Board 8 > Best Castlevania game

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think I know what will win...
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Bloodlines
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Symphony of the Night.

Portrait of Ruin not a distant second.
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Either Super Castlevania IV or Rondo of Blood

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Rondo of Blood
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My favorites are probably Aria/Dawn of Sorrow. Dawn was my first CV, and Aria is just really good.
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Not sure anything could take it away from Aria of Sorrow for me, since Symphony of the Night didn't do it.
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Symphony of the Night > Dawn of Sorrow > Aria of Sorrow > Curse of Darkness > Castlevania III > Portrait of Ruin > Order of Ecclesia > Rondo of Blood > Castlevania II > Super Castlevania IV > Castlevania > Lament of Innocence > Circle of the Moon > Bloodlines > Dracula X > Harmony of Dissonance > Legacy of Darkness > 64 > Belmont's Revenge > Legends > The Adventure

Have to say aria

I wonder what would win in a soundtrack poll though

assuming the arcade doesn't

UF8 posted...

I wonder what would win in a soundtrack poll though

Symphony of the Night

Simon's Quest

I think I like the original best. Favorite soundtrack is Belmont's Revenge for Game Boy.

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Dawn of Sorrow
SotN is considered the best only because it has the highest playrate and nostalgia
Dawn did everything better than SotN

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Dawn of Sorrow
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The Mana Sword posted...

Dawn of Sorrow

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Dawn of Sorrow, and fairly easily at that
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SotN, though I've only completed two (it and Circle of the Moon).

I definitely want to try some of the better regarded handheld entries if they're available on any home consoles.

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Axl_Rose_85 posted...

UF8 posted...

I wonder what would win in a soundtrack poll though

Symphony of the Night

even saturn SotN is a tough call for top 3 i feel, factoring everything

Sotn

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th3l3fty posted...

Dawn of Sorrow, and fairly easily at that

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Castlevania

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Portrait of Ruin is my favorite, but I really liked the whole teamwork narrative they had going between Jonathan/Charlotte, Stella/Loretta and Death/Dracula
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Aria of Sorrow is by far my favorite

Aria of Sorrow, then Dawn of Sorrow
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Symphony of the Night, by far.

Dawn of Sorrow had too many repeating rooms, a less good soundtrack and pointless touch controls.
Aria of Sorrow was better then Dawn, but the graphics and music were lacking compared to SotN.
Order of Ecclesia is better then them both.
All are great games.

The NES/SNES games are fun but don't rank as high for me as the castle crawling type.

I never really liked any of the 3D games, outside of 64, which is odd I know.
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Aria of sorrow
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Circle of the moon

I miss Nathan graves
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Dawn of Sorrow followed by Aria followed by SotN probably.
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pjbasis posted...

Castlevania

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Harmony of Dispair
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Oddball vote for Castlevania III.

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Order of Ecclesia
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Waiting for my anniversary collection physical to decide

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I mean it's gotta be Judgment right
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Nanis23 posted...

Dawn of Sorrow
SotN is considered the best only because it has the highest playrate and nostalgia
Dawn did everything better than SotN

I have to disagree. Dawn's touch control stuff was annoying. Also, the level design of SotN is increadible. Very few games hit that level. The fact that you can play through everything upside down means they put a ton of work into it. There are some things Dawn does better, but it is by no means everything. Oh, and SotN has a better soundtrack.
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Its a close match between CV3 and SOTN .


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I really love the difficulty of Castlevania Chronicles/X68000
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Dawn of Sorrow I think. It would be easy without the touchscreen stuff, but still edges out sotn or ooe
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Dawn of Sorrow is the best one

Adventure Re:Birth is the best soundtrack

SotN isn't really the best at anything, except maybe "artistry" in that it is consistently beautiful and meaningful from start to finish, while better games have strong hiccups
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For the ones I've played a lot of:

Rondo of Blood > Symphony of the Night > Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon > Curse of Darkness > III > Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night > Order of Ecclesia > Portrait of Ruin > Dawn of Sorrow > Aria of Sorrow > IV > Lament of Innocence > Chronicles (PSX) > Harmony of Dissonance > Circle of the Moon > CV1 > 64 > Adventure Rebirth > Judgment > Bloodlines > Dracula X (SNES) > II

The only problem with SotN in my opinion is, it's a bit of a weird imbalanced mess, gameplay-wise; however, I don't think the gameplay of metroidvania games is really that important. As long as it feels good to use the weapons, it's fine.

Instead, I think metroidvania games are all about beautiful visuals, atmosphere, music, all the artistic aspects. And, just having a really surprising world, with a lot of variety. I think SotN is one of the best games of all time in all of those categories. That soundtrack is super weird. What the heck genre is that Wandering Ghosts song.

For the ranking of the rest of the metroidvanias, I have RotN > OoE > PoR > Dawn > Aria, they're pretty much equal to me on the artistic aspect. I think this ordering is explained by how excited I am to find new things in them. In Aria, it's just crappy soul after crappy soul. It doesn't feel that fun. Meanwhile in PoR, you've got two characters you're equipping, with weapons, armor, and their separate magic techniques. That's awesome. And then in RotN, there's so many ways to customize your character it's just ridiculous.

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For soundtracks, I'd probably put:

III > Curse of Darkness > Symphony of the Night > Rondo of Blood > Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon > others

(interestingly, that's also my top 5 up above, but in a different order... perhaps soundtracks play the biggest part in if I like a game)
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Order of Ecclesia
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