Castlevania Advance Collection

Armenius

Armenius

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This was spotted on the Australian classification website. Possible incoming release of the games from the Gameboy Advance, which includes Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow. The original collection was released on all major platforms, so there should be a PC release unless Nintendo is going to hold this one close to the belt.

https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/castlevania-advance-collection-revealed-via-australian-rating
https://www.classification.gov.au/titles/castlevania-advance-collection

Now official. It is out now on the Switch. I assume it will be added to Steam in the store update tomorrow, but there is currently no page for it.

https://www.konami.com/games/castlevania/advance_collection/us/en-us/

Available now on Steam:

 
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CrimsonKnight13 said:
I'd love this & the Metroid games on PC (straight ports & not emulated).
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Metroid ain't gonna happen and if someone at Nintendo was stupid enough to bring it up internally they should be tared and feathered, shot on site, and then their corpse burned just to be sure. Because they have just advocated "kill Nintendo".

Moving off that. The Advance games are good and I'd save the DS games for another collection but toss in a few others. Rondo of Blood which has been remade a few times but not on PC, and kicked off the sprites and other items for the new games. SOTN for obvious reasons. We are still missing Legends from the GameBoy and maybe DraculaX to round out the old era. The DS games could easily be bundled with the WiiWare games (which are actually really good if you like classic Castlevanias) and the 3ds game. Then there is always the insane arcade game that would work in VR! (speaking of things that will NEVER happen lol).
 
SOAREVERSOR said:
Metroid ain't gonna happen and if someone at Nintendo was stupid enough to bring it up internally they should be tared and feathered, shot on site, and then their corpse burned just to be sure. Because they have just advocated "kill Nintendo".

Moving off that. The Advance games are good and I'd save the DS games for another collection but toss in a few others. Rondo of Blood which has been remade a few times but not on PC, and kicked off the sprites and other items for the new games. SOTN for obvious reasons. We are still missing Legends from the GameBoy and maybe DraculaX to round out the old era. The DS games could easily be bundled with the WiiWare games (which are actually really good if you like classic Castlevanias) and the 3ds game. Then there is always the insane arcade game that would work in VR! (speaking of things that will NEVER happen lol).
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I don't know if we will ever see Legends. Iga has pretty much said that game besmirched the series and struck it from the official canon while he still had a say in things.
 
Armenius said:
I don't know if we will ever see Legends. Iga has pretty much said that game besmirched the series and struck it from the official canon while he still had a say in things.
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The first collection had Haunted Castle and Kid Dracula
 
SOAREVERSOR said:
The first collection had Haunted Castle and Kid Dracula
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Haunted Castle is considered a gaiden title telling the same story as SCV4 in the Castlevania universe and is still considered canon, even though it may not exist in the same continuity. Kid Dracula is a parody spinoff.
 
Armenius said:
Haunted Castle is considered a gaiden title telling the same story as SCV4 in the Castlevania universe and is still considered canon, even though it may not exist in the same continuity. Kid Dracula is a parody spinoff.
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Even then does Iga have anything to do with these collections. He's former Konami, there's a reason he creates Bloodstained now and not Castlevania.
 
A new rating listing has popped up in Taiwan. 4 games are listed, including all 3 GBA releases and Dracula X. The ESRB has added a listing for the US just this morning.

https://www.esrb.org/ratings/37857/Castlevania+Advance+Collection/

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I'll have to get this for my wife. We played the hell out of those DS Castlevania games back when we were traveling a lot more. I don't think any one of them was as good as SOTN, but as a set they are.
 
Domingo said:
I'll have to get this for my wife. We played the hell out of those DS Castlevania games back when we were traveling a lot more. I don't think any one of them was as good as SOTN, but as a set they are.
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They were all unique in their own ways. They all sort of took the formula and did their own thing.
 
I enjoyed the simplicity of Circle of the Moon. The online consensus seems to be that this is the worst of the three, though. My other unpopular opinion is that Aria of Sorrow is not as great as people make it out to be. All three are still fun to play.
 
Castlevania is Konami not Nintendo’s IP. Also, watch the Netflix anime it is freakin’ incredible!
 
Blackstone said:
Castlevania is Konami not Nintendo’s IP. Also, watch the Netflix anime it is freakin’ incredible!
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Don't know what you're getting at. Sony currently has an exclusive license on Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, which is why we have not seen them released on other platforms. Rondo of Blood was also a PC-Engine/Turbografx-16 exclusive, originally.
 
Armenius said:
Don't know what you're getting at. Sony currently has an exclusive license on Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, which is why we have not seen them released on other platforms. Rondo of Blood was also a PC-Engine/Turbografx-16 exclusive, originally.
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This! Also if you want Rondo go get a TG-16 mini which has all sorts of other good stuff.
 
SOAREVERSOR said:
This! Also if you want Rondo go get a TG-16 mini which has all sorts of other good stuff.
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Unfortunately I don't think they're making it anymore. Apparently there was limited availability for it in the US at launch. I'm glad I went ahead and preordered mine.
 
Armenius said:
Don't know what you're getting at. Sony currently has an exclusive license on Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, which is why we have not seen them released on other platforms. Rondo of Blood was also a PC-Engine/Turbografx-16 exclusive, originally.
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Symphony of the Night was released on the Xbox 360 as a digital title and currently works on the Series X.
 
So these are 32 bit games whereas SOTN was a 64 bit game? So a step back graphically from SOTN but did they improve on SOTN at all? I skipped GBA I believe.

I did play the ones for DS. Those were awesome.
 
Blackstone said:
So these are 32 bit games whereas SOTN was a 64 bit game? So a step back graphically from SOTN but did they improve on SOTN at all? I skipped GBA I believe.

I did play the ones for DS. Those were awesome.
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No, both the GBA and PlayStation games are "32-bit." The difference is largely the color. The PlayStation also supported true color (24-bit) color depth while the GBA only supported 15-bit RGB. The resolutions is also lower on GBA: 256x224 on PlayStation and 240x160 on GBA, or 57,344 pixels on PS and 38,400 on GBA.
 
Armenius said:
Different release. It came out 15 years ago.
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Yes, but the point was that it's not a Sony exclusive anymore, if there ever was a contact in the first place. Also, there was an iOS version released last year.
 
SotN is on Android, sadly it doesn't work on Android TV.

Picked up the advance collection on Switch, it's only $20, and an easy way to replay Aria of Sorrow is worth that by itself. Circle of the moon is also fantastic and I guess having Harmony of Dissonance and Dracula X in there is also kinda neat.

The audio in this version is WAY better than the GBA original.
 
Derangel said:
Symphony of the Night was released on the Xbox 360 as a digital title and currently works on the Series X.
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That was before Sony scooped it up and also before Konami imploded. Sony gaining rights doesn't retroactively pull it from platforms that already had it, it just stops it going forward. Besides it's not hard to get SOTN, it's been published more than a few times. The DS and GBA games along with Chronicles however didn't get that. I'd rather get thoese than SOTN again and again.
 
SOAREVERSOR said:
That was before Sony scooped it up and also before Konami imploded. Sony gaining rights doesn't retroactively pull it from platforms that already had it, it just stops it going forward. Besides it's not hard to get SOTN, it's been published more than a few times. The DS and GBA games along with Chronicles however didn't get that. I'd rather get thoese than SOTN again and again.
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Same. It is annoying when a Castlevania retro release comes out and everybody starts complaining about the lack of SotN.
 
SOAREVERSOR said:
That was before Sony scooped it up and also before Konami imploded. Sony gaining rights doesn't retroactively pull it from platforms that already had it, it just stops it going forward. Besides it's not hard to get SOTN, it's been published more than a few times. The DS and GBA games along with Chronicles however didn't get that. I'd rather get thoese than SOTN again and again.
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There was literally a port released on Android and iOS last year.
 
I'm almost done with Circle of the Moon. I forgot how the backtracking gets on my nerves sometimes, especially to get upgrades that you couldn't before. I have been occasionally noticing some odd slowdown. Otherwise plays just like the GBA version. Has no perceptible input lag and feels great with an 8bitdo controller.
 
Armenius said:
I'm almost done with Circle of the Moon. I forgot how the backtracking gets on my nerves sometimes, especially to get upgrades that you couldn't before. I have been occasionally noticing some odd slowdown. Otherwise plays just like the GBA version. Has no perceptible input lag and feels great with an 8bitdo controller.
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There's slowdown in the OG too.
 
Armenius said:
Good to know. Can't say I recall any particular parts of slowdown in the original. Perhaps the larger screen makes it feel more obvious.
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I didn't play Circle of the Moon much, so I can't remember for sure. However, there was a little bit (though not a great deal) in the other GBA ones.

On the MiSTer, many of the cores allow you to overclock the CPU, and apply a pretty nice LCD filter (that actually looks decent for that sort of thing). Might be the best way to play (as mentioned above). I'd need to confirm that the GBA core has CPU speed settings though. (maybe I'll look tonight) Not the most economical way to play it though. :D
 
J3RK said:
I didn't play Circle of the Moon much, so I can't remember for sure. However, there was a little bit (though not a great deal) in the other GBA ones.

On the MiSTer, many of the cores allow you to overclock the CPU, and apply a pretty nice LCD filter (that actually looks decent for that sort of thing). Might be the best way to play (as mentioned above). I'd need to confirm that the GBA core has CPU speed settings though. (maybe I'll look tonight) Not the most economical way to play it though. :D
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MiSTer isn't really portable though which is sort of best for these things. This sort of game is really made for something like the Switch or Steam Deck. I'm also interested in tossing money at these things because that means more get made.
 
Armenius said:
Good to know. Can't say I recall any particular parts of slowdown in the original. Perhaps the larger screen makes it feel more obvious.
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Honestly, going back to a lot of these games kinda woke me up to some of the slowdown that's in them. Like, when you're a kid, you overlook the slowdown in Super Mario World. There's a lot. Especially in the Forest Levels. With CoTM I just know it's there because I replayed the game a few years ago from the actual cart on the Gameboy Player via Gamecube. It's better than some of the stuff that showed up in the earlier GBA emulation but it's definitely there.
 
Yeah, Circle of the Moon definitely had slowdown. Especially on big bosses like the double zombie dragons or if you used one of the full screen summon attacks.

The little "help" that lets you know which monsters drop cards in COTM combined with the instant rewind feature letting you grind SUPER easy makes this version awesome.
Also the Audio is definitely better. I'm playing the Switch Version btw.
 
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