Do I have to have played the previous castlevanias to enjoy castlevania iv?

Dropped Castlevania rondo of blood in the dropbox thread.
It's the pc engine cd version in an open gl wrapper.
Works fine in win10 with a controller and the emulation looks and sounds reasonably accurate.

For those not familiar, Rondo is the prequel to symfonie of the night and the last of the traditional Castlevania games. Graphically it's somewhere in between the md and snes versions. Well worth a boot up if Castlevania is your thing.

Rondo of Blood is a good one too. I've enjoyed 4 Castlevania games.

IV was my first and I still love it. If it has a fault it's the fact that most of the boss fights are a bit too easy. Still play it from time to time to see how far I can get without continuing. Bought the soundtrack on vinyl.

Chronicles was the 2nd I enjoyed. It was a remake for the PS1 of a game made for the JPN only Sharp computer.  It's a step back from IV but it's got excellent levels.

Rondo of Blood (PCE - played on Wii VC). Has a great look and introduces different characters which ups the replayability as they play quite differently. Has alternative paths too. I haven't played as much of this as I should - I will return to it.

Rebirth (WiiWare) - short and sweet and some nice boss fights. Has a couple of alternate paths that are unlocked using keys. Introduces a fire ball firing whip which can be satisfying to use.

T'was classic Konami at it's creative peak.
All their 16 -bit output was gold.
Snes, md and yes pc engine.

I loved II, and it's the only other one I've completed. I tried Dracula X on the U, but it felt older than IV because of its nerfed whipping.

retroking1981 wrote:

The rest can do one.

Hold the phone, SotN?

retroking1981 wrote:

Blue Swirl wrote:

retroking1981 wrote:

The rest can do one.

Hold the phone, SotN?

That's where it lost me. I love the linear gameplay of the old ones.

Aye. One of my biggest gaming disappointments when I played this.

It's funny how people call Castlevania II and Mega Man 2 hard, because they're among the few NES games that I completed. Gremlins 2 was harder (good ending, though).

Toughest NES game I completed was Bart Vs Space Mutants. The game had no warps or passwords either - 1CC or nothing.

I reckon I fluked the last level though - you had to find fuel rods in the power station and return them to the core - I cleared it first go. Never went back near the game after that.

davyK wrote:

Toughest NES game I completed was Bart Vs Space Mutants. The game had no warps or passwords either - 1CC or nothing.

I reckon I fluked the last level though - you had to find fuel rods in the power station and return them to the core - I cleared it first go. Never went back near the game after that.

That's impressive, definitely one of the tougher ones I had.

Never done it myself, it's one I intend to do on the retron5 with the aid of save states.

Furthest I got was the museum level.

It wasn't a very good game, although I have a soft spot for it.

I could perfect the first 3 levels at one stage but got fed up with it before I could get further.

I'm not sure there was ever a good Simpsons game until Hit & Run.

I had Bart's Nightmare on MD.
Not good but had some interesting ideas, again far too hard though.

Road Rage was OK and just before Hit and Run. Crazy Taxi clone in Springfield.

That reminds me.
Virtual Springfield was decent. Point and click adventure/tour which iirc had some original content written by the show's writers.

I also had The Simpson's Cartoon Studio. A fun title for kids where you could place pre-animated characters into a scene, add music etc.

I would suggest emulation but it probably isn't worth it.

I've got the ROM, will try it out at some point.

I was absolutely Simpsons mad throughout the 90s, even though the games weren't good I kinda still like them.

Would be all over a Hit & Run HD.