ShinobiBk

One Winged Slayer
Member
Dec 28, 2017
10,135
Dracula X is based on the PC Engine CD / TurboGrafx-16 game Rondo of Blood. Rondo was exclusive to Japan until the PSP, and instead of porting Rondo to the SNES and localizing it back in the day, Capcom made Dracula X more of a reimagining. They're basically two different games.

Dracula X has:
  • a similar, though slightly altered, story
  • redesigned or entirely different levels (also there are fewer of them, and they're more linear than the ones in Rondo)
  • one playable character, as opposed to the two in Rondo
  • rearranged boss orders (additionally, some bosses were replaced with new ones or removed entirely)
  • an updated/different soundtrack
I should probably clarify I've never played either game; I'm just saying what I've read on the wiki and what I've seen others say. That said, while Rondo is definitely more popular, I've seen some people say that Dracula X is still a good game.

The soundtrack isn't really different. There are less songs in Dracula X cause there are less stages but every track in Dracula X is based off of one of the tracks in Rondo of Blood.
Honestly I think they did an amazing job converting Redbook audio to SNES.

It's a fine game. I feel like the difficulty gets a bit too cheap towards the end (there are bottomless pits everywhere) though.
 

Aether

Member
Jan 6, 2018
4,421
Oh yeah. I think it's a cool name and it flows nicely. I just stopped for a second and actually like, read it out for the first time.
Ah =D yeah, i like stuff that points you to stop for a moment and think. and you see them trying to work with that concept in the visuals, game desin, music... its just not always working. But sometimes it is.

That's what Requiem is with the 2.5D remake of Rondo torn out and the unlockables given their own custom wrapper to launch the games included in Requiem.

If we see SotN on Nintendo Switch it will be the XBLA version of the game and that's if Nintendo and MS play ball to the point that Konami would be incentivized to do so. Could easily just offer the VC Rondo release with a bespoke translation ala the situation with Seiken Densetsu 3 for the Switch Mana Collection, along with that hypothetical SotN but they might not be able to use the Requiem version of the Rondo Script and those cutscenes are voiced (but could easily leave those in Japanese if they can get the VA rights) so Konami would REALLY need to be incentivized.
^
I don't think any of the above has a real chance of happening but it's the only path of least resistance I could think of off the top of my head.
Welp... thenn no SotN. Sadface. As long as we get the DS collection.
 

Dreamwriter

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,461
How did they get Aria to sound better and look better just like a year later? Always amazed by that.
As for sounding better, they just didn't do what they did in HoD: use the Gameboy Color sound for the music. They did that in HoD because the digital music that most people associate with GBA costs CPU power. CotM had some bad slowdown at points, so with HoD they switched to the GBC sound chip to help with the slowdown. Everyone hated that though so with Aria they went back to the normal GBA digital music.
 

Nolbertos

Member
Dec 9, 2017
3,507
Wow, the Cross is so OP in CotM it's not even funny. It makes the big enemies a breeze if you hit the sweetspot. My greatest fear now is that I accidentally grab a different weapon and then fall down a pit so I can't get the Cross back.

Forgot where I got the cross but yeah in boss fights makes it so easy. Already close to the end if Circle of the Moon and having boomerang was awesome. Might go on a card collecting spree and armour drop spree, so I can get best armour and card combo before I face Dracula
 

blame space

Resettlement Advisor
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
15,420
i loaded up the XBLA SotN release earlier just to see how it felt after playing CotM for about six hours and it looked really.. mushy. it couldn't find my cloud save and i was not about to do the whole intro so i only saw the title screen, but i don't remember it looking so weird. maybe it's just the menu.
 
Oct 25, 2017
1,205
Finished Circle of the Moon, finally. Gods-DAMN, the grind was insane for those cards, even *with* the rewind function...

Anyway, time for Harmony Of Dissonance and...

....Why does Juste control like a (well animated) Slug? I feel like I'm playing Metroid 2 on GB O.o
 

blame space

Resettlement Advisor
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
15,420
Ah =D yeah, i like stuff that points you to stop for a moment and think. and you see them trying to work with that concept in the visuals, game desin, music... its just not always working. But sometimes it is.


Welp... thenn no SotN. Sadface. As long as we get the DS collection.
i would not hold your breath
 

VariantX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,501
Columbia, SC
Wow, the Cross is so OP in CotM it's not even funny. It makes the big enemies a breeze if you hit the sweetspot. My greatest fear now is that I accidentally grab a different weapon and then fall down a pit so I can't get the Cross back.

Meanwhile for every 1 holy water, cross, or axe...there are like 50 damn knives and they're all worthless. I don't think Knife was ever good outside of dracula X because you threw 3 of them and could actually hit something that was moving fast. A powerup should never feel like a punishment except if its designed to be a punishment.
 

Capra

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,394
Finished Circle of the Moon, finally. Gods-DAMN, the grind was insane for those cards, even *with* the rewind function...

Anyway, time for Harmony Of Dissonance and...

....Why does Juste control like a (well animated) Slug? I feel like I'm playing Metroid 2 on GB O.o

Press L1 or R1 to dash in that direction. His default speed is still slower than running in CotM but spamming those adds a lot of mobility.
 

Aether

Member
Jan 6, 2018
4,421
i would not hold your breath
You dont think they will give us the DS collection?
I mean, it will take some effort to adapt the DS features, but stull.
There is a hack for that, so going by how much they put into this collection i could see them hacking those games to support button imputs (internally map those to touch screen inputs for the emulator -> bam, problem solved.

Heck, i think the other 2 dont even use the touchscreen. and the switch has enough buttons to dedicate one for display switching.like have one where the main screen is big and the botom one is smaller at the side, like streamers do it.
Have one option to have the main screen fullscreen, and one where the lower is up there.
And then just switch through those options with the button or even 2 for rotation.

I really dont see why the ports would be a big problem.
 

Neki

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,804
I wish I could not pick up power ups because sometimes you're collecting hearts and you pick up a dagger that replaces your cross without noticing. And yeah using the rewind functions I've been farming cards and it's kinda crazy that you sometimes need 100+ kills to get one card, I can't imagine this without a rewind function.
 

Deleted member 34949

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Heck, i think the other 2 dont even use the touchscreen. and the switch has enough buttons to dedicate one for display switching.like have one where the main screen is big and the botom one is smaller at the side, like streamers do it.
Have one option to have the main screen fullscreen, and one where the lower is up there.
And then just switch through those options with the button or even 2 for rotation.
Portrait has unlockable characters that are controlled and attack via the touch screen.

I'm sure that could definitely be reworked (Especially if a hypothetical DS collection would be done by M2 again), but I'd say that's probably the biggest hurdle.

The Megaman ZX ports in the last Megaman Legacy Collection showed that screen orientation isn't too big an issue for ports of DS games on modern hardware, so I don't think that'd be an issue.
 

Alpheus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,941
Meanwhile for every 1 holy water, cross, or axe...there are like 50 damn knives and they're all worthless. I don't think Knife was ever good outside of dracula X because you threw 3 of them and could actually hit something that was moving fast. A powerup should never feel like a punishment except if its designed to be a punishment.
Dagger is OP when you start a CotM game as the Shooter class....b/c that mode has a unique Dagger power-up if you stack 2 of them, they become homing magic daggers (item crush is regular dagger item crush tho).
I wish I could not pick up power ups because sometimes you're collecting hearts and you pick up a dagger that replaces your cross without noticing. And yeah using the rewind functions I've been farming cards and it's kinda crazy that you sometimes need 100+ kills to get one card, I can't imagine this without a rewind function.
LOL yea was a whole ass thing to do in prior versions, one thing that bears repeating for anyone using rewind to farm and as stated earlier in the thread, avoid getting the exact same frame kill when farming for CotM drops, this is easier to do than one might think when shutting off your gamer brain to "farm for things". I've definitely done this way too many times in this playthrough.
 

Deleted member 46804

User requested account closure
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hmm i see, that is odd, you definitely don't need to confirm your selection or anything, just highlight the combo you want and it should take in my experience
So there's some sort of bug. I played today and it took. Sometime after though it reverted to not working. One thing I noticed when it doesn't work but is that the bottom row doesn't have the blue box that highlights your selection. It sucks because I'm stuck with the earth whip right now.
 

Alpheus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,941
So there's some sort of bug. I played today and it took. Sometime after though it reverted to not working. One thing I noticed when it doesn't work but is that the bottom row doesn't have the blue box that highlights your selection. It sucks because I'm stuck with the earth whip right now.
Maybe try confirming your selections then, i might not have noticed that there is a confirmation you can press that has any effect since a lot of the DSS glitching I've done for more than a decade may have led to some muscle memory where I don't even consider what I'm doing "It just works" but DSS suddenly NOT working has never been a bug I've heard of for CotM and I doubt there's anything M2 could have done in this collection that would lead them to introduce such a bug. Maybe confirm your bottom row selection whenever you adjust the top row and maybe that might fix things (this is something I might be doing that's just been ingrained in me over the years). EDIT: Also keep in mind for the whip mod cards and similar card combos your swings cost MP and your DSS will shut off if you run out of MP (using the DSS glitch on card combos not obtained avoids the auto shut off due to MP and you can actually go into Negative MP at which point the auto shut off kicks in).
 
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sora bora

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,572
Dracula X is based on the PC Engine CD / TurboGrafx-16 game Rondo of Blood. Rondo was exclusive to Japan until the PSP, and instead of porting Rondo to the SNES and localizing it back in the day, Capcom made Dracula X more of a reimagining. They're basically two different games.

Dracula X has:
  • a similar, though slightly altered, story
  • redesigned or entirely different levels (also there are fewer of them, and they're more linear than the ones in Rondo)
  • one playable character, as opposed to the two in Rondo
  • rearranged boss orders (additionally, some bosses were replaced with new ones or removed entirely)
  • an updated/different soundtrack
I should probably clarify I've never played either game; I'm just saying what I've read on the wiki and what I've seen others say. That said, while Rondo is definitely more popular, I've seen some people say that Dracula X is still a good game.

The Improved audio only reduces some of the hissing that was present in GBA OSTs but it doesn't have like HQ audio files or anything. I know more people notice some hissing on PC for this Collection release (just eyeballing some PC experience ppl have posted on the net in general) but I think it sounds fine on PS5 but having played all 3 GBA games I'm familiar with the actual hissing from the originals and I'm probably measuring what hissing remains in this collection (since the filter doesn't exactly remove all of it) to that "unfiltered" quality.

The SNES entry is a SNES adaptation of Rondo with only 7 levels but the music is p damn lit (it has my favorite version of Divine Bloodlines, as it's far more "punchy" and I like that personally), don't compare it to Rondo 1:1 and just treat it like a just as difficult (perhaps more so at times) alternative retelling minus unlockable Maria and minus the Rondo cutscenes and myriad of branching stages.

to 1: not directly, its not going through the GBA speaker/Amp, but its still the same generated sounds
in regards to 1: i asume they will after the first 2 collections
to the third 1: its an okay classic castlevania, a truncated version of a better game.
Its not an igavania, so kinda weird to see it on this collection. It would have worked better in a different collection (Say, Rondo, Symphony, and the Rondo remake on the PSP)

It's a very weird thing that there isn't anything else to compare it to. In theory, it's a port/remake of Castlevania Rondo of Blood from the PC engine, but it's a dismal failure at being that- all the stuff that made Rondo interesting- multiple paths through levels, multiple characters, having a real story/cutscenes- NONE of that made it here. The levels share some aspects but are mostly just remade from scratch, and the game feels more like an NES game than the other 16 bit era games Super 4 and Bloodlines. About the only nice thing you could say is that the graphics are improved from the PC engine- it's easy to tell in the first level

Thank you, all. Appreciate the detailed responses. Learned a lot!
 

Nose Master

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,760
The bosses in Harmony are so weirdly simple and easy. Like half of them have 10 second gaps inbetween attacks where they just sit there and eat it
 

Aether

Member
Jan 6, 2018
4,421
Portrait has unlockable characters that are controlled and attack via the touch screen.

I'm sure that could definitely be reworked (Especially if a hypothetical DS collection would be done by M2 again), but I'd say that's probably the biggest hurdle.

The Megaman ZX ports in the last Megaman Legacy Collection showed that screen orientation isn't too big an issue for ports of DS games on modern hardware, so I don't think that'd be an issue.
Uh, yeah, there was something...just looked it up, just throw that away =P

no, joking. Yeah, i think some lackluster implementation could work here,
but this mode should not be the reason to not publish that collection.
 

Leo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,702
I would ditch that touch screen mode on PoR if that's what it takes for us to get a collection. I didn't even play it on the DS.
 

Listai

50¢ - "This guy are sick"
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Oct 27, 2017
6,051
Has anyone tried the NSO Snes pad with these? Asking for the GBA titles specifically
 

Deleted member 34949

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Uh, yeah, there was something...just looked it up, just throw that away =P

no, joking. Yeah, i think some lackluster implementation could work here,
but this mode should not be the reason to not publish that collection.
I think it could probably be reworked for a traditional control scheme. I'd rather have a reworked version of the mode than have it completely taken out. It'd suck to get content incomplete versions of games.

I don't think that'll be a deciding factor for hypothetical DS ports, though. Just something for the developers to work around, I suppose.
 

jb1234

Very low key
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,439
HoD is so boring. I've felt that way every time I've played it. Just something about the way the castle is designed, coupled with an easy difficulty and that grating music.
 

kubev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,659
California
This is the definitive version of aria of sorrow because I've already prevented the loss of at least three enemy souls via room switching thanks to the rewind system.
Yeah, I had the same revelation because of dropped items. It's so nice being able to rewind right after you realize you left the rare drop you'd killed 100+ of an enemy for when it ended up finally dropping because you were in such a rhythm of exiting and entering the room.

Playing those games for the first time, I got to say that those dashes in HoD are strait up genius. Having forward dash adds so much flexibility and speed to overall gameplay, I immediately fell in love with that and now don't even want to play some of the other games in this collection because they feel too slow... And now I also wish this was a thing in SoTN. Love that game to death and replay it every year, but having forward dash in addition to the backwards one would make the gameplay even more enjoyable to me, damn it.
Yeah, I wish dash moves were mapped to the bumpers or triggers in SotN. That's such a nice feature of HoD, and it does make the game feel snappier, though I still think the jump is too floaty.

Any impressions on any input lag on the Xbox or switch versions?
I'm playing on Xbox, but it feels totally fine. No perceptible input lag.

Wow, the Cross is so OP in CotM it's not even funny. It makes the big enemies a breeze if you hit the sweetspot. My greatest fear now is that I accidentally grab a different weapon and then fall down a pit so I can't get the Cross back.
Just rewind if that happens.

Playing these at a pretty good clip is making me want a compilation of the DS trinity even more (despite owning the original carts).

Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin have by far the best unlockable content in the series, and the latter straight up has the coolest goddamn Dracula fight in the entire series. I specifically remember even review publications at the time saying PoR's final boss sequence was something special.
Yeah, PoR's final boss battle is INCREDIBLE. Easily one of my favorite moments in the series.

I would ditch that touch screen mode on PoR if that's what it takes for us to get a collection. I didn't even play it on the DS.
I wouldn't. You're missing out on a lot of content if the touch screen features aren't somehow adapted to a collection.
 

zoodoo

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,535
Montreal
i loaded up the XBLA SotN release earlier just to see how it felt after playing CotM for about six hours and it looked really.. mushy. it couldn't find my cloud save and i was not about to do the whole intro so i only saw the title screen, but i don't remember it looking so weird. maybe it's just the menu.
You can change the graphics in the settings just like in this collection. The default one has the weird smoothing. I always choose pixel perfect. Looks much better.
 

zoodoo

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,535
Montreal
I'm still mad at Nintendo for the switch crappy dpads (joycon and pro). I'm gonna have to double dip on xbox to play with a proper dpad.
 

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,119
I was perhaps too proud when I decided the use the killer mantle ability to flip enemy HP and MP on the iron golem, it helps that the golem immediately took that max damage L by dropping its soul.
So I guess this is one exp farming method if needed.

Blitzed through Aria, it's still very good.
I didn't get around to Aria until after I'd already played the 3 DS entries as well as Symphony, so Aria always had a bit of an uphill struggle in my personal mindshare, having to drop audiovisual quality down to GBA, the cart I got being counterfeit (classic post GBA era purchase experience) and it not being the first time I got to experience the tactical soul system.
I don't think I'll ever find the castle and boss lineup so potent enough to unseat my preferences to those previous 4 mentioned titles, it's still however pretty much top of the line Igavania.
It feels especially good coming off Harmony, they really learnt from pretty much every mistake in that game, the castle halls and areas are more distinct with layout reflecting their theme and not just "oops, all corridors!", the early game flow is spot on as the game gives you abilities at a steady clip and leaves things open in a manner that funnels you in the right direction but has a few offshoots that wont let you go too far before hitting an ability gate, yet make sure to leave something for your trouble.
There's also the origin of a lot of small tweaks to previous ideas for the better, like how instead of having the "up-down super jump" first seen in symphony, you just get the single button launcher which pretty much removes the need to keep the bat on hand late game, which in itself is massively improved from SotN.

What surprised me this time around is noting that I really like the story! yeah it's another one of those simple CV plots which gets advanced by bumping into people in areas you constantly wonder how they reached, but the core concept is solid and there's a surprising amount of extra dialogue when dropping back into see Mina. I still feel the sting of never getting that 1999 game.
Headhunter is one of my favourite boss concepts in the series and the use of aqueducts and boats makes a nice twist on the usual flooded caverns area.
The final boss is some hot garbo though, there's always like a 50/50 chance of Iga delivering a good final boss (PoR, OoE) or going for a chaotic visual mess of STUFF, this one is one of the latter.

And now I'm already grabbing my DS to go into Dawn of Sorrow, help
 

Bane

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
5,938
So do XB1 controllers just not work for this on PC? I'm trying to start it up and it's not reading my Elite at all.
 

Deleted member 34949

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There's also the origin of a lot of small tweaks to previous ideas for the better, like how instead of having the "up-down super jump" first seen in symphony, you just get the single button launcher which pretty much removes the need to keep the bat on hand late game, which in itself is massively improved from SotN.
I feel like CoTM's super jump was a pretty good transitional step, too. Up + R is still a bit more intuitive than Up, Down + Jump.

I think my issue with Aria's final boss fight is that it comes right after that amazing climactic showdown against you-know-who and there really isn't anywhere to go but down from there. Speaking of that fight, one of my favorite understated details about that fight is how instead of calling him by his full name, like some other fights against Belmonts in the series do, the in-game bestiary just calls him Belmont. That's it. Because of course Dracula would just refer to them as such.
 

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,119
I feel like CoTM's super jump was a pretty good transitional step, too. Up + R is still a bit more intuitive than Up, Down + Jump.

I think my issue with Aria's final boss fight is that it comes right after that amazing climactic showdown against you-know-who and there really isn't anywhere to go but down from there. Speaking of that fight, one of my favorite understated details about that fight is how instead of calling him by his full name, like some other fights against Belmonts in the series do, the in-game bestiary just calls him Belmont. That's it. Because of course Dracula would just refer to them as such.
Oh yeah, I forgot that Circle had its own spin on things.

That boss fight against you know who was kicking my backside, even at a point in the game where I was an absolute unit, and I'd expect nothing less, it's like storytelling through gameplay in a way.
...I'm sure everyone else probably has some kind of cheese soul setup here huh, and here I am summoning birds
 
OP
OP
Lukar

Lukar

Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 27, 2017
25,077
So do XB1 controllers just not work for this on PC? I'm trying to start it up and it's not reading my Elite at all.
That's odd, my Elite 2 worked just fine when I tried it. I have issues with games sometimes randomly not recognizing it though, so maybe you have the same issue I do.

Any possibility we will be a DS collection at some point?
There's no real indication towards one unfortunately. Fingers crossed though. Hopefully this one sells well enough to convince them to keep doing more.
 

Alpheus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,941
There's also the origin of a lot of small tweaks to previous ideas for the better, like how instead of having the "up-down super jump" first seen in symphony, you just get the single button launcher which pretty much removes the need to keep the bat on hand late game, which in itself is massively improved from SotN.
a simplified firing mechanism for launching the super jump made its debut in CotM, though it was 2 simultaneous inputs like Aria does since CotM has the wall jump and other such manuevers.
 

Kolma

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
257
Florida
Accidentally went through an area early in CotM. Rewind made getting through Underwater Waterway very easy without proper item. Also boss at end leveled me up twice because of this.
 

Alpheus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,941
That's always a fun sequence break, does make some rooms harder as it spawns some high level enemies in particular rooms I believe.
 

Capra

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,394
For as much as I'm enjoying HoD, a lot of the bosses do feel a bit... Dark Souls 2sy. Like there's a lot of them but for the most part they're really passive and just kinda let you wail on them.

Although it doesn't help that I've just been sticking with lightning+cross and spamming that in each fight.
 

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,119
For as much as I'm enjoying HoD, a lot of the bosses do feel a bit... Dark Souls 2sy. Like there's a lot of them but for the most part they're really passive and just kinda let you wail on them.

Although it doesn't help that I've just been sticking with lightning+cross and spamming that in each fight.
Dark Souls 2sy is such an apt description, right down to the quantity of them in place of quality
 

Deleted member 34949

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I always wondered why none of the IGAvanias did what CoTM does and populate earlier areas of the castle with stronger enemies the further in the game you get.

Always thought that was actually really cool.
 

Capra

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,394
Also what the absolute fuck is up with the locked doors in HoD? I keep finding ways around the map with my new powers only to find myself blocked off by some door I haven't found the key to despite having every special ability.
 

Deleted member 34949

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Also what the absolute fuck is up with the locked doors in HoD? I keep finding ways around the map with my new powers only to find myself blocked off by some door I haven't found the key to despite having every special ability.
For whatever reason, you don't get the item that opens those doors until the last hour or so of the game. It's bizarre.
 

Alpheus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,941
I always wondered why none of the IGAvanias did what CoTM does and populate earlier areas of the castle with stronger enemies the further in the game you get.
Always thought that was actually really cool.
Yea, really missed an opportunity to add some spice to all the games that came after it, such a missed opportunity in my view.
 

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,119
I always wondered why none of the IGAvanias did what CoTM does and populate earlier areas of the castle with stronger enemies the further in the game you get.

Always thought that was actually really cool.
To make sure I can use the superspeed ability in later games without careering into enemies that don't get one shot, toot, toot, I'm on a power trip!

But really there are some areas where it could be interesting, I suppose it might be because Circle tends to funnel you back through older areas more often I think?
Also what the absolute fuck is up with the locked doors in HoD? I keep finding ways around the map with my new powers only to find myself blocked off by some door I haven't found the key to despite having every special ability.
Oh man, this was driving me nuts, you'd be surprised how long it takes to get those keys.
Worst part is there are actually different types of locked doors needing different keys, if you squint you can actually see that the various locked doors have their own patterns/markings to designate as such.
Good luck on remembering which ones are what when you finally get a key.
 

baconcow

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,826
Apart from the three DS games, I wonder what else might come to a future collection? There is a third GB game that was absent from the first collection. Rondo of Blood which it seems is different than Dracula X. There are a few N64, PS2, and 3DS games. I hate seeing some older ones missed.
 

RedMercury

Blue Venus
Member
Dec 24, 2017
18,317
This battle arena is some bullshit. You just don't get enough consumables playing the game normally, I kill every enemy and I'm only level 36 going into the thing. It seems really cheap. I have 150 health and 3 rooms to go.