Castlevania Series

[PrettyNier]

Love the series.
My favorites are:
Symphony of the Night
Harmony of Dissonance
Order of Ecclesia
Super Castlevania IV
Aria of Sorrow
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Castlevania
Dawn of Sorrow/Portrait of Ruin
Curse of Darkness/Lament of Innocence
Castlevania: Bloodlines
Circle of the Moon

combining the simplified art-style based on SotN with a soundtrack that sounded older-gen (even NES-generation), along with the fact that you're mostly alone in that game, just gave it a nice, eerie kick to it and I enjoyed playing it

I agree, HoD had an amazing atmosphere.

but it was much more a SotN rip-off than a title of it's own right.

Hardly. What little similarities exist between HoD and Sotn are minor at best. Juste is nothing like Alucard, Maxim is nothing like Richter and Maria and Lydie are blonde.

Water hurts you. You sell jewels and can't sell items. progressive experience system. unrefined menu style. save points. central cave final boss. That's... pretty much it.

It's mostly called a SOTN rip-off due to the fact that it came out after Circle and brought back Kojima and the elegant style of sotn.

circle has horrible sprites.