Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles US

[CheatJoker008]

(10-17-2014 06:59 AM)Testmark89 Wrote:  Hello! I recently completed the whole collection, so I decided to write this up as a... uh, Halloween gift? I tried to list bugs based on severity.

Region: US
Format: CSO
Version: v0.9.9.1 (and ~10/05 nightly for Rondo)
OS: Win7 x64

DXC - Fully completable.
Bugs:
-Minor, dialogue: I'm fairly certain one of Shaft's later speeches "stops" and requires pressing Start to bypass. It's not the much earlier "fog" one which required fixing and is incredibly minor. Unfortunately I did not particularly test it or note it in any detail.
-Minor, gameplay?: A weird one, but the Boss Demo mode (not the Boss Rush, just the purchasable demonstrations) seems to desync eventually. It seems to have no noticeable effect on the game, even if the character is defeated.

Rondo of Blood - Technically beatable, but not fully UNLESS you use an external workaround. Might be better to source a different copy of it if you are sensitive to the bugs, although the PSP version does have some minor localization differences unavailable elsewhere.
Bugs:
-Major, gameplay: You can beat it getting the bad ending with Richter (which, actually, is up to a vast majority of the game), but the game/program freezes upon loading of cinema when saving hostages (including the playable character Maria). The audio will go but nothing else, and it seems to affect the output. Important Note: You can get around this right now if you use JCPSP which will get past that section fine (although slowly); just swap your memory card save back and forth. Thankfully almost all of the hostages are near the beginning of levels and you don't even have to beat the level after saving them (just quit to the menu or whatever). Please see the bottom of post for a save state example, as this is the biggest bug in the collection.
-Intermediate, sound/video: Cinematic outside of in-level (opening, ending, another story one near the end I think) don't freeze the game, but they do have fairly big problems. The sound will go and finish first, and then the video. The ending in particular won't even load the credit music after, although it doesn't cause any problems besides being a pretty unsatisfying cap on the whole thing.
-Intermediate, graphical: Border corrupts, and it actually can be somewhat distracting in this case. What happens on the right side is that it seems to have a "buffer" corruption, so when say an enemy touches it it will bleed into it. It's largely ignorable to me but I imagine it'd annoy others, especially as it seems to happen largely on boss areas.
-Intermediate, music: Music usually goes through one iteration, and then instead of looping it'll corrupt until it mutes itself. Oddly, loading a save state seems to fix it (if I'm remembering correctly) until it finished that iteration again. If you can ignore it and don't mind playing mainly mute it isn't a big deal.
-Minor, lag: Minor, stuttering lag happens occasionally. I label it "Minor" because it's both interceptable/readable and non-constant. It might have something to do with the music? I noticed it is triggerable in a few places, including, but not always, the Dracula fight.
-Minor, Sound Test: Sound Test (music) seems to freeze the game somewhat similar to the hostage bug. The solution is to ignore its existence as you can find the music elsewhere (including the DXC sound test).
-Besides that, runs pretty perfect. Great speed, I didn't notice any problem with it! I really don't regret doing this version instead of another (well, constant music would've been nice); YouTube has the endings anyway.

Symphony of the Night - Fully beatable (trust me!), just keep in mind the crash bug. The PSP version has exclusive (though not entirely uncontroversial) changes which is why I played this version of it.
Bugs:
-Intermediate?: It had a tendency to crash PPSSPP without warning/cause (or have horrific graphical problems) if I played too long. Some areas, like the elevator generator, seemed to have these more often, and I sometimes noticed a graphical effect on the Faerie familiar often before it happened (odd, I know, but true). Maria mode in particular seemed to trigger crashes more often and sooner. What "fixes" it is simply getting in the habit of quitting to the SoTN main menu after saving and then loading the save (in-game, you don't have to quit the program or anything and it does it fast). Seriously, doing that little thing changed it from "fairly noticeable crashing" to "a few times in a mode playthrough usually if I forgot". I didn't use save states (except, just in case, before quitting in case of save corruption) so maybe try that?
-Minor, graphical: Some other graphical errors but nothing big. Honestly except for that familiar one and some big crashes that affected the graphics but not the program, the most noticeable is on the death animation on Fire Demons. No layer problems (fog, dark) or anything like that.
-Minor, lag: Occasionally I could trigger some small stuttering lag not entirely dissimilar to Rondo of Blood's (more "speed-up" after the stuttering maybe?). Oddly enough I first noticed it replicable during the credits (every ten seconds or so), but not every time nor always when fighting Dracula. Mostly ignorable, minor and inconsistent (just like Rondo of Blood, the speed of SoTN is fantastic as a whole).
-Minor, graphical: Border corruption again. In SoTN's case not only is it much less annoying (no bleedthrough, always black), but various in-game things like saving will fix it.

There you go, hope it's helpful to somebody! To sum it all up: DXC is like perfect now, Rondo of Blood is annoying but beatable (and fully if you use an external workaround for a few parts) with like perfect speed but bad music and cinematics, and SoTN is fantastic as long as you save and reload and don't mind occasional crashes. That's pretty wild, considering where it was just last year! Also I uploaded a save state during Rondo of Blood right before a hostage and potential freeze (press down on the hidden red stairs there):

Code:

depositfiles.com/files/qeen3i1lj

Hi. I'm sorry for necroposting(if that is a problem on this forum), but I would like to ask if the cutscene problem of rondo of blood has any progress/solution that I missed, as I am being bugged by that problem for a long time.