/vr/ - Retro Games

it's okay, just painfully average more than "bad". It feels unfinished. Play it. Use a guide when you get stuck.

Just give it a try unless you hate the idea of referencing a guide

>>8949763
>Is Simon's Quest really that bad?
No, this is a bit of a zoomer opinion popularized by the AVGN video. But sure, it has plenty of flaws. Give it a chance. Find a rom with better translation. Don't be afraid to use a walkthrough.

>>8949775
Any tips on where to find a good translated rom?

>>8949763
it's not awful really, plenty of worse nes games, but it's not that good either
you're either runnin around samey, simple mansions or runnin to said mansions or grinding because it's night and you wanna buy something
ig the hard part is supposed to be finding them but these days most of the potentially confusing stuff is known already
you can use a translation patch though if ya want
https://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/
also has a map

It succeeds in none of the areas you’d have enjoyed CV1 for, except maybe atmosphere. There’s not any tight platforming or enemy placement that really tests you the way the first game does. The challenge comes more from navigating this open world and figuring out what the hell to do.

I guess you could give it a try and see if you like the game anyway, but there’s definitely no harm in skipping to CV3.

>>8949775
Ah yes all those zoomers watching avgn in 2004 whilst zooming loudly

>>8949763
No. But it's not really that good.

>>8949792
Kids born in the 90s who grew up with the N64 or Gamecube might as well be a zoomies. And it was uploaded to Youtube in what, 2006? It's not like kids haven't discovered AVGN in later years.

>>8949775
>zoomer opinion
Imagine a zoomer with that tiktok haircut coming up to you, hitting juul and saying
>bro CV2 deadass low foreal

>>8949775
>>8949792
>>8949814
>avgn bad
>zoomers bad
>therefore avgn 4 zoomers

>>8949792
The likelihood is high that zoomers have watched AVGN because they have basically grown up watching YT instead of TV.

>>8949890
avgn was great back in the day, but i'm annoyed by people who thinks it's real video game critique and not a comedy show

>>8949763
i thought it was neat

>>8950206
james is hilarious af
the situations he creates & shit he references is so off the wall - he really is one of the greats.

im not big on the youtube era of gaming but james gets a pass for being legit funny
>5200 beer holder compartment

>>8950206
Except he does a retrospect of the castlevania series and openly admits most of the issues he did with his literal first review ever were blown out of proportion, and those that weren't are addressed with fan patches.

>>8949775
>>8949802
OP here, I'm 38 and confess some of the prejudice comes from AVGN, when I watched like 15 years ago, and to be honest a lot of the stuff he mentions in the video would piss me off too.

I decided to give a try, I downloaded the translation and I'm setting up now to start, I will also use a walkthrough on gamefaqs (inb4 "you don't beat the game")

I had a Master System in the 8 bit era and went with the SNES next, so I never played many NES games.

>>8949763
It's not the worst ever, in fact the concept is kinda cool, almost a bit like Zelda 2 but much more sparse in content, feeling rough and underdeveloped. People shit on Zelda 2 as well, and it's not perfect either, but there's the cool parts and the concept is sound.
1 and 3 are a lot more fun as far as early Castlevanias go.

>>8949802
Zoomers and Millennials aren't the same thing, you stupid nigger.

>>8949786
>https://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/
>also has a map
This site looks like a wealth of information, but I'm sorry anon, I can't understand this fucking Spurdo Spärde gobbledigook.

>>8949763
I personally had fun playing it the first time. Travel and revisit different towns and dungeons to buy equipment, collect items, upgrade weapons, and discover secrets all the while being afraid when the night comes. It was a thrilling adventure without being ungodly difficult for a child back then.

>>8950248
>https://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/
If you leave your mouse hovered over the sentence, it has the translation in English pop-up.

I'd recommend a romhack for translation for sure. Other than that, it can be quite fun in parts, and it's not too long.

>>8949784
not him but I recommend https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1032/
Simon's Redaction was the cool kid on the block for a while but it's yet another Rewrite Not Retranslation hack.

>>8950225
>I will also use a walkthrough on gamefaqs (inb4 "you don't beat the game")

The problem with using a guide right from the start in this game is that it erases the main part of the game. It's a game about exploration, mystery-solving, and grinding. The potentially more fun parts of that are the first two, and a guide kills them both. You're setting yourself up to play a game about grinding. Is that something you really want?

The first reply here already gave you much better advice: Use the guide WHEN YOU GET STUCK, not all the time.

Maybe that's what you meant though, I dunno. Anyway it's what you should do.

>>8950301
He must be of the mentality that the game is heavily mistranslated and finding where you need to go is a pain, which is somewhat true with the original translation. The new translation done by fans solves this issue.

>>8950206
Yeah he is not a reviewer. He even said that he liked Castlevania 2, it's obviously just a show

>>8950301
OP here, yes, I will use the guide when I get stuck.

>>8950301
>The problem with using a guide right from the start in this game is that it erases the main part of the game. It's a game about exploration, mystery-solving, and grinding.
I get that, and I agree with you, but CV2 is also unintuitive in a few places. I like it when there's a logic to figure out, rather than shots in the dark.

>>8950301
Playing 80s games with a guide is also fun. It's like having a treasure map

>>8950225
>"you don't beat the game"
that's mostly used as a joke and if it's not ignore it. just enjoy the game.

>>8950248
:v

So far I'm having a good time with the game, had some issues with the translation patch first because I thought it was a translation of the original Japanese version, but then realised it's a re-translations of the English version.

For it's time it might've been "good" when compared to the rest of the NES library, but when considering the other games in the series, it's much more mundane. The AI is more primitive, lacking any meaningful attack pattern than it's predecessor leading to combat being boring. There's a lack of different enemy types, most of them use the same archetype and have more HP just so you grind to get the next whip level. The adventuring is alright, gets confusing though. If you do get to playing CV3, I'd recommend playing through all 3 regional releases as they all differ in gameplay with JP being the easiest and US being the hardest. PAL is a middle ground and feels well balanced with all sub-weapons - including the dagger and watch - being useful due. Dagger being useful for taking less hits to kill a couple of certain specific enemies that take 3 in US/JP like Sword skeletons, and the watch because of a certain Second Quest enemy.

>>8949763
>I wonder if I should just skip Simon's Quest and go straight to Castlevania 3
Someone already said this, but it bears repeating. I wouldn't say that 2 is a totally different game or anything, it's still a classicvania where the level design and enemy placement matters. Heck, 2 actually expanded on the platforming part from the first game and has a lot more of it going on, often platforming for the sake of it that you have to be able to do to progress and in some cases flat out not die, but then arguably in other areas, it's just strange, even. Consider this, you don't an axe or anything like it for overhead attacks, but you got stuff like the sacred flames stunlocks literally any poor motherfucker who comes in contact with, silver and gold daggers with the latter basically killing shit dead, and laurels that give temporary invincibility on demand. 2 might not be a bad game, but it's an odd one.

>>8952032
Sorry, was meaning to say that, like someone else said, what you like about 1's gameplay, you're not going to necessarily find in 2.

>>8950301
>>8950301
>read the tip in Nintendo Power about how to get past the red crystal part before I even played it
>never able to beat the game for real

>>8950301
>>8950225
>read the tip in Nintendo Power about how to get past the red crystal part before I even played it
>never able to beat the game for real

>>8949763
Was an easy to get and perfectly good NES game that kept you entertained. Exaggerating the flaws is a meme

>>8949763
the whip is making the number 2

>>8949763

No. Most of the complaints about the game are childish and retarded.

>Le impossible to finish without a guide! Le bad translation!

The only legit complaint(s), and plenty of kids C2 back in the day without a guide. Some relied on word of mouth, but plenty of others figured their way through the game.

>Le grindfest!

Plenty of other fun 90s games/RPGs had far worse grinds than C2. You can beat C2 in less than an hour, so it's not like the grind keeps you on the game all day.

>I hate le day/night!

Sucks to be your stupid faggot ass. Most everyone else thought it was cool as fuck.

>It wasn't like the first one! I wanted the first one, but with more!

I can understand this, but I still disagree with it. Running Dracula's Castle over and over and over again to kill Dracula at the end gets fucking old fast.

Simon's Quest started a lot of positive trends in the Castlevania series, and yet the best aspect wasn't kept. The aspect of traveling a bleak countryside; a world cursed by Dracula that was begging to be saved.

That's probably the worst thing about the Castlevania series to me. Most of the games start you right at Dracula's castle. You don't get to see Dracula's legions of monsters ravage a populace or countryside. So many of the games, (especially the Gameboy games) felt so fucking samey and generic. There's scarcely any good reason to play any of the other CVs past Symphony of the Night.

>>8954090
>So many of the games, (especially the Gameboy games) felt so fucking samey and generic
You mean the GBA games or the GB games? Because the latter did in fact have you starting outside of Drac's castle, the first Adventure even has you climb up what seems to be a forest mountain range before entering a cave system.

Or do you perhaps you mean the idea of seeing other people get involved in Dracula shenanigans, like in a bad "people getting slaughtered" kind of way? It does kind of suck that we don't get to see that. Personally it's something that particularly annoys me about AoS, there's no damn point to its setting when you're just stuck in the fucking castle with maybe a weakass gun or two.

>>8954090
Holy reddit!

>>8954723
What the fuck is so reddit about it?

>>8949763
It's much better on the Speccy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxaWP2go7W0

>>8954778

>>8954778

At 4chan, "reddit" just means "I don't like it, but I don't matter so if you reply to me then YOU are in the wrong," and in this case you are in fact in the wrong. Please improve your behavior in future! One day there will be automated killbots roaming the earth in search of (among many other things) directories full of reaction images to use as signals that those computers' owners must be immediately executed. But for now, we have to take up the slack ourselves. Stay strong!

>>8954778
there's this newfag meme goin around called reddit spacing, which involves

using spaces like this

between sentences

because ostensibly reddit invented that

but bare in mind that whenever you see some shithead unironically use that term

they're fresh off the boat and

trying to fit in

>>8955897
If proper spacing is reddit, then I don't want to be 4chan. More seriously, I forgot reddit spacing was even a thing, it's been so long. What a silly thing to home in on.
>>8955735
Fag.
>>8955769
You're okay.

>>8955769
>seething zoomie rant
kek

>>8955897
>projecting zoomie rant

>>8955930
circlejerking zoomie rant

>>8956375
zoomie this, zoomie that, why don't you go zoom into a strip club and get some bitches faggot

>>8950290
looks great, I'll check it out.

>>8956393
cause yo mama like it slow, zoomie

>>8954090
As should be expected from a redditard

>>8954090
>take my reddit seriously
No

>>8949763
simons quest is the original divisive sequel. the expanded world and rpg mechanics make it one of the first of its kind, but the problem is that castlevania 1's gameplay is already kind of simple before you remove all the fun weapons and require you to kill random enemies that just kind of get in your way constantly. it was the tight level design that really makes the nes castlevania gameplay memorable and throwing holy water everywhere as you whip random ass zombies for hours in order to find a new place is a very different kind of pace even before the game was translated terribly

exploring the world, the day night cycle, the music are all awesome, but zelda 2 is a lot better for that sort of game

>>8950225
I beat the game with the 'better translation' without the use of a guide from start to finish on an aeroplane journey (on my 3DS). It's not that cryptic mostly and the townspeople give you hints about the stuff you would never normally work out. I don't think you 'need' a guide.

>>8949763
The whip is in the shape of a 2.

>>8958225
>>8953921
nobody fucking cares, shut your faggot mouths

>>8953921
>>8958225
You do this and every other board a a wonderful service in mentioning this and I pray you keep proclaiming it.

>>8958168
I agree. Zelda 2 has its issues, but it feels like such a fully realized game in comparison to Castlevania 2.

The concept for Simon's Quest is great, but it lacks substance. It almost feels like a beta to what could have been a deeper and more interesting game but which was released early. It's kind of ok, I guess, once you get into it, but Castlevania and Dracula's Curse are just way more fun.

>>8958246
I care, I didn't notice until now. Nice little detail.

>>8949775
I played it for the first time during the gauntlet days. It was bad and saturated with questionable design choices and balance. In short: Get better material, /pol/dophile scum.

Been playing this as of late on 3DS, I never realized how threatening Death can actually be in this game. Sure, he doesn't seem like much since he just slowly approaches you with that ridiculous jitter of his, but as it turns out, him throwing sickles straight at you can do a pretty good job of interrupting you, and while those sickles don't do much damage, the guy can potentially two-shot you with absurd contact damage. I found myself barely able to deal with him just whacking away with the chain whip until I broke down and spammed sacred flames at him so he couldn't move anymore. I won the first go, but got wrecked the second time and every other time I tried.

It's funny, I used to give this game flack for not being very well designed and being pretty down easy, despite enjoying it, but I'm finding now that it's only that way if you make it a point to prepare. I appreciate that.

>>8962423
You can almost stun-lock it by jumping and whipping on a rhythm dodging the sickles.

But I know what you mean about it being a bit "inevitable" with the positioning and movement of the boss. Not sure if this meaning was intended.

>>8949763
Also don't skip the GB games.

>>8963239
Oh it could probably be done, but my punk ass wasn't accomplishing it last night. That said, yeah, I suppose you could say that there's a certain level of inevitability depending on what you've brought with you, and that can go for probably just about any part of the game.

I haven't reached the part with the tall mummies, but from what I can remember, they took quite a few hits unless you went out of your way to get a real strong whip like Morning Star or Flame. Mind you, maybe that specific example doesn't work and it has been awhile, but imagine fighting mummies or just about anything past the second mansion with the leather whip. Not just Death, but arguably the game in general has this going on, on some level. Like I don't think you NEED to get the flame whip to beat the game, but it helps.

>>8949775
Yes the localization was horribly botched with every line by NPCs directly translated without any reference to what it was supposed to be doing in relation to the game as a whole. That's how it wound up being stupidly cryptic even by NES standards. That and the miserable fake blocks everywhere that forces you to crawl through the mansions spamming holy water every step. Fan hacks fix those issues without changing the gameplay. There is a good fan hack that fixes the text and replaces the hidden blocks with graphics that lets you tell the difference if you're paying attention.
The other main issue is lack of challenging bosses or bosses in general. There are only 3 and two are optional. Not a fatal flaw as the game is more about challenging exploration than combat. SQ is flawed in some ways but in other ways is a great game if you like spatial exploration.

I don't remember SQ getting ragged on when it came out as I played it in middle school. It was one of my favorites. It's just more worthless retrospective criticism.

>>8949763
Most of the "terrible" games hated on by "influencers" are usually actually ok or even above average

>>8962423
The fact that you could always just walk past him was hilarious to me.

OP here.

I finished the game using bisqwit re-translation and I'm halfway Castlevania 3.
The game is... OK. I appreciate the things that were tried, but it appears the ran our of time to make a proper good game.
The game is easier, most of the difficult parts are cheap shit like fake blocks where you drop on an enemy, stupid stairs with 2 enemies camping on top and with no axe available, so you have to lose health to go up.
Sometimes you need to drop a ledge and fall directly at an enemy. The hidden vendors, having to break blocks to find vendors, "just because".
Lack of boss fights sucked too, especially because the bosses are ridiculously easy, I beat Dracula on my second try using only 2 laurels.

Now for the good, I appreciate the bold approach to the design, it was interesting to talk with the townfolk and random people in the game, the music is also spectacular, there are not many tracks but I loved them, especially the town daytime tune, gives such a pleasant feeling. It's still satisfying to kill enemies and I liked having access to all items. But again, I played bisqwit's hack so I had a map and the conversations made sense.

Overall I don't regret playing it, but it's not a great game. Castlevania 3 on the other hand is amazing so far, it has seesaw platforming, mind blown.

>>8966743
not-retro but If you like Castlevania III then you'll probably like Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 1 & 2 (not to be confused with Ritual of the Night), IGA always wanted to produce a Castlevania III remake and this is his outlet as these games take very heavy inspiration.

>>8967062
Thanks for the suggestion, it's on my radar.
Just finished Castlevania 3, such a great game, there was a lot of challenge but they rarely felt cheap. Also loved that there are multiple characters. I finished with Sypha and from what I see she is the only one that doesn't have some cool movement gimmick like transform into a bat or change jump directions, but she was great in several battle situations, he sword is short and has low damage but it's great to deflect projectiles and her fire spell is very strong. Maybe the game should just have less rehashed bosses, but it was enjoyable overall.

>>8949763
Using guides was not the default, the internet you could look things up in did not exist.
The recommendation of just using a guide if you get stuck today means it was impossible to play through for many children in 1988.

>>8967229
Nintendo Power, Summer 1989

>>8967240
My bad, that's Game Player's, not NP. Pretty sure NP had a guide on this game too though.

>>8967229
>>8967242

Yes. Even AVGN shows the Nintendo Power guide on his second review of the game.

Also, about "Using guides was not the default", unless you lived in some kind of bubble, this is not true. We used to look at guides and cheats in magazines all the time, but mainly we used to ask for friend's help going through puzzles or difficult bosses.

I loved simons quest. I really enjoyed exploring the world. Back then I was a dumb ass kid. Its a fine game and can still be awesome. Just play some hacked version with better translation and map. If your a modernfag

Nevermind that shit. Who the fuck greenlit this?

>>8968084
You can just press F12 in FCEUX to take a screenshot. Can also be remapped to another key (or button).

>>8968151
thx senpai

>>8968084
you can stick yourself in the right wall by climbing down as grant and then letting go (you can still climb back up)
be sure to have the other blocks make a pillar though

>>8968442
I passed it. Its just bull shit. On another playthrough and trying to do this with trevor and alucard is the drizzling shits.

>>8968084
>>8968470
Doing this stage on Hard Mode is insane.
Not the pillars, they already suck, but the section where it's just Medusa Heads now throws in randomly veering skulls you can't jump over because the platforms will gave way.

>>8968470
>alucard
Did someone mention playing as Alucard in CV3?

Did you know

you can use Alucard's smoky transition sequences to avoid enemy attacks by timing it so the enemy or their projectiles pass through you during the transistion? Not only that, but you can actually transform at any time, including in the middle of being hit or when you're in the middle of falling towards a pit. Alucard can actually be pretty good when you realize his eccentricities that help cover his weaknesses like only one sub and inability to attack on stairs for God only knows why.

>>8949763
If you're playing Simon's Quest you'll either need a guide or use the hack that fixes the translations of the in-game hints.

What's the best way to play Rondo of Blood?
Is this translation good?
https://www.romhacking.net/translations/846/

>>8970532
I'd honestly just play it raw with this basic translation to refer to for cutscenes: https://castlevaniadungeon.net/games/rondotrans.txt
The game is perfectly able to be played in its original form, and as the RHDN link states, it doesn't completely translate everything anyway. The PSP/PS4 version, which the English dub comes from, has its own emulation isues such as horrendous cutscene desyncing.

>>8968948
I need to man up and beat this game with someone other than Sypha

>>8968948
I need to man up and beat this game with someone other than Sypha and her broken blue balls

>>8966743
Which version of CV3 did you play? If you played the US version, congrats, you beated a notorious difficult videogame, I'd reccomend listening to the Japanese OST on YouTube to hear the hardware differences (search Akumajou Densetsu OST)

>>8971314
It was the US version.
No need for congrats, I used save states, I don't want to experience the frustration, maybe if I was 30 years younger with a lot of time on my hands I would do it legit.

>>8971358
Maybe one day try the Japanese version. It'd be like going from Hard Mode back to normal mode on a game lol the extra experience helps.

>>8970532
Dracula X Chronicles. You get the original game, a pretty good remake that makes the Dracula fight more challenging among other changes, as well as SotN with an exclusive Maria mode (she plays differently from the Saturn version's Maria, more Rondo-like).

>>8949763
It's a lot different from Castlevania.
It goes for a lot of RPG stuff.
The game is just really poorly translated. Check out Bisqwit's extensive dive into the translation mysteries, it's really fascinating: https://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/diff

But yeah, play a romhack with a better translation. Otherwise, the game would be impossible to beaat without a guide or an extreme amount of patience and trial and error.

I would personally recommend Rondo of Blood to play next. Castlevania 3 works too. Two of the best games ever made. Pretty much the reason to download a PC Engine CD emulator is to play Rondo of Blood. It's literally that good.

Then you have SotN and the GBA games after those. I'd skip the N64 ones, they're pretty dated. Some people can still find love for them though.

>>8971314
The famicom version is so much better. I wish this fact was more well known.
The better sound hardware makes it so much better. I think it's something like 2 or 4 extra channels of music.
The difficulty is also much fairer and there's no retarded '90s era censorship like there is in the NA release.

>>8971398
I'm afraid of playing the remake and the quality of life improvements ruin my experience with previous titles in the queue.

>>8970532
>>8971427
Yeah, if you don't want to play the remake, try this translation:

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/846/

It uses the new english dialogue from the PSP version to replace the original Japanese. Even in the cutscenes.

It keeps all of the original graphics, gameplay and music.

>>8971427
>afraid a remake is going to be BETTER than the original

So that's how life is in bizarro world

OP here

Just finished Super Castlevania IV, really happy with the game, gameplay is tremendous, it feels really good to change direction mid-jump and whip in all directions. Being able to jump and whip downwards to kill bats is badass.
Because the gameplay is so good, the game doesn't rely too much on cheap tactics to make you die, so the game usually feels fair. There seems to be much more content and the mode 7 gimmicks are great. I really feel at home with 16 bits games, they usually feel much better to play and it shows here.
I just think the game is too safe, there are no new items and overall feels kind of samey to previous games. But it was still nice to see the same enemies from the 8 bit era in 16 bits and feel happy to see the new versions of them.

I will start Rondo next, I will use this hack: https://www.romhacking.net/translations/846/

>>8971632
By the way the Dracula fight was the best, it was the hardest and the theme is now one of my favourite game ost ever holy shit that got me pumped

>>8971692
>CV4 Dracula fight
>hard
You know he drops food during it, right?
Probably the lamest Drac boss in the series.

>>8972140
>Probably the lamest Drac boss in the series.
Compared to what? Probably the only Dracula fight that's straight up harder is the one in 3, the others besides Bloodlines rely on the usual tactics that you'll already be used to. IV Dracula at least spices things up with fireball tricks that you have to work around beyond just timing your jump and whip.
>You know he drops food during it, right?
Yeah, if you managed to hit his one attack before it hit you and flew off, and would probably hit you anyway even if you did if you're not overly careful about it.

>>8972140
I thought CV3 Dracula was easier to predict, the challenge is doing the whole level again to reach him when you die, of you consider this then I agree it's harder, but the boss itself is not as hard as IV imo.
Also the food is very hard to get.

IT’S A SHITLOAD OF FUCK FULL OF MEN’S ASSES WHO FUCK MY WIFE AND DIARRHEA DICK STORM MY WIFE WITH A BUFFALO FART CUM IN MY WIFE’S ASS FULL OF FUCK SANDWICHES EATING MY WIFE’S PUSSY AND DOG RAPING MY WIFE FOR FUCKING 12 HOURS OF SHITTY ROTTEN EGGS STUFFED INTO MY WIFE FUCK THIS GAME

>>8972627
Sorry about your wife.

>>8971427
The remake really doesn't have as much going for it as you might think, basically just the extra bosses (L. Vampire, Hydra, and Dracula's third form) which I'd really like to see backported into Rondo sometime. Grimoire of Souls at least brought back L. Vampire, although it's combined with Carmilla/Laura as a sort of second phase.