Replaying Igavania

Sorry about that. I used the wrong name. Harmony of Despair is the multiplayer castlevania that came out on xbox 360 and ps3. I meant harmony of dissonance, which is Iga's homage to SotN on GBA. The music sounds like its from the gameboy but otherwise a pretty good game.

Nowadays, the DS (and even the PS2) emulator will run on a $300 bottom barrel computer. Funny how fast computer technology advances.

So I'll just do a quick run down of the Igavanias for anyone who has the same questions:

PS:
SotN - The first and many say the best. Honestly, its aged but still fun to run through. Great soundtrack. Various stuff from unbalanced weapons to having a SHIELD just trivializes any difficulty. The lack of difficulty kind of makes it a little boring to replay for challenge runs but still worth playthrough at least once.

GBA - (they are all kind of short, why I don't know):

Circle of the Moon - Technically not an Igavania (Iga did not work on it), but still has the basic elements. Known for being harder than most Igavania games (how do I heal in this game?!) and being non-canon until Iga made it canon with the PoR timeline. Has a fun magic system that is used to do everything from boost stats to create elemental weapons. Criticized for poor graphics but the artwork is still decent.

Harmony of Dissonance - Iga tries to recreate the magic of SotN on the GBA and makes some mistakes. Criticized for the terrible sound quality of the music. Possibly even easier than SotN. lol In this game, you can upgrade your whip as well as cast magic through your sub weapons. Exploration is still fun though.

Aria of Sorrow - The best of the three. You can capture demon souls in order to use their powers. Fantastic. All the elements that made SotN great. Awesome soundtrack, visuals, fun story. Notable improvement to boss fights. Only down side is that its short. My recent run through hard mode was just 6 hours and it could even be shorter if I didn't grind for some souls I didn't end up using. If your new to the game it will take longer to beat. Getting all the souls will about double the play time.

DS games - (the best of the Igavanias IMHO)

Dawn of Sorrow - Sequel to AoS. Big improvement to graphics, ok story. The biggest improvement is in the size of the game. Iga really listened to fans of AoS and made the castle bigger. Hurray! Julius mode is improved with 3 characters to use. You can craft weapons with souls but I find the soul drop rate too low. Its probably best to stick to one weapon type(Golden Axe) to avoid grinding, especially if your going for the chaos ring (since you don't want to use boss souls till you get that ring).

Portrait of Ruin - Most experimental Iga game because this time you control two characters at once. Your able to switch between them on the fly just like Julius mode from DoS. One is a fighter and the other a mage. Its criticized because the maps are rather simplistic and the graphics are the most cartoony of the Iga games. However, its still a very fun game to play and has a pretty good story. The soundtrack is fun and upbeat as well. It also has decent challenge, including a level 1 hard mode.

Order of Ecclesia - My favorite. Iga has said in interviews that he made the first two DS games easy because of complaints his games were too hard. This time he listened to the hardcore fans and made this game hard. Normal mode is like the hard mode of AoS/DoS. Its still not hard but you might actually have to use potions (OMG). Hard mode is a decent challenge. Level 1 hard mode is a nightmare. lol
The Glyph system is a refinement of the souls system from AoS/DoS. Now, all weapons and spells are Glyphs. Its notable that this game made making use of many weapons/spells necessary. Tough enemies have resistances to certain damage types so switching weapons is just necessary. Luckily you can switch between 3 set ups so its easy to switch between melee and magic on the fly.
Also, has a solo female protagonist - not a co-protagonist. A solo female protagonist. The last time that happened in a castlevania is a game thats not canon. (CV legends) lol

Small correction to wissenschaft's breakdown, the Portrait of Ruin timeline corrections made Bloodlines canon instead of Circle of the Moon. That game remains outside of the main story along with CV64, Legacy of Darkness and Legends.

One of these days I'm going to start again this "hard mode" mod of SotN I got a while back that makes the enemies tougher (def/HP) and nerfs or removes certain weapons. There was more to it than that, can't remember all of the changes right off though...

I also want to revisit the DSvania games...basically all 3 of them, I guess lol. For different reasons.

That'll be a good question to ask IGA at some point.

I was a bit confused that Order of Ecclesia wasn't on this timeline image, but then I realized this was released before 2008.

Oh and well...about Legends, it was technically -possible- as the origin story for the series, but Lament of Innocence changed that. It's too bad, because Sonia was pretty cool. I never played the game myself.

I think I need to play those GBA Castlevania games pretty soon. Thanks for the information! I appreciate it.

Classicvania fan eh? I didn't want to called it Igavania because he didn't work on CotM.

But sure, fine. As long as it doesn't confused anyone.

You'll have to excuse me but when I think of Castlevania I think of the Iga games. The classics are fun but nowhere near as awesome for me. And I grew up playing Super CV 4.

But but, 8 directional attacks? HERESY!

Kind agree, that CV3 and Rondo were better games overall but shhhh, tell no one.

When I think Metrovania, I think a game that has a map to explore where you need to collect items to reach new areas. I think the thread your talking about is using the Metroidvania term a little to loosely but thats because there just aren't many games like Igavania.

There's a lot of Castlevania being played in my household.

We started a few months ago.  (By "we", I mean me, and my two sons.)  I have replayed (or am currently playing):

-Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Wii U VC) -- got the Chaos Ring and am running through a NG+.
-Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Wii U VC) -- The backgrounds in this game are pretty great.  I find myself looking at them more on subsequent playthroughs.  I like that you can forward/back dash straight from the get-go.  Music is pretty great as well.
-Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (Wii U VC) -- about 80% of the way through.  This game feels weird when you play it.  The gravity of the main character feels off.  He falls too fast or something.  I've been abusing the card glitch to use whatever powers I want.
-Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS game played on 3DS XL) -- This game has been missing from my collection for almost two years.  I still can't find it.  It is here somewhere, but I can't find it.  I bought a new copy on Amazon for $22.  I'll be watching this one closely so it doesn't go missing.  -- I've gone through the first portrait and explored a bit of the main castle afterwards.  Not to the second portrait yet.  Just met Death.

My oldest son has been playing:
-Castlevania: The Lecarde Chronicles (PC) -- He is pretty far in.  The game has a lot of throwbacks to other classic games in the series.  Remixed music, etc.
-Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth (Wii VC) -- He played through and took various paths.  Got a Game Over about 3/4 of the way through the first time, but then beat it on his second go.  He had played it before, but it had been a while.
-Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (Wii VC) -- He forgot to put in Help Me for the name.  He ended up giving up before he got to Sypha's stage.  smh.

My other son has been playing:
-Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Wii U VC) -- He managed to get the Chaos Ring and beat the game.  (Thanks to restore points.)
-Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS3 download) -- He isn't finished yet.  Currently in the Inverted Castle--hasn't quite made it to Galamoth (he doesn't have the Beryl Circlet...hehehe).

Plus we all watched some No Damage Boss runs for various CV games.  Ah, good times.

Thought that might spawn a reply from Galamoth! I've told him of the Beryl Circlet's existence, but he has no clue where to get it. Should I tell him? Or have him keep looking?

EDIT: He's pretty thorough, so he'll find it eventually.