Castlevania Anniversary Collection
Konami's Castlevania Anniversary Collection traces the origins of the historic vampire franchise. Included is a unique eBook with details provided by developers, artists and others inspired by the Castlevania legacy which sheds a fresh light into the world of Castlevania. Released as part of the Konami 50th Anniversary celebration, relive these timeless classics that helped define the platformer genre. From the Belmont clan to their extended bloodlines and allies, the Castlevania Anniversary Collection is the best first step for anyone to take into the world of Castlevania and the fight against Dracula! Castlevania Castlevania II Simon's Quest Castlevania III Dracula's Curse Super Castlevania IV Castlevania The Adventure Castlevania II Belmont's Revenge Castlevania Bloodlines Kid Dracula (never released in English before) History of Castlevania – Book of the Crescent Moon
Steam User 510
Bring Symphony of the Night to Steam already!
Steam User 178
Come on, put Symphony of the Night on Steam already.
Steam User 59
Played on: Steam Deck + CryoUtilities (it doesn't need it, OFC)
Finished in: 26 hours
THE GOOD:
+ Castlevania 1, 2, 3, 4, Bloodlines + Kid Dracula + both GameBoy Castlevanias + behind the scenes PDF all in one package!
+ you can choose between playing the original, uncensored Japanese versions (which I recommend) or their US counterparts
+ playing Castlevania 3 with the additional sounds in the soundtrack from the Japanese version is amazing
+ a variety of simple visual filters and choice of aspect ratio/pixel accuracy and colour filters for the GB games
+ you can use save states, but there's only 1 per game, so it's much more challenging to use these, as a new save will overwrite the previous one, you have to think when is the best time to save... or don't save at all just like in the originals!
+ each game has a control scheme screen, which is nice, since they've been released on different platforms
+ all the games run perfectly, or at least, just like their original hardware (so, there is slow down, but that is due to the limitations of said consoles)
+ these are absolutely legendary games, which every Castlevania fan should know and play through at least once in their life, also some of the hardest games of their time
+ the additional PDF is great to read, as it sheds a lot of light on the development of those original titles
+ it's nice to have so many games in this package, and various different ways to play them (since the Japanese versions have difficulty settings)
THE BAD:
- there are no achievements for finishing the Japanese versions, which is sad, since they are the superior ones
- the GameBoy games are a bit too stiff for my tastes, while I enjoyed the other games, I really didn't get into these two
- Kid Dracula is just not for everyone, definitely for hardcore Castlevania fans, who don't mind the Japanese wackiness of "kawaii" takes on famous characters
THE UGLY:
~ in essence, this is just an emulator running these games with an overlay and a launcher program, with very basic options, BUT it works perfectly AND you have these games LEGALLY
YOU'LL LIKE IT IF: You love Castlevania, you love challenging platformers, you love gothic horror, you love retro gaming
Steam User 38
The collection is really good, the games were very fun to play, but i wish they could bring SotN on steam.
Steam User 40
It doesn't even have an exit option. Classic Konami decision making.
Steam User 28
The emulator itself is pretty bare bones. The addition of JP ROMs and the bonus book is a nice addition, the but that doesn't change the fact that:
- There's no configuration for keyboard bindings AND controller buttons (outside of the game)
- There's slowdown on almost all games
- It has only one save state for each game
- Certain sprites start to flicker
- It crashed (once for me)
- They used the ROM of the first Castlevania that crashes (happened to me)
Other than that, it's still playable.
I would rank the games in this order:
Super Castlevania IV
Castlevania Bloodlines
Castlevania III
Castlevania Belmont's Revenge
Castlevania
Kid Dracula
Castlevania The Adventure
Castlevania II Simon's Quest
Super Castlevania IV is a must play. Good controls, stages, bosses, and soundtrack. Gameplay and difficulty is pretty balanced as well, so its a good entry for newcomers too.
Castlevania Bloodlines is also good, however it has slightly worse controls (You can't attack in 8 directions anymore) compared to Castlevania IV, which is weird because this game came out after Castlevania IV. Different playable characters is also cool.
Castlevania III is fun but you will die a lot.
Castlevania Belmont's Revenge was good until the very end, when they decided to crank up the difficulty to 1000.
Castlevania is insanely difficult, I have no idea how people used to beat this without the use of save states. It has some of the hardest bosses in the franchise too.
Kid Dracula was unnecessary, but it's cool that they translated it to English. Other than that, there's nothing special about this game.
Castlevania The Adventure is hard and has some of the worst platforming I've seen. I swear some of those jumps are frame perfect. Pretty forgettable too.
Castlevania II Simon's Quest... This game sucks and is unbeatable without a guide. Its soundtrack goes unbelievably hard though.
Buy the collection only when on sale.
Steam User 11
C'mon Konami I need the DS collection, I need more Castlevania AAAAAAA
pura kinaza