For this video, I had to use some outside footage, so a big thank you to channels in question and be sure to follow them ^^ Castlevania the arcade: www.youtube.com/@Richter8700 Symphony of the Night LCD: www.youtube.com/@MrVile Castlevania Pachi: www.youtube.com/@tanicochannel2194 Castlevania Valiant Guardian: www.youtube.com/@PandaJockSlots Castlevania Labyrinth of Fire: www.youtube.com/@RandomSlots
You can do this for almost every series Also There are Licensed Metal Slug java games that are clones of Advance Wars Just saying this becouse it looks like you like obscure games
Fyi, only the European Konami GB collections were colorized. The original Japanese versions have grey carts. The European versions also released in a different order, so the numbering isn't consistent with the Japanese versions. The Japanese versions also featured cute anime girls on the game select screens that were removed for the European releases.
@@st1ka can't blame much it's probably because the obscure nature of the MSX and it's game outside of Japan the MSX saw very limited release where PAL got both Vampire Killer and Metal Gear on MSX while NA got neither
Fantastic video!! Even as a hardcore Castlevaina fan I was still surprised at how many versions I never knew about, plus all the bootlegs too!! Keep up the amazing work!!👍👍👍👍
Incredible video! I consider myself a pretty diehard Castlevania fan, but many of these titles are new to me. Thank you so much for your incredible research and dedication! You're definitely one of my very favorite gaming RUclipsrs! 💜
14:33 The Game Boy color version of Castlevania the adventure and belmont revenge were actually exclusive to europe. Yes the Konami GB collection series was released in both europe and japan, but they were regular black and white games in their japanease release. They were enhanced for the GBC for european market.
Really fascinating to see all the Java games together here, a lot of them honestly look they could be REALLY fun if ported to modern hardware. Seeing them over the past few years I never realized just how many there were 😮 And straight up having them sold as "Castlevania" titles LMAO. Really interesting deep dive great video!
Just a minor tidbit: the MSX version of Castlevania was not only released in Japan. It was also released in Europe under the name "Vampire Killer", and perhaps other places the MSX was popular in, particularly South America and the Middle East as well.
Also, both the NES and the MSX2 were developed at the same time - one is not a 'port' or a 'remake' of the other. The NES version was released in Sept. 1986 while Akumajō Dracula for MSX2 was in October, the same year.
Lots of fond memories of Harmony of Despair. Deciding who picks Soma to jump off skulls. 1v1 death matches where the players trade deaths and grind out their subweapons. The thrill of the 8 bit Simon Belmont getting released. God, I miss those times.
Just rewatched it! Great video as always st1ka, I would love to see more stuff like this, that wai wai game gave me really heavy monster party vibes, I’d love to play that sometime!
If Konami decide to make another collection in the near future. I’d definitely want: Castlevania MSX Castlevania Chronicles Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth Castlevania MS-DOS These are the list of Castlevania games I want Konami to bring into the collection.
What an absolutely fantastic video! You passed my expectations less than halfway through. I was anxiously awaiting this one since you mentioned it was coming. What I knew was going to be a home run turned into a game winning grand slam! Well done! Keep up the amazing work 👏👏👏
@@st1ka It definitely shows! You dug deep for a series that totally deserves it. I'm giving this a share with a ton of people. It deserves a boatload of views!
It's sad that the Rebirth series is lost on WiiWare and not even available for purchase anymore. M2 did a good job on all 3 (Contra, Gradius, and Castlevania), considering they were low budget. Also, I was unfortunate enough to get the Simon's Quest Tiger handheld as a stocking stuffer as a kid. It's painfully bad, lol.
Love the video, worth a subscribe definitely. As for music, I do arrange as a hobby, and Castlevania tends to be the most requested for music, so I have done a lot of track remakes for it, but I'm glad someone pointed out these obscure titles, it gives me more chance to see all the different ways Castlevania evolved, especially with music. Have a good day 😁
Gotta respect the commitment you had to find and play all those games. Thanks to you i've learned about the fan made patch of the Castlevania Harmony of Despair. Thank you very much!
Thanks for the great video--can't think of any of the games not already on this list because I'm pretty sure you covered them all! Long live Castlevania, which deserves better releases than what we've currently gotten from Konami lately!
At this point, I'm just hoping Konami farms out Castlevania to a third party studio. Whathever happens, I'm sure it's better than being dead like it is now.
DOS Castlevania actually has a third sound option using the Tandy 3-voice chip, which is basically just a Master System soundchip. By default, the rom floating around on the internet is missing one of the files needed to support this, but I swiped it from the DOS port of Altered Beast. I'd say I prefer it to the Adlib/soundblaster option. I actually did get to play Castlevania: The Arcade once at Round One in Great Lakes Crossing, but that machine is no longer there. While it is rare to find, I can honestly say you aren't missing out on much by not playing it, as it isn't something that holds your interest for more than a few minutes. Still, it's odd that it never got ported to the Wii, as it was quite a popular system at the time and the wiimotes are pretty much the same as the controllers used in the arcade machine. Maybe they could have given it some extra content to justify being a home release, but sadly they never did.
Awww, I thought Castlevania Legends for Gameboy would be on here. That was such a fun game. I wish they didn't retcon and strike that one from the series.
Wow, that was an informative video, so many versions of the game I didn't even know about. I have kind of a soft spot for LCD games so I'd be curious to play the Tiger ones. I am so happy you included the new Amiga port of Castlevania, it was created by Dante for a yearly game-making competition I run for the Amiga community and we all really hope he gets it finished, the Amiga deserves a good port and was always capable of it.
Your accent got me on the “wai wai world” review - I swear I thought you said “you play as his descendant - Simon the Turd”, I had to do a double take, lol - love your videos, you cover awesome stuff that I don’t see anywhere else on the internet
Yoo you did not disappoint with the Amiga coverage, and I was happy to see Robocop 3D show up onscreen for a moment. The only thing I feel compelled to add is a comment about the soundtrack- It's very lifelessly ported to the sample set they used and there's some wrong notes in the level 1 theme. It sounds horrible. The best thing from the Amiga version was the completely new title theme. It's a pretty neat, albeit simple track. It seems they were probably better suited to making something original rather than porting Castlevania in the first place.
I actually wanted to say more about the Amiga version, but I ended up trimming the review to about half because the video was too long. It seems like the Amiga version was farmed out to some devs in Hungary and I'd wager they had never heard about Castlevania nor were they aware of how big the franchise was in the US and western europe
hey st1ka, figured I'd say hi after meeting you in HungryGoriya's twitch stream Sunday night. This is actually not the first video of yours I've watched and I really enjoy your content!
I finished aria of sorrow on my cellphone at the time it was released and yes, the framerate IS like that on the phone , BUT... like you said, games on cellphone at that time where not good at all, and this one was AMAZING, tough it's not the complete game, final boss is the fire demon.
Castlevania Arcade 2009 with the wii style controls is pretty good overall. I was fortunate enough to play it after using an arcade locator so I drove to play it in person. It definitely should have been ported as well as the Silent Hill arcade light gun game. Both deserve a 2nd life.
I had the J2ME port of Castlevania as a kid, both parts 1 and 2. Part 2 was just levels 3 and 4, and I believe there was a Part 3 in my Sprint Store at the time. We also had an incredibly faithful J2ME remake of the first Ys game, but that's a story for another time.
I think I found the same java game repository, let's see if I can transcribe any of these titles for google translate to work... 36:47 秦殇:千年轮回 means _Qin Shang: Millennium Reincarnation._ Shang itself translates to "to die young" but with Qin being a last name, Shang is likely a first name. 38:30 吸血鬼之恶糜城堡 is _Vampire's Evil Castle_ 39:07 恶魔城:血之召顺 is _Castlevania: Summoning of Blood,_ yes even the Chinese title says Castlevania! 39:46 古堡魅影 means _Phantom of the Castle,_ there's also a subtitle in there somewhere, but I can't read it well enough to transcribe 41:05 弑神錄:黑暗卷轴 means _Godslayer: The Dark Scroll,_ which is a title that is criminally wasted on a bootleg. 41:27 猎魔人 is _Witch Hunter_ or just _Witcher_ 42:17 looks like all the _Castlevania Demon_ games are from a Chinese series 斩妖伏魔录 which means _Demon Slayer,_ presumably unrelated to the same-named anime.
39:07, Technically 恶魔城 is the Japanese title Demon Castle rather than literally being the English word "Castlevania", but you're point still stands that they just ripped off the title of the original game.
I thought I was one of thevonly people that played nearly EVERY Castlevania... I was a bit obsessed with Castlevania back in the day, so I actively hunted down obscure stuff... There were even some Castlevania 4 total conversion mods done by actual devs... Like completely different games... Wish I could play those...
Castlevania 2: Belmont's Revenge is a pretty great game outside of that impossible boss battle against Soleiyu Belmont. It's very impressive for a Game Boy game.
Love your accent. And I know you said "Simon the tHUrd." But when i first heard it i picked up "Simon the turd". I chuckled and though how bad is that relative that he's not even cannon and is referred to as a turd? -Awesome video.
Funnily enough I heard about most of the games showcased here. Castlevania X68000/Chronicles was my favorite pretty obscure discovery. The fact it subverted the original was mind-blowing, and it has my favorite rendition of Simon's theme. Still didn't knew about some stuff like the GBC ports, though. I should try to put my hand on those. (also please tell me what you said about 90's European developers doesn't apply past 2000 cause I don't want my fan project to turn into a euro platformer...)
I would so so so sooooo love for Konami to release a a DS games collection or a PS2 collection. I never got Dawn of Sorrow to run properly on my emulator. It was always so slow.
36:48 This one is called "Prince of Qin - Millenium Reincarnation". Pretty fun game. I finished both versions. The one you are showing and partially translated to english. Main character is called Kamui. From abilities after upgrading he has short dash, slide, double jump, glide in air, magical attacks based on elemental rune. In 3 locations he has to transform into wolf, bat and mist, sadly only for transportation and not a gameplay. And the main map in stage select is kind of similar to Order of Ecclesia. Fun time playing.I reccomend to try it out.
Man, I love Harmony of Despair. Used to play this on PS3 back in the day when there were still people playing it. Even got it on my Xbox Series X just because I liked it that much. No one online now though.
Wow, Konami sure milked Castlevania as much as they could :| Some of the games really catch my attention, like the X68000 version ! Great video as always man.
I really miss CV: HOD. I made a lot of friends playing that game. I was super excited to see that they kept the servers alive and made it backwards compatible for Xbox one. Hope this video gets more people playing?
It should be noted that when emulating a NES there are differences in color palettes, and perhaps the VS palette might have been ripped from RGB values since it was designed to run on a RGB arcade monitor. NES palettes are estimated from the NTSC output of the system.
It should be mentioned that you could actually buy the game via the PlayStation store on I believe the PS4. It was apart of the arcade archive line up of titles and is about 8$.
Since there are some fan games in here already, I'd love to hear your take on some of the better total conversion ROM hacks like Holy Relics, Chorus of Mysteries, Overflow Darkness, CV III: Gold Edition, etc.
I remember having an MS-DOS port of Mega Man, which was my first exposure to the series. My first Castlevania game was actually the Tiger Electronics Simon's Quest. The hand enemies from the ground during the night, and "jumping onto moving platforms" in later levels, were always killers for me.
It's super interesting to me when someone's first introduction to a popular series is a more obscure entry. I wonder what were your thoughts to MSdos megaman?
@@st1ka I was really young, so I barely understood it and had the toughest time just figuring out the keybinds. As a result, I didn't play very much. The graphics were decent for the era, I think? It just doesn't stick in my head very well, since it was hard to get into a platformer when you can't find the jump key.
Adventure ReBirth seriously needs to be rereleased, as does Dracula X Chronicles. Maybe if Konami ever gives us a Castlevania DS Collection, those can be included as bonuses, or they could do a rerelease pack of all the ReBirth titles. Also, worth noting is that Haunted Castle really was never originally meant to be a Castlevania game. That's no rumor, it's just true--they hastily threw in Simon Belmont and some familiar music into what was meant to be an original project at the request of Konami higher-ups who thought it would perform better under the Akumajo Dracula title.
Fun fact about Harmony of Despair, each version actually has a exclusive multiplayer mode, meaning the X360 version has online only multiplayer, while the PS3 has local only multiplayer. I have no idea why they did it that way, but it's kinda cool in a way.
@@Trustee-of-The-Most-High no one ever likes or replies to your comments. So why comment? To make yourself feel good? Cause you're not being heard or cared about
fun fact about harmony of despair: there is some people still playing the game, even sometimes myself included, but most of the people who plays and have a good gear, they just carry for the grinding of op items on dlc chapters
@@st1ka sometimes yes, if those people know how to fight the boss on hard mode, but still you can revive people with those potions from blue chests, on hard mode most of the bosses hit like a truck on chapters 2 to 8 and like a train on chapter 9 to 11, so expect being the medic on boss fights or if you know how to dodge on the boss fights you can also help dealing dmg
The java Aria of Sorrow is glorious for one thing only: Its version of castle corridors is a lot of fun to listen to. It's objectively a mess, but the way it is just overintrumentalized with each section having its own feel instead of properly flowing into each other always lightens my mood. The java Dawn of Sorrow is very impressive tho. Sure, it has a big lack of detail in a lot of areas due to being made for phones, but the way it just sorta works beautifully in the places that *are* fully realized actually make it stand the test of time as a decent alt-version. I can even remember it getting some attention in the fanbase a few months ago and some wispering about how cool a remake of this game would be just for the sake of the idea being fun.
@@st1ka there’s a lot of quirky Java/mobile games that deserve more attention. Besides, mobile bootlegs don’t have nearly enough people researching and documenting them. It’s all console and PnP stuff.
Fantastic video---a day where all the java and/or mobile(that one of late'ish that was in Canada/Japan only somehow with a second lease on life..) titles are fully emulated, translated, and hacked into shape to an insane degree just like DS and prior fare pretty well are by now shall be a good one.
wow! never knew how many phone games were created of the franchise. That is very fascinating. Also seeing the one that brought me into the franchise on this list (Castlevania Harmony of Despair) for the Xbox360 is really sad it is forgotten. I had played it numerous times with friends in the past. We had fun playing it and trying to get all the cool weapons and items in the game. I did play it alone sometimes, and yes there is ways to do so. It was more fun with multiple people though as we would get into shenanigans together. Sadly the 360 version was online multiplayer only so now I have to play it by myself. Only one that had local play is PS3. Man I wish they would remake it for the newer consoles cause it was a blast to play!
I played Harmony of Despair on 360 in its heyday. Got Soma and Alucard both full kitted out. Even bought the extra level and character DLC like a chump. I enjoyed it immensely with people, and after you get leveled up it's easily soloed. Some of Soma's abilities would let you sequence break HARD. I remember grinding on the level with the super tall boss that you're meant to go around and do all sorts of stuff, but I'd just throw a skull and jump kick off of it to skip strait to the boss and just shoot rockets at its knees from like a mile away. Very fun. I can upload some footage if you like.
As a person from CIS, I think it's very funny that many Castlevania java games was translated in Russian. Java mobile phones and games were very very popular in our countries.
There's another game called DreamMix TV World Fighters, which is basically a clone of Smash Bros. that includes Simon Belmont among other characters from Konami, Hudson, and Takara. So you can have Simon fight against Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bomberman, the Adventure Island guy, Solid Snake, and many others.
I can think of 2 little know Castlevania games that you missed one is Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night, it's an official SoTN themed puzzle game. The other is akumajyo Dracula Peke, which is a bizarre hidden mini game included with Rondo of Blood and Dracula X Chronicles.
Thanks for the videos, this is the best Castlevania compilation on RUclips! But can I ask you something? High frequencies of your voice record are raised, which is good for readability. But those 'ess' and 'iss' sounds now are ear piercing! My headphones are OK, your videos are the only ones I try to set volume down. Sorry to sound like you owe me smth, but use some de-esser on speech, maybe? There are plenty of those free of charge.
Yeah, I've been trying to address this issue, but sadly it's not quite fixed yet. I've tried a few de essers on audacity but they would often distort the rest of the audio.
@@st1ka Hmm, RUclips deleted my last comment. I said, that as a musician I have some recommendations. I've found Techivation T-de-esser as least distorting, and there is a free version. Also, there are Accusonus ERA ver 5 and 6 collections (professional voice-centric plug-ins) and Toneboosters Legacy collection with Sibalance de-esser, both free but somewhat hidden. I can upload them to where you can get them.
There's an active harmony of despair online community, btw. PS3 emulated with RPCS3 seems to be the most popular method....tho there are still some people organizing games for Xbox 360 and PS3
For this video, I had to use some outside footage, so a big thank you to channels in question and be sure to follow them ^^
Castlevania the arcade: www.youtube.com/@Richter8700
Symphony of the Night LCD: www.youtube.com/@MrVile
Castlevania Pachi: www.youtube.com/@tanicochannel2194
Castlevania Valiant Guardian: www.youtube.com/@PandaJockSlots
Castlevania Labyrinth of Fire: www.youtube.com/@RandomSlots
You can do this for almost every series
Also
There are Licensed Metal Slug java games that are clones of Advance Wars
Just saying this becouse it looks like you like obscure games
The name of the game is metal Slug tactics
Buddy, this is some premium content. You could have easily spread this out over 4 different videos and I would have been happy to watch them all.
yeah very true. I'll probably do something similar
thank you! I went all out with this one ^^
Fyi, only the European Konami GB collections were colorized. The original Japanese versions have grey carts. The European versions also released in a different order, so the numbering isn't consistent with the Japanese versions. The Japanese versions also featured cute anime girls on the game select screens that were removed for the European releases.
Wow I had no idea! Thank you so much for the correction ^_^
@@st1ka 1:04 wait isn't the MSX port were also released in Europe under the name Vampire Killer?
Whoops! You are correct! For some reason I was sure the game was a Japan exclusive, but you are correct!
@@st1ka can't blame much it's probably because the obscure nature of the MSX and it's game outside of Japan the MSX saw very limited release where PAL got both Vampire Killer and Metal Gear on MSX while NA got neither
@@P5dfsf64g36 yeah i often have to remind myself that the MSX version of Metal Gear also launched outside Japan
Fantastic video!! Even as a hardcore Castlevaina fan I was still surprised at how many versions I never knew about, plus all the bootlegs too!! Keep up the amazing work!!👍👍👍👍
aww thanks man! I really appreciate the super like, thank you so much! :D
Great video! It's probably hard to make a video like this and not think that Konami outright forgot about the franchise as a whole in favor of NFTs
yeah, the series is so dormant :\
Incredible video! I consider myself a pretty diehard Castlevania fan, but many of these titles are new to me. Thank you so much for your incredible research and dedication! You're definitely one of my very favorite gaming RUclipsrs! 💜
thank you! Glad you liked it! ^^
14:33
The Game Boy color version of Castlevania the adventure and belmont revenge were actually exclusive to europe. Yes the Konami GB collection series was released in both europe and japan, but they were regular black and white games in their japanease release. They were enhanced for the GBC for european market.
damn! that makes them even more rare. A shame they're not in the modern compilations :\
This is by far the best rare Castlevania compilation video ever made. Bravo! I learned SO much from this. Thank you!
Thank you! I try! :D
Really fascinating to see all the Java games together here, a lot of them honestly look they could be REALLY fun if ported to modern hardware. Seeing them over the past few years I never realized just how many there were 😮 And straight up having them sold as "Castlevania" titles LMAO. Really interesting deep dive great video!
Yeah, this was a rabbit hole I just stumbled onto haha
You've gotta be joking right
Just a minor tidbit: the MSX version of Castlevania was not only released in Japan. It was also released in Europe under the name "Vampire Killer", and perhaps other places the MSX was popular in, particularly South America and the Middle East as well.
Whoops! For some reason I was sure it was a Japan exclusive, but you are correct
Also, both the NES and the MSX2 were developed at the same time - one is not a 'port' or a 'remake' of the other. The NES version was released in Sept. 1986 while Akumajō Dracula for MSX2 was in October, the same year.
Lots of fond memories of Harmony of Despair. Deciding who picks Soma to jump off skulls. 1v1 death matches where the players trade deaths and grind out their subweapons. The thrill of the 8 bit Simon Belmont getting released. God, I miss those times.
It's the sad fate of all multiplayer games. Eventually people move on to something else and you have no way of recreating those experiences.
I thought I knew every side scroller Castlevania, but this video definitely surprised me! Well done
Thank you! I try ^^
Just rewatched it! Great video as always st1ka, I would love to see more stuff like this, that wai wai game gave me really heavy monster party vibes, I’d love to play that sometime!
aww thanks man!
I had the same feeling
Harmony of Despair is a super underrated game. Breaks my heart that it has no support.
I can definitely see the potential, but playing it now, alone... it was clear it wasn't made to be played alone
I wish they’d port it to Switch and have it with local and online co-op multiplayer.
@@DarkMirria1 Oh now THAT would be cool
Brilliant video! Must have taken forever to track all these down and record!
Yeah, this one was a ton of work xD
If Konami decide to make another collection in the near future. I’d definitely want:
Castlevania MSX
Castlevania Chronicles
Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth
Castlevania MS-DOS
These are the list of Castlevania games I want Konami to bring into the collection.
Oh same here! I'd also want the gameboy color DX versions and Castlevania Legends.
This is a crazy list of ultimate obscure collection of games. I wonder which other franchise can top this.
Oh I'm sure there's others. I just need to dig deep xD
What an absolutely fantastic video! You passed my expectations less than halfway through. I was anxiously awaiting this one since you mentioned it was coming. What I knew was going to be a home run turned into a game winning grand slam! Well done! Keep up the amazing work 👏👏👏
haha thank you so much man. This one was a TON of work ^^
@@st1ka It definitely shows! You dug deep for a series that totally deserves it. I'm giving this a share with a ton of people. It deserves a boatload of views!
@@3rdStrikeMike haha thanks man, I appreciate it
It's sad that the Rebirth series is lost on WiiWare and not even available for purchase anymore. M2 did a good job on all 3 (Contra, Gradius, and Castlevania), considering they were low budget.
Also, I was unfortunate enough to get the Simon's Quest Tiger handheld as a stocking stuffer as a kid. It's painfully bad, lol.
Yeah I literally got bored of Simon's Quest after 5 minutes haha
Great video! Only one I can think of not featured, was Castlevania puzzle encore of the night.
Yeah, looking back, I should have mentioned that one.
God you made me add a LOT more games to my list with this video. So good~ thank you once again St1ka :)
I try :D
Love the video, worth a subscribe definitely.
As for music, I do arrange as a hobby, and Castlevania tends to be the most requested for music, so I have done a lot of track remakes for it, but I'm glad someone pointed out these obscure titles, it gives me more chance to see all the different ways Castlevania evolved, especially with music.
Have a good day 😁
Thank you! glad you enjoyed the video and hope you make some kickass tunes :D
Gotta respect the commitment you had to find and play all those games. Thanks to you i've learned about the fan made patch of the Castlevania Harmony of Despair. Thank you very much!
Glad I could help! ^^
I love this guy's voice and accent. Just the right amount of enthusiasm. You never feel over or underwhelmed. It's just right.
haha thank you!
Yes, Simon "the Turd" in Wai Wai World is epic.
Instant sub! Your bright and happy commentary are so well-suited to this style of content!
haha thank you! ^^
Epic video, man! So many Castlevania games I never knew existed.
Thank you! It was quite the rabbit hole I found myself digging into :P
Thanks for the great video--can't think of any of the games not already on this list because I'm pretty sure you covered them all! Long live Castlevania, which deserves better releases than what we've currently gotten from Konami lately!
At this point, I'm just hoping Konami farms out Castlevania to a third party studio. Whathever happens, I'm sure it's better than being dead like it is now.
Thank You for this video! I love the Castlevania series!
glad you liked it ^^
Great video Stiks ! Never heard of a lot of this stuff , especially those GBA and DS to phone ports
Thank you so much man, glad you liked thee video
DOS Castlevania actually has a third sound option using the Tandy 3-voice chip, which is basically just a Master System soundchip. By default, the rom floating around on the internet is missing one of the files needed to support this, but I swiped it from the DOS port of Altered Beast. I'd say I prefer it to the Adlib/soundblaster option. I actually did get to play Castlevania: The Arcade once at Round One in Great Lakes Crossing, but that machine is no longer there. While it is rare to find, I can honestly say you aren't missing out on much by not playing it, as it isn't something that holds your interest for more than a few minutes. Still, it's odd that it never got ported to the Wii, as it was quite a popular system at the time and the wiimotes are pretty much the same as the controllers used in the arcade machine. Maybe they could have given it some extra content to justify being a home release, but sadly they never did.
oh interesting, I did not know that. I'll have to try it out and see how it sounds.
@@st1ka Someone on RUclips uploaded the Tandy soundtrack in case you don't feel like playing the game just to hear it.
even better! Gonna check it out
@@st1ka Let me know what you think of it
Awww, I thought Castlevania Legends for Gameboy would be on here. That was such a fun game. I wish they didn't retcon and strike that one from the series.
Originally I was going to include it, but the video was so long that I ended up cutting it for time >_>
Your videos are awesome, man. Appreciated!
thank you! happy to hear you like them ^^
Wow, that was an informative video, so many versions of the game I didn't even know about. I have kind of a soft spot for LCD games so I'd be curious to play the Tiger ones. I am so happy you included the new Amiga port of Castlevania, it was created by Dante for a yearly game-making competition I run for the Amiga community and we all really hope he gets it finished, the Amiga deserves a good port and was always capable of it.
Glad you enjoyed the video ^^
and yeah I'm hoping castlevania AGA gets completed some day.
Good work. I hope this video will do well for you since it has such a well-known game title.
I hope so too xD
Love seeing the coverage of lesser known games in some of my favorite series! Keep up the good work!
Thank you! I try ^^
awesome work collecting footage and information on all these games!
Thank you! I try! ^^
Your accent got me on the “wai wai world” review - I swear I thought you said “you play as his descendant - Simon the Turd”, I had to do a double take, lol - love your videos, you cover awesome stuff that I don’t see anywhere else on the internet
@@TH3DUDE0075 haha thank you
Yoo you did not disappoint with the Amiga coverage, and I was happy to see Robocop 3D show up onscreen for a moment. The only thing I feel compelled to add is a comment about the soundtrack- It's very lifelessly ported to the sample set they used and there's some wrong notes in the level 1 theme. It sounds horrible. The best thing from the Amiga version was the completely new title theme. It's a pretty neat, albeit simple track. It seems they were probably better suited to making something original rather than porting Castlevania in the first place.
I actually wanted to say more about the Amiga version, but I ended up trimming the review to about half because the video was too long. It seems like the Amiga version was farmed out to some devs in Hungary and I'd wager they had never heard about Castlevania nor were they aware of how big the franchise was in the US and western europe
hey st1ka, figured I'd say hi after meeting you in HungryGoriya's twitch stream Sunday night. This is actually not the first video of yours I've watched and I really enjoy your content!
Aww thank you! I'm glad you liked it ^^
I finished aria of sorrow on my cellphone at the time it was released and yes, the framerate IS like that on the phone , BUT... like you said, games on cellphone at that time where not good at all, and this one was AMAZING, tough it's not the complete game, final boss is the fire demon.
ah how interesting! A shame it isn't complete.
Oh, and you missed the weird puzzle game conversion of Symphony of the Night. It even released on Windows Phones with Xbox Achievements.
Yeah I missed that one, ah well.
Castlevania Arcade 2009 with the wii style controls is pretty good overall. I was fortunate enough to play it after using an arcade locator so I drove to play it in person. It definitely should have been ported as well as the Silent Hill arcade light gun game. Both deserve a 2nd life.
Man I wish I could play it
I had the J2ME port of Castlevania as a kid, both parts 1 and 2. Part 2 was just levels 3 and 4, and I believe there was a Part 3 in my Sprint Store at the time.
We also had an incredibly faithful J2ME remake of the first Ys game, but that's a story for another time.
I think I found the same java game repository, let's see if I can transcribe any of these titles for google translate to work...
36:47 秦殇:千年轮回 means _Qin Shang: Millennium Reincarnation._ Shang itself translates to "to die young" but with Qin being a last name, Shang is likely a first name.
38:30 吸血鬼之恶糜城堡 is _Vampire's Evil Castle_
39:07 恶魔城:血之召顺 is _Castlevania: Summoning of Blood,_ yes even the Chinese title says Castlevania!
39:46 古堡魅影 means _Phantom of the Castle,_ there's also a subtitle in there somewhere, but I can't read it well enough to transcribe
41:05 弑神錄:黑暗卷轴 means _Godslayer: The Dark Scroll,_ which is a title that is criminally wasted on a bootleg.
41:27 猎魔人 is _Witch Hunter_ or just _Witcher_
42:17 looks like all the _Castlevania Demon_ games are from a Chinese series 斩妖伏魔录 which means _Demon Slayer,_ presumably unrelated to the same-named anime.
OMG That's amazing! Thank you!
39:07, Technically 恶魔城 is the Japanese title Demon Castle rather than literally being the English word "Castlevania", but you're point still stands that they just ripped off the title of the original game.
I thought I was one of thevonly people that played nearly EVERY Castlevania... I was a bit obsessed with Castlevania back in the day, so I actively hunted down obscure stuff... There were even some Castlevania 4 total conversion mods done by actual devs... Like completely different games... Wish I could play those...
whoa that's amazing!
Sempre é um bom dia quando você sobe um vídeo.
But yeah man, always appreciate seeing the odd stuff you talk about!
Muito obrigado! ^^
42:48 I named my channel after this character's surname. Good to see it getting a review!
haha that's awesome!
Wai Wai world is my childhood man i didnt expect anyone to talk about it EVER. this video just made my day
Haha, glad I could help!
Castlevania 2: Belmont's Revenge is a pretty great game outside of that impossible boss battle against Soleiyu Belmont. It's very impressive for a Game Boy game.
Agreed, it's such a great game.
Love your accent. And I know you said "Simon the tHUrd." But when i first heard it i picked up "Simon the turd". I chuckled and though how bad is that relative that he's not even cannon and is referred to as a turd? -Awesome video.
You'd be surprised at how many times I re-recorded that like trying to say "third"
Same.
I thought he was insulting the character.
Probably the only youtuber who'd use a j2me emulator. Nice work!
haha yep. There's a lot of phone games of popular franchsies.
Funnily enough I heard about most of the games showcased here.
Castlevania X68000/Chronicles was my favorite pretty obscure discovery. The fact it subverted the original was mind-blowing, and it has my favorite rendition of Simon's theme.
Still didn't knew about some stuff like the GBC ports, though. I should try to put my hand on those.
(also please tell me what you said about 90's European developers doesn't apply past 2000 cause I don't want my fan project to turn into a euro platformer...)
Oh yeah, I was just referring to 90s euro devs. Mostly Amiga 90s devs xD
That Castlevania machine is at Round 1 in Fox valley Mall in Aurora if anyone is curious.
I would so so so sooooo love for Konami to release a a DS games collection or a PS2 collection. I never got Dawn of Sorrow to run properly on my emulator. It was always so slow.
Oh man I'd love that
you can now emulate the arcade game
For Castlevania Arcade, I actually regular an arcade that has it, it's janky but fun. Though it does tire your arm out.
36:48 This one is called "Prince of Qin - Millenium Reincarnation". Pretty fun game. I finished both versions. The one you are showing and partially translated to english. Main character is called Kamui. From abilities after upgrading he has short dash, slide, double jump, glide in air, magical attacks based on elemental rune. In 3 locations he has to transform into wolf, bat and mist, sadly only for transportation and not a gameplay. And the main map in stage select is kind of similar to Order of Ecclesia. Fun time playing.I reccomend to try it out.
Man, I love Harmony of Despair. Used to play this on PS3 back in the day when there were still people playing it. Even got it on my Xbox Series X just because I liked it that much. No one online now though.
The adlib card never got finessed the way chiptunes did in europe. So you hear the same janky patches used everywhere.
This was a great video, thanks man!!!
Anytime! Glad you enjoyed it! :P
Wow, Konami sure milked Castlevania as much as they could :| Some of the games really catch my attention, like the X68000 version ! Great video as always man.
haha right?!
It's rare for these types of videos to surprise me, but this one definitely did. I thought I was a fan, instead I learned I was a phony!
haha
I really miss CV: HOD. I made a lot of friends playing that game. I was super excited to see that they kept the servers alive and made it backwards compatible for Xbox one. Hope this video gets more people playing?
Hopefully it does. The idea is pretty great, but it clearly wasn't made to be played alone
Absolutely loved harmony of despair, played it with my husband and we both had a blast. We took out the bosses just fine with two of us.
It should be noted that when emulating a NES there are differences in color palettes, and perhaps the VS palette might have been ripped from RGB values since it was designed to run on a RGB arcade monitor. NES palettes are estimated from the NTSC output of the system.
From what I understand, the arcade game uses slightly different hardware that produces slightly different colors ^^
Castlevania Harmony of Despair was so much fun when it was alive so yeah you needed people who knew what they were doing
yeah, I think the concept is neat, but it requires a specific set of friends imo
Looks like I need to get back into Harmony of Despair.
Welp, with the release of the Dominus Collection, Haunted Castle is forgotten no more, as it was included in that pack along with a remake of it.
It should be mentioned that you could actually buy the game via the PlayStation store on I believe the PS4. It was apart of the arcade archive line up of titles and is about 8$.
Since there are some fan games in here already, I'd love to hear your take on some of the better total conversion ROM hacks like Holy Relics, Chorus of Mysteries, Overflow Darkness, CV III: Gold Edition, etc.
I'll check them out ^^
Harmony of Dispair rules, as long as you're playing with friends and using voice chat. But in that context, it's super fun.
Yeah I feel like this was clearly made to be played online. Sadly though, I couldn't find anyone to play with :(
@@st1ka Shoulda asked me! 😂
Yo, the crunch on that ZX game is amazing 😭👍
right?! It's incredible!
Fun thing: I ACTUALLY played Order of Shadows on a Java phone! And was with this version I met my all-time favorite Castlevania tune: Bloody Tears!
haha that's awesome!
Great video. I am still secretly hoping for Castlevania Judgement 2
I was actually gonna talk about the first game, but I ended up cutting it for time. I also felt it was relatively well known.
Man, i hope someone makes a translation to 'shengui diguo zhi emo cheng'. Excellent video as usual.
I remember having an MS-DOS port of Mega Man, which was my first exposure to the series.
My first Castlevania game was actually the Tiger Electronics Simon's Quest. The hand enemies from the ground during the night, and "jumping onto moving platforms" in later levels, were always killers for me.
It's super interesting to me when someone's first introduction to a popular series is a more obscure entry. I wonder what were your thoughts to MSdos megaman?
@@st1ka I was really young, so I barely understood it and had the toughest time just figuring out the keybinds.
As a result, I didn't play very much. The graphics were decent for the era, I think? It just doesn't stick in my head very well, since it was hard to get into a platformer when you can't find the jump key.
@@BarrakDraconis ah understandable
Excelente vídeo. Eu sempre fiquei como eles eram criativos em fazer os cenários de fundo dos jogos de Game Boy.
Muito obrigado ^^
Oh my gosh, I had that handheld version featured in the cover of this video! Tbh I had totally forgotten about that until I saw this.
haha
Adventure ReBirth seriously needs to be rereleased, as does Dracula X Chronicles. Maybe if Konami ever gives us a Castlevania DS Collection, those can be included as bonuses, or they could do a rerelease pack of all the ReBirth titles.
Also, worth noting is that Haunted Castle really was never originally meant to be a Castlevania game. That's no rumor, it's just true--they hastily threw in Simon Belmont and some familiar music into what was meant to be an original project at the request of Konami higher-ups who thought it would perform better under the Akumajo Dracula title.
Fun fact about Harmony of Despair, each version actually has a exclusive multiplayer mode, meaning the X360 version has online only multiplayer, while the PS3 has local only multiplayer. I have no idea why they did it that way, but it's kinda cool in a way.
haha wow, I did not know that.
Both versions have online co-op, ps3 came out about a year later and added local co-op.
@@DonkeyOfDestiny ah thank you for the clarification ^^
Harmony of Despair on PS3 was so much fun. I used to play it couch co-op with my wife. I think I even bought all the DLC for the game.
This is amazing!
thank you haha
The most astonishing thing to me is that these tiger games even **HAVE** roms. They look like they could be implemented in about 47 transistors.
Lmao just like the original pong arcade game.
That thing about losing the subweapon is an improvement but the magic of it all is lost when you change map and is not longer there
@@Trustee-of-The-Most-High no one ever likes or replies to your comments. So why comment? To make yourself feel good? Cause you're not being heard or cared about
@@ramrodbldm9876 thank you for your wisdom "no one" 😂
Aria of sorrow for the phone actually got me into the series.
Damn that's pretty cool
@28:26 the night club in Europe had me chuckling. Thanks for the laugh!
hehe :P
fun fact about harmony of despair: there is some people still playing the game, even sometimes myself included, but most of the people who plays and have a good gear, they just carry for the grinding of op items on dlc chapters
Aaaah so I wouldn't be very useful even if I did find a group
@@st1ka sometimes yes, if those people know how to fight the boss on hard mode, but still you can revive people with those potions from blue chests, on hard mode most of the bosses hit like a truck on chapters 2 to 8 and like a train on chapter 9 to 11, so expect being the medic on boss fights or if you know how to dodge on the boss fights you can also help dealing dmg
@@yeeetster7026 thank you for the tip!
I spent so much time on Harmony of Despair with friends. I kind of was hoping they'd do something more with it at some point but unfortunately not.
The java Aria of Sorrow is glorious for one thing only: Its version of castle corridors is a lot of fun to listen to. It's objectively a mess, but the way it is just overintrumentalized with each section having its own feel instead of properly flowing into each other always lightens my mood.
The java Dawn of Sorrow is very impressive tho. Sure, it has a big lack of detail in a lot of areas due to being made for phones, but the way it just sorta works beautifully in the places that *are* fully realized actually make it stand the test of time as a decent alt-version. I can even remember it getting some attention in the fanbase a few months ago and some wispering about how cool a remake of this game would be just for the sake of the idea being fun.
That's pretty cool actually. Now I gotta check out the theme
I still think it's absurd Konami hasn't released a Rebirth collection with the Castlevania, Contra, and Gradius rebirth games.
so true!
Love it! Some of these are really interesting
yeah I discovered a lot rabbit holes with this one.
@@st1ka there’s a lot of quirky Java/mobile games that deserve more attention. Besides, mobile bootlegs don’t have nearly enough people researching and documenting them. It’s all console and PnP stuff.
@@noaht2005 yeah very true. It's definitely worth exploring
Fantastic video---a day where all the java and/or mobile(that one of late'ish that was in Canada/Japan only somehow with a second lease on life..) titles are fully emulated, translated, and hacked into shape to an insane degree just like DS and prior fare pretty well are by now shall be a good one.
Indeed, there's some surprisingly good Java games out there.
wow! never knew how many phone games were created of the franchise. That is very fascinating.
Also seeing the one that brought me into the franchise on this list (Castlevania Harmony of Despair) for the Xbox360 is really sad it is forgotten. I had played it numerous times with friends in the past. We had fun playing it and trying to get all the cool weapons and items in the game. I did play it alone sometimes, and yes there is ways to do so. It was more fun with multiple people though as we would get into shenanigans together. Sadly the 360 version was online multiplayer only so now I have to play it by myself. Only one that had local play is PS3. Man I wish they would remake it for the newer consoles cause it was a blast to play!
I think the game has a brilliant concept. But sadly it's hard to find people:(
@@st1ka yeah sadly.
I played Harmony of Despair on 360 in its heyday. Got Soma and Alucard both full kitted out. Even bought the extra level and character DLC like a chump. I enjoyed it immensely with people, and after you get leveled up it's easily soloed. Some of Soma's abilities would let you sequence break HARD. I remember grinding on the level with the super tall boss that you're meant to go around and do all sorts of stuff, but I'd just throw a skull and jump kick off of it to skip strait to the boss and just shoot rockets at its knees from like a mile away. Very fun. I can upload some footage if you like.
aaaah! That makes sense. I guess it's worth giving it another go when I get the chance.
As a person from CIS, I think it's very funny that many Castlevania java games was translated in Russian.
Java mobile phones and games were very very popular in our countries.
Sorry for the mistakes. I have A1 level in English.
I just hope someone will translate them into english. I'd like to play them properly.
Forgot Encore of the Night, exclusive for the iPhone users, a Tetris like puzzle game with the SotN theme
Oh yeah, there's that one. Whoops!
@@st1ka even fans forgot about it, curiously now that I check more videos, it doesn't look half as bad as I remember
@@DaedalosC9 I think at this point, we're just all so disappointed with Konami that even these games seem appealing now :P
@@st1ka a sad truth, at least Netflix is keeping them alive
@@DaedalosC9 Indeed, I loved the Castlevania "anime" and I'm eagerly awaiting the new one.
There's another game called DreamMix TV World Fighters, which is basically a clone of Smash Bros. that includes Simon Belmont among other characters from Konami, Hudson, and Takara. So you can have Simon fight against Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bomberman, the Adventure Island guy, Solid Snake, and many others.
oh yeah! I tottally should have mentioned that one
I can think of 2 little know Castlevania games that you missed one is Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night, it's an official SoTN themed puzzle game. The other is akumajyo Dracula Peke, which is a bizarre hidden mini game included with Rondo of Blood and Dracula X Chronicles.
Yeah I should have added Encore of the Night. As for Peke, I have it as part of Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP but there's so little to show
Thanks for the videos, this is the best Castlevania compilation on RUclips!
But can I ask you something? High frequencies of your voice record are raised, which is good for readability. But those 'ess' and 'iss' sounds now are ear piercing! My headphones are OK, your videos are the only ones I try to set volume down. Sorry to sound like you owe me smth, but use some de-esser on speech, maybe? There are plenty of those free of charge.
Yeah, I've been trying to address this issue, but sadly it's not quite fixed yet. I've tried a few de essers on audacity but they would often distort the rest of the audio.
@@st1ka Hmm, RUclips deleted my last comment. I said, that as a musician I have some recommendations. I've found Techivation T-de-esser as least distorting, and there is a free version. Also, there are Accusonus ERA ver 5 and 6 collections (professional voice-centric plug-ins) and Toneboosters Legacy collection with Sibalance de-esser, both free but somewhat hidden. I can upload them to where you can get them.
@@namcobandai4473 ah thank you. I'll check them out! ^^
There's an active harmony of despair online community, btw.
PS3 emulated with RPCS3 seems to be the most popular method....tho there are still some people organizing games for Xbox 360 and PS3
Thanks for what you do.
I try ^^
Dang cool to see a new video by the 4K Raytracing Wizard😃
haha thank you xD
The 1st level music of Castlevania 1, for the Game Boy, is one of my favorite
it's SO good
Master of Darkeness , for me ! Thanks !!! 😁
haha