I love you, Castlevania 64

trikster40 said:

5 words that I'd never thought I'd hear. Unfortunately, when held up against the other Castlevania release on the other system, Castlevania 64 needs to stay in the shadows. Although, a remake may not be a bad idea. It had some good ideas, but badly held back by system limitations at the time.

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After the Smash opening sequence I'm finally convinced s 3D Castlevania could reach the same heights as the 2D games for the first time ever. A remake or a brand new 3D Castlevania with the right team could be great, but it would have to be handled very carefully.

I loved them when me and a friend played them in Big Bear years ago.

Yep, loved this game back then and when I set up my raspberry pi 3, it was one of the first games I played on it.

tech limitations were really their only flaws imagine if they got updated visuals, updated control scheme, and stable framerate.

I was just playing this last night on my RetroPie. Man I love Castlevania 64 too. Got it right when it first came out and the music, atmosphere, and story were top notch. Camera was wonky but if you play as the girl she has those homing fireballs so it doesn't matter.

Great n64 game.

I would really like a remake by modern standards. It would blow LoS out of the water

N64 classic would probably be the best way to experience this in the present if/when it happens. Watching stuff on youtube to spark my memories. There were so many wonderful set pieces. The chainsaw chase in the garden, actual vampires, the bloody chemical explosive in the keep. And oh god, the explosive skeletons were total assholes and always freaked me out. But man, the music is sooooooooooo on point as well. Truly near and dear to my heart.

Castlevania N64 wants you to know that it appreciates your feelings Y2Kev. But it wants to remain friends only.

Holgren said:

This is a great song to study too:

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Damn, that's an amazing piece of music by N64 standards.

Luschient said:

Yep, loved this game back then and when I set up my raspberry pi 3, it was one of the first games I played on it.

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What was the performance like on the Pi 3?

I love legacy of darkness. Played thru the main scenario to its completion a few years back and felt like it still held up.

This was the first Castlevania game I ever played. I still have memories of the villa and such. I also appreciate in comparison to the other games how it had vampires and that if you weren't careful you could become a vampire yourself.

It also had a nice atmospheric rendition of dance of illusions:

@ 2:43, the intro is fucking amazing. Total fangasm to hear Chris Redfield/Richter Belmont voice actor deliver this story bit.


So damn good. Best intro in the series.

-Heir to the ancient Belmont Clan of vampire hunters..

-Weilding the holy whip of his ancestors..

-Vampire killer..

Fan service makes my eyes glazed every time.

Castlevania 64 is underrated as fuck, awesome game with an amazing atmosphere and great soundtrack.

I wish people would not talk about Castlevania (64) and instead talk about Legacy of Darkness, which not only does it have a whole new story, but it includes the entire CV64 game, and much better camera and controls.

Had peopled played THAT game first, I don't think there would have been so many disappointed people.

NeoZeedeater said:

Castlevania 64 was worth a rental at least. The N64 was the first time it felt like a Nintendo system was only getting Konami's second rate stuff instead of some of their best.

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That's because it was. It was Konami Osaka o Konami Kobe that made N64 games, while Konami (Kyoto? Tokyo?) made the big budget games for PS1.

I wouldn't say love it but I do have quite the soft spot for it. Owned it at the time and despite its problems I did enjoy it when I wasn't getting pissed off at the camera lol. As you say, it feels like an attempt to translate the original games into the 3D space in an authentic fashion and as someone who has Super Castlevania IV as one of their all time favourite games, I appreciated that and enjoyed the atmosphere of the game in particular. The villa section when you first encounter a vampire was pretty awesome and the Mandragora bit is memorable too albeit for the wrong reasons perhaps. I think that bit actually ended up going past annoying and becoming funny like an overly long joke. I seem to recall Carrie's Tower of Sorcery level being a pain in the arse.

Legacy of Darkness was impressive.

Dreamboum said:

CV64 has the best title screen intro of all time. Think about it, Dracula in the flesh is playing the theme of his mortal enemy in his castle. There's such a deep display of respect of a battle that has waged for centuries. He acknowledges his role to play, and maybe somewhere deep inside him the hatred of the Belmont bloodline has been replaced by an appreciation of the play that unfolds in each of his reincarnation.



goosebumps

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Or in universe it's the song Dracula himself wrote about the belmonts and his disdain for them

Despite growing up with the NES, this was my first Castlevania game. I remember enjoying it and want to replay it to see how it holds up.

I liked it a lot as well OP, and definitely agree that it's MUCH better than Lament of Innocence or Curse of Darkness. Other than the music, those games are quire dull. The level design in particular is very bad.

tombo85 said:

Despite growing up with the NES, this was my first Castlevania game. I remember enjoying it and want to replay it to see how it holds up.

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Play Legacy of Darkness instead, it already includes CV64.

Y2Kev said:

Maybe it will be on the N64 Classic!

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I'd be down with that. Without Rare they'll need to fill the thing up somehow

ReyVGM said:

Play Legacy of Darkness instead, it already includes CV64.

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Thanks

I'm a huge fan of Castlevania but I've never played either of the 64 games. I'm assuming Legacy of Darkness is the one to get?

I loved Castlevania 64. If Konami whipped out a new 3D Castlevania I'd be all over that.

ReyVGM said:

That's because it was. It was Konami Osaka o Konami Kobe that made N64 games, while Konami (Kyoto? Tokyo?) made the big budget games for PS1.

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Konami Kobe. They later did Circle of the Moon. Those guys were geniuses handling the Castlevania atmosphere.

ReyVGM said:

I wish people would not talk about Castlevania (64) and instead talk about Legacy of Darkness, which not only does it have a whole new story, but it includes the entire CV64 game, and much better camera and controls.

Had peopled played THAT game first, I don't think there would have been so many disappointed people.

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Well, to be quite honest, CV64 has its own flavor. It has a brownish palette (LoD is blue-ish) and Reinhardt's design is more grounded (LoD's is literally a Knight in shiny armor). Duel and execution towers are also different.

I agree that LoD is the definitive version, but it's not without flaws. Henry's Quest for example is pure filler to unlock Carrie's and Reinhardt's quests. It feels completely unnecessary

Never played it but how can anybody be against skeletons on motorbikes.

theotherMittens said:

Never played it but how can anybody be against skeletons on motorbikes.

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It's usually used agaisnt the game, wich is sad and hilarious

After Bloodborne, I couldn't be arsed to play any of those old 3D Castlevania games.

It's better than it gets credit for, but at the time of release it was still one of the worst games in the series along with Simon's Quest and the first Game Boy game (and I suppose the arcade game). While I appreciate the ways in which it hews to the classic games, and agree that it easily surpasses Iga's and even Mercury Steam's 3D efforts in atmosphere and design, that doesn't really say much in absolute terms given how low I would rank those games. I would still rather play any of the classics and many of the newer games than revisit C64 or Legacy of Darkness. They're not bad games at all, but in this series being okay-to-good games doesn't count for as much.

I feel alone for liking Lords of Shadow 1 now if Castlevania 64 have more love, but I agree that it feel like a DMC/GoW game(LoS), so I can understand if you don't like that kind of gameplay.

But I love the Metroidvania games

ZeldaGalaxy94 said:

I feel alone for liking Lords of Shadow 1 now if Castlevania 64 have more love, but I agree that it feel like a DMC/GoW game(LoS), so I can understand if you don't like that kind of gameplay.

But I love the Metroidvania games

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Well, one can love LoS and the 64vanias. I do. I think both get the atmosphere and feeling right while also doing their own thing

Castlevania 64 is one of my favorite games. I have so many fond memories playing this as kids with my sister. I popped it in my N64 again recently and had a blast. Tower of Science is always my downfall - I'm so impatient waiting for those timed laser jumps. Shout out to Castle Center for one of my favorite tracks in the game. Love love love this game. Thank you OP.

I don't think it was a very good game, and it pissed me off to no end with that part where you're trying to carry that explosive stuff through the level without getting touched, but it did teach me a valuable lesson to never play games on the easiest difficulty. Imagine slogging you're way through two-thirds of the game, coming up to an elevator and a text box pops up saying to play on a higher difficulty to proceed further. At the time I was fucking pissed, but adult me knows to never play games on the easiest settings.

I would like a remake of this

I'm not going to go out of my way to defend some of the aspects of this game



but the OST and atmosphere are top notch. Graphics hold up better than a lot of N64 games as well. Really wish I had a legal, up-res'd way to replay this sucker.

Loved this game as a child and I assume it was one of the first games I completed. The skeletonbiker gang and the garden chainsaw massacre-chase are still amazing and memorable. My memory might be fuzzy but I also remember the playthrough as Carrie beeing easier than Reinhardts, as her magic balls had greater reach and were homing. Haven't played it in years, so I could be wrong though. I also don't think it would hold up that well nowadays.

There was a sequel, was that any good?

Was excited about it back then but could'nt look pass the clunky gameplay and ugly graphics. But frankly I was incredibly frustrated with the N64 overall

Fraktur said:

There was a sequel, was that any good?

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The sequel is an improvement in most ways and even has the campaigns from the previous entry updated with its engine. However, it does feel like that - just an updated game with a new character and his campaign, rather than a whole new entry and it got heavily criticized by reviews at the time due to that.

Some level design in LoD's version of the original campaigns is replaced by Legacy of Darkness' new areas and the rare lines of voice acting for dialogue in the original campaigns are eliminated and become text-only, but most of the game is still there, including all their unique story events.

Fritz said:

Was excited about it back then but could'nt look pass the clunky gameplay and ugly graphics. But frankly I was incredibly frustrated with the N64 overall

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Yep.

I remember the game being really creepy. Really good atmosphere. I still think it's best 3D Castlevania.

I also really liked some of the concepts, like having to fight the shop keeper if you relied too much on buying items and having to compete with a rival vampire hunter, and if you don't beat the game in time, you have to fight your rival because he failed and became a vampire. That's a pretty IGAvania type thing to do.

Also, it seemed like a Castlevania game with other vampires in addition to Dracula was a novel thing.

Legacy of darkness wasn't a sequel it was a complete version of the game.

This was one of those games that wasn't that fun but I ran through it a few times anyway.

I love this game. Going around with my Tiny spirit Bombs are a blast. The title and music menu is top of the line too.

As far as I was concerned this was the true SNES followup to Castlevania back then and yes I also liked it very much. I was surprised to hear so many people hearing it years later on the internet. I mean it was no Ocarina of Time and the camera sucked but I loved it.

It took me years to learn the franchise had gone on a different route after SCIV with Japan only games on consoles I had never known about (Rondo) and that the PlayStation had gotten a 2D Castlevania in 1997!

Imagine that! Poor bastards on the PS1 still stuck playing 2D 'Vanias on their next gen console while I get to play Castlevania in 3D on my N64! They're stuck in the past, I'm in the future. At least that's what my 13 year old self thought back then.

As good as C64 I thought it was it also aged poorly. Very poorly. And it couldn't be more the opposite with SotN which is of course the superior game.

One thing for sure is that the best overall 3D Castlevania of all time is Lords of Shadow. The only thing holding it back for many is that it's a reboot and the setting doesn't always mesh with what we think of the franchise but there's a good 1/3 of the game spent on ebirobmebts straight out of Castlevania (everything involving Wygol Village, the castle, and its surroundings).

FUN FACT: Carrie Fernandez' last name came up as a way of making Americans pronounce a last name close to how Belnades was supposed to be pronounced. What I never understood is if Carrie was supposed to be a Belnades in the beginning or if they went with Fernandez only for pronunciation purposes and later was retconned as Carrie Belnades?

Adam_Roman said:

I'm a huge fan of Castlevania but I've never played either of the 64 games. I'm assuming Legacy of Darkness is the one to get?

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Yes, it has a completely new story, and when you beat the game, you literally unlock the two characters from the first game and you play through their story as in the original game. Plus, it has much better controls and camera.

Amiibola said:

Konami Kobe. They later did Circle of the Moon. Those guys were geniuses handling the Castlevania atmosphere.

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Indeed.

I agree that LoD is the definitive version, but it's not without flaws. Henry's Quest for example is pure filler to unlock Carrie's and Reinhardt's quests. It feels completely unnecessary

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More content is not a flaw :P

ReyVGM said:

Yes, it has a completely new story, and when you beat the game, you literally unlock the two characters from the first game and you play through their story as in the original game. Plus, it has much better controls and camera.

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No. You need to get them in Henry's Quest fist

ReyVGM said:

More content is not a flaw :P

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Yes it is. It doesn't add anything relevant to the game, Henry is overpowered and he hasn't even his own model (It's Reinhardt with a helmet and a gun) It's basically a time waster. Other than that, i love LoD