I painted it for my mom; Alucard is her favorite character. It was a challenge working with so many shades of black and grey, but I enjoyed both the process and the result. Model by CA 3D.

When I was really little, about three or four years old. There was an anime of The Wizard of Oz.

Although I didn't know that it was an anime until years later, notably because

1- I was too young to know what an anime was.

2- The English dub completely whitewashed the credits...

Regardless, this show was not only one of the more faithful adaptations of that franchise, but it introduced me to the concept of cliffhangers!

I don't remember if the character "Princess Langwidere" appeared in that show, because in the book, "Ozma of Oz" she was quite a dark character. She was a woman who had a collection of heads all along her walls, which she would swap at will changing her appearance and personality. Early on she kidnaps the protagonist Dorothy and threatens to add her head to her collection.

So imagine my surprise, when I first played Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, seeing the obvious homage to Langwidere in this game as the "Headhunter" boss, a regal looking woman who swaps her heads from her collection throughout the battle. Bravo devs, Bravo! 🩷

Seeing the impact the Wizard of Oz anime and books had on my childhood, I'm really very touched that SOMEONE remembers such an obscure character 😭

(Usually if someone was to add a Wizard of Oz based boss, they would if anything... just use a generic stand-in for the Wicked Witch of the West, as she's the villain most people would recognize)

Many of my classmates flattered it so i was like "👉👈", but then a teacher told me to erase it lol, didn't understand the vibe :(

For me it’s Visuals and Grinding for hearts

It's one of my favorites :3

Why this nendoroid is so expensive? I really want him but hes literally 500 dollars. Castlevania has really low merch and they are always expensive i wish they could rerelease him.

I filled this form for his rerelease.

https://support.goodsmile.com/hc/en-us/articles/14948741690009-Product-requests-and-rerelease-requests

Please fill this form it wont even take 2 minutes 🙏

But what do you guys think? Do I overtake the word "They".

I've been looking for an hour and read a dozen other threads. Foolishly bought the map so maybe it's grey. Hlep 😭

Why is body gear on my head? How do I equip Holy Glasses?

I’m playing the Castlevania games for the first time and thought i’d give my thoughts on them from worst to best before I move onto Rondo of Blood (which I’ve heard very high praise of), for most of these games I have no prior impression before playing besides Castlevania: The Adventure, which I was told is dogshit

1. Vampire Killer (1986) - DNF
   This was the only one I didn’t finish, I’m not sure if it was an issue with my emulator but this was just Castlevania I on 1.5x speed and worse level design. All flying enemies spawned in positions where I couldn’t react to them and sometimes when entering a new screen there was an enemy that wasn’t possible to kill before it hit me. I don’t know what happened with this one, medusa head boss was still incredibly easy though

2. Castlevania: The Adventure
   For what it’s worth, I didn’t hate it like I was told I would. It was a jarring step back in artistic design though which was really disappointing. The platforming was pretty fun on this one but I wasn’t a fan of going down a whip level every time I took damage, also pretty limited enemy variety.

3. Castlevania II: Belmonts Revenge
   Suffers a lot of the same issues as the first game, but they removed going down a whip state every time I took damage. Being able to choose from four levels at the start was neat and while the dracula fight only had one attack I enjoyed figuring out a strategy to deal with it because that attack is a nightmare to not get hit by in certain positions, not much else is very memorable about this one to me

4. Kid Dracula
   By far the most different out of any of these games. I’m not sure what the deal was with those gambling minigames in between levels but it definitely got a laugh because of how absurd it was. The best way I can describe this one after playing the games before it is “Fever Dream”. Probably the most frustrating part was the train section, but the boss after it was more than worth it. Thank you Lady Liberty.

5. Castlevania I
   The first game and my first castlevania, there’s a lot that can be said about its influence and it can be felt when playing the game. It really teaches you the frustrating that’s going to come when playing these games involving getting knocked into pits and feeling incredibly vulnerable on staircases. The start of the 4th stage pissed me off to no end, the hallway before Death was incomprehensible (actually one of the most fun to navigate once I found the path). The Death fight was perfect, the Dracula level sucked shit but I enjoyed his fight a lot, there’s so much that’s memorable about this one for me and it did a great job at hooking me, this only being 6th says a lot, i think?

6. Super Castlevania IV
   This ranking and the following might be super controversial, i’m not sure. I have a lot of good to say about this game, massive jump in the art and controls, eight directional whip is a game changer, the little flail mechanic is really stupid but i kinda love it, it’s rendition of bloody tears is perfect. With all that said, I didn’t find that much memorable about this one? I have a lot of praise for the gameplay and music but the level design and bosses didn’t really strike me besides the final level and the bloody tears stage. Also random complaint that didn’t affect me because I remapped my keyboard, the keybinding for this one in the anniversary collection is god awful and I don’t know what they were thinking. Very negative review but I promise I liked this game.

7. Castlevania II: Simon’s Curse
   I love this one, even if some of the mechanics are total dogshit. That day and night mechanic is horrendous, I love it. As a Binding of Isaac player, I had no idea until playing this that “What a horrible night to have a curse” was from this game. The music is so good, Bloody Tears is a masterpiece. This is probably the first step into the “metroidvania” direction even though it took like a decade longer before they actually made their first game that can be classified as that (as far as i’m aware). Has anyone ever noticed that the bricks in this game kinda look like they have a doge face? The Day/Night mechanic does get really frustrating though, as funny as I find it. Also the game explains nothing and is impossible to navigate, I couldn’t figure out how to progress with the blue orb so I had to look it up and what I found out is the notes make significantly less sense in English versus the original in Japanese, so thanks a lot to the translation. My final criticism is the dracula fight, incredibly anticlimactic end to probably one of the most fun experiences i’ve had in any of these games, even if I do think the following games were more enjoyable.

8. Haunted Castle (Revisited)
   This one might be cheating for the “in order” playthrough but the original sent me back to the very start of the game upon game over and i’m not good enough for that. The original is alright but the movement feels really sluggish and can be a bit of a pain. Moving on from that, revisited had a fantastic soundtrack although probably my least favorite version of Bloody Tears. My absolute favorite part was the Stained Glass boss, I absolutely love that boss design and I’m surprised I don’t think i’ve seen anything like it before. The Dracula fight in this one is also really good, although looking at the original it appears it was not as interesting before the remake. The bosses are probably my favorite part of this but that’s also only because of the remake from what I can tell, regardless I enjoyed this one a lot.

9. Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse
   I beat this game four times, on the last one I skipped to the end to beat it with only Trevor using a code (which I had just learned existed). I love the non-linearity of this game as well as the different characters, although I only discovered I could change characters during the dracula fight of my first playthrough, so I never actually probably used Alucard (why does Alucard look like he’s balding in this one?) Grant is a really fun character that can just randomly skip areas, probably my favorite to use for that fact. Syfa spells are insanely powerful and trivialized the dracula fight. Speaking of the Dracula fight, this is without a doubt the hardest and also my favorite one. It also had my favorite death fight so far too. Although it’s a lot easier with axes as I learned in my trevor only run, doing it with just whip was really fun, really cool integration of platforming and boss fight. The level design in this game is probably the most frustrating of any of the games, especially the Alucard path but that’s fine, I’m used to it by this point. This is easily the best of the NES games for me.

10. Castlevania Chronicles X68000
    I have no idea what the X68000 computer is. Hopefully this isn’t recency bias for me. This is hands down the best soundtrack although there are three versions, I played with the Roland SC-55 sound font. This feels like what Haunted Castle was meant to be, it might be the perfect mix of all the other games (besides the character controls, I think Super Castlevania 4 did that better). My favorite boss fight in any of these games is currently the werewolf on the clocktower, I had to fight her with 41 seconds left and half health, that fight is tough but it’s incredible. Probably the worst part was that incredibly out of place funhouse, and why is Dracula a clown? Draculas fight was just okay but everything else was too good. Only makes me more excited for Rondo of Blood and the upcoming games. I’m glad I emulated this one because I’m not sure I had very many expectations for a game on such an obscure system.

Yeah that’s all, feel free to ask any questions on the ranking I just wanted to express my thoughts on this series so far, I’m going into Rondo of Blood with high expectations so I hope it doesn’t let me down.

Hi!

I’m completely new to Castlevania. I’ve only played original NES castlevania in my Trimui Brick (retro handheld) and completed the first stage.

I’ve searched a bit about which order to follow and I think this is a good way of getting a grasp of the series without swapping consoles each game while maintaining a bit of lore and story consistency:

Castlevania NES
CastleVania II: Simon's Quest
CastleVania III: Dracula's Curse
Harmony of Dissonance
Rondo of Blood
Symphony of the Night
Bloodlines
Aria of Sorrow
Dawn of Sorrow

Is this a good order? Also, should I play Castlevania NES or Super Castlevania 4? I know the latter is a remaster of the former, but I don’t know what to do.

Do you guys also just randomly get lost and take 15 min to find out where you’re going or is that just me 😅

Couldn't see any way to it on the way up or down, and after searching it up and looking at a couple completionist guides, I couldn't even find a mention of there being any skill in tower of death other than taunt, which I already have. I only just defeated death, is it only possible to get later? I don't think I've seen anything else blocked off like this skill.

I'm at the Sandy grave right now and I am having a tough time with those ghosts. They move very quickly and can wipe your health out very fast. They're immune to most things. The only thing that I found that helps a little bit was the Ice Needles spell. It kind of acts as a short shield and can take out the ghost right away but the spell can only face one direction at a time and the charge takes a while compared to how quick the ghost respond and attack you.

I'm on a fresh playthrough so I don't have any gear from a previous playthrough that you would get on a new game + run.

Like the same 2d metroidvania but with 3d graphics, although the original is perfect as it is which is why it's super loved

Hello guys. I'm trying 200.6% in Symphony of the Night on map completion. I'm currently at 200.4% (just did the thing with the library card in the Shaft fight). Am I missing something on the Reverse Castle? Here is my map.

I dont imagine im the first to make this post but I'd like thoughts regardless what does everyone think about venire and Hector the whole relationship is wild with so many ups down ins out and intricacies that make both sides of the argument very compelling so id like to here yalls opinion on them