DeathAdderSF Posted November 21, 2022 Share Posted November 21, 2022 (edited) Hey, y'all. For those unaware, a prototype of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night recently appeared out of thin air... for the game.com *cough*. Here's some relevant links... https://www.timeextension.com/news/2022/11/unseen-prototype-for-castlevania-symphony-of-the-night-on-game-com-is-unearthed https://hiddenpalace.org/Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night_(Game.com_Prototype) And a video, running on real hardware... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9p2ceWSWYI And some screenshots... Cool stuff, amirite? Not fun to play, mind you, but definitely cool. Edited November 21, 2022 by DeathAdderSF Never say, "Bite me!" to Dracula. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Biff Burgertime Posted November 22, 2022 Share Posted November 22, 2022 (edited) I'm shocked to see this as complete as it is. A few years ago I dove down all the way down the Game.com rabbit hole, and this was one of a few unreleased game screenshots I suspected might be mock-ups. But nope, it's the entire game in all of its Game.com glory. Like other Game.com games, looks great in screenshots! ...looks janky in motion, and sounds terrible. I'm surprised people aren't freaking out more about this though. As far as these surprise prototype releases go, this one's damn cool. It ranks pretty high. Edited November 22, 2022 by Buffalo Biff Burgertime typos 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supergun Posted November 22, 2022 Share Posted November 22, 2022 I’m a huge Castlevania fan and SotN was a masterpiece in the series. So normally, yes, any CV game news would totally excite me. But to be honest, when I first saw this here yesterday, I thought it was fake! (had it been April 1st I wouldn’t have even doubted that it was fake) It just seemed to weird to me. I couldn’t understand why in hell Konami would waste their time and resources on a CV game for such a limited reaching audience. The 32x version would have had more distribution and potential and yet all we have to show for it are a few sprites. So a full complete project for an obscure “crap” handheld system? I figured it was BS for sure. But oh well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeathAdderSF Posted November 22, 2022 Author Share Posted November 22, 2022 30 minutes ago, Supergun said: when I first saw this here yesterday, I thought it was fake! I can understand why you would, what with the number of people on teh interwebs who enjoy doing the whole, "Ha ha, pulled your leg!" routine. I'm just not into that kind of nonsense. 31 minutes ago, Supergun said: I couldn’t understand why in hell Konami would waste their time and resources on a CV game for such a limited reaching audience. Easy money. Obviously they were pleased with the payoff of the licensing agreement. And since Tiger developed the game internally, Konami most likely had little to no involvement with that. I doubt they even cared when the game was cancelled. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeathAdderSF Posted November 22, 2022 Author Share Posted November 22, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, Buffalo Biff Burgertime said: I'm shocked to see this as complete as it is. this was one of a few unreleased game screenshots I suspected might be mock-ups. Me too. It really came out of left field. And of all the games that could've potentially surfaced as a prototype, I think it's the most important one. 2 hours ago, Buffalo Biff Burgertime said: I'm surprised people aren't freaking out more about this though. I feel the opposite. I honestly wasn't expecting much of a reaction at all, when I plopped a quick 'n' simple snippet about it on my website. I hopped on a plane to Tokyo the next morning, and by the time I'd arrived in the country I was shocked by the swift and far-reaching reaction to said snippet. I mean I know it's Castlevania, but it's also the game.com. Plus, my humble website was previously visited by around 3 people (counting myself). Who knew a 4th person would check it out?! But it's been great. I couldn't stand to play the game for more than a few hours over two nights, so thankfully there's some diehards going through the entire game and making videos and whatnot. For posterity's sake! Edited November 22, 2022 by DeathAdderSF I spilled my blood smoothie. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted November 22, 2022 Share Posted November 22, 2022 I'm curious if someone uses (if it works) the tiger made emulator from the late 90s and records a longplay of this as I think it would get a fair many clicks. Enjoy the effort, not suffer the effects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeathAdderSF Posted November 22, 2022 Author Share Posted November 22, 2022 3 hours ago, Tanooki said: I'm curious if someone uses (if it works) the tiger made emulator from the late 90s and records a longplay of this It works very well, and there are already quite a few videos on PooTube recorded from it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ONLYUSEmeFEET Posted November 23, 2022 Share Posted November 23, 2022 7 hours ago, Tanooki said: I'm curious if someone uses (if it works) the tiger made emulator from the late 90s and records a longplay of this as I think it would get a fair many clicks. Enjoy the effort, not suffer the effects. I'll take you up on this as soon as I figure out whether or not it is possible to 200% the game and collect all relics (missing one). I am currently at 197% completion and missing what I am fairly certain is a Bat Powerup. I spent 3 hours today combing the entire Normal Castle for that damn powerup to no success. I am hoping that I did a good enough job that I can at least get 200% out of this. Hell in Reverse, I managed to enter the room that has the Shaft/Dracula fight, explore it, and get out without the game locking me in. I am really trying all of my tricks! So I am planning on doing more content and requests, but first I want to make certain I know everything that can be obtained. After I comb the Reverse Castle and beat Dracula with my ending completion rate, I am going to try glitching through more walls. So far I only found a few soft locks. I plan on doing a casual playthrough and maybe an Any% run on my channel. I would upload my exploration efforts but I doubt anyone wants to watch me jump at walls for hours on end. Then I'll bust out Cheat Engine to see if the relic is even programmed in. Likely after the holiday I can make something. So yep, still totally here and playing. Currently spending all my time on the last 3% of the game so I can move on. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted November 23, 2022 Share Posted November 23, 2022 He's crazy, my kind of crazy. GO for it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted November 23, 2022 Share Posted November 23, 2022 We really need that game.com flash cart now @atari2600land expressed an interest in doing homebrew I believe... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ONLYUSEmeFEET Posted November 23, 2022 Share Posted November 23, 2022 I searched the entire SOTN game today. Both Castles, up and down, checking to make sure I was in every possible square on the map. I beat the game again at 197% and the ending was the same. No Richter unlock either. I believe the Best Ending on the original is exploring north of 186% of the castle, so I am guessing they never added any additional logic to endings as I doubt the devs were so sadistic to force a 200%. I need to confirm with a new save, but I am almost positive that you do not need any key items (Holy Glasses and Vlad parts) in order to face the true bosses, because there are only true bosses. I beat Richter without Holy Glasses and the fight didn't end until I killed Shaft, who I could see without glasses. And I laughed my ass off when I got to the room where you need Spike Armor to get Holy Glasses. The spikes are just background art, so I could have gotten the Glasses whenever making the Spike Armor useless. I never found the Bat Powerup. So I resorted to... CHEATING! I hooked Cheat Engine into my Game.Com emulator. After an hour of hating Cheat Engine, I found out it disables searching for 2-byte values using its ALL setting by default But my findings? I activated the Bat Powerup relic! It is Fire Bat and looks kind of awesome on GAME.COM. I doubt it is collectible in-game, because after activating all relics (using the value 65335), there is no text or picture of the relic in my Relics screen. I'd snap a pic of the Relic screen, but it'd the exactly like same picture as I already uploaded. Fire bat is better, anyway. So where to go from here? With infinite MP at my disposal I can check soft lock spots without losing form to see if I wrong warp where the Fire Bat powerup is. There are a few tricks I picked up playing for so many hours, so I will share those as well. A playthrough will be made, which could be as casual as me playing through the game with infinite everything to me doing a speed run without saving. Depends on how good I am on a new save, I guess. But I am taking the title of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night GAME.COM Expert for myself, so if you have any questions or want me to record something, let me know. 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+atari2600land Posted November 24, 2022 Share Posted November 24, 2022 And you did this all by only using your feet? Looking at the screenshots, it looks like the Game.com can have more than 4 shades of gray, more than the Game Boy. Is that true? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ONLYUSEmeFEET Posted November 24, 2022 Share Posted November 24, 2022 (edited) 18 minutes ago, atari2600land said: And you did this all by only using your feet? Looking at the screenshots, it looks like the Game.com can have more than 4 shades of gray, more than the Game Boy. Is that true? Yep! Happy to test on real hardware with my feet too if someone comes up with a way to get it there. I had to double check, but there are only 4 colors in the image. Could be emulator upscaling or blending but I changed the two grays around to better illustrate this. Can anyone tell me how I can play the whole game like this? I'd probably only keep one color but it does look nice... Edited November 24, 2022 by ONLYUSEmeFEET 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeathAdderSF Posted November 27, 2022 Author Share Posted November 27, 2022 (edited) On 11/23/2022 at 3:35 PM, ONLYUSEmeFEET said: I am taking the title of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night GAME.COM Expert for myself I don't think anyone'll challenge you for said title. Let me ask you this: Are you keeping a list of memory values you've found for certain items, etc., say as hex locations within a save state file? The only values I needed to pick out were for health, and for the player's vertical location on the map: because once or twice I got stuck somewhere with no escape and had to "teleport" upwards. But I imagine you're finding some far more interesting & useful stuffs that may benefit other game.com "spelunkers." It would also be cool if you put your save state files up for download somewhere. Edited November 27, 2022 by DeathAdderSF 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeathAdderSF Posted December 9, 2022 Author Share Posted December 9, 2022 A very impressive, indepth vid about the Castlevania prototype was upped to PooTube today... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jwtM3EamcQ It's pretty cool, Beavis. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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