bright and blocky. Didn't like it.
Booted up Aria of Sorrow. Never played this one, so I'm looking forward to biting into it. The style and look is really good. You can tell this was built years into the GBA's life.
Yeah, I beat that final fight in Circle of the Moon myself a few days ago. I have no idea how you're supposed to reliably get hits on Dracula's final form without Uranus summons, and I have no idea how anyone would ever find Uranus without a guide telling you to go back and farm the first boss room.
I kind of stalled out my recent play on farming... something, but when I finally beat it I think it was on the back of a huge pile of healing items. I don't think I ever really used the summons.
There's always the DSS glitch you can use to get any effect you want. If you wanna just say "screw the random drops".
If you have any 2 valid cards (an element and a form), you can do it. Simply select a valid pair, activate the magic, and go back to the menu while Nathan is still in the middle of the initial casting animation. Then you can go back to the DSS menu, and reposition your cards to any pair that you want. You're allowed to highlight cards you don't have yet; all that that does is prevent you from activating the magic. But since Nathan is already activating magic, when you return to the game, the spell will be whatever spell would be activated by the 2 cards you selected mid-cast.
And that's how you can use any spell without the cards they'd need. But you do have to go through the fairly tedious process of pausing mid-cast every time you want to activate a spell you don't own.
Fuck off Dracula. Beat him finally in Circle of the Moon, which I never did as a kid. He has way too much health, and so his randomly flying around last form takes forever to kill. Used Cockatrice and Uranus to summon giant chickens to murder him.
Booted up Harmony of Dissonance and...it feels real squished and like they over-corrected on the complaints on the screen being too dark in Circle of the Moon? Like everything is weirdly bright and blocky. Didn't like it.
Booted up Aria of Sorrow. Never played this one, so I'm looking forward to biting into it. The style and look is really good. You can tell this was built years into the GBA's life.
Yeah, I beat that final fight in Circle of the Moon myself a few days ago. I have no idea how you're supposed to reliably get hits on Dracula's final form without Uranus summons, and I have no idea how anyone would ever find Uranus without a guide telling you to go back and farm the first boss room.
Yeah, kid me died several times before figuring out a way to consistently dodge that charge. I remember trying to hide in the corner of the area, which then forces Drac to appear in front you facing away, but then he still hits you because he rears back before rushing forward. Then I tried a double jump in the corner and found well timed one right when he starts will keep ahead of his vertical tracking when he rears back. After that it was much easier getting some smacks in on his floating eye form.
For CotM's Dracula, I seem to recall the final movement upgrade ("yeet yourself into space") reliably dodging the charge. There's a reason that arena is four screens tall.
For damage, I remember using the Cross. Because my answer to everything was (and is, in my current playthrough) the Cross.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
Geez, these collections really are somewhat necessary. I was checking pricecharting.com just to see what some of the GBA/DS cartridges cost, and they are off the charts. Just Castlevania Double Pack (which was $20 at release) and Order of Ecclesia complete in their boxes could net nearly $300 total. Yeesh. Make these games accessible!
It's all stupid ridiculous. Awhile back I was trying to buy some of the old GBA/DS Fire Emblem games and they were stupid expensive as well. Ended up just getting repro carts - not exactly legal but it's not like they're allowing me to actually give them money for the real thing... (also Fire Emblem 6, with a translation pack applied, playing off a cart, is sweet ).
Feels like a lot of older games have this issue. People just see $ signs and jack up the price to absurd amounts.
Geez, these collections really are somewhat necessary. I was checking pricecharting.com just to see what some of the GBA/DS cartridges cost, and they are off the charts. Just Castlevania Double Pack (which was $20 at release) and Order of Ecclesia complete in their boxes could net nearly $300 total. Yeesh. Make these games accessible!
It's all stupid ridiculous. Awhile back I was trying to buy some of the old GBA/DS Fire Emblem games and they were stupid expensive as well. Ended up just getting repro carts - not exactly legal but it's not like they're allowing me to actually give them money for the real thing... (also Fire Emblem 6, with a translation pack applied, playing off a cart, is sweet ).
Feels like a lot of older games have this issue. People just see $ signs and jack up the price to absurd amounts.
Maybe I should look through my DS games soon . . .
I have some other titles I know I could sell for a pretty penny but those are more understandable due to limited print runs due to a console nearing its end of life and issues that prevent creating ports to modern systems. None of those affect Castlevania titles though.
For CotM's Dracula, I seem to recall the final movement upgrade ("yeet yourself into space") reliably dodging the charge. There's a reason that arena is four screens tall.
For damage, I remember using the Cross. Because my answer to everything was (and is, in my current playthrough) the Cross.
Yeah the yeet is the easiest and best bet to dodge his charge.
And that's the thing, Dracula isn't hard really, just annoying with an overinflated health pool. So you can do the correct thing for multiple minutes, and then fuck up enough to just die. Cause I believe he has 1500 hp in the eye form, and you're whip is gonna do 30-50 damage a hit (depending on gear and level) and the cross boomerang isn't much better in terms of multiple hits at once.
Just started up Harmony of Dissonance, and I have two observations:
1) Gravity is Juste's Canadian girlfriend
2) I had to look this up online because they don't seem to tell you in-game or in the Advance Collection's "dashboard", but you can quick-swap your spellbooks without going into the menu. Holding down and pressing L+R at the same time toggles whether you're using the spellbook or the subweapon, and holding up and pressing L or R will cycle your spellbooks in the appropriate direction. Beats the hell out of pausing every time you run out of (or max out) one resource or the other.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Yeah juste is by far the most mobile protagonist of the series. Just having free bidirectional dash alone makes him pretty badass.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
TBH, I hate hate HATE Juste. Alucard lite. Maybe it's the platform, but it's like an amateur tried to make Alucard, but were off by like 30% of everything.
The rest of the game is kind of shit too. But I consider it a little better than Circle of the Moon. CotM is obnoxious in the extremely low drop rates for everything. Plus, last time I played, you basically needed some cards to beat one of the later bosses, which basically forces you to grind for the drops (it's like 2 or 3 each of specific Action or Attribute cards), or have enough money that you can facetank the boss for a long time while doing minimal damage.
Just started up Harmony of Dissonance, and I have two observations:
1) Gravity is Juste's Canadian girlfriend 2) I had to look this up online because they don't seem to tell you in-game or in the Advance Collection's "dashboard", but you can quick-swap your spellbooks without going into the menu. Holding down and pressing L+R at the same time toggles whether you're using the spellbook or the subweapon, and holding up and pressing L or R will cycle your spellbooks in the appropriate direction. Beats the hell out of pausing every time you run out of (or max out) one resource or the other.
That's a fantastically useful shortcut! Unfortunately, I'll be filing this under "information that would've been much more useful to me 48 hours ago," since I'm closing in on the Dracula fight now.
So I just want to summarize a conversation from Harmony of Dissonance:
Death: Oh, it's you again.
Juste: What evil are you up to now, fiend?!
Death: Dude I'm just trying to figure out why this castle showed up.
Juste: You mean you aren't the one screwing with my friend's head?
Death: Nah, dude, I'm pretty sure that's because of those weird evil artifacts he's carrying around.
Juste: Oh, Dracula's remains?
Death: Ohhhh, Dracula's remains, that explains why there are two castles!.
Juste: Huh?
Death: Maxim has two spirits inside him now. His normal one, and an evil one from Dracula's remains.
Juste: What?
Death: And the evil spirit wants there to be a castle. So there are two castles.
Juste: I don't understand.
Death: God you're such a dipshit. I'm leaving.
The actual line was more flowery but Death was just hilariously curt with Juste after failing to get the exposition across multiple times. Bathos ahoy.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Konami sale in Steam, the original Castlevania collection is $5. The new one obviously isn't on sale.
I've not really gotten into the pre-SotN Castlevanias (played Rondo of Blood on the PS4 collection, but found it a bit of a slog), are any of them the metroidvania type?
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
Konami sale in Steam, the original Castlevania collection is $5. The new one obviously isn't on sale.
I've not really gotten into the pre-SotN Castlevanias (played Rondo of Blood on the PS4 collection, but found it a bit of a slog), are any of them the metroidvania type?
Nope! Except for Castlevania 2, which is sort of a proto-Metroidvania except it also hates you.
Konami sale in Steam, the original Castlevania collection is $5. The new one obviously isn't on sale.
I've not really gotten into the pre-SotN Castlevanias (played Rondo of Blood on the PS4 collection, but found it a bit of a slog), are any of them the metroidvania type?
Nope! Except for Castlevania 2, which is sort of a proto-Metroidvania except it also hates you.
I remember the pre-Internet era when absolutely everyone, including professional game publications, were completely baffled as to how you got the different endings.
Switch: 3947-4890-9293
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
edited September 2021
There's so much cryptic bullshit in Simon's Quest... I dunno man. The fan-mod to *fix* it helps a little, but it doesn't change the grinding or backtracking issues.
I love the game, but I acknowledge that it is no bueno.
Getting a little lost in Harmony of Dissonance since they map is really not useful, then I realized that literally right behind me on a shelf was this:
Boy have I been wandering around in all the wrong places. And there are two virtually identical castles? I shouldn't be surprised, but I really had no memory of this.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
Yep. Much like SOTN, there are two castles. When you start using teleporters to get to new areas of the castle, you're also warping between the two castles. But you don't know that until it's revealed in the story, at which point the map screen reveals the two castles as separate maps. And you see that you've already gone through rooms in the other castle.
Yep. Much like SOTN, there are two castles. When you start using teleporters to get to new areas of the castle, you're also warping between the two castles. But you don't know that until it's revealed in the story, at which point the map screen reveals the two castles as separate maps. And you see that you've already gone through rooms in the other castle.
Posts
So am I the only person who thought Harmony of Dissonance was a better game in no magic mode?
Only played through it once and my impression was it was lacking in many ways, so sure, maybe this helps.
https://www.ign.com/articles/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night-2-sequel
There seems to be, at least as of May
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
Booted up Harmony of Dissonance and...it feels real squished and like they over-corrected on the complaints on the screen being too dark in Circle of the Moon? Like everything is weirdly bright and blocky. Didn't like it.
Booted up Aria of Sorrow. Never played this one, so I'm looking forward to biting into it. The style and look is really good. You can tell this was built years into the GBA's life.
Well I mean...You gotta remember, it was originally made for the OG GBA, so they kinda had to overcorrect there. The problem is now you're playing it on a Switch (or whatever) which has, ya know....lights.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Aria, however, is perfect.
I checked and I still don't know what it is but under the pause menu settings, it's Gadget Settings. All it says is "Displays obtainable collection items in the current area."
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
So I 100% believe it was an issue, but I played Circle of the Moon on an OG GBA back in the day and never had an issue.
Aria seems to have found the happy medium.
Holy shit did Konami crank out these games like they were COD or Madden. They took three years off for the DS games and it really show. All three DS games were fantastically made and a collection of them would be incredible.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
First N64 game? Castlevania.
First GBA game? Castlevania.
First PS2 game? Castlevania.
You know, just to make sure it's real easy to talk about them.
Yeah, it's displaying special collectables in the area: I think relics, spellbooks, and furniture (less certain about that last one). The question marks turn to icons when you've obtained the item in question.
Yeah, I beat that final fight in Circle of the Moon myself a few days ago. I have no idea how you're supposed to reliably get hits on Dracula's final form without Uranus summons, and I have no idea how anyone would ever find Uranus without a guide telling you to go back and farm the first boss room.
Well in the base game bosses just flat out die to magic like it is nothing and it trivializes things a lot, playing as joe average Belmont rather than Juste the Wizard makes a lot of the fighta a lot more interesting.
My main problem with the game was there was one spot where you could miss something and have to spend 20 minutes backtracking later on to get it (it was before you unlocked multiple ways to go between castles) which was annoying as hell.
I kind of stalled out my recent play on farming... something, but when I finally beat it I think it was on the back of a huge pile of healing items. I don't think I ever really used the summons.
And that's how you can use any spell without the cards they'd need. But you do have to go through the fairly tedious process of pausing mid-cast every time you want to activate a spell you don't own.
Yeah, kid me died several times before figuring out a way to consistently dodge that charge. I remember trying to hide in the corner of the area, which then forces Drac to appear in front you facing away, but then he still hits you because he rears back before rushing forward. Then I tried a double jump in the corner and found well timed one right when he starts will keep ahead of his vertical tracking when he rears back. After that it was much easier getting some smacks in on his floating eye form.
For damage, I remember using the Cross. Because my answer to everything was (and is, in my current playthrough) the Cross.
It's all stupid ridiculous. Awhile back I was trying to buy some of the old GBA/DS Fire Emblem games and they were stupid expensive as well. Ended up just getting repro carts - not exactly legal but it's not like they're allowing me to actually give them money for the real thing... (also Fire Emblem 6, with a translation pack applied, playing off a cart, is sweet
Feels like a lot of older games have this issue. People just see $ signs and jack up the price to absurd amounts.
Maybe I should look through my DS games soon . . .
I have some other titles I know I could sell for a pretty penny but those are more understandable due to limited print runs due to a console nearing its end of life and issues that prevent creating ports to modern systems. None of those affect Castlevania titles though.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
lent it to a friend who lost it 15 years ago
Yeah the yeet is the easiest and best bet to dodge his charge.
And that's the thing, Dracula isn't hard really, just annoying with an overinflated health pool. So you can do the correct thing for multiple minutes, and then fuck up enough to just die. Cause I believe he has 1500 hp in the eye form, and you're whip is gonna do 30-50 damage a hit (depending on gear and level) and the cross boomerang isn't much better in terms of multiple hits at once.
1) Gravity is Juste's Canadian girlfriend
2) I had to look this up online because they don't seem to tell you in-game or in the Advance Collection's "dashboard", but you can quick-swap your spellbooks without going into the menu. Holding down and pressing L+R at the same time toggles whether you're using the spellbook or the subweapon, and holding up and pressing L or R will cycle your spellbooks in the appropriate direction. Beats the hell out of pausing every time you run out of (or max out) one resource or the other.
The rest of the game is kind of shit too. But I consider it a little better than Circle of the Moon. CotM is obnoxious in the extremely low drop rates for everything. Plus, last time I played, you basically needed some cards to beat one of the later bosses, which basically forces you to grind for the drops (it's like 2 or 3 each of specific Action or Attribute cards), or have enough money that you can facetank the boss for a long time while doing minimal damage.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
That's a fantastically useful shortcut! Unfortunately, I'll be filing this under "information that would've been much more useful to me 48 hours ago," since I'm closing in on the Dracula fight now.
Juste: What evil are you up to now, fiend?!
Death: Dude I'm just trying to figure out why this castle showed up.
Juste: You mean you aren't the one screwing with my friend's head?
Death: Nah, dude, I'm pretty sure that's because of those weird evil artifacts he's carrying around.
Juste: Oh, Dracula's remains?
Death: Ohhhh, Dracula's remains, that explains why there are two castles!.
Juste: Huh?
Death: Maxim has two spirits inside him now. His normal one, and an evil one from Dracula's remains.
Juste: What?
Death: And the evil spirit wants there to be a castle. So there are two castles.
Juste: I don't understand.
Death: God you're such a dipshit. I'm leaving.
The actual line was more flowery but Death was just hilariously curt with Juste after failing to get the exposition across multiple times. Bathos ahoy.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Nope! Except for Castlevania 2, which is sort of a proto-Metroidvania except it also hates you.
I remember the pre-Internet era when absolutely everyone, including professional game publications, were completely baffled as to how you got the different endings.
I love the game, but I acknowledge that it is no bueno.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
Boy have I been wandering around in all the wrong places. And there are two virtually identical castles? I shouldn't be surprised, but I really had no memory of this.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Or until you read this thread and get it spoiled
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126