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Portables (Games) Classic Games (Games) Sony

Castlevania for the PSP Unveiled 55

Posted by Zonk from the there-are-games-on-the-psp dept.
1up has the news that Castlevania is coming to the PSP for the first time. Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles will bring not one but two games from the classic side-scroller series to the portable console. The pack will include the title Rondo of Blood, which is a brand-new release for the United States, as well as the much beloved Symphony of the Night. The network is featuring an extensive preview from Jeremy Parish, as well as video and screenshots of this sure-to-be-bestseller PSP title.
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Castlevania for the PSP Unveiled More

Castlevania for the PSP Unveiled

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  • That 10 years from now, 99% of American Castlevania fans will *still* have never played Rondo.

    Seriously, who actually owns a PSP? I don't think I've ever even seen one.
    • At least, not until psp emulation gets popular. Still a sad thing.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by HappySqurriel ( 1010623 )
      I have actually seen lots of people with the PSP, but I take public transit a lot.

      In general, I would say that the number of Nintendo DS systems I see compared to the number of PSPs I see is about even; the dramatic difference between the two is that I see the PSP used heavily for watching movies or listening to music and rarely used to play games on (in particular, I think I have seen only a couple of people play a non-emulated game on the PSP).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by benzapp ( 464105 )
        Where are you located? Here in New York City, I've never seen anyone use it for anything BUT games. I personally use it to play games on a fairly regular basis.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by HappySqurriel ( 1010623 )
          Well, I live in Calgary and I only (really) see the PSP or DS on the train ...

          The train is (insanely) crowded which could be why PSP owners choose to listen to music or watch movies, but I do see DS owners fight with the crowd to play games. There are countless reasons why I could not see games being played with PSP owners, and it doesn't mean that they don't play games, but I suspect the main reason is that a PSP could be brought out to watch videos/listen to music whereas a DS will only be brought out to
        • I'm in NYC too and all I see are PSPs. I haven't seen a DS in forever. At least once a day there's a guy on the train with a PSP however.
    • I won one at my work's holiday party. Its great, I use it all the time. That being said I would never have paid cash for the thing.
    • i do.
      it's awesome. i love it.
      it's the last thing i see before i go to bed and the first thing i see in the morning.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by BuffaloBandit ( 955011 )
        I agree,
        For serious portable gaming, the PSP rocks.
        It suffers from a lack of attention by game developers, but the GTAs, Loco Roco, Syphon Filter, and MGS: Portable Ops are all great games, and this year it looks like there will be a ton of developers jumping on the bandwagon, with Final Fantasy, Crush, Castlevainia, and the PS1 back catalogue.

        It's true that a lot of people watch videos and play music on it. I keep several hours of the most recent Adult Swim shows on my memory card, just in case I find myse
        • two words:

          so com.
          that game rocks so hard. it's unbelievable.

        • I would never have bought [Sony PSP] for the media features. The power of the console is way ahead of the DS, Nintendo just has the benefit of being in the handheld market for a solid decade ahead of Sony.

          And the controller. The touch screen of the Nintendo DS is arguably suited more to games with lots of controllable units such as March of the Minis than the PSP's analog stick is. Had Sony not bought Psygnosis, Lemmings would definitely have been a DS title, not a PSP title.

          • And the battery life. And the ease of development.

            Sony just made the same mistake that every other handheld maker other than Nintendo has and failed to realize the compromises necessary to make things work in a handheld system. It's not just a matter of throwing in the most powerful processors you can fit in a small device.
    • The PSP scene is reminiscent of the Dreamcast mod scene, although unlike Sega, Sony is making a lot of futile effort to fight it every step of the way. I picked up a PSP when it dropped to $200, and although I only own one PSP game (GTA:Liberty City Stories, I bought it because it had an exploit to run homebrew on firmware 2.5, this was when the only downgrader was for 2.0), I am very satisfied with my purchase. The emulators on it run quite well, and furthermore the screen is gorgeous. One of the most a

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by benzapp ( 464105 )
      Come to New York City. You see them on the subway about as frequently as an ipod. You rarely see a DS, although they are popular with oriental females. I guess their delicate fingers are well suited for that cumbersome device.
       
      • I've noticed the exact same thing here on the subway in Boston. More PSPs than DSs. I always chalked it up to the fact that that special kind of selfish asshole who would choose to take up extra space on a crowded subway car trends more towards being a Sony customer. /waits until he hops his shuttle to break out the DS.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by benzapp ( 464105 )
          You may not know this about New York City, but the newspaper industry is rather robust, and many are sold in tabloid format. Why is this? There are so many people who ride the subway there is an enormous customer base. Reading a newspaper obviously takes up more space than a PSP. Are you saying that the hundreds of thousands of people who read newspapers on the New York City Subway System are selfish assholes, and thus potential Sony customers?

          No wonder Sony is one of the world's largest corporations.
      • Chiun?! Little Father?! Is that you, at last? I secretly thought you were dead... But does a master of Sinanju ever die... I see you're still as inscrutable as ever. You still never gave me your egg-shell fingernail-strength recipe in its entirety. --Love Remo
      • Over here in canada I have 2 friends with PSPs and I have never seen it on a subway or even int he hands of anyone but these two friends.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Fozzyuw ( 950608 )

      Seriously, who actually owns a PSP? I don't think I've ever even seen one.

      I own one... and I've probably not touched it in 4 months. I love the hardware. The screen is jaw dropping on a hand-held. I love the analytical thumb stick. UMD is a nice fit for a portable to cram data onto a disc to get more out of gaming. Built in Wi-Fi is awesome and necessary. I use to use it at the Gym as a bulky MP3 player and movie watcher.

      So... why haven't I played it in 4-months and seriously played it in about 1

      • I was in the same boat with my PSP, it was collecting dust for months. Until I installed custom firmware on it that allows you to take the games you own, put them on a memory card, and never have to lug around UMDs again. Plus of course NES/SNES/etc. ROMs, but that enters into a whole other world of questionable legality that I have no interest in debating, but at least it is out there.

        You can also take the DVDs you already own, convert them and throw them on a memory stick and watch to your heart's co
        • I've been looking to port some of my DVDs to a format my PSP can use. I've tried a few things, but with no success. How are you doing it?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Fozzyuw ( 950608 )
            I've never tried their software for DVD to PSP conversion, but I used their other software and it works great. www.slysoft.com

            I'd be willing to cough up $30 to purchase it, if I want to start converting movies to watch on the PSP (maybe when I go to the Gym, I can watch an episode of my Fav. TV show). Actually, that's not a bad idea. Now, I just need work to lighting up a bit so I can return to the gym for my lunch break. =)

            Cheers,
            Fozzy

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by vapspwi ( 634069 )
      I've had a PSP for a while, but I've come to the realization that I'm just not a "portable gamer." My lifestyle isn't such that I have a lot of opportunity to play games while I travel. Plus, I'd rather play games on a nice big screen with a full sized controller.

      I tried to play GTA: Liberty City Stories on the PSP, but it was nearly impossible to do. My hands ached after holding the thing for a few minutes, and there weren't enough buttons to support all the gameplay (shooting out of car windows was ver

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by be-fan ( 61476 )
      At the end of 2006, the DS had 36m units installed, the PSP had 25m units. So the DS has the lead, but the PSP's installed base is still pretty big, slightly larger than the XBox's or Gamecube's.

      As for seeing one --- I see them all the time on the subway in Atlanta. I have yet to see a DS here, though, outside of the Georgia Tech campus.
    • I've had a PSP since christmas, and its essential for the hour long commute each way into London.

      I see plenty of people with PSPs on the same journey, invariably in the early 20s to 40 age range, either playing games or watching movies on them.

      I hardly ever see anyone on the same journey using a DS, although that has been targeted at a different demographic. In the office at work, there are plenty of people with PSPs as well.

      It does emulation incredibly well - GBA, Megadrive, SNES, and its tour-de-force is

  • w000t! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mandelbr0t ( 1015855 ) on Friday February 02, 2007 @01:45PM (#17861600) Journal
    Subject says it all. There aren't many good titles for PSP, but this may well be one of the better ones. :)
    • Sad that one of the better titles for a game system is simply a repackage of an older title...
      • Same could be said for many of the good Nintendo portable titles too (Final Fantasy and Castelvania remakes anyone?).

        Mostly I'm interested in how PSP handles good 3-d graphics on a lower-end processor. The crap games (of which there are many) don't have smooth 3-d graphics. It takes some effort to port to PSP (or any portable for that matter) well. These graphics don't seem to be too ambitious, yet cool enough to have some really good eye candy.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 7Prime ( 871679 )
          Say what?

          Final Fantasy, sure, but Castlevania? There's not a single Castlevania remake on the GBA or DS (maybe there was an old retro cart of the first Castlevania for GBA, but I've never seen it), all of the games released recently are new. Only a very very few of the DS titles are ports or remakes of anything. Even FF3 is virtually an entirely new game, done from the ground up. That and MarioDS are the only remakes I can think of for that system. The DS thrives off of mostly brand new titles and series ti

          • That and MarioDS are the only remakes I can think of for that system.

            Pheonix Wright?
            Might want to rethink that "no remakes" idea of yours.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 7Prime ( 871679 )
              What are you talking about, Pheonix Wright was released in the US on the DS. Yes, it had been released previously in Japan on the GBA, but I fail to see how this could be considered a remake. It was simply a selective console release for different regions. Anyone who considers that a "remake" needs to consider revising their definition of the term.

  • PSP has games on it? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Sciros ( 986030 ) on Friday February 02, 2007 @01:47PM (#17861622) Journal
    Man and this whole time I thought it was just for stalking pretty girls and watching Spiderman ride atop a train.

    Glad to see Symphony of the Night getting re-released though; just wish it were for my DS as well.

  • There is a new Castlevania-branded thing we'd like you to buy...
    Ah - now this explains why "Castlevania" has recently been hyped as a "classic" game. (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/22 /0547257 [slashdot.org])

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by be-fan ( 61476 )
      Air-quote all you want, but Castlevania is a classic series of games. It first came out on multiple platforms (most popularly the NES) 20 years ago, and since that time has appeared on a number of different Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and arcade platforms.
  • Dracula X Chronicles features a remake of one of the best Castlevania games: Rondo of Blood plus -- get this -- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the best Castlevania game ever.


    Phew...for a minute there I thought this was going to be an all-new Castlevania and I was going to have to buy a PSP. And SoTN the best Castlevania game ever? I mean, it was good, and it ushered in the "modern" CVs, but best?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, the best.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hal2814 ( 725639 )
      The PSP doesn't get original games. You should know that by now. I share your hesitation to call Symphony the best Castlevania ever but it was probably the best one not to star Simon Belmont.
    • Actually, Simon's Quest(Castlevania 2) was the first "metroidvania." Of course they then abandoned that formula for a few games(to introduce and build up Alucard I guess), but it was still the first.
    • I share your relief.

      SOTN was certainly one of the best CV games, but I try to avoid directly comparing different games. For me, it comes down to the newer DS games, Aria of Sorrow, and SOTN, all offering superb gameplay. But I guess there hasn't been much change since Symphony, so maybe that's the reason.
      The PS2 games were absolute shit though. (by Castlevania standards)

  • from there-are-games-on-the-psp dept (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Headcase88 ( 828620 ) on Friday February 02, 2007 @02:26PM (#17862342) Journal
    Yes Zonk, there are games on the PSP [gamerankings.com], with more rated 8/10 by Gamerankings than the DS [gamerankings.com], in fact.

    (This coming from someone who has a DS and no plans to get a PSP anytime soon)

    Links don't really work... if you can't take my word for it that the current score is 30-26, pick DS or PSP as the console, and allow at least 40 results. I used a minimum vote count of 20.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They're very evenly matched based on major site rankings - the PSP has 30 titles at 80% or above, while the DS only has 26. However, based on votes, the PSP has only 17 titles at 8.0 or above, while the DS has an astonishing 42! (this is allowing only 20 votes+ to be listed).

      HOWEVER. I think it's very hard to make any kind of distinction based on these numbers. God knows what kind of ratings all the nintendo fanboys are giving out (since they do outnumber the PSP fanboys), and I think we're all pretty c

  • This can't be a real Castlevania title! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This can't be a real Castlevania game; the title is wrong! It should be something like:

     
    Castlevania: Noun of Nominal Adjective
    • With titles like:
      -Rondo of Blood
      -Dawn of Sorrow
      -Portait of Ruin
      -Lament of Innocence
      -Curse of Darkness

      I'm just waiting for them to cut to the chase and release Castlevania: Bad Things of General Unpleasantness.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Wordplay ( 54438 )
      Yes, but "Castlevania: Disc of Shovelware" test-marketed poorly.

  • This is what I've wanted for a while (Score:3, Informative)

    by Psykechan ( 255694 ) on Friday February 02, 2007 @02:48PM (#17862730)
    A Castlevania geek speaking... Chi no Rondo is my favorite game in the series. Having played the PC Engine game to death and still not being tired of it, I'm excited by this news.

    I have been wanting to see a rerelease of it for years now. I watched the video and it looks like they redid the entire game in 3D but kept the game the same. If it plays identical to the original(s) then I will be sure to pick it up... once it comes out on a system that I own. Hey Konami, Wii version please.

    BTW, the video shows the path to 2' (alternate first stage exit) first then rewinds and shows the main path. It also looks as if the sound effects/music is missing when it does the newly added cinematic cuts. Other than that, looks good. Really good.

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