Castlevania Advance Collection - Available Now

[Musashi]

https://www.konami.com/games/castlev...tion/us/en-us/

From rumor to 'Now Available' in less than a week, we have the GBA Castlevania games on a new compilation.

There is 1 caveat: Jump is locked to and attack to . I don't know about y'all, but for me in a 2D game, I use to jump and to attack. I didn't see anything about a button config so I'm holding off until they patch one in. I suppose I could the system-wide button config but that sends everything else out of whack.

Edit: Looks like it might have its own built in control config after all. Good call Konami

[Dragon78]

So what games are in this collection?

Any improvements or just direct ports?

[Musashi]

It has Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow, and the Super NES version of Dracula X.

Drac X was nice to include, but I think it's better on the PSP.

[khalbrae]

Originally Posted by Musashi

Drac X was nice to include, but I think it's better on the PSP.

I think the PSP version was a remake of the Turbo Duo version if I recall. Which was considered to be the superior version for the most part (The SNES though had some differences and was good on its own)

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by Musashi

https://www.konami.com/games/castlev...tion/us/en-us/

From rumor to 'Now Available' in less than a week, we have the GBA Castlevania games on a new compilation.

There is 1 caveat: Jump is locked to and attack to . I don't know about y'all, but for me in a 2D game, I use to jump and to attack. I didn't see anything about a button config so I'm holding off until they patch one in. I suppose I could the system-wide button config but that sends everything else out of whack.

Edit: Looks like it might have its own built in control config after all. Good call Konami

Thanks.

Yes, the button placement is critical for some games. Especially jumping and attacking. I have Alex Kidd DX and trying to press the attack button and jump at the same time is a clumsy experience since the square button is too close to the analog.

I wanted to remap the buttons but there was no option to do so. Good to hear this game allows it then. Thanks.

[Akibiyori]

Picked this up and finished Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance. Circle surprised me by offering a little more challenge than you’d expect from the Metroidvania entries, the Zombie Dragons particularly put up more of a fight than any other boss in these games, but ultimately those points are brief. I wasn’t too keen on the running mechanic, the double tap gets tiresome quickly. Eventually you do get a DSS card combo that lets you move faster by default, only it comes much too late and doesn’t mesh with jumps - you still have to tap tap…and boy does the castle design make you do this a lot. Too much of it feels like empty zig zagging paths straight up or down, and the long, empty hallways these Castlevanias commonly get criticized for are worse here. It’s a good game but not as pleasantly swift as the others. I still need to complete the Battle Arena, which I did most of but then decided to bail out of because I got lucky and received one of the final two card drops from the Armors there. Then I suppose I’ll have to find those few disparate hidden rooms I probably missed.

Harmony of Dissonance. Wow! This game sure seems to make people neurotic. I think the hate is nonsensical and undeserved. The bosses are easy…but they are just as easy in Symphony of the Night, not as boneheaded perhaps but certainly not anywhere near Death in the original Castlevania either. The Metroidvania games are fairly easy, that’s just the way it is! I didn’t have much trouble navigating between the two castles, though I’d agree that the fast travel spots could be distributed a bit more judiciously. The metal ball races and the Big Armor trap kills (the gears and the big hammer) are unique and the series could stand to have more ideas like those. It’s true that the music is weak, the few Michiru Yamane tracks do stand out (instantly recognizable) but even those are kind of by the numbers and the programming is indeed rough (DQXI music haters, THIS is a weak soundtrack.) I vastly prefer the way you control in this game compared to Circle, movement is much smoother, and I like my Metroidvanias to have more compact and varied areas. The DSS system in Circle may have offered far more options but you don’t need the vast majority of those techniques; this magic system is much neater and efficient, albeit undoubtedly overpowered (just the wind/cross combo is enough to sail through the game on.) Graphically, eh, who cares? It’s a nice improvement on Circle. I got into the groove and enjoyed playing this one quite a bit. No masterpiece but definitely not the travesty I bafflingly see many call it.

I was unintentionally aided in one spot and had to look up a solution for another. The Shadow boss says Maxim will die if you kill him, so knowing this game had multiple endings I wanted to make sure I could go forward with the fight. In the process, I accidentally learned where I could find Maxim afterward for a key item. I wouldn’t have necessarily revisited that spot so soon if at all, so I might have been wandering aimlessly for awhile if I didn’t know. The other point that I needed to look up was where the final collectible item was (and it turns out, the only missing room I needed.) Anyone who has achieved 200% in the game probably immediately knows what room I’m talking about. That’s an intentional “get a guide” room if there ever was one! Other than that, I did the rest of that 200% myself in about eight hours and thirty minutes.

[Akibiyori]

Finished up the collection. Aria of Sorrow is as good as I remembered it, a snappier and refined successor to Symphony of the Night, of the three GBA games the one that best meets its PlayStation parent’s stature. No bloat…well, at least the original game. Adding a trophy for collecting all of the souls is the kind of tedious busy work I can’t stand, so I’m probably not getting the platinum for this collection even though I’ve whittled the list down to just the 2nd playthrough modes and characters for the three GBA games.

Dracula X isn’t a bad game. I first completed it with the base ending path but went back to do the “best ending” path. It’s a bit sloppy and uninspired and some of it perhaps is cheap (like the near lack of recovery time compared to the other games) but I felt there was always a solution for most every situation in the game. It’s fair and legitimate. This has one of the most difficult Death battles in the series - there’s no holy water trick to use here. Dracula might seem extreme but you can get a handle on him pretty quickly. For the first part, stay on the far right group of platforms and be patient. For part two, unload with the cross to hit him and take out some of his fireballs, then crouch down on a lower platform when he drops for the big attack. Phase two is much quicker. It’s not as good as Rondo of Blood but it’s better than you hear it is and every serious fan should give it a go.

[Akibiyori]

The only regular trophy I have left here is the Collect All Souls trophy from Aria of Sorrow. Ugh. By this point, you’re not actually playing the game anymore, you don’t need that stuff, you’re just wasting time. I guess I’ll get it eventually but definitely not in one go (or two or three) anytime soon. I think I had just over 50% of the souls at the end of my game. It wouldn’t be a problem if that $300,000 item guaranteed the drops, but of course it doesn’t. Oddly, more people have this very trophy than, say, the Julius or Maxim trophies - guess people like pointless collecting more.

[Zivouhr]

Fun games but also very tough with lots of cheap hits from the enemies. Getting knocked back into a pit of doom is always fun...

[Akibiyori]

Welp…since I had some extra time to kill this week, I went and finished the soul grabbing on Aria of Sorrow and got the platinum for this collection. Actually didn’t take all that long, basically just an entire new game plus playthrough. Still tedious though.

That makes 100% on all three Castlevania PS4 collections.

[Musashi]

Limited Run pressing confirmed at LRG3 today.