Castlevania The Next Generation | SNES, Mega Drive and PC Engine Retrospective

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Having just watched both of the Castlevania videos this afternoon all I can say is Wow. That was a great watch. Genuinely compelled to check out some of the older games from the series now if I can find the time. All in all this was put together perfectly. Cheers

[@MattyStoked]

Thanks so much, man. Once I'm done I'm going to compile a list of the essential games. The first one though is a great place to start. You can play ten minutes or two hours and get something out of it. Thanks so much for your kind comment. 🥰

[@initial_C]

"Prayers of the Wicked" how did that never become a song title?

[@MattyStoked]

Prayers of the Wicked, the new album from Heart of a Belmont. Out now from Metal Blade Records!

[@Larry]

very good retrospective sir, really enjoyed it!

[@BOOMDOOMz]

Larry how are you everywhere?

[@MattyStoked]

Thanks Guru! Absolutely love that you were the first to comment 🤠

[@Larry]

@@MattyStoked I spent the past month constantly clicking the refresh button in anticipation for a new video :P

[@MyRetroLife]

I am loving his Castlevania content!

[@hellbillymods45]

Castlevania Dracula X on the SNES has three endings. Rescue none of the girls, just Maria, or both. I like the game a lot, but it has problems for sure. For me, Rondo of Blood is the best. I like IV, but I'm one of those guys that thing Bloodlines is better as well, after playing it, despite the ridiculous stairs animation. Great videos, I'm about to play Castlevania 64 and I watched your video on it, which made me more excited about playing it.

[@DiegoReviews]

This is exactly the kind of video I needed while I’m reading Dracula. I had no idea they tied the Castlevania series to the book! That is such a fun idea. I love how BUFF John Morris’s sprite is haha. This has been an incredible series of videos, Matty. Well done xx

[@MattyStoked]

Thanks so much, Diego. I'm sorry if I ruined the end of the book for you 😄 I really really like how creative they got with that game. A very fertile period for having ideas and running with them! Thanks so much for commenting, I'm glad you're enjoying the series. There will be a small gap as I don't want to burn out on Castlevania. The good news is you can expect some Star Wars stuff soon x

[@MattyStoked]

What's your favourite game in the Castlevania series?

[@drunkensailor112]

No doubt rondo of blood on pc engine, but I never played the new generation. I will try to buy it

[@opaljk4835]

drunkensailor112 it’s fantastic

[@wdcain1]

Best retro-vania: Rondo of Blood. Best metroid-vanoa: Aria of Sorrow. Best god-of-vania: Lords of Shadow 1.

[@michelegambierazzi]

Castlevania for the X68000 is available as Castlevania Chronicles on the PS1 and I think it's still possible to buy on PSN. (and yes, a X68000 mini would be awesome!)

[@MattyStoked]

I'll be covering Chronicles in a separate video. I will admit I did deliberately omit that, as Chronicles has one or two differences which make it unique from the X68000 game. But yeah, I'd love a 68k mini. What I *really* want though is an MSX mini!

[@michelegambierazzi]

@@MattyStoked Looking forward to that video! :)

[@dommoore6180]

Just thought I’d mention it because it’s rarely mentioned and I care for some reason but back in the 80s and early 90s castlevania played very fast and loose with continuity using the whole story within a film within a game thing a lot. The cv1 gamebook is often talked about as though it’s about a descendant of Simon but that’s taking things too literally, it is Simon. Simon is a Belmont in the 1690s, at the same time he’s a character in a film, an actor in the 1950s and you the player. So he appears in scv4 not as a remake of cv1 but simply in a new game which was talked of as a sequel but down to it being intentionally streamlined the ‘continuity’ is ambiguous. (That gravestone design at the end of Cv2 and start of scv4 would be one hell of a coincidence though). Also scv4 had a sequel novel in japan which was unfinished but expanded on some ideas from the scv4 guide including Simon being a dhampir in scv4 which is official. I miss that film in a game theme later in the series. Also Selena (Simon’s wife in HC is heavily hinted to also be the mysterious woman in Cv2 in expanded media where Simons wife and the MW are explicitly the same, this actually started in that cv1 gamebook.) LoS was originally about Simon and I think (though have no proof) that they changed very little down to Gabriel looking a lot like Simon, Marie quite clearly being Selena and the game being based loosely on scv4. Final side note, the drac x games and bloodlines were intended to be separate from the ‘main series’, so the original series ended in 1991, the first official sequels were the n64 games. IGA started his continuity and series in 2002 with HOD which blurred the lines. He also seems to have no clue what he’s on about when he says things like the 64 games were meant to be non canon and scv4 was a remake. Both are untrue.

[@HeyBlondieGamer]

Excellent video! Castlevania tracks are timeless, even the old Gameboy tunes.

[@MattyStoked]

The Game Boy games have some of the best music of the bunch!

[@diego1345]

Awesome work man. Loved the video. This should have x100 the views. I hope it gets there eventually because these videos are a joy to watch

[@MattyStoked]

Thank you so much. I love making these ones and lovely comments like yours are a great reward!

8:04 The Doppelgänger had already appeared on Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse.

[@zeroattentiongaming820]

The title Super Castlevania 4 always seemed kind of dumb to me until recently. As you said, it is more than a remake of the original. It's a remaining of it, fit to all the new power they had to work with. Thus it earns the name Super Castlevania beyond the Nintendo naming convention in a very similar way to why Super Metroid isn't just called Metroid 3. The quantum leap forward warranted more than just a number but in this case the number was warranted to match the gameplay evolution of the series. This wasn't just a more impressive remaining, it was also the next step forward in a series that had already solidified itself with the third entry after an experimental second like Mario, Zelda and Metroid. Also possibly why numbered titles were dropped after it. The games were no longer outright evolving with each succesor after Super 4. I have to agree that Bloodlines is kind of weaker on music due to what the Genesis/MD had to work with but God damn did they put the strengths of its distinct sound to work. Speaking of music though, for all Rondo's CD quality music I feel like Dracula X's take on Bloody Tears is easily up there with Rondo's Vampire Killer and that might just be the best version of that track. Damn impressive considering the differences in what Rondo and DX were working with. Dracula X Chronicles though, damn did that soundtrack go fucking hard.

[@jminich887]

Honestly, I love Dracula X/Vampire's Kiss. Despite its difficulty it's really enjoyable when you slowly master the game. I also think it's visuals are superior to that of Castlevania 4 and Rondo of Blood, with beautiful, almost storybook like backdrops.

[@MattyStoked]

Repetition and mastery are key elements of the first Castlevania (I guess a lot of NES games). Later games forgot that almost immediately and it's nice to get a nod to that playstyle. The Mode 7 backdrops in Vampire's Kiss are so beautiful, too.

[@porassrivastava8242]

The snes Castlevania games are hard for me but I love playing them.

[@MattyStoked]

They are hard, but I completely agree. Super 4 is probably my favourite Castlevania game. Such a good play.

[@thatssomegoodpie]

Vampire Kiss is rather underrated. I kinda like it more than Rondo to be honest.

[@MattyStoked]

Now that is a hot take

[@BlastProcessing]

Fantastic stuff mate, been looking forward to your next Castlevania video :) I'm a huge fan of Bloodlines/New Generation personally, so I was stoked to see it on the MD Mini.

[@MattyStoked]

Thank you mate, thank you! I really love the vibe in Bloodlines / TNG. It really feels like a game designed to break boundaries. It. Extremely fun and I like that FM synth soundtrack!

[@bullhead3852]

Haha ! Yes ! Love your content man! I'm the guy who's been begging for more SW content haha But honestly, i love anything you produce. Keep up the good work man !

[@MattyStoked]

Thank you Ary! Thanks for the lovely comment. Don't you worry, Star Wars stuff is coming! Before the end of the year I will finally be covering Fallen Order and we'll see some more content on classic-era LucasArts.

[@Darkwizzrobe]

Nice use of the Star Trek SNES game

[@MattyStoked]

Thank you! I put these silly gags in for myself but it's really gratifying when someone else enjoys them too!

[@luxuryperfumemaroc]

very good retrospective mate

[@MattyStoked]

Thanks a lot mate, much appreciated! I'm glad you liked it 👍

[@PanelstoPixels]

Quality vid, Matty! I completed Super Castlevania IV for the first time after your last Castlevania vid and I've become kind of obsessed with it. It's easily my favourite in the series and has quickly become one of my fave games ever. It's a mystery to me that the 360 whip and jump controls turned out to be an evolutionary dead-end because they've made it hard for me to go back to OG 'vania. Also, that Vampire's Kiss artwork is legitimately sick and I want it airbrushed on the side of a van or something.

[@MattyStoked]

Thanks Josh, that's awesome of you to say 👌👌👌 I really love Super Castlevania. It's definitely in my top five SNES games ever, and honestly I think it's my favourite Castlevania game on the basis that it does everything it set out to do, to the absolute fullest. No stone left unturned and still really lean. I don't know why MORE games didn't take on the idea of multi-directional attacks - this is something we rarely see in any games since and I don't really know why. Yeah I wasn't joking when I said the VK artwork is the best, it really is sick!

[@Tiggster-qr8mw]

Wait so why did they change the titles of Bloodlines and Dracula X to New Generation and Vampire's Kiss?

[@MattyStoked]

Bloodlines would have been renamed due to EU laws on violence in media. There's also no blood in the game. The opening credits sequence and the fountain at the Palace of Versailles famously had all the blood stripped out. As for Dracula X, I'm not sure. I think this will likely be due to copyright. There's a lot of instances of games getting renamed for UK / Europe due to something already existing here (The Avengers is a really good example of this). So I'm going to guess that some company had some claim to the name "Dracula" and instead of fighting it, Konami just renamed the game for PAL. Incidentally, the PAL version of this game also had all the blood removed.

[@ScottsGameAsylum]

That was well worth the wait. My introduction to the series was 4 so seeing it here is getting me all frothy. Looking forward to the next part!

[@MattyStoked]

4 remains one of (if not) the best in the series. So accessible, so much fun. Also that music 😍 The next part(s) will be good, I can feel it.

[@williambargery5855]

Love the video and the castlevania series. I always loved bloodlines more than 4 and that does include the music. But rondo has to be the best game in the entire series for me.

[@MattyStoked]

Yeah I think you're right. Rondo is absolutely unmatched.

[@DasLinks]

FYI Vampire's Kiss was Dracula X in North America.

[@MattyStoked]

And The New Generation is called Bloodlines. I thought it would be nice to stick with the PAL names - you don't often see that around KZbin :-)

[@toonman5099]

I just realized, is Eric meant to be a certain Dhampir (trying to edit this in because apparently something is causing me to not let my comment get posted) in disguise? I mean it's a MUCH better fake name than what he had in the Sorrow games. Granted, I'm also one for not counting the Morris games as canon, at least to the main timeline considering they're just wholesale building off the novel, plus apparently even the devs didn't want the first one to be counted as canon. To be clear, I'm NOT saying "discount the games 100% away from the series", I'm ONLY saying I don't think we should have it on the main series's timeline chronology. We should still absolutely try to maybe integrate their mechanics and ideas in somehow (like honestly while not the same history, I wouldn't mind having the characters themselves in some way be IN the timeline, just mostly in a "the way we know their game events happen didn't occur in the main timeline").

[@MattyStoked]

Yeah I mean, E. Lecard isn't all that far away from A. Lucard is it lol

[@toonman5099]

@@MattyStoked Not really. lol

[@toonman5099]

@@MattyStoked So I was doing a bit more of a look around, & I found a pdf document where, while I haven't read through it myself yet, someone who apparently DID read through it commented on the fact that Eric WAS meant to be Alucard (they note in the document "Alcarde = Alucard"). "Alcarde who fought with Ralph C. Belmonde in the first Dracula subjugation." static.wikia.nocookie.net/castlevania/images/6/6e/Bloodlines_-_EGM_Fax_Watermarked.pdf

[@toonman5099]

@@MattyStoked So I was doing a bit more of a look around, and I found a pdf document where, while I haven't read through it myself yet, someone who apparently DID read through it commented on the fact that Eric WAS meant to be Alucard (they note in the document "Alcarde = Alucard"). "Alcarde who fought with Ralph C. Belmonde in the first Dracula subjugation." (added spaces to see if this would stick, posted before but it didn't seem to retain) https ://static. wikia .nocookie. net/castlevania/images/6/6e/Bloodlines_-_EGM_Fax_Watermarked .pdf

[@Eleven17Studios]

Excellent work! Super detailed and informative (also I love a good Star Trek joke, so the opening was perfect)

[@MattyStoked]

Thank you mates. The original script would have been nearly twice as long, there's so much to talk about!

[@svdden_dread]

Man you have the best castlevania series retrospectives in the whole gaming side of youtube

[@MattyStoked]

Thank you so much my friend. Comments like yours make me want to make more and more videos 🙂

[@svdden_dread]

@@MattyStoked i can't wait for them 😁😁

[@doom2319]

The original... but still can’t beat it roughly 33 years on!

[@thommccarthy1139]

Rondo is not harder than X68000 c'mon now.

[@thommccarthy1139]

Or Dracula X SNES for that matter.

[@MattyStoked]

X68000 is just Castlevania. Everything has a pattern, even the bosses. Rondo is absolutely nails!

[@lazarus8453]

very underrated content sad :/

[@MattyStoked]

That's very kind!

[@tommyrockstar100]

Awesome video can't wait to see the next installment of the castlevania story

[@MattyStoked]

Thank you so much. The next videos will split into 32 and 64-bit entries (which should give you an idea of what to expect), and I'm tempted to throw in a short video about the Game Boy games as a palette cleanser :-)

[@nochanceofmyname6615]

Fantastic!

[@LoveFor298Yen]

8:05 minor correction, the doppelgänger was seen in 3 as the penultimate boss

[@carlosaugustodinizgarcia3526]

Rondo of Blood was directed by Toru Hagihara, who was also responsible for Belmont's Revenge and was the real director of Symphony the night (Igarashi was more like Aonuma in Ocarina of time,co-director).

[@Multienderguy37]

8:10 Correction : The doppelgänger appears in Cv3 prior. 11:05 Correction? Sypha predates Maria, though I guess you could consider her a deuteragonist.

[@limen008]

Great video! And Bloodlines is my favorite Castlevania game

[@MattyStoked]

Thank you so much. Glad you liked it. See, people love Bloodlines / New Generation! I think that's rad 🙂

[@TrashTalkin]

Good video, but everybody who calls the SNES by "Snezz", makes me cringe.

[@MattyStoked]

Thanks for commenting! That's how I've always pronounced it. I like how we all do things differently, it makes life so much more fun. I'm sure the way you pronounce it is just as satisfying for you. 😊