Just to get it out of the way, I don't really want to spend time discussing the thread title or how these games are classified. You all know what I mean. I recently revisited the series and wow, we were lucky between 2001 and 2008. In that time our cup runneth over and "Metroidvania" was almost a yearly release.
Circle of the Moon (A launch title for the GBA!)
Harmony of Dissonance
Aria of Sorrow
Dawn of Sorrow
Portrait of Ruin
Order of Ecclesia
Obviously Symphony of the Night is the renowned masterpiece. It laid the groundwork and every game since then has been trying to recapture the magic of that game. Funnily enough, I never beat the game until buying it on XBL Arcade despite owning it for PS1. I played all the others before actually making it through the original. Still, it's my #1 because it's just so memorable. I know the castle inside outside and upside down :P
Aria of Sorrow is a close second and the pinnacle of post-Sympony of the Night Castlevania games. The last game in the Metroid-like series to feature Ayami Kojima's brilliant art-work and the complete package. Where Circle of the Moon let down in the graphics and animation department and where Harmony of Dissonance let down in the music and level design department, Aria of Sorrow pulls in all the slack and delivers the best Castlevania experience this side of Symphony of the Night.
Dawn of Sorrow is a not so-distant third. It might be on par or close to Aria of Sorrow if not for the treadful anime style artwork and shoe-horned in touch controls. Despite the character portraits and cutscene/box art it's still a beautiful game and an A- official "Metroidvania" is still better than most other games in my book.
Circle of the Moon doesn't get a lot of hype nowadays and it's hard to see why. It's by far the best launch title the GBA got and the second best OST behind Symphony of the Night. I was utterly blown away by the choir singing the opening track. The game had a degree of infamy for being very hard to see on the original GBA's non-blacklit screen. I mean, who thought red on black was a good idea for the opening text crawl? I somehow managed to play the shit out of this game and have no regrets for all the strain I put on my eyes. It's the weakest in terms of animation but I still think it looks better than Harmony of Dissonance.
I didn't get very far into Portrait of Ruin. I wasn't feeling it. Maybe I'll get back into it one day.
Order of Ecclesia tries something different with the gameplay but it's not something I altogether enjoy. I'm still playing it on and off here and there but I haven't beaten this game either as it seems notably harder than the others. I also don't like the lack of an interconnected giant world to explore but I do admit the hub-world creates possibilities for more variety.
Harmony of Dissonance is the weakest. You went from having the second best OST to having the worst. Seriously, it's very hard to overstate the drastic downgrade in sound quality we got when we went from Circle of the Moon to this game. It's like going from SNES quality to original Game Boy quality. The animations and graphics saw something of an improvement but I prefer the look of Circle of the Moon even if there are much fewer frames of animation. Everything is just too big and blocky in Harmony of Dissonance. I don't remember much about this game which isn't high praise for a Metroidvania. I do like how you can dash both forwards and backwards. This is something I missed a great deal from other games in the series that don't have this feature.
Circle of the Moon (A launch title for the GBA!)
Harmony of Dissonance
Aria of Sorrow
Dawn of Sorrow
Portrait of Ruin
Order of Ecclesia
Obviously Symphony of the Night is the renowned masterpiece. It laid the groundwork and every game since then has been trying to recapture the magic of that game. Funnily enough, I never beat the game until buying it on XBL Arcade despite owning it for PS1. I played all the others before actually making it through the original. Still, it's my #1 because it's just so memorable. I know the castle inside outside and upside down :P
Aria of Sorrow is a close second and the pinnacle of post-Sympony of the Night Castlevania games. The last game in the Metroid-like series to feature Ayami Kojima's brilliant art-work and the complete package. Where Circle of the Moon let down in the graphics and animation department and where Harmony of Dissonance let down in the music and level design department, Aria of Sorrow pulls in all the slack and delivers the best Castlevania experience this side of Symphony of the Night.
Dawn of Sorrow is a not so-distant third. It might be on par or close to Aria of Sorrow if not for the treadful anime style artwork and shoe-horned in touch controls. Despite the character portraits and cutscene/box art it's still a beautiful game and an A- official "Metroidvania" is still better than most other games in my book.
Circle of the Moon doesn't get a lot of hype nowadays and it's hard to see why. It's by far the best launch title the GBA got and the second best OST behind Symphony of the Night. I was utterly blown away by the choir singing the opening track. The game had a degree of infamy for being very hard to see on the original GBA's non-blacklit screen. I mean, who thought red on black was a good idea for the opening text crawl? I somehow managed to play the shit out of this game and have no regrets for all the strain I put on my eyes. It's the weakest in terms of animation but I still think it looks better than Harmony of Dissonance.
I didn't get very far into Portrait of Ruin. I wasn't feeling it. Maybe I'll get back into it one day.
Order of Ecclesia tries something different with the gameplay but it's not something I altogether enjoy. I'm still playing it on and off here and there but I haven't beaten this game either as it seems notably harder than the others. I also don't like the lack of an interconnected giant world to explore but I do admit the hub-world creates possibilities for more variety.
Harmony of Dissonance is the weakest. You went from having the second best OST to having the worst. Seriously, it's very hard to overstate the drastic downgrade in sound quality we got when we went from Circle of the Moon to this game. It's like going from SNES quality to original Game Boy quality. The animations and graphics saw something of an improvement but I prefer the look of Circle of the Moon even if there are much fewer frames of animation. Everything is just too big and blocky in Harmony of Dissonance. I don't remember much about this game which isn't high praise for a Metroidvania. I do like how you can dash both forwards and backwards. This is something I missed a great deal from other games in the series that don't have this feature.
