What does everyone think ok this game? I got and can\'t put it down! The soul stealing system works better than the sub-wepons did.

What do I think? I think there\'s already a topic for this.

Seriously, I loves it. I\'d go as far as to say this beats out Circle and Harmony for the title of \"proper follow-up to Symphony.\" At least until the PS2 title, that is. It easily has the best graphics of the three GBA titles, that\'s for sure.

I couldn\'t put it down either. I got it the day it came out and beat it the following weekend. I say if you have a GBA, this is the game you should be playing.

[font=Tahoma] Yeah, but the thing is, it\'s just too short!!!! There\'s no inverted area, except in the final stage after you beat Julius Belmont ( aka J, or the guy whom some of you think so damn much like some of Drac\'s pics ). And don\'t forget to equip yourself with the Succubus, Hell Demon, and Giant Bat souls if you want a good endynge!! And of course Soma becomes partially reposessed with Drac\'s soul after he breats Graham Jones [/font]

Yeah, it was a bit on the short side. Not much shorter than Harmony, but the lack of a second castle really made it feel that way. At least it didn\'t have the \"your buddy is under the control of dark powers\" story like the last three games.

And for whatever stupid reason Hell Demon is Fire Demon in the English version. Probably some stupid quirk in translation. I doubt they\'d feel the need to censor the hell reference considering how religously indefferent the entire series is.

Anyway, I\'m starting to get curious if Doc tried this out yet, and what he thought of it. I know he was interested.

[quote]Originally posted by Packard
[font=Tahoma] Yeah, but the thing is, it\'s just too short!!!! There\'s no inverted area, except in the final stage after you beat Julius Belmont ( aka J, or the guy whom some of you think so damn much like some of Drac\'s pics ). And don\'t forget to equip yourself with the Succubus, Hell Demon, and Giant Bat souls if you want a good endynge!! And of course Soma becomes partially reposessed with Drac\'s soul after he breats Graham Jones [/font] [/quote]
I should kill you for not using the spoiler tags.

Noooo!!!....Why packard? WHY?!

[Edited on 5/24/0303 by Dr.chaos]

[Edited on 5/24/0303 by Dr.chaos]

Dude, if that rubbed you the wrong way, I sure hope you didn\'t see our versions of Mega Man X5 and 6. After Zero\'s display of some more colorful words in X4, the US versions of X5 and 6 were changed to be completely G-rated. The translation sucks hardcore, too. Cap\'s been slacking on that lately. \"Zelo\"? Give me a break.

They said it once and they can say it again. There\'s no reason to have such inconsistency in a game, even if it does get the moms of America mad.

I\'ve got no idea why they censored \"hell\" here and there in AoS and not other places. They left it in all the enemy profiles on the list that use it. And I know there\'s a few words in the dialouge here and there also. People go crazy when they make the US version and do all kinds of stupid stuff to games. You\'d think they\'d be more loose about this kind of stuff since they gave us the game ratings... Anyhow, the game\'s rated T because of \"Animated Blood\" and \"Mild Violence.\" Over here there\'s some dumb idea in people\'s heads that violence is OK until people start bleeding, as if the two didn\'t go together to begin with. MMX4 was still rated E. Figure that one out.

And Dr. Chaos, um, no offense, but I don\'t see why you\'re getting so upset. The story was a lot more simplisitc than you think. After you meet all the characters and hear what they have to say, you\'d probably figure out where it\'s going to go from there. I know I did. Even if you read the character profiles in the manual you\'d get a pretty solid idea of what\'s going on. The game spoils itself.

[Edited on 5·24·03 by KamikazeChicken]

[font=Tahoma] Heh, \"Zelo\"!? Damn, that has got to be too fucked up. Back in the NES era, I sure didn\'t notice any poor translation, despite no usage of any crude words. But still, why the hell would they sell products that have poor translation, regardless of the censorship? But hey, that\'s another good reason the people here have a hard time learning any other Goddamn language. Just browse around to any Japanese language website, and you\'ll notice their translations are utter crap. \"Sorry this website only Japanese written\"
On another note about censorship, if the ESRB or whoever in your area have authority over such censorship, I don\'t think the vg companies shouldn\'t get too much of the blame. But maybe those vg companies don\'t know how to properly tone the violence and language in their games so as not to make them seem \"too crappy\", if you know what I mean. [/font]

I don\'t know the answers to some of that stuff and I\'ve been living with it since it started. The whole censorship/ratings thing is still disgustingly glitchy. And the thing is, the ESRB doesn\'t really have that much of a say in what does and doesn\'t get censored.

From what I know, it works like this: The company makes the game, they go nuts and put what they want into it. Before being released, they have to point out the most questionable content in the game to the ESRB, who then decide what rating gets slapped on the game before it hits the shelves. They\'ve got ratings way up to AO, as in Adults Only. You freaking get carded if you wanna buy those. Technically any company should be able to get away with anything if they don\'t care what rating they get. But sometimes companies\' US half decides the game should be targetd at specific age groups. Let\'s say a game is mostly acceptable, but for some odd reason \"shit\" is thrown in there once or twice. When it comes over here they might decide to axe that since it could mean the difference between an E, T, or even M rating.

Pretty reasonable up to this point, huh? But that\'s about where it ends. After that, what does and doesn\'t get cut really is up to the company, and it all depends on the morals and logic of the the guys woking there. Hence why sometimes stuff that doesn\'t need to be censored gets censored, and other times, things that really shouldn\'t be there slip by.

Like I said, it\'s still pretty glitchy and pretty annoying at times. But that\'s why Cap decided to pull the language for over here. They really wanted to get that E rating, even though with X4 they still got away with it, especially considering those animated scenes with all the blood. I guess they felt bad about that and wanted to make 5 and 6 as squeaky-clean as possible. But seriously, it\'s gotten to the point over here where a majority of the people who still enjoy the 2D Mega Man games are the ones who were with them since the NES days anyway. I\'d certainly hope they can deal with a curse or two.

You know our version of Mega Man Zero had those pretty red flashes that sprayed out of chopped enemeis taken out, and the word \"retired\" was used where they obviously wanted to put \"killed\"? This is why I feel the need to resort to roms sometimes.

[font=Tahoma]Yeah, I heard about those issues about the MMZ game. People were just squealing in anger about it on the boards. But I don\'t think that\'s justified enough to get a ROM [/font]:rolleyes:

A little late...I think the game is awsome!
However im stuck...i have 98.3 on the map...and about 94.2 for the souls...and i cant get throught the door blocked by the black mist.
Can sombody help?

I feel like so ashamed...asking for help...im pathetic.

Talk to Mina back in the beginning. She\'ll say something about books. Possibly you have some of the books... put two and two together, you get your best ending, which involves getting through that door.

And for the map? Get the Peeping Eye soul. That\'ll point out breakable walls to you. The area behind that door counts as a small percentage, too.

Great Game for GBA, and I usually don\'t like GBA games,but this made me look at handheld games a lot differently

That much i already knew...i have all the books, and i have heard all that she has to say. I have all the souls minus the last two and the optional boss one (the one made up of a bunch of little people). I also am missing a few of enems i am yet to see...which confuses me. I understand the books.

Something i cant rember...Manticore
King of Bats...Devil
A butiful nightmare....Curly

Use them in order. Simple. But where? I tryed at the door and i still just get knocked back. My brain hurts...:madgo:
Plese HELP!!!

You might wanna guess again with those souls. Packard mentioned which three it was earlier. Only, in our version it\'s not Hell Demon, it\'s Flame Demon.

(That could be the reason why they changed the name. \"A Demon From Hell\" was the clue. It\'d be far too easy to figure out if the monster were named \"Hell Demon.\")

Sorry. I just figured it out befor I got back. I was messing around with souls that work well and i equiped Succubus, Hell demon, and Giand Bat. I thought it was a glitch that i could shoot fireballs...but out of curiosity i went to fight old gram again. Sure enough the game did not end. I am currently in the Chaotic Zone.
Thanks for all the help though!

P.S.
Those other souls...the ones of monsters I am yet to see? Do i get those soon??

So to continue playing i have to equip those souls and then go fight gram? Alrighty then...

[font=Tahoma] To sum things up for the game, I think it was rather mediocre. The soul feature and the music was great, but the game was a bit too easy. They should have made leveling up much harder, since players would apparently be running around killing enemies just to get their souls. And before you know it, you\'ll be leveled up so much that you\'ll even kill a tough boss with only a shot from your pistol. As I was also disappointed by the lack of gore that I mentioned earlier. Sprites of certain enemies reminded me of those of the ones from CoTM, and the plot of the story wasn\'t as great as I thought, except for the part about Soma being repossessed by Drac\'s powers. They should have added more graphic scenes into the game instead of dialogs ( ie, scene of Hammer at his military base, Yoko Balnades getting pulled over by a cop for driving drunk )[/font]:rolleyes:

Needs to be more gorey. I hate games that have barly anygore... *thinks of the game brute force for Xbox* They sould make it like that! Tons of guns different charaters with different abilates... Hell im getting off topic here! There sould be another path to go..

I\'ve beaten the game and am on \"Hard\" mode. I thought Hublo would\'ve like it, it seemed his skelton minions were in the castle.

!? o.o\' You better not of destroyed them...
Mr.Match:So I did... What are you going to do about it?
Hublo:THIS!!! *Pulls out a giant hammer* May your bones be crushed oh one of them who made the most idiotic choice...
Mr.Match:AYEYAH!:eek: *Runs as Hublo chased him*
Hublo: Die!!


I hate destroying my minions... Ill crush who ever even HURTS one bone! [offtopic] meh... Anyone can have fun anytime lol

I have no qualms with this game...Its just as good as the other vanias...And its a hell of a lot more fun than circle of the moon.(I have to admit naithan graves was alot better than soma.) In my oppinion soma cruz has become the worst castlevania character ever...Igarashi...Tell your artist to stop recoloring his alucard pictures and calling them new characters...Because they are not.
http://www.gamers.com/news/1368742/
By the way i found this interesting interview on gamers.com...
Koji Igarashi talks about the next castlevania...He also states that he does\'nt think there should ever be a lead female character in the series....He does\'nt consider castlevania legends a part of the Castlevania chronology because it has sonia belmont in it...
WTF?:conf:

The artist for Castlevania is not a he. It\'s a she. =P And she does have characters that look alike sometimes. But Nathan wasn\'t drawn by her. The Harmony characters were though.

Alot of the times though, Igarashi (the doofus) tells her what he wants in the lead characters. And, since Konami is recently pulling a Capcom and continously reusing old sprites (I can see why Capcom does it, because the sprites are actually good.), as seen in Aria because Soma\'s sprites are redone Alucard sprites.. Well, maybe Ayami Kojima (the artist) is told to make em look like Alucard. Who knows. =P

*Semi on-topic*
HAHAHA!

What the hell do you get for beating boss rush mode anyway?

From an artistic standpoint...

Yeah, they could\'ve decided on a character who would look a little less like Alucard in the game. That was just stupid. Perhaps they wanted you to make the association between Soma and Alucard considering the story and all, but even then, that\'s a fairly lame excuse.

Backgrounds were very nice. They looked well polished and nicely executed, perhaps closer to the level of Symphony than any of the previous GBA titles. Style, on the other hand, takes a step down. I partially blame this on the futuristic setting. A lot of Castelvania\'s largely gothic designs wouldn\'t well fit in the future. But I\'m certain they could have adapted them to do so, even come up with something new while still shooting for dark and creepy. Even though Harmony was like the test run for this game, and it shows in the gameplay, they certainly didn\'t hold back with creativity. Almost all of their creativity was spent on the previous game. The backgrounds in Harmony may not have looked as nice, but there was certainly more to look at.

From a gameplay standpoint...

I read somewhere that Koji used Harmony mostly to figure out how far they could push the GBA, that Aria is not a poorly-made, pumped-out-in-less-than-a-year nothing game. That\'s true. The gameplay is considerably smoother, and the map is much more balanced. Unlike the previous two titles where the order you had to visit places was pretty much set in stone, this one had a split or two in the path, sort of like Symphony. The save points and warp room placement is far more balanced than either of the last two games. Sadly, as stated above, the game could have been a lot more fun to look at if they\'d given themselves some time to renew their creative juices. But I won\'t hold it against them. They\'re also working hard on the PS2 title which, from what I\'ve seen, is shaping up very nicely.

The multiple-weapons style is back in action again. But where Symphony had multiple weapons that were largely swords anyway, this one actually had lots of other things as well. And for once, the \"sell\" option at the store is actually useful since you can sell anything you\'re carrying.

The soul system is nice, too. You can equip one of each type at once. A bullet soul will replace the standard up+attack subweapons of Castlevania. A guardian soul is activated by using R and usually creates some type of magic spell, summon, or (as the name suggests) guardian. Enchanted souls are status modifiers. Then there\'s the ability souls. As you collect them they activate. These are the ones that control things like double jumping and high-jumping. Another thing that’s nice is how all the souls that are absolutely necessary to beat the game are picked up from places on the map rather than from enemies. That, in my opinion, was the fatal flaw of the magic system in Circle. Having to kill enemies again and again until they dropped what you wanted. Then there was Harmony. Decent idea going for the easy to use and easy to understand thing, but I never used my subweapons again after I got that first book. It just got sort of lame after a while. But the souls with set places in Aria really helped it from resorting to the “soul trade” feature. I was afraid with that they might go as far as use the “gotta catch ‘em all” theme. Luckily it wasn’t like that in the least.

Overall…
Is it a good game? Yes. Is it harder, like they promised? Not really. The standard enemies do more damage, and some other elements were slightly beefed up. This only means that you can’t play half-asleep and actually expect to get somewhere, like in Harmony. At least, not without leveling up first. I guess it is a little harder, but not what I expected. Is it better than the other two? In ways yes, but they’re both good games on their own. Should I get it? If you’re a fan, yes. If you’re not a fan, yes, but it’s almost as though you need to be familiar with the series to appreciate some of the stuff in here. Could it have been better? Yes, I suppose, but it left less to be desired than Circle or Harmony. I\'d give it a thumbs-up.

Yeah, I think they might make another game with Soma in it as the main character. And has any one beaten \"Hard\" mode? I don\'t see what makes it so hard.

That can\'t be right. When you start a new game on that file is says: Normal or Hard. The only thing I see different is new wepons.