Castlevania has always been a huge part of my life and I'm so sad that they just stopped, like all Konami franchises. I grew up with a PC and very early in the RockNES X and ZSNES days I got into emulation and discovered Castlevania. They were hard games which honed my sidescroller skills and made me fall in love with the series.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night was one of the first games I bought with my own money thanks to the older games and from that day on the Metroidvania style became my favorite game genre. Really, there's no need to say anything about SotN, everyone knows it's a masterpiece. Not my favorite of the series but pretty damn close.
Again, thanks to emulation, i had the chance to play the GBA games too which made me realize that to me, Castlevania needs the whip. Aria of Sorrow was an okay game but weaker than Circle of the Moon and especially Harmony of Dissonance. Someone tell 3saster that Juste Belmont is a kickass character!
Later i got a PS2 and i bought both Castlevania games for it both on launch day. I assumed Lament of Innocence would follow the same gameplay style as the previous games but of course it wasn't the case. Still both games have RPG elements and that's good enough for me. In both games you also get to play as a Belmont which is a huge plus.
Then came my favorite game in the series, Portrait of Ruin. Sadly it came for the Nintendo DS and i couldn't afford to buy it. I had to drool over gameplay videos and fantasize. Emulators weren't up to par during that time either so no pirating
Much later i got a DSi XL and immediately bought all 3 NDS Castlevanias. These were my preferred style of game and i was extremely happy. I bought the system just for these 3 games and not a cent was wasted. The NDS games have awesome ROM hacks available for them that completely change the story and playable characters, like Rondo of Ruin for example, a hack of PoR which changes the story, the main characters into Richter and adult Maria, complete with equipment customization and skill unlocking. It's excellent.
The Wiiware Castlevania ReBirth has never been rereleased, which is a major crime against humanity, but luckily Wii's an easy system to jailbreak, and when a game isn't available to buy anymore, there's only one way to play it.
But how about Lords of Shadow and its sequels on the PS3? I bought them and hated all 3. My biggest problem with them is that they're not even a part of the main timeline. Kinda sad that these were the last new games in the series. I'd love to play Grimoire of Souls but sadly it's been locked behind Apple Arcade.
Of course I've bought every collection on PS4 too. I hate Konami more than words can say but i know that the second Konami makes anything with Castlevania on it, I'll give them my money without thinking a single second.
What do you think about Castlevania? Which one is your favorite and why is it SotN? Gush about Castlevania! Please start your post by saying something bad about Konami.
