The Castlevania/Bloodstained Thread: Whip It Good

RSG3 · Sunday at 10:27 PM

I mean got bills to pay lol. They can't all be hard-core affairs like CotM and and that co-op game they made I guess.

I'm sure once Bloodstained 2 starts ramping up we'll get more CotM.

Edited Tuesday at 10:37 PM by RSG3

DoctaMario · Tuesday at 02:32 PM

On 6/23/2024 at 8:19 PM, RSG3 said:

He means Grim Guardians which outside of being an Inti-Creates game and a Gothic art style has nothing to do with Bloodstained.

I gotcha. I have that game in my queue actually and if not for Classic II coming out, would probably have busted that one out instead. Itooks like a pretty fun game.

Deathsmiles taught me that if the game is fun enough, I can overlook the art style a bit, but by and large I don't really go for anime stuff most of the time.

DoctaMario · Tuesday at 02:34 PM

On 6/23/2024 at 8:37 PM, Camacho said:

Yeah, that's what I was referring to. Based on the demo, it was clearly an extension of CotM in terms of gameplay. But instead of Bloodstained characters, we gen anime girl tropes that yell constantly in an ultra annoying way and panty collecting. I get wanting to work with their own IP, but man, I wish they had gone another direction and just made generic new CV clone characters. It also seemed a good bit easier (reviews said as much as well) than CotM 2, which would have been a bit of a letdown for me.

Imo cotm2 ramped up pretty high in the difficulty around the volcano level. I blew through everything before that on Normal but that level broke me. Still, I think it's cool that the games offer something for everyone in terms of difficulty and if having an easy mode means more people play those games, then I'm ok with that since it probably means there'll be more of them made.

Camacho · Tuesday at 08:22 PM

5 hours ago, DoctaMario said:

Imo cotm2 ramped up pretty high in the difficulty around the volcano level. I blew through everything before that on Normal but that level broke me. Still, I think it's cool that the games offer something for everyone in terms of difficulty and if having an easy mode means more people play those games, then I'm ok with that since it probably means there'll be more of them made.

It did ramp the difficulty up considerably, but as you said, casual mode was a good option to have. But the other side of that is that the game is really well tuned for those more challenging runs (albeit less so in the legend hunter difficulty that was added) - you can get through it with any character solo with enough practice, probably even hitless if you're good enough since everything has a pattern. There's just less to sink your teeth way into if the game is too easy. I sure as hell can't see myself still enjoying cotm2 runs after 100 hours is the challenge wasn't there.

Anyways, let me know what you think of the weebified sequel if you ever do get around to it. The demo annoyed the hell of of me, but I might be able to get past that if you think it's worthwhile.

AriesWarlock · Tuesday at 08:50 PM

RSG3 · Tuesday at 10:39 PM

8 hours ago, DoctaMario said:

Deathsmiles taught me that if the game is fun enough, I can overlook the art style a bit, but by and large I don't really go for anime stuff most of the time.

I just wish the girls in Death Smiles wore a bit more. Too young looking for those ourfits for me. Cave was generally pretty good about avoiding just pure exploitation like that, their girls are sexy sure, but they usually stayed away from like...borderline pedophile ecchi bait.

Othwerwise Death Smiles (both of them really) is a great horizontal shmup.

Edited Tuesday at 10:40 PM by RSG3

AriesWarlock · Tuesday at 10:52 PM

RSG3 · Tuesday at 11:52 PM

Oh thats dope, that game deserves it.

Edited Tuesday at 11:52 PM by RSG3

DoctaMario · Wednesday at 01:56 PM

16 hours ago, AriesWarlock said:

I just saw that this morning. The art style for the characters sucks in that game but I always thought it was fun to play and everything else looked great (in addition to having a great OST as well)

15 hours ago, RSG3 said:

I just wish the girls in Death Smiles wore a bit more. Too young looking for those ourfits for me. Cave was generally pretty good about avoiding just pure exploitation like that, their girls are sexy sure, but they usually stayed away from like...borderline pedophile ecchi bait.

Othwerwise Death Smiles (both of them really) is a great horizontal shmup.

I can't remember how old they're all supposed to be in the game but I think they were all late teens or something except Casper who was 11. The loli thing never really appealed to me so me liking Deathsmiles as much as I do really speaks to how fun the game is, because I was absolutely obsessed with it for a year or so. The scoring system especially for the original and MBL 1.1 are really challenging and well done.