Whats so good about Castlevania: SotN?

[Hamster]

So, after finishing Castlevania: Rondo of Blood from PSP collection, which i enjoyed very much, i decided to try supposedly uber awesome Castlevania: SotN. And i don't get it. What is the point of this game? I was exploring the castle for hours and all i get to do is effortlesly killing constantly respawning mobs. It was already too easy in the beginning and after i leveled up and bought good weapon from the Librarian i can kill almost everybody in one hit. Am i doing something wrong?

 

[Longwinded & Pretty]

No, sounds like you're doing it right.

I think the big hooplah about it is mainly when it was released, as instead of the usual side scroller it was the 'Metroidvania' style game (which the GBA/DS games have followed), along with the amazing soundtrack, 'quality' voice acting, and the RPG elements that made it a different sort of game. Personally I play it now and again for a good nostalgia trip myself.

Oh yeah, I think it was the fake ending that got a lot of people talking about it as well, as it would seem most people finished it not knowing they only explored half the castle.

 

[Heresiarch]

Gameplay wise, it's the first to bring up the Metroidvania style and the first to make people realize how fun this game was. Metroid game in a ancient haunted castle fighting hundreds of different kind of enemies is pretty unique at that time.

It also has extremely good soundtrack, gorgeous bishōnen-style art direction, beautiful and fluid character animations (almost everyone who has played the game has spent their first half hour just moving Alucard left and right, just to see how his cape flow and see his blurring), fantastic designed bosses (Granfaloon mothafacka), and of course the girls in it are hot, yet not so anime-ish, and the succubus art has TITTIES (nsfw):

http://images.wikia.com/castlevania/ima ... ccubus.jpg

 

[Some Moron On Welfare]

Yeah, well, after Rondo of Blood, SotN will surely feel brain-dead easy.

The game IS very easy, but it has great exploration. The castle is huge.

 

[314159]

So, after finishing Castlevania: Rondo of Blood from PSP collection, which i enjoyed very much, i decided to try supposedly uber awesome Castlevania: SotN. And i don't get it. What is the point of this game? I was exploring the castle for hours

This is the point, bro.

 

[KalosKagathos]

SotN is broken as fuck and only gets more broken as you gain levels and get new equipment. Later Metroidvania games are more challenging (Circle of the Moon and Order of Ecclesia in particular, but Portrait of Ruin also has its moments).

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

In general, the difficulty dropped bigtime when they went the Metroidvania route, but I think it's still a very fun experience.

 

[314159]

I think Super Metroid is a superior game in this genre. SOTN is indeed way to easy. Not that SM is terribly difficult, but it's more challenging and just better platforming wise.

 

[BirdsCanFly]

Fucking Dracula in Circle of the Moon, really. Had nearly all the cards and he was still a bitch to kill.

 

[Reject_666_6]

The only Metroidvania-style game in the series I played was Order of Ecclesia, and I found it really fun and challenging at times. Judging by a speedrun of SotN I saw on Youtube, that game is way easier than OoE.

 

[deuxhero]

and the succubus art has TITTIES (nsfw):

http://images.wikia.com/castlevania/ima ... ccubus.jpg

The Succubus are best when they glomp Maria, Yoko, Charlotte and Shanoa.

Yeah, OoE was noted for returning to the series classic difficulty (at least they did that by means other than awkward jump physics...). That isn't to say Julius mode in DoS doesn't have its hard parts (It manages to be more fun than Soma mode at some parts, what with the no soul grinding, the character swaping is executed better than in PoR too).

 

[SCO]

Whats so good about Castlevania: SotN?

The fact that the inverted castle is hidden.

 

[Phelot]

I love the Castlevania setting and liked SotN, but I would prefer the old arcade like games of the past.

SotN was pretty fun though it certainly was different. Some areas were a chore and the reverse castle was kind of a pain, plus the music suddenly gets terrible like half way through the game which was strange.

I still miss the likes of the first game or the third. It even has SOME CEE N CEE!!!!!!!!!

 

[Hamster]

So Castlevania games on Nintendo DS have similiar structure but are better balanced? I am planning to buy DS XL when it comes out here and was thinking about getting Castlevania games for it.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Yeah, I played SotN after the DS games, and it was... meh. It was alright, I just couldn't get into it as much. Guess it lacked the revolutionary factor.

Of the DS games, the animu artstyle is a bit of a pain, but I found the first one (Dawn of Sorrow) to be the best. Portrait of Ruin is solid too, it plays like a blend between the "Metroidvania" style and the classic style. OoE I need to play more of (and has no animu), but the map design so far has been really boring; Metroidvania gameplay and maps that are (often literally) straight rectangles for twenty minutes gets a bit wearying fast. Maybe it gets better later.

 

[Damned Registrations]

One of my favourite things in SotN is how open and non linear it is. I generally end up forgetting entire chunks of the castle while playing through and then doing a double take when I look at my map % when I'm ready to fight the first 'end' boss. Other games tend to only give an illusion of this aspect but realistically only give you one or two paths to explore at a time. Even before the inverted castle you often have 3-5 different areas you could go explore at any given point in time, and when you get to the second half of the game, you can literally go anywhere in the whole frigging castle (All of which is unexplored as far as new enemies and items are concerned, if not actual layout). So awesome.

 

[Zed]

I've never played it, but the pixel art is fantastic and the music is good as well.

 

[BirdsCanFly]

Fucking awesome music

 

[KalosKagathos]

So Castlevania games on Nintendo DS have similiar structure but are better balanced? I am planning to buy DS XL when it comes out here and was thinking about getting Castlevania games for it.

Make sure you play GBA's Aria of Sorrow first (easily emulated on anything more powerful than a typewriter). It's already massive over SotN with some genuinely challenging bosses (Death and Balore). Also, Julius.

 

[Araanor]

Fucking Dracula in Circle of the Moon, really. Had nearly all the cards and he was still a bitch to kill.

All these games have the leveling loophole.

I killed him by grinding Devil and spamming with the summon card.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Hated SotN with a passion. Didn't like the music at all, leveling up and equipment made the game piss easy, "levels / stages" were nothing more than just corridors with enemies in them. No booby traps, no pitfalls, no nothing. Everything just felt like a complete step back from the old Castlevania games, which is weird since they were much simpler in design.
Thus far I've yet to play a single good Castlevania game that used the Metroidvania formula, although they have been improving little by little from the horrible mess that is SotN. I've been pretty jaded by the lack of good Castlevania games, but at least we got Adventure ReBirth a while ago, which has been a pretty decent game. Maybe Lords of Shadow will be finally be the 3D castlevania game that doesn't suck, who knows.

Castlevania was always one of those series that I fucking loved to death as a child, but then had to witness its decay and downward spiral into lameness. Kinda like with Megaman.

 

[kingcomrade]

waaaaaah

 

[Ivan]

playing it for the first time:

clearing out a room to be only knocked back out by a fucking bat is all kinds of awesome

game was challenging for the first hour, becomes mind numbingly easy after 2 hours

exploring the castle is fun

just got to the inverted castle...good thing i quicksaved before the richter fight

 

[Gozma]

A lot of it was the novelty of having a Castlevania game that didn't tear your asshole out and punt it off a cliff

 

[Ivan]

i miss castlevania 3...

ok, genuine question. Why is Symphony of the Night credited in the term Metroidvania? Metroid and Super Metroid predate it. Shouldn't Metroid get all the credit?