Handhelds Protected Metroidvania | Castlevania Dominus Collection Review

[@Tassio106]

Haunted Castle revisited was such a cool surprise, the updated sound design + animations makes it so satisfying to use the whip

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes it is! That's that M2 extra layer of dedication they bring to their ports that no other company would even be capable of doing at this point. Such a cool bonus.

[@PlasmaSnake369]

​@@TheElectricUnderground the last time there was a new real Castlevania game was M2 too with Rebirth on Wii Ware

[@Gestikulator]

Congratulations on going full time! It's great how you put a game into context before dissecting it.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much Gestikulator!! I'm glad you appreciate my approach to writing and recording the review, because it is important to me to put the game I review into a larger context of game design, so I'm always happy to hear when that is appreciated :-)

[@stevenjohnson8736]

I just love watching your video while I’m in the bathroom taking a DIARRHEA SHIT 😃

[@n2oshotandironman]

5:40 Wow I've never heard this explained this well. This is exactly why I liked handheld refinements of older series.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thanks! it s really cool to find examples like these later castlevania games to show contrast against a lot of modern games in the same genre that are coming out.

[@n2oshotandironman]

@@TheElectricUnderground I would go as far as to say that the difference between the Wii and 360/PS3 led to a similat phenomenon. With some Wii "versions" being arcade adaptations (light gun games instead of open world shooters, arcade racers instead of open world driving). I think this theory is supported by the Wii and PSP sharing many versions during that gen.

[@wowwar2]

I really wish there was so much more of a discussion about this about how handheld game design is so fundamentally different from console game design

[@kettlebro]

That damn forest weapon swapping was Vagrant Story PTSD flashback session even back in the day 😅 Both still live rent free in my head.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Ha I bet! Yes the forest is such a fantastic section of the game on hard lvl 1 mode. I'll have to try vagrant story at some point because it sounds like it has some interesting and unique combat mechanics.

[@kettlebro]

@@TheElectricUnderground It's one of my favorite games ever but I think you will hate it. You spend over half of your time in menus or on active pause.

[@franciscor390]

​@@TheElectricUndergroundWarning it is punishing, but satisfactory. But it takes some to get there.

[@weakboson7813]

great video. the DS trio and Order of Ecclessia in particular are huge favorites of mine, I'm so happy this collection is bringing them back into the light. One thing I'd like to add with hard mode is that it is also selectable as a NG+ mode, and you can also play LVL 1 mode on normal mode. This means there's a lot of combinations of difficulty for the player to try and get comfortable with. For example, you can take your end game character with maxed out equipment and start a new save keeping all that while stripping away all the levels you gained grinding. you can try hard mode from fresh to get an experience more like your first run of normal mode. all of this leads up to the hard mode level 1 cap on a fresh save which is an engaging challenge throughout - though by far the most difficult part is the initial Ruvas forest gauntlet. it's interesting because you can really feel the difficulty crater in exact accordance with which OP abilities you gain (the laser beam weapon is the most op one iirc) - but the game is able to negate certain abilities in its level design thanks to the attribute system, so there are still twists and turns. At least when the difficulty ebbs it feels more earned in a set up like this since your progression is still just down to player skill in the end. It's a shame it ended with OoE (we don't talk about the 3DS castlevania) but it feels like a crown jewel at least. I'd be interested if there are any other metroidvanias out there that took after the lessons of these games. Maybe some of the 2D souls-likes have enough combat focus idk.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thanks Boson! I think it s cool how much variety there is in ecclesia while still being focused as well. Balance wise it can get busted by certain glyphs and stuff, but I do think the game was on the right track in trying to add more limitations on the RPG mechanics and adding in more modes. it's such a huge bummer Iga wasn't able to stay in charge during the 3ds era of the series, because he was taking the series in a great direction by the end

[@jasonngo1966]

The full time career.........has begun.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

It has!! Let it be known far and wide! I'm gonna do a little update video here pretty soon and then we're going deep into the full time video making trenches.

[@verygoodfreelancer]

good luck friend!!!! this is a great channel and ur crits r unique!!!

[@stevenjohnson8736]

u mean my full time FART has begun 😃

[@GRNDZA108]

Your feature wishlist is basically all the stuff Iga did for the Bloodstained dlc :). Makes me appreciate that franchise that much more now.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh that's really interesting! Yeah it's cool to think that iga was really thinking about this stuff by the end of his time at Konami, it s a real shame he and his team couldn't continue and work on the 3DS or something

[@ffmpregffmpreg]

I agree a lot with your observation about how Metroidvanias make you feel like a god once you figure out the OP mechanics, it's why I struggle to replay these games 'cuz once you know your way around the environment, you really are just navigating the world with the occasional obstacle.

[@blumiu2426]

Or you can challenge yourself by handicaps. I believe part of the point in the variety is to use that variety.

[@boghogSTG]

​@@blumiu2426 Then they should have made it useful instead of throwing in random poorly thought out crap & putting the burden of balance on the players. Variety which isn't given a purpose is just filler, fluff.

[@blumiu2426]

@@boghogSTG Strange, I haven't seen people that do challenge runs and speedruns encounter these poor balances you speak of. I've never encountered them myself when I go through with another weapon or accessory to switch things up. I don't always expect things to be perfectly balanced, but then again, I don't complain much unless something is clearly broken. It reminds me of when me and brother when around 12 or so learned how many people were complaining about the junction system in FFVIII when he had figured it out himself, realized it could be exploited and didn't. He first because he had it bought for him. If a child can figure something out, I'm sure other people can has been how I approach these things.

[@boghogSTG]

@@blumiu2426 I dunno which speedruns/challenge runs you're watching, certainly not the ones where they nuke bosses with Dominus, abuse AI loops, like 8 shot Dracula within seconds using the Death Ring, buffs & Nitesco glyph union, etc. Nor the ones where they abuse knife co-op attacks in Portrait of Ruin, or the ones where they skip past every enemy in SOTN, a clip of which was shown in the vid itself! Or steamroll even bosses explicitly designed to be hard (devs said so in interviews) like Galamoth like it's nothing. Not that it'd even matter - speedruns are self imposed challenges not built into the game, it's once again devs just throwing shit in without thinking and hoping players will balance it. At that point, what does a poorly balanced mechanic even look like? Or a poorly balanced game? "Just don't use it" or its cousin "use it despite it being shit" is an excuse that can be applied to everything Not noticing is one thing, but you can't wilfully ignore this stuff and give games a pass - devs will never balance or improve.

[@blumiu2426]

@@boghogSTG And you obfuscate the clear fact these people have played these games dozens of times to get to the point of mastery. Why else are they uploading challenge runs and speedruns unless they had honed their play. You can figure out an exploit, but you still need to be good enough to execute. I find it amazing people think devs will think of everything a player might, have that time and luxury (when we are talking about Konami famously pushing out most their games, especially Castlevania). When adding new mechanics to a game I also don't think they will find every issue with it and something it may not pan out. Let's also be clear there are two types of gamers: those that focus on the gameplay mechanics, loops and those that try and take in the overall experience; most game series survived because of the initial gameplay was fun enough to keep them 2) Aesthetics grabbed them and noted by other devs to imitate or adopt and 3) People stuck around arcades enough to find ways to play the game differently or overcome it's difficulty. The first challenge and spreed-runners were at arcades and no matter the flaws of a design or cheating from CPU, they found a way to make it fun and we still do it today. Some have become so anal retentive about it they lose sight of the overall experience. Maybe I just complain less than some, but again, if a game isn't clearly busted, I'll work around it. It won't be my favorite, but I'm not going to compare it to the last game in particular because it's trying to do something new with a different system. If they do the same thing and screw up, fair points can be made against it. A game so poorly balanced the game is broken speaks for itself, but not if it was a known aspect of the game and the player is given that freedom to choose. People will complain if they are intentionally and unintentionally given the freedom to do something because a given mechanic is able to be exploited. The irony is depending on the game and bias, it's either a negative or positive. It usually hinges on whether the dev wanted it or realize it. It all comes down to how much time a project has to work on and work out every kink and players commonly ignore this. Playtesters may not find everything out someone with more time and no direction will at home. Fighting games are famous for balancing issues and we know those that just don't balance right from those that have so many characters you give leeway or development time didn't allow refining every bit. The proof would be if that team keeps making the same mistake or if a result of doing something new. Every case is different and gamers that go into game dev have a clearer understanding of this than (admittedly many) entitled gamers. Those that can critique a game as a gamer fairly are few and far between.

[@Mingodough]

Can’t wait for the monthly metroidvania review!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Ha, I wouldn't count on monthly metroidvania, I think this collection is more of a special exception because of the reasons I outline in the review. But playing this much metroidvania was certainly a good warm up for when I start covering souls more extensively here pretty soon, beginning with demon souls.

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

I had no idea that these even had ports. By M2 too, so, actually worth considering and not immediately questionable like most collections. I've noticed the things that you mention about handhelds extending the life of classic gaming. It's the reason why I was really into the GBA and the DS in the 2000s. I think the lack of this limitations probably hurt the PSP and the Vita, as well, because being able to do 3D well made them more like lesser consoles than a separate niche.

[@globalistgamer6418]

This port collection just came out about two weeks ago.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah M2 are the reason I looked at this release to begin with ha. I actually bought it and started playing it for the haunted castle revisited bonus game (I love classicvania), but then ended up really enjoying and appreciating the DS games that are the focus of the collection, especially Ecclesia, but Portrait of Ruin was really interesting as well, Charlotte is borderline a Touhou character in the way she plays ha.

[@newtypepunk9967]

The live chat ended but like I said you've convinced me to give this a go. I hope the full time stuff goes well for you.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

That's awesome!! And thanks for tuning in for the premier, those are really fun. Yeah between Ecclesia and Haunted Castle Revisited, you're gonna have a fun time. And then if your really vibing, Portrait of Ruin has a lot of cool stuff too.

[@mistermamamia]

Congrats on going full time! Super happy to be a supporter and helping out, love the channel and all the insight I get out of it. I was very skeptical about this collection because I felt like I really did not care for this style of castlevania, but here I am, pleasantly surprised! Will definitely check it out.

[@thirteenthirtyseven4730]

When I saw there was a DS Castlevania collection review on this channel, I was puzzled: “A game where RPG elements allow to offset difficulty by grinding on EU?”. Then I saw it was essentially about lvl1 hard mode. Continue please!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah as I continue to interact with various game genres, like Metroidvania and souls here pretty soon or pretty much any game these days ha, I'm going to be spending a lot of time probably parsing through these types of RPG systems and trying to explain why limiting them is a good idea ha, and how they can cause all kinds of problems with the natural game balance

[@Ageleszly]

34:00 I don't understand the argument of savestates not lowering the difficulty and I think it kinda contradicts with other statements you made about arcade gamedesign in the past. In these games if you change screens, enemies respawn. so if you backtrack to the save room, not only you have to face all the previous enemies again on the way back, you also have to take the same route you've come from again, if you wanna proceed, so the save approach comes with a detriment, you save your character progress, but you didn't progress in the level. This is especially more prevalent in Hard Mode Level 1, where you don't get EXP to become stronger. So all you do is taking out all the tension, that creates an Risk vs. Reward feeling, because you don't know when the next Savepoint might appear, you make deliberate decisions, taking a risk, maybe, you won't find an savepoint, but an Max HP+ Potion first, this feels rewarding as you pushed on despite the risk of losing your level AND character progress. These Castlevania games are not only about moment to moment difficulty, they are also about ressource-management and long-term survival in more or less labyrinthine complexes. If you simply exploit savestates to not backtrack, you take all that risk out of the games, at that point you no longer proof consistency of skill. If enemies wouldn't respawn. I could see your point, but since that isn't the case, using savestates is basically just cheating the game, because backtracking to save and heal up has meaning and consequences.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I think your confusing learning the game with playing a run through the game, which probably is easy to do since the concept of doing a full run (or playing more than once) through a Metroidvania is not even recognized by the genre. What I'm talking about is when you first start playing the game, you use save states to break up and practice the sections just like you do in arcade games. Then, once you have learned the game you go back through it again as a full run, just like you would do in an arcade game. Like with all the boss medals, I got those in one uninterrupted fight, but used save states when I first played the game to optimize my practice time. What s ironic about Metroidvania though is that the concept of full runs only really exists in speedrunning since they lack traditional level design and pace. So think of what I'm saying in the context of learning to speedrun the game, you would use savestates to practice the sections right, and then you d do a full run without them. Here's my full SM Project Base run for example: kzbin.infoiuusf13Cu0c?feature=share

[@florida_sucks]

he's not talking about using savestates to just play through the game, it's about practicing bosses and sections, which doesn't contradict anything he's said in the past

[@jamespaguip5913]

@@TheElectricUnderground gaming isn’t dead there is a lot good indie games and double AA that are doing a lot better than triple AAA games maybe you should try out more indie games and double AA games.

[@chasepalumbo2929]

You have written paragraphs of rambling text based on a misunderstanding, congratulations

[@florida_sucks]

@@jamespaguip5913 do you not know anything about his channel? he does play/review those games lol

[@BknMoonStudios]

I saw "Lvl. 1 Hard Mode" in the thumbnail and immediately had to give a like. Ecclesia NG Lvl.1 Hard Mode is THE BEST way to play the game, and one of the best Castlevania playthroughs in the franchise. It bumped Topor from "Useless Weapon LMAO" to "Absolute MVP of the Run".

[@HeroC14]

Is it accessible right away or do you need a playthrough first?

[@BknMoonStudios]

​@@HeroC14 Unfortunately you do need to finish a Normal playthrough first before you unlock Lvl. 1 and Hard Mode. If you are emulating the game, it is worthwhile to download a full clear save file. All that said, the game is still very fun in Normal, specially if you go in blind. Best of luck! 👍

[@dmas7749]

for masochists

[@unknownuser494]

Status effects are king in both POR and OOE hard mode.

[@zebug4762]

I never actually did figure out what Torpor was good for, even though I cleared Lv 1 NG way back on the DS. Where did you find it useful?

[@kevinf2757]

Thanks for this vid! I've been playing these games (mostly Ecclessia) every other year since they came out. OoE always had the most haters because it was more balanced and difficult than SOTN. I thought moving into a straight up side scrolling action-rpg was a great refinement. I've noticed a lot of players refuse to accept the rules in action-rpgs and think that the games should be balanced to accomodate their personal "builds" or preferencial weapon. They just ignore the rules and try to force their way through SOTN style and refuse to learn and adapt. They then blame their frustration on bad game design and Iga. The same kind of attitude is really prevalent in the Elden Ring community especially with the expansion. I always felt bad for Iga. He made some cool CV games that I've gone back to many times but it always seemed like he was bullied right out the franchise. I remember there was an asinine movement in the gaming community and from the shitty business elements of Konami to have the West take over development of Castlevania. It's a damn shame when I think back.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

You get it Kevin and yes especially when OoE came out, that was the pre-dark souls era in terms of western players and journalists, and so if any game at that time was challenging or had any kind of difficulty barrier to learn, it would get hammered relentlessly. If you go back and read reviews from this time, they openly complain about difficult games being too hard and so forth ha. And yeah as I understand poor Iga got pushed out because catering to the western player base became the number one goal, which is a huge shame.

[@alescano3504]

Igarashi made a lot for the franchise but the series was in a kind of downfall since CV64 flopped for the wrong reasons. I really love the GBA/DS games (except HoD), but they never met expectations in terms of sales, had a lot of cut corners as a result and Konami decided to shut them down and kill the franchise. If CV64 had succeed, we would be in a different place now. It is an outstanding game, for me one of the best in the series, and it was trashed just because it wasn't SotN. Mark, if you read this, I strongly urge you to play CV64 (the updated/remixed version that is LoD is not as good in my opinion). It is a phenomenal game that really stood the test of time and it is the antithesis of what SotN does in terms of gameplay and progression

[@hooksnfangs6006]

Konami knows the best DS Igavania is OoE which is why the collection is named after the powerful glyph and the poster girl is the best girl, Shanoa! I love that OoE manages to be a Metroidvania but still have some Classicvania flare. It's brutal and it makes sure you better know how to use your glyphs and manage your hearts.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes I think that OoE was really onto to something with merging together the two eras of the series in a cool way. It's such a shame we didn't get any more Igavania because I think he would have done something really cool if he remained working on the series. I know he did release Bloodstained years later (I'll have to try that at some point), but I think if he could have remained with the team he had and they continued to work on the 3DS, that had the potential for a lot of really cool games.

[@hooksnfangs6006]

​@@TheElectricUnderground totally agree which was why I was sort of bummed that Bloodstained returned to full on SoTN style with all those issues. But that's where the money's at with Metroidvanias🤷‍♂. Still enjoyed it for what it was.

[@ham-n-jam]

Nice vid man - I feel like you'd quite like Touhou Luna Nights, and Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth from Team Ladybug. They're both action heavy and pretty much stage based, with very minimal/optional backtracking. Deedlit also includes an active minimap, it's a pretty nice addition. And man the boss fights are so much fun, especially if you're going into them underlevelled

[@florida_sucks]

@@ham-n-jam i was just about to suggest luna nights 😎

[@ham-n-jam]

@@florida_sucks hell yea 😎 i'm currently tossing up between trying one of their other games or just replaying luna nights again lol, timestop mechanic is so sick

[@daserfomalhaut9809]

Classic mode in BloodStained answers your wish for...well a classic mode in a search action game. It's literally the original style of Castlevania down to more limited movement and attacks. I also really think you should look at the Mega Man ZX games.

[@blumiu2426]

And they have enraged so many lol! The most recent Classic mode with Dominic seems to truly have triggered people. They are great modes to challenge yourself, but Curse of the Moon are my favorite Classicvania takes.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

That sounds awesome! It makes sense Bloodstained would have a mode like this, as you can see Iga and the OoE team def trending very close to it with the practice mode and other extra challenges. And yeah I def want to cover the ZX games because I really enjoyed the Zero Mega Man games on GBA growing up, but I missed out on the ZX stuff so it would be cool to see how it developed.

[@daserfomalhaut9809]

@@TheElectricUnderground ZX's map design is a bit wonky. Like the literal map for navigation. But the game's areas are legit Mega Man levels with challenging bosses. ZX 1 also rewards you similarly to Ecclesia for skillful boss clears. I think you'd appreciate them.

[@Omn1c1d3]

grats on making it on YT. Good luck! Love the content.

[@boghogSTG]

It's funny that when stripped of all the RPG stuff, the natural mechanics of the game very heavily incentivize running away/skipping enemies. Lvl 1 hard mode exposes this as a weakness of how the combat/levels are structured - there are only a small handful of rooms where combat is safer or necessary, for the most part you just want to rush past everything because that's what the game's design logic dictates. These games NEED respawning flying enemies or something similar as a fundamental element of design - as soon as rooms add a flying enemy like those eyeball guys they instantly become more engaging IMO, even though you can still skip them for the most part. Ruvas Forest truly is the peak. Really the main thing is that these games are at their best when they're at their most limited, and least metroidvania-like. It's fun revisiting these games over a decade since I last seriously played them cause yeah, basically every element that defined them is something I dislike now from the "exploration" (I don't want to even call it that, it's map painting) to the randomized weapon/item drops to the overpowered builds. But then when the games minimize or ditch that stuff, they're actually pretty damn awesome.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes this is the eternal struggle of metroidvania level design, since it naturally incentives you to skip encounters since there is no scoring, it's open navigation, and the rooms reset when you leave them. My fav parts of Ecclesia are when it beats you down with respawning enemies and enemies that refuse to let you run past them, like in the forest ha. Also this is why the focus on boss fights is nice, since you get locked in the rooms with the bosses. I do think Ecclesia has plenty it could improve on, especially with the glyph balance in the end, but I do appreciate the direction it was trending in, especially because of how compact its map design is and how quickly it is paced. It still has that make your own game element that all metroidvanias naturally have, but at least you can make an interesting game if you are inclined to ha, the pieces are there.

[@radio100jogosdeemacs2]

Ins't the incentive of beating enemies exactly running away though? Hence why there is a hard mode we're you can level up

[@boghogSTG]

@@radio100jogosdeemacs2 Gonna have to rephrase this one cuz I don't know what you're asking LOL. I guess you mean that leveling up is meant to be the incentive for beating up enemies? Yea it is. I just think it's useful to ignore the artificial stats layer and focus on the natural mechanics of the combat, cause it's a more pure representation of what the combat's all about

[@daysvevo5919]

Your voice over cadence Is perfect. Great start to your the full time KZbin career

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much my dude!! ❤️

[@G-Self]

The Metroidvania genre used to have a proper name: Action/Adventure. "Metroidvania" itself only really made sense within the context of the Castlevania fandom, to distinguish the classic arcade-style Vanias from the (at the time) upstart Symphony-style games. For some reason, it became vogue to call all Metroid-style games Metroidvania about a decade ago, which I'm not a fan of. Action/Adventure was a more precise designation, and it allowed the genre to encompass games like Zelda, which is cut from the same cloth as Metroid but is arbitrarily denied the Metroidvania label. It's not as bad as the abuse of the "roguelike" label, but it's still a pet peeve for me. Funny you should talk about handheld design, because it seems the future of gaming hardware is trending toward a convergence of console/portable hardware. I think the industry is suffering from the blurring of these lines. Portables had the valuable role of being a dependable place to release low-budget and profitable games. I think Nintendo screwed the industry over when they positioned Switch as a console. That was great for Nintendo because they could justify hiking their software prices from $40 to $60, but it also muddled the market. What's a $60 or $40 game any more? It used to be that if a game was on a portable console, it had the standard $40 price. Now companies are losing sales trying to chase that $60 for AA software, because that's what Nintendo does. It's a real mess.

[@nolly_nd]

This. 100% agree on that "Metroidvania label". To me, describing any "new" game with this actually undermines what it actually is and the ideas that bring to the table, which may or may not be something new or even good; but what if the said game was never meant ot be a Metroid nor a Castlevania to begin with. But at least is not the "souls-like" label.

[@patrickholt8782]

I’m right there with ya! In Japanese game circles, the “metroidvania” style is called search-action. Because ya know, you search and get into action.

[@neidron2066]

No? Action-Adventure even back at the time was quite possibly the broadest and vaguest genre in the industry. Its initial intention was more distinct to games like the original Zelda or Metroid, yes, but the broad criteria quickly mutated into an all-encompassing umbrella term describing essentially anything and everything that doesn't immediately fit into a more distinct category. The games that became metroidvania/search-action do technically fall under that umbrella (along with most of the industry), and might fit closer to the original intention of the term than others, but the subgenre is such a small sliver of the action-adventure behemoth that the label becomes useless as a distinction.

[@G-Self]

@@neidron2066 It's not vague at all. Action/Adventure means an action game with the structure of an adventure game. How is it any less vague than "action" or "adventure" by itself?

[@321cheeseman]

@@G-Self No, it's definitely *_extremely_* vague as it's used now. Stuff as widely varied as The Legend of Zelda, Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid, etc. completely fit the bill.

[@rafresendenrafresenden.1644]

Backtraking is essential for metroidvania is literally one of the biggest reasons metroidvania exist, oh! the map should be in your head from memory so you dont need to pause.

[@elsuperfish]

First off, congrats on going full-time, Mark! Personally I'm on the fence about your praise of Ecclesia's level select screen. Every metroid-style Castlevania all the way from SotN has had teleports which connected to each other, and in practice this played out the same as a level select. I think your underplaying of those teleports in previous games is more than a bit unfair.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much my dude! I did replay SOTN for this review and even though the teleport system of that game helps, it's really under developed because even with the teleporting, there is still plenty of needless backtracking going on to get back to the teleport room. And if you notice with big interconnected maps, there are always a lot of rooms that are just empty joiners in-between areas that don't really do anything, even super metroid has plenty of these. What Ecclesia's system does is remove a lot of these joining sections and replaces them with the overworld map, which is conceptually achieving the same function but in a much more efficient fashion. Because think of it like this, imagine all of Ecclesia is one interconnected level right, and you need to transition the player from a ocean area to a mountain. It would feel odd if the room went from ocean right into mountain, just visually. So what these games always do is add in these filler sections that thematically justify changing from ocean to mountain, but don't often have any meaningful gameplay. But by using the map overworld, you can transition from an ocean to a mountain just passing through that single screen and it makes complete sense.

[@elsuperfish]

​@@TheElectricUndergroundOh, I'm pretty sure those transition rooms exist in to hide the loading screen going from area to area. Teleporting requires loading up the new area, there's not much the devs could've done about that, BUT, that whole practice of disguising loading screens with in-game loading rooms is undeniably horrible. It makes it so your game doesn't get better load times with better hardware, and now the player just has to walk through empty rooms forever. These kinds of loading rooms were probably kind of neat in 1997, but they irreparably hurt a game's longevity.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Absolutely ha. They really should have removed them when they brought the game to PS4 and stuff. I wonder if M2 would have ha​@@elsuperfish

[@zebug4762]

I do agree that Ecclesia refined the series' formula a great deal since SotN and I loved Ecclesia for that. Barlowe on Lv 1 is cathartic once you figure out his patterns and the way to deal with them. That being said, I felt you were a little over-critical of SotN. Your criticisms of it are completely valid, but you have to remember that it was literally the first 'vania to ever adopt an exploration system (shhh, Castlevania 2 doesn't exist). The fact that it's still quite highly regarded despite being over 25 years old means they have a good system there to keep people engaged, it just has some rough spots that are far outweighed by its 'juice'. Last bit of comment: Another game that did something similar before Ecclesia was Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, another game that I loved to death. It had a Lv 1 option that turned absolute jokes of fights into tense encounters, and traversal through enemy-infested areas now required some strategy; you were forced to study your inventory for tools suited to the situation.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah I def have a lot of respect for SOTN and I think it did a great job setting the template in a lot of ways (especially its insanely good visuals). I ended up being as critical as I was, not because I don't respect the game, but because I think it s important to point out where it could be improved because it seems to be a given that it is flawless and better than the later games among general audiences. Especially because it is strategically made to appeal to general audiences ha, vs the later DS games where they were thinking more about veteran players at the end, which ends up contrasting with SOTN in a favorable light (at least in terms of my taste).

[@zebug4762]

Fair enough, I'm actually hoping that Ecclesia, or even the DS Vanias in general go up in ranking lists now that they're free from the shackles of the DS. While I have had incredible memories of SotN, and it'll always have a special place because of that, I don't think SotN ever replicated the incredible light bulb moments or the 'A-HA' feeling I got from piecing together strategies to tackle Ecclesia bosses on Lv 1 and/or hitless. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'd like to point to KH2FM again, that it's likely Iga and his team took a leaf out of its book when designing Ecclesia. Bosses there were designed to be taken down hitless as well, as taking a hit on Lv 1 there is almost guaranteed to kill you.

[@Stroggoii]

Sadly, IGA didn't have to make do with a shoestring budget until he broke because they were consciously planning compact games for the portable market. But because Kojima hogged all the budget at Konami.

[@chozochiefxiii3298]

Ah, level 1 kh2 critical mode. One challenge in one of my favorite games that I need to scratch off my list. I'm excited to pick up the castlevania dominus collection so I can finally play order of eclesia. It's the game in the series I've heard the most about and has me most interested besides rondo of blood.

[@zebug4762]

Good luck with Lv 1 Ecclesia! Much like KH2FM, Lv 1 feels like a huge hurdle at the beginning because you just lack options. Once you get some mobility and tools to give you those options, it becomes much more free-form and enjoyable since it feels less constrictive.

[@DoubleAAmazin]

Metroidvania's gameplay for me is addictive, I gotta get 100% immediately. I just want to keep grinding, and grinding is so satisfying and doesn't feel too overly laborious like JRPGs. I could play Circle of the Moon for hours just for the music alone, it's a perfect masterpiece.

[@samael2112]

To me, the automap is the key feature of those games. I played Simon's Quest, Metroid, and similar games as a kid. I was used to make make maps for games. When I played Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night, what I really enjoyed was the automap feature. It was a relief that I could explore without having to be drawing maps. It let me immerse myself in the exploration and the adventure. It was really cool in Super Metroid because the automap was part of your character's tech. First-person dungeon crawlers with automapping have a similar appeal, even though they have different game mechanics.

[@hngdman]

PoR LVL 1 mode was also really good, though you can cheese the last 30% or so of the game with the Ancient Armor.

[@kuma-wamu]

I was never that keen on the look of the DS Castlevania games, but you’ve made Ecclesia sound interesting, so I will give it a go

[@SolidSnake240]

They're more tolerable on the console ports.

[@salsamancer]

You nailed it with the DS platform allowing publishers to make smaller scale games with expert and experienced developers. I miss games like that. Indie games are just not the same, for the most part they really lack the intricate design and the extra polish that we got with games like Dawn of Sorrow and Ghost Trick

[@gespensttype-r68]

It's funny to think of the Metroidvania format as being a broad appeal genre, since Metroid itself isn't that popular at all when set next to its Nintendo fellows. I'd go as far to say that Castlevania was the more popular of the two for a long time. Dread did well, but it's still a niche series all things considered. It reminds me of the time when this style of game practically ceased to exist before Indies picked it up and ran with it, which I think is where the mass appeal vibe started. edit: Thinking about it again, it seems that even among the group of game inspired by Metroid, the game's ideas and play styles are getting supplanted by Dark Souls. It's been a while since I dug in to the Metroidvania Indie Sphere, but I still have the impression that many of the most popular examples of the genre are more like Castlevania and Dark Souls, with a heavier focus on (melee) action than movement.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

One thing that is important to remember about my channel, in case you haven't seen the other games I cover, is that I talk a lot about arcade games and more niche genres associated with arcade stuff, so by that scale, the Metroid and Castlevania series are MASSIVE in terms of sales and popularity ha. Of course everything is relative where there are gonna be other genres much bigger than Metroidvania, but in the sphere of the types of games that I play, mostly arcade-influenced action games, usually what happens is that these games tend to lean into the metroidvania format for more commercial appeal but in that process often loose aspects of their core design. I think a metroidvania-style metal slug type of game was made recently ha. And on the point about Dark Souls, yes I think Souls picked up on where Castlevania left off and translated a lot of its ideas and concepts into 3D, and it worked extremely well. Ecclesia even has a stamina system like souls ha. There are a lot of direct influences you can see castlevania must have had on souls. Konami just could not beat Fromsoft to the punch in terms of developing this style into 3D properly.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

Ok I guess this is the first video of the full time youtuber Mark. I hope you never submit to sponsor's standard.

[@zy2239]

We have to support him then because words won’t feed neither him nor his children… I wouldn’t mind if he ever receives a 5K fat check from a weird gaming ad for Raid shadow legends or a puzzle dragon clone type shi… let’s make sure that this endeavor of Mark is successful and not limit his opportunities of success ❤

[@deadeyedun]

I'm not 100% sure I understand your comment, but I don't think Mark will ever sell out if that's what you mean; I think it's fair to do reviews on more popular games every now and again, and this particular analysis is not typical by any means.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

​@@zy2239 patreon bribery can give him money but I dont want people those bribe forcing him to play Dota 2 or Call of Duty.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

​@@deadeyedunyeah "sellout" is the right term I am looking for. I also dont mind popular games to show in this channel

[@ZorroVulpes]

@@zy2239 so you don't watch him for game recommendations? if you can't take him at his word when it comes to his opinion, how can you take any of his reviews seriously? please unrot your brain

[@DIOBrando-ij2bp]

The thing to remember about the term Metroidvania is, despite the name Metroid being in there, the Metroid games themselves are not actually Metroidvanias. The term was specifically created to describe the recent turn the Castlevania series had taken, with the new at the time GBA games being made in the mold of Symphony of the Night... they had the Adventure game interconnected maps of a Metroid, hence Metroid being part of the genre name, but they also had an RPG aspect to them with the leveling system. Metroid games on the other hand doing have the RPG element, and are just normal Adventure games; they’re side scrolling platformer adventure games, but they’re adventure games all the same. So Metroidvania originally meant a specific type of Castlevania game that was like Symphony of the Night. Then other side scrolling action platformers that weren’t Castlevania started showing up that had interconnected adventure game levels and some form of leveling system, and those were getting advertised as Metroidvanias. Then action platformer adventure games like Metroid started retroactively getting branded Metroidvania because of the name. And then things got to a weird place where people started called regular action adventure games that had not platforming element Metroidvania because being adventure games they had interconnected adventure game level design.

[@diydylana3151]

@DIOBrando-ij2bp omg that last part always frustrates me so much. Theyre action adventure game elements folk not metroidvania elements! But yes you make s totally valid point. This tracks to my memories you joggled up yet I kinda forgot. I nowadays say igavania vs classicvania when it used to be metroidvania vs classicvania.

[@masternorg]

Its funny that Jeremy Parish who coined the term Metroidvania didn't mean to use it as genre-defining and now grapples with these inaccuracies too

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah that makes a lot of sense, because there needs to be a term you use to distinguish classicvania from the post-symphony games, so the term "metroidvania" would make a lot of sense, especially since Symphony ends up playing a lot like super metroid once you get all the transformations. But yes, like you say, at some point that got all mixed together where metroid games are now directly related to castlevania and vise-versa ha. You can always count on poor game critique over the years to create a jumbled mess.

[@diydylana3151]

@@masternorg I did not know jeremy coined it :o

[@fdevlin5932]

Only Castlevania titles can rightly be called metroidvanias. Most of the rest are simply Metroid-likes.

[@thetengulair]

The NDS Castlevania games borrowed many game design elements from the two Konami Shaman King: Master of Spirits GBA metroidvanias (2003/2004, built in the Castlevania GBA engine), including pacing & fighting design choices. They're the missing link between the GBA & NDS games.

[@michaelharrington5860]

This channel is about to explode

[@TheElectricUnderground]

That would be pretty cool :-)

[@darkadoniiis]

Loving your videos as always ! You are extremely good at explaining level design concept and choices made by the developers, and your opinion about it. It's always refreshing, relevant and well explained ! Looking forward seeing you thrive full time here !!!

[@ShinobiShaw]

My favorite metrovania is Castlevania SotN and Rondo of Blood, lately Prince of Persia (2004) has been pretty awesome to play, will definitely check this collection

[@PauloCesar-oz6dy]

I love your channel. It really shows and values the art aspect of games.

[@auellaitaela8035]

If you're diving into metroidvanias, please do Rabi Ribi (on its hardest difficulty (imo the true one and def closest to an arcade enthusiast would enjoy) unlocked via the title screen if you don't want to grind it out on an easier difficulty once). It was actually my introduction to shmups basically being a Touhou inspired danmaku metroidvania and it's got some of the best boss fights in any genre. I feel like it'd be the *perfect* crossover game for the type of run 'n' guns and shmups you usually cover and one you'd really enjoy once you get a taste of the bosses. Definitely the biggest focus on player skill from any other MV I've played as well. From watching your channel for a year or so now I think you'd genuinely love the game as it crosses over so many of the genres you focus on in the channel into a metroidvania package, and probably one of the genre's densest and most focused as well.

[@elseifgames129]

This review makes me curious about your opinion on La Mulana, if you've played it yet. Its high difficulty and its approaching ghosts n goblins type controls feels right down your alley, but its cryptic puzzle focus makes it, at least from my memory, more backtracky than usual.

[@BknMoonStudios]

La Mulana is borderline impossible to beat without a guide to the puzzles. A guy on KZbin played it completely blind and it took him *over 200 hours* to beat it. That game is insane!

[@deltatango-six7941]

Great video. Castlevania is one of those franchises I’ve always been a huge fan of. Ecclesia is great because it ramped up the difficulty from prior entries. I wish they kept going.

[@Crim-kun]

all my favorite 2d ds games are all on steam thank you konami and capcom

[@hemangchauhan2864]

2:32 who exactly are these "most players"? Exploration, item finding itself is a fun activity, why people are drawn to metroidvanias for it. Not for the tech.

[@SamuraiSam]

Yeah, I found that line a bit odd. There are tons of people who enjoy exploring looking for little items in Metroidvanias.

[@Steve-Fiction]

I kinda expected some more focus on the port itself. Like an input lag comparison, display options and such things

[@Bristecom]

Order of Ecclesia is one of my all-time favorite games! I didn't think anything could top Symphony of the Night but it does in many ways as you say! It's a shame that it didn't get much attention at the time but hopefully it will now!

[@Barnewallian]

I see where you are coming from, and your points are completely valid. However, one of the (if not *the*) most beautiful aspects of these games is getting lost in a vast interconnected world, being able to visit scary areas that you know are above your level, and fight enemies and bosses that push your skill, or are outright impossible to defeat and force you to retreat and get stronger. It becomes extremely satisfying to return to those areas with new powers and more skill. All that works especially well when the game doesn't give you too much in terms of rpg mechanics. In that regard, the first half of Dark Souls 1 is exemplary, when played for the first time and without a guide. That wondrous feeling of "I should not be here, but I love being here!" (and also "I should not go there, but I must get there! How can I get there?"). SotN has many brilliant moments like that, but it makes you too powerful too early, even if you don't grind much, and it is a shame because a lot of the amazing late game content is ruined by Crissaegrim and company. There's a hard mode patch out there for SotN, give a try if you haven't yet. I think you might like it. Makes you appreciate the bosses much more. Anyway, Ecclesia is a gorgeous masterpiece, and a pretty focused experience, even more so than its predecessors. But you don't get lost in its world. It's more Vania than Metroid. And certainly not as ambitious as something like SotN. I love the DS trilogy anyway :)

[@Lucrei.]

You're speaking my language, my friend :) Dark Souls 1 really feels like a 3D Igavania

[@Barnewallian]

@Lucrei. Absolutely! The genre is in From's DNA. King's Field 2 blew me away almost 30 years ago.

[@jeremyramsey1746]

Ok I am halfway through this video and only the one game has been talked about... there are plenty of videos on this one game to watch..you have a good one

[@megamob5834]

I swear, Portrait is so slept on..

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I really liked it! There was only so much bandwith I could cover in the review and I was really interested in what Ecclesia was up to. Charlotte in Portrait is really cool though, I may have to come back and revisit Portrait exclusively in the future.

[@megamob5834]

@@TheElectricUnderground sorry if it seemed like I was singling you out, I really enjoyed your commentary, it just seems like everyone who is reviewing this collection only talks about Ecclesia and Dawn, when a strong case could be made that Portrait is the strongest game in the trilogy. I just want to hear someone with a platform give it its flowers lol

[@Maverick.D.]

I honestly preferred Portrait over Ecclesia.

[@l2QSrrfhEOdEnu48u0Tl..........]

Wikipedia's definition of "metroidvania" was probably added by redditors. 2D platformer that focuses on guided non-linearity and utility-gated exploration was r/metroidvania's definition, but it looks like they've dropped the "2D platformer" part for some reason. They have a link in their sidebar (on old Reddit) to an article that explains in more detail what "guided non-linearity" and "utility-gated exploration" mean. I think the main thing that distinguishes metroidvanias from classicvanias is that metroidvanias are action _adventure_ games. They test the player's navigation and problem solving skills. While these days automapping is common in games, in old text based adventure games like Colossal Cave Adventure you'd have to draw your own maps. (Did you know that CCA is where the adventure game genre got its name?) The original Metroid had many identical rooms that made it very easy to get lost, so you really had to make your own maps or use pre-made maps that someone else made.

[@msd5808]

18:50 The Etrian Odyssey games on DS had you drawing the map on the bottom screen as you went. They were very good dungeon crawlers with nice music.

[@hatertime]

Guides non-linearity is a pretty good explanation.

[@garrettwilkes1674]

I love how you described Super Metroid. I always saw Metroidvania world design as a giant puzzlebox, and Metroid's speedrunning pushes the player to master traversing around the world, the way people complete Rubik's Cubes as fast as possible. Sadly I don't see many indie devs embrace that speedrun design.

[@DustinBiser]

Found a trick for defeating the skeleton fireball heads: attacking the fireball projectile with hammer or sword as it flies toward you will cancel them. Makes getting past the stack of heads much more straightforward.

[@sulltella924]

So pretty much when it comes down to it you don't really enjoy metroidvanias,but you really like action platformers and your enjoyment of metroidvanias comes from their lineage as descendants of action platformers.I agree that rpg levelling mechanics usually just mess with the balance of the game which is why i prefer games like hollow knight that don't have those mechanics,but the non linear exploration is an essential part of metroidvanias,one that sadly is generally done very badly because alot of them tend to be linear and just disguising themselves as open.But in conclusion i agree with you that metroidvanias desperately need to be more focused in their balance and also on truly non linear exploration,making them even more linear as you suggested would be a mistake since when you get to that point just make an action platformer and you would have a stronger game

[@austinjones7569]

I have to ask if you’re interested in trying out Black Myth: Wukong. I’d love to hear your opinion about that game, seeing as you have very different opinions than most KZbinrs that I’ve watched

[@Constellasian]

Order of Ecclesia was underrated. I liked it more than Symphony of the Night. Alucard becomes way OP early on in Symphony. Whereas Shanoa was more balanced. In Symphony, the only weapons you need are Rune Sword and Crissaegrim. Dual wield those and you're practically unstoppable.

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

Knew that if you made videos on these at some point, you'd appreciate the level cap option. Yeah, that was a really good feature. Order of Ecclesia is really good and one of my favorites, and so is Portrait of Ruin, and that is also similar in having a variety of environments, except instead of a map with the castle as kind of a final stage, it uses the castle as a central hub area. Out of the DS games, Dawn of Sorrow was always the weakest one, and even overall weakest. Compared to Aria of Sorrow too, the weapons just feel so sluggish and there aren't that many interesting abilities in it. Anyway, it's a shame that they never brought back special moves activated by fighting game type motions, because I really enjoy that about SotN.

[@joshb.9380]

I’ve always loved SotN and have played through it many times. But my one major gripe was always that the RPG leveling and certain items made the game trivially easy and reduced it to kind of a pixel art and soundtrack tourism session. Wasn’t much meaningful gaming going on. As you pointed out, some of the later titles in the series started to bring back a bit of challenge, and I am excited to hear that OoE really ramps that aspect up. It’s the only one in the series I haven’t played yet, so you definitely just jumped it waaaay up on my backlog list. Thanks!

[@vivilover9409]

sotn i think feels near perfect in the first half but the inverted castle will sometimes just spam 200 enemies on one screen and it feels dumb

[@commandershepard9920]

I know I'm late, but I think it's great you're trying this full time. Your videos are some of the best critiques on KZbin and have raised the bar. I was torn between this one and the other 'metroidvania' you covered recently but decided on this one. I wonder what your thoughts are on Bloodstained Ritual of the Night? I believe it has a Nightmare mode that also caps your level to one, but I'm not sure how it compares to this. Regardless, cheers, and congratulations again!

[@HerbieChuckNorris]

This was an excellent breakdown and introduction to your perspective on the genre and these games. I already purchased the collection for Haunted Castle Revisited, but am now equally exited to get into the other games. Personally, I'm not a big fan of Metroidvanias because of the maps and backtracking but hearing how the DS Game handles it has me interested. I's also really interesting to see SOTN get teased of its throne without just shitting on it wholesale. I literally heard on a podcast yesterday how nothing after SOTN is as good, but sounds like there's a lot of room for building and refining it. It's exciting to see that a legendary game CAN still have follow ups that can be improved in many ways. I think too many people are complacent in letting SOTN (and other genre kings) remain uncritically examined. Another reason i love this video - genuinely nuanced and deep criticism.

[@HerbieChuckNorris]

You mentioned it too but there are SOO many metroidvanias being made that the worse trends of the genre tend to get saddled in with Game after, Game after Game. Indies need to take on this level of design refinement seen in the handhelds.

[@KyArts09-003]

I'm checking out this collection for sure. After playing Ninja Reborn, I'm liking the challenge these classic games offer with its refined gameplay design

[@analgesicproductions]

Great review. I havent played ecclesia since childhood so i didnt remember the cool structure they used for the game to allow for more focused level design!

[@DoctorSoctopus]

description be like: strong game strongs strongly

[@100hundert]

YES 👏 👏 👏 So excited to hear your views on the DS Castlevanias!!

[@tita4359]

Loved the vid

[@TheAlison1456]

I was recommended this video by a metroidvania enthusiast friend. Though, I've only played Super Metroid, SOTN and Rondo of Blood. I don't usually watch reviews of games I haven't played, since I like playing games with zero/low expectations, but I was told this review is exceptionally good, plus it commented on minimaps. I love visual design in games and GUI, so I had to see it. For fun, as I see a video I like to make timestamped & contextualized comments; it's also for making comments meaningful, minimizing decontextualization, and maximizing appreciation of videos. Most are not like this one though! Since I forgot to mark timestamps, I've numbered stuff instead. If you must reply, I don't expect, want - nor curse upon you - an equally long response. By the way, don't take the "yous" badly, it's just cuz those were originally written in 3rd person It follows: 1. (intro) This "concern" over the genre name is pure, unadulterated nonsense. For formal games-ontology purposes, and the vanishingly small amount of people concerned, it'd be "neat" to have a more descriptive name, but it's by no means the problem or confusion it's made out to be. I even argue the opposite. Everyone knows what Mario-like means, but walk up to a non-gamer and they won't know what "platformer" means. It's also awesome to have a sense of history preserved in names, and it automatically recommends something to new players. 2. (still in intro) You then cite wikipedia as if you know nothing about game design, and/or as if they're a reliable trustworthy source, that's proper obnoxious. You clearly are experienced. 3. (still in intro) You talk about metroidvania design & genre as a "buffet", as if other genres are the most stable bedrock of certainty to grace the planet. It's really not an easier time talking about the game design in Need for Speed Most Wanted, Super Mario 85, or any other game, they're all a wobbly balance of tradeoffs that are often fuzzy. 4. This about handheld limitations is real & true; the PICO-8 exists precisely because of this. 5. You say backtracking is boring, because the novelty of exploration wears off with replay. I've noted the latter when considering why game speedruns are unexciting, but I wouldn't go as far as to say the former. The thing is, this is only a problem if you replay. Most players don't, and by that time, you're already, like, way past the average player. I don't like backtracking, but I like exploration, and the novelty wearing off just comes naturally in replaying all but the arcadiest of games. 6. You talk about "active" minimaps, meaning, constantly visible minimaps, Saying this allows "active" gameplay, meaning, continuously flowing gameplay, instead of an abrupt start-stop. I recently wrote about gameplay flow & start-stop, but regarding verticality in platformers (as compared to normal sidescrolling). That flow thing is very much true, and it makes sense for metroidvanias. But you show RE5's minimap, and imply other games would "benefit", and I just disagree. Way before the yellow paint meme, I was concerned about this. Not having played RE 1-3, I played Silent Hill 1-4 a year before Konami's push was announced, which opened my eyes to the significance of good & immersive audiovisual design, down to the scribbly maps. Before even that, I had played 2019 Open World The Game, which satirizes the absurdity of minimaps. For a game with horrible immersive design, you can see 2023 Saturnalia. Actually, besides its stylized non-photoreal art style, the game has one cool thing: in-world maps. You walk up to them, look, your character remembers for you, and you can have your them point you to the objective, sorta similar to Dead Space or Ninja Gaiden xb360. Continuing, SH inherited the pause-to-access map issue from RE. It being an immersive map didn't eliminate - but did lessen - the issue. Ideally, it's something like this: If, in an open or semi-open game, a map closely corresponds to levels, and you don't care much for immersion, by all means, show it constantly. Otherwise, and you have a symbolic or landmark map that doesn't exactly match levels (like Shadow of the Colossus), it should be periodically viewed by the player, and you should design levels with memorability, landmarks and navigation clues in mind. Between Constant minimap (c), Pause-to-access map (p), and No minimap (n), my order of preference is: {p, n, c}. 7. You comment on difficulty, bosses and on the obscurity of the handheld vanias. It makes sense the handhelds are obscure, Nintendo is an ecosystem separate from PlayStation where SOTN and all the big 3D Metal Gears released. In the beginning of the video, you'd cited Igarashi saying SOTN was made deliberately easy. SOTN is ridiculously easy, it's almost like Kirby, I just don't buy they'd make something that easy intentionally. Feels like Iga was coping about an overcorrection. I don't even think this difficulty thing "matters". It would be difficult to carry a box with one leg, or do a one-arm pushup. What's important is what the challenge means within its whole, it's literally the Dark Souls talk again; Challenge VS Senseless kaizo torture. 8. "If your sword kills everything what is variety, it's just aesthetic" I've written about this, regarding how corridors in games change visually but are functionally the same, and regarding the meaning of a "tool" in games. It's true! 9. You mention save states and dead-ends in exploration. At first, I thought you were describing a problem that Homeward Bones are meant to solve in DkS, but it seems like you're just defending save scumming. Definitely bad. It ruined Rondo of Blood for me. It trivializes immersion, challenge, thrill and joy. 10. You show RE arcade mode, and seem to describe a gamemode that procedurally generates Castlevania levels. The former is awesome, but, these are very different things requiring different amounts of handcrafted development. 11. The video ends as if Circle of the Moon and Bloodstained don't exist, very funny Unfortunately, Igarashi was vaporized by Konami after Ecclesia, marking the end of metroidvanias. JC Denton: What a shame. Besides the few bits where it seemed like you were pretending to be ignorant, this was very awesome. You clearly know enough about game design to say interesting and true stuff. I'm glad, and I hope videomaking works out for you.

[@PumpkinHeadJack13]

I see alot of people praising the whip in super castlevania 4, saying that 8 way aiming makes it less clunky but honestly i really liked having to save up for specific weapons to deal with enemies on the top of the screen, meaning i gotta now route a way around this enemy

[@Desolis_]

Great stuff Mark! I've always loved OoE a lot, and never really got the hate that seemed to surround it. I think you touch on a lot of points that clarify why it might have rubbed some the wrong way...Helps it make more sense to me. I really enjoyed Haunted Castle Revisited too. You're right, it's a little on the easy side. Even playing through on hard mode. I had some solid fun grinding hard mode for faster times and a deathless clear though. M2 did a great job.

[@KnightElSneed]

You should have just named this "Order Of Ecclesia Review" you apparently haven't touched Dawn Of Sorrow and you didn't play Portrait Of Ruin at level 1 hard mode which has even more of a routing aspect between levels/ save statues than OoE. The parts of the castle and the levels truly become a battle of attrition, draining your every resource you can scrounge up until the next save statue/ teleport. It also forces you to switch weapons and magic due to how the rooms are set up. The rewind feature/ save states kill this routing aspect of level 1 hard modes of both PoR and OoE so I have no idea why you decided to do allow yourself to do that. Portrait Of Ruin also has dual characters mechanics which allow you to do stuff no other games in the series do. For example you can send your characters left and right with the touchscreen and position them in order for them to attack safely (meaning that if they get hit you lose MP instead of HP) and other stuff like calling them to use their sub weapons/magic. You calling this "Dominus Collection" review seems like you will never review Portrait Of Ruin and Dawn which is a shame. DoS shines with the luck fix that you can get in emulation but this comment is long enough so I'll refrain from posting more. All in all, this was a good review of OOE (except that you should have at least mentioned the extra playable character) but not a good "Collection" review.

[@Ageleszly]

"The rewind feature/ save states kill this routing aspect of level 1 hard modes of both PoR and OoE so I have no idea why you decided to do allow yourself to do that." Yeah I don't understand this as well, since enemies respawn after every screen transition, so even trying to backtrack to save & heal up, has consequences. Unless I remember wrong and there is a "return to last savepoint" option or something like that. But even then, basically if you go back you trade character progress against level progress, something you would lose otherwise both. So you still gotta go back where you come from with all the enemies and obstacles you can't easily avoid. That's the exiciting part of these games, not knowing when the next savepoint appears, it could be just behind the next screen, but even lurking to see whats behind and then going back comes with the detriment of the respawn. So you make choices based on risk management, which can feel very rewarding when pushing on bears its fruit and the frustration is just as important in order to invoke that feeling. So by using savestates and rewinds he eliminated these - in my eyes - very important meta factors. It's kinda baffling comparing it with other statement of him what constitutes good arcade design where risk and ressource management was often times an important aspect.

[@florida_sucks]

@@Ageleszly you're still going around saying this when he already addressed your initial comment and you ignored him lol. once again, using savestates to practice bosses/sections for full runs doesn't contradict anything he's said in the past. also avoiding tedium≠difficulty. not everyone finds the clearly tedious and time wasting aspects of these games fun, we want to experience real challenge mechanical challenge as shmup/bmup/general arcade game appreciators although i would agree that he probably should've named this just order of ecclesia review because i was also expecting reviews of the other games lol

[@Ageleszly]

​@@florida_sucks You should look at the date of the comment. Also I noticed Electric Undergounds opinion and can understand his point, though I would still disagree that, if you play a game for the first time, savestates still are kind of a crutch if not downright cheating, no matter what reasons for. At this point you go beyond what the game sees as legitimate ruleset for finishing the game. If you wanna truly master it with a full challenge run later on, then sure you can use these tools to train, but by ignoring potential consequences, at the point where a lack of knowledge is part of the design and part of the potential punishment, like getting thrown in a total new situation you have to adapt to, having something to lose, then using savestates dimishes that appeal greatly. I'm not sure if Electric Underground uses them only in successive playthroughs but he definitely didn't exclude this assumption.

[@PumpkinHeadJack13]

i just played castlevania 1-4 and am currently working on rondo of blood and man i was blown away by how much i loved those games. Already beat 1 and 3 twice, to me they didnt age atall

[@torrentthom4734]

I'm not surprised you went with Order of E as your main focus. I remember going over to my brother's house for a pop-in and staying there for at least five hours playing it. Good time; great game.

[@KnjazNazrath]

tbh this is an Ecclesia review rather than a Dominus review.

[@koomar341]

Dawn of Sorrow back in the day was one of the last great videogame moments of my life lol

[@heavysystemsinc.]

Konami: "Capcom's NES Strider and Bionic Commando and such had it right...just select points on a map, if you can't get in, you can't get in."

[@rodneyabrett]

I prefer the more linear design of OG NES Castlevania, Bloodlines and Rondo with maybe just 2 branching paths at most. I'm honestly not really having that much fun "exploring" as I am in combat scenarios. I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way.

[@magicjohnson3121]

Exploration is overrated

[@rodneyabrett]

@@magicjohnson3121 Thankfully, Ecclesia doesn't have a whole lot of it which is probably why it's one of the better games in the series.

[@JetRevue]

very interesting analysis!

[@jaykelley103]

Order of Ecclesia rules. I still have my old ds cart(the last ds game i bought new), but im glad a new collection is out so new ppl can play. That junt has always been mad underrated, hopefully that can change.

[@ZZFilm]

Try to get an interview with Iga! That would be amazing. Get into the nitty-gritty details!

[@ZeroHayabusa]

Dawn of Sorrow is my favorite of the DS trilogy but Order of Ecclesia is also one of my favorites in the series for sure. Would love to hear your thoughts on Viewtiful Joe at some point.

[@theblobconsumes4859]

I believe exploration and backtracking are important elements to this genre, and are what makes it special. The puzzle-solving too. I feel they would be much better if there was no in-game map, instead being designed around having the player figure out the puzzle of the map progression by themselves. But people scream any time a game tries to do that because they don't want exploration, they want map painting. I wish this genre didn't have as much of the OP character stuff, and instead made the gameplay more and more expressive as time goes on, while never fully letting go of platforming challenge, with new areas providing consistently higher platforming and combat challenges. Someone I know is aiming to make a Metroidvania that has that going for it; Commitment based gameplay with consistently engaging backtracking *and* forward progression, stuff that always has dynamism.

[@hotworlds]

my two favorite metroidvania castlevanias are order of ecclesia and aria of sorrow. Aria is on thin ice and part of it is personal nostalgia but Julius and boss rush keep it at the top for me. I feel like ecclesia is the rare case where it's basically the last 2D game in the series (although maybe we should count bloodstained rotn) and rather than slowly degrade they just kept getting better and learning from mistakes to make what I feel is a nearly perfect version of everything that came before. Although they compromised and invented metroidvanias to hook new players, the fact that they kept doing those harder modes in some capacity told me they didn't forget their roots and knew where the real fun was.

[@rahndail3863]

Speaking of excellent handheld design, although there's no new release to ride the coattails of, could you cover the Gunvolt games? I love the hard mode, 1 hit difficulty modes in a similar way that I love OoE's design. They do have some problems such as progression locking key skills, but lord I think these games are fun to master. Something tells me you might have some similar opinions to the design of Sekiro where the starts aren't very diverse, but there's a lot of excellent handheld design DNA that I dig about these games.

[@fdevlin5932]

Fuck yeah man this is the release of my dreams, I still can’t believe it’s real and I’m stoked to get into this meaty looking review.

[@PlasmaSnake369]

I like how they packaged the DS screens. It's always a bit of an obstacle to play DS games without a DS

[@SNKBossSyndrom]

Btw: This game has some fighting game moves. You got the Reppuken and Raging Storm from Geese and that flame kick from Fei Long. And the Giant does a Raoh exit ^^

[@ChernobylComedyAndWings]

Road to 1 million!

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

Check out Harmony of Despair if you haven't. That would be a really interesting game to hear an analysis of. It's basically the final game in the series. You just get a stage select and can pick between giant stages that are like smaller versions of an entire castle, and you have to play through them on a time limit. I like it. Heard it was made on a 3000 ~ 5000 dollar budget, or something. It has multiplayer, but I've never done that, I played through it solo. Hope it gets ported because so far, it's only on PS3 and 360, and also only digital.

[@psymagearcade]

Portrait Of Ruin is great, my first Castlevania game in fact. The DS was the last great handheld console IMO.

[@chrismoon2961]

If you're going to start delving into metroidvanias, a genre which almost always violated your 'gameplay density' principal, I'd be curious to hear your take on Hollow Knight, which is still a sprawling map but never really lets the player truly become overpowered.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

The more I watch this video, the more it really reminds me of the castlevania like Shaman King games on gba. I feel like the game would really be even better if it isnt a metroidvania since it really had alot of interesting stuff you can use.

[@adamyohan]

My favorite reviewer uploaded. It's a good day.

[@schlarptarf3675]

Another quality video, thanks! I heard the devs added touch screen controls for menu interactions which is also possible with the right analogue stick. I wonder if the games are fully playable with an arcade stick. Did you encounter any problems, Mark?

[@Aripuni1]

Igarashi and his team really start to cook with order of ecclesia, after that he cooking bloodstained COTM (classicvania spiritual successor)

[@TonyTonyRedgrave]

curse of the moon (especially 2) is fantastic, mark really really needs to play those games.

[@hngdman]

Igarashi didn't work on Curse of the Moon.

[@Alianger]

3:40 Part of the challenge can be spatial awareness puzzles and for speedrunners, mapping out the optimal routes can get more interesting with more optional routes and abilities

[@HeroOfLegend115]

The only reason I haven't bought this collection yet is because I was JUST going through these games right before it came out (again, in the case of Ecclesia). I'll definitely be picking it up later down the road, especially because of the Haunted Castle "remake".

[@mourilo1333]

Metroid is literally about wondering around and getting lost to then find yourself and learn the map, Resident evil games originally are a 3d version of a Metroid game, you have to remember the locations and go back to them as you progress through the game, no?

[@callmean0n989]

no

[@mourilo1333]

@@callmean0n989 glad you made your point clear!😉