MasterPhW, PsyMan, Elite Knight, Triggerhappy, mode7 and others....
Very cool everyone! I just want you all to know what your encouragement means to me and does for the project. At this point in the project I slow down sometimes and my ambition/inspiration fades a little. When I get posts like yours I get a renewed enthusiasm and I do my best work. So, Thank you all! Your support is greatly appreciated!
MasterPhW,
TY,TY,TY!
I don't think I will do a Castlevania 64 pack. There are a lot of differences, additions and improvements in LOD. It is much more polished in soooo many ways.
Just to name a few: :satisfied
(For educational purposes only)
1. The camera:
is f'ed in C64. You can not change the distance of the camera, you can not freely rotate the camera, if an enemy is on screen "centering" the camera always looks at (locks-on) the enemy instead of "centering" the camera, you cannot center the camera while moving, your character can no longer move while "centering" the camera, "centering the camera is also "lock-on" no matter what camera style you have selected, and again this means your character cannot move while locked on! WTF! The camera drifts around allot!?!?!
In LOD you have 3 zoom levels for each camera style. You can rotate the camera manually. Your character can move unrestricted while camera centering/lock-on. The centering/lock-on button is no longer combined. In action view it is a camera centering button. In battle view it is a enemy lock-on button. The camera does not drift around. I use action view at mid to far zoom 99% of the time. You can choose what enemy you are locked-on to more effectively.
2. Weapons and power-ups:
In C64 Reinhardt has the leather whip in three colors. That's it. Carries energy ball is slow to charge. Picking up a power up has no animation to indicate you are powering up. Throwing weapons can not be powered up at all.
In LOD Reinhardt has the leather whip, chain whip and the energy whip. Carrie's energy ball seems faster to charge and seems more effective. All throwing weapons have 3 levels of power up. Along with growing in power each throwing weapon changes in animation and abilities. The knife grows larger flames around it. The Cross gains a longer "tail" and a homing ability just like Carries homing ball. Holy Water grows in size and volume in that at its highest level it splashes out more than once and covers a huge area. The Axe gains the power of lightning accompanied by a thunderous boom and at its highest level damages enemies in a quite large blast radius. My favorite is the Axe at full power. These power ups are like adding a magic casting element to the game.
3. Levels:
C64 includes a total of 16 levels or so.
1. Forest Of Silence
2. Castle Wall
3. Villa
4. Garden Maze
5. Tunnel
6. Underground Waterway
7. Castle Center
8. Duel Tower
9. Tower Of Science
10. Tower Of Execution
11. Tower Of Sorcery
12. Room Of Clocks
13. Room of Clocks Roof Top
14. Clock Tower
15. Castle Keep
16. True Dracula's Realm
LOD includes all of these in name and style, but are so different that most are no longer the same boards. Many of them are completely different and extended to twice the size or more including a ton of new classic bosses and characters like Medusa, the Spider Queen, Chimera, Harpy and much much more. As a small example, both the Clock Tower and the Tower of Execution are now totally different in layout and path, and are also twice as long with several new rooms, puzzles and secrets.
In addition there are 5 completely new levels:
1. Foggy Lake
2. the Outer Wall
3. the Art Tower
4. the Tower of Ruin
5. Dracula Ultimate's Realm
Even the way you start the game makes more sense in LOD for all the characters. In C64 you start the game just standing in a corner of the forest...and...go! How did you get there? In LOD the Ferry Man delivers you to a hunted ship (with jumping Fish Men) that will take you the rest of the way to the island of Castle Dracula. Upon approaching the shore the ship is attacked by a giant sea serpent who sinks the ship. Must be Castle Dracula's first line of defense. You make it out before you drown and take your revenge on the Sea Serpent for almost killing you. Only then do you arrive at the island of Castle Dracula and the (new) Forest of Silence.
Of coarse there is more in LOD's favor, like much more polish to the game engine code(I get slowdown in C64 for no apparent reason), character animations, Enemy AI, start screen animations and more. The game play seems to have been speed up ever so slightly as well. LOD is also emulated better. Using the 8mb expansion pack it works in PJ64 perfectly except for a missing sound channel(an important one), and in 1964 it runs completely perfectly(other than some pops in the sound, but that has a lot to do with the speed of your PC), and you can speed up the game even more if you want to. I am hoping PJ64 1.7 will run LOD perfectly as well.
But that's enough for now...:crazy:
Triggerhappy,
Welcome! and Thank you!
PsyMan, Elite Knight, mode7 and everyone else, again...THANK YOU!