Castlevania The Metroidvanias - Game Sack 

Man the GBA and DS were such a golden time for Metroidvania games. The 6 Castlevanias, Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission, Mega Man ZX and Advent, there was just always something new to play.

I always love the sound effects added to the game carts and consoles I don't know why it's satisfying

My uncle got me a Gameboy advance in 2011,when I wanted a psp. While the world was playing psp games,I was playing The aria of sorrow. It was the best thing that happened. The music of that game still makes me nostalgic. And it is through this Gameboy advance I realised the joy of playing these old games that came before me

Harmony of Dissonance was my jam in high school. Replaying it tonight after all these years!

Order of Ecclesia is actually my favorite post Symphony Metroidvania.

I try to play through symphony of the night every halloween, it is still to this day my absolute favorite game!

33:32 I thought the glyph menu worked that way because you had a “last 3 used” memory function for each hand… so, y’know, if there was a trio of glyphs you liked using for each hand, you could quickly swap between them rather than hunting for them in the entire list. I kinda thought it was a nice function, but I guess I can see where it might be confusing.

Order of Ecclesia is AMAZING!

I remember when Circle of the Moon came out. Everyone complained the game was "too dark," and some went as far as to say it was "unplayable." This may be why Harmony of Dissonance is so bright.

"Thank you Konami" This sounds so weird and wrong nowadays...

The moment when Alucard enters in the darker lobby and the music begins to play just when lights get brighter. I never felt so damn heroic as that moment.

It's just something about Rondo of Blood + Symphony of the Night that made me keep coming back to it.

I was kinda disappointed that the Castlevania Anniversary Collection didn't include any of these games. But considering the $20 price, it's understandable. I hope Konami does a second Castlevania Collection, but with all the Metroidvania installments and Rondo Of Blood.

Also, just to add: If you get all the boss orbs in Julius mode and finish that map Julius will "unlock" the full power of the Vampire Killer making it stronger.

Wait Joe actually loves someone that isn't, Yuzo Koshiro? :O

9:39 First time I notice how extremely well Joe's last name "Redifer" fits into the Castlevania universe. It could totally be the name for a new character, like "Redifer Belmont" and it would sound great.

I found Ecclesia the best of the Igavanias. To each their own.

Symphony of the Night will always be my favorite. So, so damn good.

Thanks for keeping going with the show, Joe. Been a fan for almost 6 years now and still love the content.

I had SOTN, it was so good the guy i lent it too never gave it back.

By the way: there is also a patch on romhacking to remove the glowing outline in the GBA version.

In Order of Ecclesia, the reason some things are shown twice with different colors is because you have one equipped. You can equip the same glyph multiple times, so it needs to be shown twice. I found Order of Ecclesia's difficulty refreshing after so many super easy Castlevania games. I feel that you're intended to rely on your skill a lot more, instead of being super powerful.

Something I never see in these videos about Symphony of the Night is the secondary attack for many weapons being mentioned. This wasn't even mentioned in the official strategy guide. For instance, if you perform the haduken input (down, down-forward, forward, then press the attack button) with the Wereblade it doesn't swing once - Alucard swings the blade about 6 -7 times very, very quickly. This is strong enough to kill many bosses with only a few hits. The Falchion can be thrown like a boomerang, also using the haduken input. Some of the weapons used a back-forward input instead of the haduken input. If you ever play this game again, try this with the weapons.

One of my favorite eras of handheld gaming during the 2000's. The excellent GBA an DS Castlevania games that were constantly pumped out by Classic Konami will always have a place in my heart. It's one of the many reasons the 3DS era feels so lacking to me.

In case anyone is wondering, you can buy all these games on the Wii U Virtual Console for around $9.99 each. Yes, _that_ Wii U.

One of my favorite castlevanias is portrait of ruin. I loved the dual characthers and the different stages a.k.a "portraits" were a breath of fresh air. And also it was great to know more about the story of castlevania: bloodlines. ... When it comes to classic 2D castlevanias, my favorite is Super Castlevania which I was able to finish back in the day thought a lot of effort.

Ooooooo yes, my fav genre... looking forward to this

Every time I hear music from Symphony of the Night, I get the shivers

Love this entire series, mainly because the titles of the games all sound like gothic metal bands or albums. Aria of Sorrow. Symphony of the Night. Harmony of Dissonance. Circle of the Moon, etc.

Order of Ecclesia is incredible. I say good day to you sir!

As a huge fan of Castlevania games I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this masterful work. This video is a national treasure.

Yes! Time to pause Dragon Quest for my other favorite series ever!

Castlevania Symphony of the Night is one of my favorites too and still own on my PSX. I like it quite a bit that I even rushed Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles just to unlock it on my PSP,

Castlevania: SOTN is my favorite castlevania game, the best.

This episode has been one of my favorites by far. You're doing a great job Joe. I've been addicted to Game Sack for years.

Next then the 3D Castlevanias? -Castlevania 64 -Castlevania 64 Legacy of Darkness (is not bad as everyone thinks, just the camera sucks) -Lament of innocence (very good one) -Curse of Darkness (another very nice) -Lord of Shadows (is not a bad game, but i don't consider this a Castlevania, still have to put in this list) -Lord of Shadows 2 -Reincarnation (that reject form Dreamcast)

I actually really liked Order of Ecclesia. It felt like a breath of fresh air in my opinion

Oh no, Casltevania Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate is missing!

Joe, the side shots of the monitor when changing scenes is some A+ work. I love your videos. Give Dave my love

Funny enough about Harmony of dissonance is that I think the bad music is intentional given the title of the game. Also once you beat it and reach the credits, the music becomes amazing for only one song lol

Joe, you should try the Dawn of Sorrow randomizer they did away with the seal drawings.

I'd rank them like this: 1-I really ended up loving Portrait of Ruin. I thought the soundtrack was just as good as SotN, the two characters specializing in different things was extremely fun to experiment with, finding all the spells for Charlotte or the subweapons for Jonathan and completing all the quests was very worthwhile as they rewarded you with some really OP gear, like the time stop spell. The different portraits were incredibly varied and fun to explore, with a ton of new enemies, new music for each one, secret rooms and memorable bosses, and even the endgame gauntlet dungeon was something I really enjoyed. The only flaw I can think of is that leveling up Jonathan's subweapons took way too long, but it's also entirely optional so you can just ignore them if you want. Charlotte's spells are better anyways. 1-(tied) Symphony of the Night is still up there, however, and I can't really decide between the two. While the inverted castle was a bit of a pain to navigate because of those jumps that you couldn't quite clear without turning into bat, everything else I absolutely adore. Banger soundtrack, insane amounts of gear, even with fun gimmicky attributes, tons of cool powerups, great enemy variety, and just the slick and classy presentation that pretty much defined the rest of the series from then on. This game is what got me hooked to Iga's works, and because of that I discovered about Bloodstained and how the spirit of the Igavanias was still living on. 3-Aria of Sorrow introduced the massively fun soul collecting and that's really a stroke of genius. Turning the main character into Kirby really made everything a lot more interesting. This was the second Igavania I played and it consolidated my appreciation for the genre. The story was a slight step up from every other game in the series, and the movement and controls on handheld Castlevanias were finally perfected with this entry after the rougher style of CotM and HoD. 4-Order of Ecclesia. True, I was a bit disappointed by how linear it was at first, but the game opens up massively once the first half is over and you unlock Dracula's castle. The boss fights and combat overall felt very polished and tactical, making me consider enemy weaknesses and patterns for the first time and forcing me to learn how to avoid taking damage and gitting gud for once. It's a slow burn to the second half, but once I made it through the Classicvania portion, I found it a lot more enjoyable. Not that the first half was THAT bad to begin with. 5-Dawn of Sorrow could've been amazing if it wasn't for those pesky seals ruining the pace of boss fights. The best thing about it is undoubtedly Julius mode, as it's definitely the best alternative campaign in the series. Although I'm with you on the sliding puzzle, and overall I feel the castle's design was a bit weaker in this entry than the others. 6-Harmony of Dissonance is a game that on all accounts I should be harsher on, but there is something about the ground movement and dashing around the entire map that was just inherently fun to me. Having both a forward and a back dash was an interesting choice that really saved the experience, because that soundtrack would've made my ears bleed out otherwise. I just wish the castle had more fast travel points, as it's a massive slog going from one end to the other. 7-I don't hate Circle of the Moon, but I think you can tell it wasn't made by Igarashi. The controls feel weird, like how you can turn around in midair while whipping, completely changing the direction of your attack, instead of the more sensible retreating jump attacks you could do in Symphony and most other games. Nathan felt incredibly heavy and the castle was very lazily designed, with huge rooms filled with enemies and no real interesting landmarks or memorable layouts. The difficulty was also a bit erratic, as the final boss was one heck of an unexpected spike while the rest of the game was fairly easy. At least this one still managed to have a great soundtrack.

8:01 It's not weaker than the regular whip, just check your attack stat when the card is activated--it's higher. Of course the damage done will depend on each enemy's weakness and tolerances.

Michiru Yamane was certainly busy in 2002-2003. She composed music for the 2 GBA castlevania games along with the PS2 Castlevania entry, Lament of Innocence.

I only finished CV SOTN this year. I know I'm late but still amazing.

God, these castlevania games are beautiful 😢

I love that Joe's hands are trembling while he's plugging the game into the cartridge slot on the GBA.

I know he said he didn’t care for the animation, but the peak away from the ceiling in this game was always my favorite little thing 11:24

Call me crazy but i actually like the music in Harmony of dissonance

I've played everyone of these and Portrait of Ruin is my favorite overall cause of the dual protagonist and Charlotte. Order of Ecclesia was the burnout point for me too, and while I absolutely adore the return of the gothic style character portraits and Shanoa's design, it actually bugged me to no end that Shanoa's Sprite has brown hair instead of the luscious black. Though I understand black would conflict with most things.

Even after all these years I keep going back to most of these, even the lesser ones. Pure comfort food.

OMG these games were my junior high-late high school childhood. Thanks for bringing back these memories!

It's late at night, this was a symphony to my ears.

When Konami cared about quality video games...😩😳😞😒

I've been waiting for this episode since the series began, and Joe, you didn't disappoint!

Very well presented mate. There is a ton to cover and you got through it all with out rushing or fanboy'ing over certain things for 20 minutes.

top 10 metroidvanias #1 - Symphony of the Night #2 - Orchestra of Unhappiness #3 - Encore of Depression #4 - Interlude of Annoyance #5 - Ditty of Creepiness #6 - Rock Opera of Genocide #7 - Mix Tape of Disorder #8 - Drum Solo of Ennui #9 - A Cappella of Bad #10 - Bonus Track of Boredom

I like anytime you talk about Castlevania on Game Sack

How lucky can one be? I was thinking it was an off week. I love it when I’m wrong. Game Sack kicks ass.

Portrait is my favorite after SoTN. Easily the best OST also after SoTN. I liked how you used "Dracula's Tears' to highlight Dawn's music, it is absolutely the best track in that.

Actually, Order of Ecclesia is my favourite portable Metroidvania game. You should mention the artwork btw. Great video.

I dont understand your complaints about the maps. They are all the same, except the colors

Great video. Dracula X:Nocturne in the Moonlight (Symphony of the Night in the US) Blew me away when I played it. The JPN version came with a music CD, which I still listen to today. I had almost all of the Castlevania games except Aria of Sorrow. I never played that one, but from what I see it looks awesome. I played all of them on the Advanced SP which was backlit so I never had an issue. I still think the SP was a very cool version of the Advanced. I think my favorite ones were the versions for the DS. I guess I am in the super minority as I thought the Seal system for Dawn of Sorrow was a pretty clever idea and thought it added some extra challenge element to the game. The ice block thing though I would agree was kind of strange and not very well done. I just think they really wanted to incorporate some element into the game with the new tech that was available on the DS in ways we hadn't seen. I don't really know of any games that actually incorporated that element very successfully or well. I loved the Portrait of Ruin as it wasn't the same old style and the Paintings giving you new environments was a huge plus. I really enjoyed that one as well. The story was different as well. I think the Portrait of Ruin was the best of the 3 DS games, but they were all very good in their own right and each one was kind of different enough from the other to make them all stand out. I think the games in the Advanced and DS were some of the best Castlevania games we ever got. I think I could break them out and still play them today and thoroughly enjoy them. I just wish you could play Advanced games on the 3DS as I still play that system daily as a break at work and waiting for files to load when doing graphic design. I now have a Switch, but I still think the 3DS is the most versitle system they ever made with one of the most insane battery lives I have ever seen on a hand-held system. I have played the Bloodstained version on the Switch and those are awesome, even the 2D 8-bit version. I do prefer Bloodstained 2 though. I hope we continue to get more good Castlevania games in the future.

My favorite in order : 1. Aria of Sorrow - What more can I say? It's fantastic! Almost perfect in my eyes. 2. Symphony of the Night - Classic and wonderful, still has some flaw but it is the starts of its kind so it's acceptable. 3. Portrait of Ruin - Super fun with tons of content to play around, team mechanic is nice. 4. Dawn of Sorrow - Overall solid game, but judging by every review I came across it seems like I'm the only one who don't have a problem with Seal system. (Maybe because I'm an artist so I used to drawing lines like that) 5. Circle of the Moon - Balls hard but not BS, a little clunky in control but fine enough. the Arena tho.... friggin' insane. 6. Harmony of Dissonance - Pretty good but I don't know what to say that something bugs me, not too bad but I feel it need more polish. 7. Order of Ecclesia - the Only Metroidvania I didn't finished, not because it's hard but I get tired of it quite quickly for some reason. Might get back to it someday.

SOTN has probably my fave game music of all time. I heard it was released on the Saturn too but only in Japan.

Honestly Castlevania was one of those series that screamed "I would be awesome as an RPG!"

Symphony > Aria > Harmony > Portrait > Sorrow > Eccelesia > Moon

Honorable mention should be "Harmony of Despair". Sadly overlooked and under appreciated. It is a slight departure from the series due to it's multiplayer component, but the co-op made it an amazing experience. Also, easily one of my favorite Castlevania soundtracks ever, newly performed and recorded classics from all over the series with some super shreddy guitar work. Way up the list for me.

Now we need "Metroid: The Castlevaroids"

SotN started my collection of all these Metroid style gems. Still awesome!

You put a lot of effort into your videos and it shows. They're extremely well done. Keep up the good work because your efforts are appreciated.

I play Aria of Sorrow at least once a month on the big screen. Absolutely love it.

I would pay dearly for these games if they come to the Nintendo SWITCH.

This video is a Masterpiece and I always come back to watch it as I'm a huge Castlevania fan and for your marvelous work ❤️

It's unbelievable how much expressive these games are in this skit!!

Portrait of Ruin is my favorite ^_^ I loved the tag-team mecanics and the characters were actually likeable. The story itself has its share of plot twists that surprised me too. Gameplay-wise, the game controls pretty well, you get 5 unlockable characters and even the secret area is great. The Nest of Evil has you fight bosses from Aria and Dawn of Sorrow, and the Greatest Five dual crush is pure fanservice :D The only thing I kinda hated was that they reused themes for the last 4 portraits. Now, I undertand that it might have been a nod to the inverted castle, but it would have been nice to get 4 brand-new environments. They were not bad though... except Burnt Paradise, they went overboard with the medusa heads there X_x Order of Ecclesia is too difficult of its own good... Consuming mana for attacks was one more thing to manage and special moves could be activated by accident and consumed a lot of hearts. In addition, the sidequests were more complicated due to the lower item drop rate and such. Also, the story was kinda dumb, as Shanoa loses her memories at the beginning of the game, including how to use her own abilities. It was also kinda stupid that as the story progressed up to Dracula's Castle, she never regained part of her mind, up to the point of completely recovering before the castle. Finally, the secret stuff wasn't as good as Portrait of Ruin, as due to the difficulty, getting the best item wasn't easy...

Joe, you missed one! The one for 3DS "Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate" It's a Metroidvania-style castlevania game. Easily the worst of them, but still.

Portrait Of Ruin was my first and favorite, followed by Order Of Ecclesia due to having the most challenging gameplay. I'm so glad Koji Igarashi made Bloodstained which is a superb climax to the whole metroidvania system in modern times.

Joe really got his money's worth with that Michiru Yamane's stack photo!

I camped out for 26 hours at a local Wal-Mart when the PS3 launched. I played Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow nearly the entire time to keep myself occupied. Now that’s a fond memory.

Just my opinion: 1. SOTN; hands down. 2. Aria/Dawn of Sorrow 3. Order of Eclessia 4. Portrait of Ruin 5. Harmony of Dissonance 6. Circle of the Moon

there's also patches to get rid of the outlines for HoD

Awesome overview of the Igavania, Metroidvania series. We're finally got Game Sack to cover DS games. And I love it. What a time to be alive :)

Finally someone who covers them all! Nice!

After Symphony of the night, Dawn of Sorrow(DS) has to be my favorite metroidvania. By the way, you forgot to mention Julius Mode in Dawn of Sorrow, where you can play as Julius, Yoko and Alucard, which is a gameplay nod to Castlevania 3. My favorite channel on YT.

if you ever do a castelvania clone series or a clone series in general i would like to massively, massively, massively, MASSIVELY recommend RUSTY for the nec pc 98. there is an english translation patch.

I can understand why HoD's soundtrack is so offputting, but IMO it's one of the greatest soundtracks in the entire series. It's an acquired taste, but I absolutely love how crunchy and psychotic it gets. Clock Tower Casualty in particular never fails to give me anxiety with it's aggressive build-ups and sudden loop. Luminous Cavern is also one of my favorites, and I can't stop thinking about when I saw someone describe it as "what it feels like to attend your own funeral."

I found Ecclesia to be the best game of the metroidvanias. Exploring, and then coming back later to open secret paths and even the challenge modes was amazing. What it lacked in a huge end castle (although it was pretty large still), it made up for a gigantic world. And you found yourself coming back, even farming the extra runes. I actually found ecclesia to be the easiest to grind too, although i do agree on the difficulty in the beginning.

You forgot Castlevania: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. 😏

Circle of the moon was my first GBA game, my first Castlevania and my introduction to many of the original castlevania songs, and i wouldn't have it any other way because the renditions are really, really good. I would really like to somehow hear the non-bitcrushed versions of these tracks but that is not likely to happen.

I'd just like to say I really appreciate the extra effort you put into the segments between the in-depth look at the games, the parts where you're just looking at the camera. In the past these parts often felt like a waste of time, but here they feel like proper set up for the upcoming segment. Good job.

33:13 "you'll have to do it" (grind exp) lv1 hard mode would like a word with you

These games need a HD remake on the Nintendo Switch.

I know nothing about Castlevania, but I saw your video and I guess I'm interested in this!

The funny thing with how great SOTN looked on PlayStation, was magazines at the time took points off for it's "16 bit graphics". Giving it scores like 7/10 because of that. Man how times have changed.

The reason why enemies in Order of Ecclesia takes alot to damage the enemies is that you are suppose to use their weaknesses against certain enemies. It's the reason why you have 3 different load outs and it even shows what type of attack does more damage by the animations of the strikes being different. It also has a system where if you use a type of attack alot more (or find hidden items that increase it permanently), it scales better in damages.

What the, Order of Ecclesia is one of the best Castlevania game it's have unique mechanic and feature woman as Main Character which only few in Castlevania universe, heck Order of Ecclesia is the best for me which follow by Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow coz you can play as Dracula.

Check out Dawn of Sorrow - Definitive Edition It's aptly named. ;)

Circle of the Moon was my first Castlevania game and loved it. I especially loved the music. Find it amusing that all that time I was listening to a sort of mixtape of previous Castlevania games.

There is a compilation hack of Dawn of Sorrow called 'Definitive Edition' which removes all touch screen mechanics, replaces the anime portraits with Kojima art and Kojima-style fanart for new characters. It also fixes a bug with the luck stat and Alucard Sword, and also makes the Black Panther Soul accessible earlier as to not be pointless.