i recommend this for Old Schoolers it has lots and lots of Classic Castlevania Games.

Castlevania Anniversary Collection !! :D

. . .

Castlevania III Dracula's Curse... :(

its castlevania

WHAT A
HORRIBLE
NIGHT TO
HAVE A
CURSE.

Me duele el culo D:
... Y me gustó

I played most of these games, didn't play the Gameboy games because they're too slow for my liking, but the rest are some damn good games, best one is bloodlines

I am using this review of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection to talk about Castlevania Symphony of The Night since it’s only available on PlayStation. Its soundtrack, world design, art direction, and combat mechanics are among the best I’ve ever seen and I’d like to explain why.

After fighting Dracula as Richter Belmont and seeing one of the coolest CG background animations ever made, we’re given full control over Alucard at his best and we get to tear through enemies without much hassle. That is until Death takes all of our abilities and weapons away as if I was playing a Metroid game. Only then, can the player notice how much work was put into making the game’s combat shine. The first thing I noticed as a brand-new Castlevania player is that Alucard’s attacks force him to be stationary unless he's in the air and enemies move in a way that discourages you from spamming attacks in one place. The backward dodge often didn’t feel right to use in combat, but I grew accustomed to using it for fast traversal. It became an instinct to immediately turn around as I entered a room to start dodging through it. You feel like a real gamer when you slay a bunch of enemies, dodging from one to the next with all of the quick inputs necessary. I didn’t use tools too often. I mostly stuck with the stopwatch that stops time, and when I accidentally lose it, I’d gravitate towards throwing knives. The stopwatch is also the most important tool in the game since using it in the central clock room unlocks a passage. Speaking of passages, let's talk about the world design.

SoTN is a full-blown metroidvania with tons of absurd secrets and endless different choices of which way to go next. For the most part, the map is shaped like a giant circle with a few paths that go inward or outward. Exploring this game is by far the most daunting part about it. There are plenty of enemies you’ve never seen before that bombard you at every turn and relatively few checkpoints to make you feel safe. Some enemies are specifically made for different terrains, like the knights that stand on stairways pointing their weapons diagonally downward at you. There are areas with so many different leading corridors that it is easy to miss important things, even with a map. The most frustrating moment in the game was when I was trying to explore the coliseum area from the checkpoint below the central clock. There were rooms with valuable items guarded by enemies way stronger than I and I kept getting killed by them even after trying to skip past them. This went on for about an hour until I realized there was a room right next to these other rooms that I hadn’t entered yet. It was a checkpoint just sitting under my nose making me feel like a dumbass. Paying very close attention to every room you enter is paramount and this situation served as a great lesson for me.

While bosses are a big part of metroidvanias, I don’t have much to say about them. They were all unique, most of them very engaging to fight, and they looked great. My favorites were Legion and Galamoth. Legion was a massive spherical collection of bodies that dropped zombies on the ground to keep you from getting close to it. Destroying its zombie shell reveals its alien innards which explains why the boss arena is exclusively made up of human skulls. Galamoth is meant to be the toughest boss in the game by a mile. He’s huge, guards you from his legs which are the only reachable parts of him, and he uses massively damaging AOE lightning attacks. Every attempt I’ve seen against him online is some sort of cheese or someone running on vampire blood, using spells I never knew existed, and dodging like a maniac. The way I beat him added some points to this game’s RPG inventory mechanic. Near the very end of my playthrough, I found out about the secret where entering the boulder with a hole in it first as a bat and then as a wolf opens a wall that has an accessory that makes you heal from lightning attacks. I don’t feel like I have to explain any further.

Speaking of that secret, there are loads of little secrets that add so much depth to this game. Some of my favorites consist of the loot you can get from gravity jumping under the shopkeeper, using the spike breaker armor to run through spiked corridors, pushing through what seem to be walls when they turn out to be 3D bookshelves that rotate when pushed, the four spinning gears puzzle that requires you to listen for a click to stop spinning them, and the tampered save room that transports you to Alucard’s mother’s final moments. The only secret I’ve left out is the most important one in the game that more than doubles its runtime and makes one of the most interesting changes to a video game map ever. After completing a vague side quest that requires the use of the spike breaker armor, you get a ring that allows you to see deceitful apparitions. With it, you can see a floating orb during the fight against Richter. If you attack it while dodging Richter, you unveil Shaft as the man behind the curtain. With that, you chase after him into the Inverted Castle.

The Inverted Castle is one of the most amazing twists in gaming history. It’s simply the same castle but upside down. The save points and warp rooms make you walk on their ceilings, and even the water stays on (what is now) the ceiling. The first few hours of exploring the Inverted Castle are very disorienting. Every room has backgrounds you somewhat recognize but the stage layout is so different that it feels as if you are playing a sequel to this game. Your knowledge of the previous castle will backfire when you assume you remember what is in the next room, only to prove how wrong you are. The enemies get a huge boost too. To remedy this, the game gives you plenty of exp and stat boosts, along with Alucard’s original set. However, the most interesting weapon in the game is the Crissaegrim. With every button press, there are three lighting quick slashes, and mashing the attack button sends a flurry of attacks. What’s even crazier is you can walk while wielding what’s basically a chainsaw. It’s simply a fun way to change the gameplay drastically. Lastly, I want to talk about what I think is the most novel thing about this game, the animation and art direction.

While Castlevania’s art design is one of my favorite parts of the game, it is really hard to portray its greatness through writing. The easiest thing to talk about is Alucard’s animations. I think it is absurd that his hair waves around based on how he’s moving. When he crouches, the hair flings upward before falling to rest. When he stops, his hair and cape flips forward and when he falls, his hair rises. As he runs, his cape has a slow flutter and his arms are smoothly animated. Unlike other games of the 90s, crouching or jumping have frames that make them seem smooth instead of instantaneous. He also has a brief afterimage effect after jumping or dodging. All of these things combined make Alucard one of the most beautifully animated protagonists in gaming history, and we’re not even close to being done yet. The backgrounds and terrain are beautifully rendered with a ton of variety throughout the castle. One of my favorite areas in the game is the room with stained glass windows on each side beaming colorful light. As you move from one side of the room to the other, the hallway of windows shifts with you. My other favorite is the 3D clocktower that is outside of Dracula’s throne. it rotates as you pass it and seeing it upside down was interesting. There are also normally animated backgrounds like with the gears ticking in sync with the foreground. The library also has CG-rendered books pop out of bookshelves in the background. The game ends up being a massive canvas with tons of variety, something I don’t see or expect developers to do in modern times. As a side note, the music is fantastic in this game. Many of them set the mood of specific areas perfectly.

Castlevania 1, 2, 3, Adventure, and Belmont's Revenge are all worthless by today's standards. Castlevania 3 and Kid Dracula have some charm, but nothing special nonetheless.

Bloodlines is the only one worth playing, if you ask me. Has the most interesting level and boss designs.

Also, this is a collection of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ports. Flickering sprites all over the place, and as soon as you have too many entities (segments of a boss, projectiles, enemies) on the screen, the games start lagging like crazy.

Sounds are bugged. Cuoldnt get them to work right

Impressive as a collection of some of the best Classicvanias, but as a way to actually play them? It frickin sucks. Just get an emulator and (legally, of course) obtain the roms.

This collection lacks a ton of must-have QoL features. Starting with... an exit button.

Yeah. You can't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ exit the game. How did this even pass testing? I have no idea (it probably wasn’t tested at all, lmao).

Savestates are here, but you can’t make multiple states per game. No rewind. No proper 4:3 without scanlines. No settings to tweak anything.

The games run fine, mostly. But oh my god, the sound has a life of its own. It cracks, farts, and occasionally behaves - if it feels like it. But that’s rare.

Achievements? No biggie. But where’s my achievement for completing every game in the collection? I’ve got game-specific ones for beating them, but the one for beating all of them is locked. Buggy.



After trying the Dominus collection, I'm just dissapointed. Just how good this collection could've been if it got at least a fraction of the attention given to Dominus. But hey, they've learned their lesson, and next collections are actually worth to try.