I just went to the water caverns in the inverted castle and farmed the candle that drops the $2000 dollar money bag over and over. I think it's near the upper right part of the caverns. Took an hour or two.
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Castlevania Requiem [Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night] |OT| What is a dub?
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I just went to the water caverns in the inverted castle and farmed the candle that drops the $2000 dollar money bag over and over. I think it's near the upper right part of the caverns. Took an hour or two.
Jumped into Symphony last night and it was like surfing down a landslide of melted butter — what a smooth experience it is to play this game again!
As others have posted here, I also find the descrepancy in resolution between the 2D and 3D elements extremely jarring, and a poor decision. It does make you notice how clever the original game was, since you didn't even think of most of these tricks as being "3D" at the time.
I also really like the use of rumble and the Dual Shock's speaker; there are some subtle complementary sounds that add a neat depth to the mix.
My kingdom for original voices, though!
As others have posted here, I also find the descrepancy in resolution between the 2D and 3D elements extremely jarring, and a poor decision. It does make you notice how clever the original game was, since you didn't even think of most of these tricks as being "3D" at the time.
I also really like the use of rumble and the Dual Shock's speaker; there are some subtle complementary sounds that add a neat depth to the mix.
My kingdom for original voices, though!
Yup! Richter has skulls and Maria has flowers with the colorful game over font.
Maria is awesome in Rondo.
And I just beat Symphony with her, it was great. Too bad there's no trophy for it.
Now, on to Richter. And then I need to farm for the Duplicator.
And I just beat Symphony with her, it was great. Too bad there's no trophy for it.
Now, on to Richter. And then I need to farm for the Duplicator.
Inverted castle, to the far upper right in the Caverns there's a $2000 bag. Equip the jewel sword and kill the Cave Trolls that are there for an additional farming method. Did it last night in about an hour.
To sum up what I've posted in the other thread:
It's probably the second-worst version of Symphony of the Night, just after the Saturn version, since it is a port of the PSP version with new issues. I suppose it is fine if you don't have any other way of playing them.
Rondo of Blood is displayed in the 4:3 aspect ratio rather than the pixel aspect ratio, which stretches out the image making circles into ovals. Some people have also reported muffled sound, and bad looping for the music.
- It uses the awful re-dub from the PSP port. It is not a new translation, but a rewritten script, with different voice actors from the original.
- The audio quality/mix is bad. Many effects sound wrong, and are played far too loud relative to the music.
- The image is brightened somewhat compared to the PSX original, and is clipping highlights in some areas (overbright). This is an issue brought over from the PSP version.
- There is no full-screen 4:3 option. Your only options are "normal" which is a windowed 4:3 (1.33:1) and "full" which fills the screen but stretches the image out using the PSP port's 1.55:1 aspect ratio. This is not the pixel aspect ratio, as some have reported, since the PSX original is 256x207 (1.24:1).
- People are also reporting flickering/pixel crawl when the screen scrolls in the "normal" display mode, though this may depend on the resolution of your TV.
- The image is cropped to varying degrees.
- A full column of pixels from the right of the image is missing in both display modes.
- In the "normal" display mode, there is 0.5px cropped from the top, and 1.5px cropped from the bottom of the image.
- In the "full" display mode, there is 0.5px cropped from the top, and 3.5px cropped from the bottom of the image.
- This is new to the PS4 version of the game; the PSP port displayed the full image.
- 3D elements are rendered at a higher resolution now. This is a bad thing, because it means that it no longer matches the sprite resolution and blends in. Here is an example of the PSX version rendered at native and higher resolution 3D:
- I'm not quite sure what the technical details are, but some elements of the game are rendered differently and end up with a "cut out" appearance with black outlines around the sprite compared to the PSX original. I suspect it is related to "3D" elements being rendered at a higher resolution, and possibly forcing some kind of texture filtering. This is noticeable on the title screen and opening text crawl for example.
I am also a maniac and retailer in terms of playing the best version of a game. Thank you detective! Thank you very much for your observations.
I will pass from this poor port.
So you think it's better to not correct that and display the art as it was drawn, but to display it stretched out as it appeared on TVs 25 years ago?
Which version of Symphony of the Night do you think is correct?
F?
I think out of all the technical differences in this version of SOTN, the only one I can't agree is inferior is the higher resolution 3D elements. The original ones didn't "blend in" to me, they just looked miserable and it's cool to finally get to appreciate them.
How dare you disrespect the most powerful huntress.
Maria is supposed to be a joke character. However it is funny that other than defense she is stronger than Richter in Rondo.
Maria: I don't know what that means!
Cat: hisses and meows
Classic scene
I was surprised that few people seemed to care about the edges being cropped, the image not being displayed at the full screen height and flicker/pixel crawl when displayed in 4:3, but most of the footage I've seen of this seems to be using the stretched-out mode so perhaps it shouldn't have.
The details ended up on another page, but I'll edit them into the original post.
C is how it should be displayed in my opinion, as it is both a 4:3 image and circles are perfectly round - though A or D would be how it looked on your TV if you played on a PAL or NTSC PSX console since the game outputs black bars at the top and bottom of the image.
It's why I am in favor of scaling to support the pixel art rather than strictly emulating how a TV would have displayed it on original hardware.
For what it's worth, I played through Rondo to completion over the weekend, and found one character (an optional boss) which does appear to have been drawn to be viewed in 4:3, while nearly everything else - including large sprites and backgrounds - seems to have been drawn for square pixels, but I don't want to have that argument again.
RetroArch also has an option for a "core provided" aspect ratio which is typically just 4:3 but outputs something in-between 1:1 PAR and 4:3 for PC Engine games.
I haven't checked the details on what it is doing, but it looks like it may be the best option. Some backgrounds look better like this, and it's not so wide that anything drawn as a perfect circle looks obviously stretched like it does in 4:3.
One more Castlevania Requiem video before I move on to another game review:
Here's me going through SOTN as Alucard with as few kills as possible.
Not only does this mean no farming for drops, but I can't even kill a monster to get them out of the way. I've never done anything like this before, and got my ass kicked a bunch of times.
Unfortunately, since this is a nearly 3 hour video with zero edits, the run is really sloppy.
-I accidentally killed a few enemies.
-Used shield rod combos for almost all of the bosses, and that's just plain cheating.
-In retrospect, I should've learned to go without power of mist & the Alucard shield. It trivializes so much of the second half.
Here's me going through SOTN as Alucard with as few kills as possible.
Not only does this mean no farming for drops, but I can't even kill a monster to get them out of the way. I've never done anything like this before, and got my ass kicked a bunch of times.
Unfortunately, since this is a nearly 3 hour video with zero edits, the run is really sloppy.
-I accidentally killed a few enemies.
-Used shield rod combos for almost all of the bosses, and that's just plain cheating.
-In retrospect, I should've learned to go without power of mist & the Alucard shield. It trivializes so much of the second half.
To set this straight, Wii VC is not completely down yet. You just can't add new points anymore, but if you have leftover points in the account, you can still buy games.
The cutoff date for that is January 31, 2019, after which your remaining points are forfeit.
if they would just bake a ps1 emulator into the ps4 firmware they wouldnt have to :\
so many of these ps1 games are on psn right now, they're forever locked to ps3/vita/psp because...occasionally sony or a 3rd party might re-release a ps1 game as a bare bones port so they can charge more? it sucks
That is probably the reason they re release it everytime on newer consoles. From a company standpoint it is an easy way to make money. It sucks as a customer though .
There's a $2000 money bag in the underground caverns that easiest to get in the reverse castle, and there's a $1000 money bag in the normal coliseum. The latter you can Bat Wing Smash into the room and it will carry you directly to the torch with the bag, and then just Bat Wing Smash back out again and repeat..... 500 times.
Either that or equip the Jewel Sword and buff your luck and throw on a ring of arcana or two and just kill mermen or ghost swords.
How do lives and continues work in Rondo? Does it limited continues if you lose all your lives?
You can just restart the stage. You can actually start at any stage you've reached at any time since one of the selling points was alternate routes and stages.
I honestly never really used the wing smash except for that glitch to get outside the castle walls right next to the cathedral.
Tfw Shaft makes you repeat Stage 7 twice but you kill Dracula without getting hit
Anyway that's a wrap on Rondo trophies, a great time as usual. Now to start SOTN and try not to get drop it like I usually do on replays... Is there truly no way to lower the SFX volume? It makes the game near unplayable, ugh.
Anyway that's a wrap on Rondo trophies, a great time as usual. Now to start SOTN and try not to get drop it like I usually do on replays... Is there truly no way to lower the SFX volume? It makes the game near unplayable, ugh.
I know its an old ass game but that map posted in the prior page is such a huge spoiler
in fact, any mention of the
in fact, any mention of the
upside down castle is a massive spoiler
The graphics of the PSP/PS4 version seem to be without a doubt worse than the PS1/PSN/360 version. The PS4 version is much more pixelated than playing the PS1 version as is the PSP version emulated to the same resolution as the PS1 version emulated. No matter what filters I use I can never get the PSP version to look on par or better than the PS1 version. This is especially noticeable on any in-game avatars and text, especially the Game Over screen. Visually the only thing I like about the PSP version over the PS1 version is that there are no horizontal bars in-game, but that's about it. There are also less visual effects in the PSP version.
Also, speaking of the Game Over screen, why was the PSP version based on what seems to be the original PS1 Japanese version that says "Let us go out the evening for pleasure" instead of the updated version that has the proper text, "Let us go out this evening for pleasure."? Kinda disappointed that they remastered/ported/whatever SoTN to the PS1 but everything about the port seems to be of lower quality except some bonus content, which doesn't include much. Outside of dialogue for Maria boss fight, there doesn't seem to be anything added that would require an entire redub. The new sound effects are distorted, at least in the PS4 version, the audio isn't properly balanced, just pretty annoying in general.
Then there's quite a few unexplainable problems in the PSP to PS4 port, such as the punctuation and entire lines of pixels missing from the screen at all times. I feel like the 2d entries have always got the shaft from a technical standpoint since... Symphony of the Night for PS1. Adventure Rebirth is an underrated gem as well IMO, but even that was designed as a 480p game which was obviously inspired and meant to look like a game designed on the Genesis. Not that it's a bad thing, but it's been 21 years and the PS1 version of SotN is still the best looking Castlevania game and IMO it has yet to receive a proper port to an HD platform(360's D-Pad is terrible and it's missing FMVs for the lamest reason possible).
Also, why in the hell can 360/One get the PS1 version of SotN but PS4 cant.
Also, speaking of the Game Over screen, why was the PSP version based on what seems to be the original PS1 Japanese version that says "Let us go out the evening for pleasure" instead of the updated version that has the proper text, "Let us go out this evening for pleasure."? Kinda disappointed that they remastered/ported/whatever SoTN to the PS1 but everything about the port seems to be of lower quality except some bonus content, which doesn't include much. Outside of dialogue for Maria boss fight, there doesn't seem to be anything added that would require an entire redub. The new sound effects are distorted, at least in the PS4 version, the audio isn't properly balanced, just pretty annoying in general.
Then there's quite a few unexplainable problems in the PSP to PS4 port, such as the punctuation and entire lines of pixels missing from the screen at all times. I feel like the 2d entries have always got the shaft from a technical standpoint since... Symphony of the Night for PS1. Adventure Rebirth is an underrated gem as well IMO, but even that was designed as a 480p game which was obviously inspired and meant to look like a game designed on the Genesis. Not that it's a bad thing, but it's been 21 years and the PS1 version of SotN is still the best looking Castlevania game and IMO it has yet to receive a proper port to an HD platform(360's D-Pad is terrible and it's missing FMVs for the lamest reason possible).
Also, why in the hell can 360/One get the PS1 version of SotN but PS4 cant.
So I'm sitting at 92% completion in Rondo and I don't know what to do next.
I did the following:
-completed the game, both Maria and Ritcher
-completed all the stages, normal and alternate versions
-saved all girls
What I know I'm missing is the alternate stage 5, because I read I need to be at 96% completion to unlock it, but I'm 92% and dunno where to get the remaining 4%
I did the following:
-completed the game, both Maria and Ritcher
-completed all the stages, normal and alternate versions
-saved all girls
What I know I'm missing is the alternate stage 5, because I read I need to be at 96% completion to unlock it, but I'm 92% and dunno where to get the remaining 4%
There's more that insinuates that the DXC version of SotN is based on the Japanese version than simply the Game Over screen. The enemy audio, for example, is significantly different between the Japanese and non-Japanese versions of the game. I suspect that DXC included the Japanese version of SotN because it would've been easier to simply not remove the two extra familiars at all than to hack them back into the game. What's unfortunate about this is that Konami still somehow managed to botch the implementation of these familiars and made it very likely that they'll lock up the game entirely at certain points.
I don't know if the voice actors for certain characters in the remake of Rondo matched up with the voice actors for the same characters in the redub for SotN in DXC, but I'd assume that's why they decided to do the redub at the time. It probably made a lot more sense with the remake of Rondo in the package. That makes it all the more sensible for them to have worked from the Japanese version, since they'd be doing other localization work, anyway.
I'm at 96% and I either missed the alternate path exit for regular stages 3 & 4.
From memory:
-Regular stage 3 alt. exit is when you fall in the room with the platforms that rotate when they're jumped on. It takes you out on a completely different lower path.
-Regular stage four normal exit is going straight with the crushing spike things instead of killing the fleaman and activating the hidden staircase.
Did you get alternate stage 5? Because it requires you to complete the game first while having a 96% percentage.
yeah. I think all you have to do is beat the game cuz I totally unlocked it at 92 or 94%
I completed the game already, so I don't really know what I'm missing except alternate stage 5.
So with some of the other changes I've seen in SotN...are the loot tables different?
It's been awhile since I played it last and I may be misremembering.
First thing I do when I get to the inverted castle is make a beeline for the Dodo to get his sword. He dropped a Heart Broach that I don't remember and I have yet to see his weapon.
It's been awhile since I played it last and I may be misremembering.
It nearly always takes me a long time to get a Runesword, regardless of which version I play.
Got the platinum! It wasn't that hard. Probably the only tough thing going was playing Rondo of Blood. Using Richter to fight Dracula is so much harder than using Maria, who is much easier to use.
Dracula isn't even the hardest boss with Richter....
you only used Richter to fight Dracula-- didn't you? :( SHAME
Should I buy this? Never played a Castlevania game before but was always interested in the series.
Yes. Rondo is the best Classic Castlevania and Symphony is the first of the "MetroidVania" style ones. People may argue that Symphony was bested by other games in the series but I feel the aesthetics alone keep it at the top. Both games plots directly tie into one another.
So after all these years I am finally doing a SOTN run where I get the Crissaegrim. I know it makes the rest of the game easy mode, but I never really attempted to farm for it back in the day. Feels good.
The trophy requires Maria to beat him also. So I used both. Using Maria >>> Using Richter
The hardest was Dullahan (but I used Maria so it was a cake walk).
Damn it, I'm at 200.2% map completion. I've used the library card to teleport out of the final boss room, and I can't see where I've gone wrong. Anyone able to spot what I've missed please?
Here's one:
