Moderators: lazyben, static14, texasvinyl

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By texasvinyl
#95848
Reminder this drops tomorrow at 12pm CST.

Awesome soundtrack... Although I think the artwork for this release is bad..

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By deafmetal
#95856
This was an excellent entry in the game series, and was one of the first SNES titles I experienced. I remember the graphics and sound being quite a step-up, and I look forward to revisiting the standalone soundtrack.

Another notch closer to Symphony of the Night, and I also believe I saw Dracula X - Rondo of Blood on the back of an obi strip. Looking forward to both of those titles as well.
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By Hatter313
#95858
oh please oh please Rondo, a game and soundtrack almost on par with SotN, and so elusive.
By slik
#95859
In two minds about the cover art.....it seems a little too cartoon style for my liking. I reckon the original packaging art for all game OST releases would be cool, though I guess licensing plays a part. Cool centre labels though..... Now, where's the Metroid series?
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By deafmetal
#95861
Mondo is pretty well-known for commissioned cover art rather than reusing original poster artwork. I'm not in love with any of the Castlevania series artwork so far, but I do appreciate that they are continually exposing people to new artists -- whether you like their work or not. I have felt the same about Death Waltz and other labels.

That said, if anybody wants to throw together some custom sleeves with the original game poster artwork, I would be *very* interested...
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By deafmetal
#103954
Full disclosure, I love all things Castlevania. When the Simon Belmont's Theme hits, I am immediately transported back in time to the thumb-crushing days of my teenage years where I endlessly crawled digital castles and dungeons (when we weren't running the weekend pen & paper campaigns). The absurdity of listening to digital video game soundtracks on vinyl is not lost on me, but damn if the funky synthbass and leads on this cut don't have my head nodding in appreciation...



...but hey, I could just as easily listen to the digital audio ripped from the original .rom files or whatever. No complaints though, the 45rpm 2LP cleanly pressed on shiny black wax sounds excellent to me. So, how about that artwork?

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The inner gatefold with the stylized floating castle map artwork is almost worth the price of admission, and it would make for a nice poster, but overall the album feels a bit bare bones. There is no art insert, sleeve notes, or any information at all about the artist, the original composer, or even about the damn video game itself. I get that licensing can make all of that very difficult, especially for Japanese properties, but it feels like a missed opportunity. There is a full-color gatefold sleeve with artwork on all sides, and each side of the vinyl has another tidbit of new artwork:

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I hope for the upcoming Symphony of the Night that they include some liner notes. I would love to read more about all of it... game designers, composers, history of the franchise, etc. As far as I know, there is not a lot of information out there in English.

ps - The jump from 10" to 12" releases for this series has really fried my OCD! ;\
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By Bezulsqy
#103962
I am no Castlevania adept but I do love that Simon Belmont's Theme. And that label and gatefold art do look beautiful.
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By inksb
#103973
I have all 4 of these releases so far, I do agree that switching from 10" to 12" was a bit of a bummer, I would have preferred to just have it all on 12". 3 is my favorite out of the bunch but they all conjure up memories of my childhood. I still remember the first time I fired up IV at a friends house and realized you could move you whip 360 degrees, useless but cool. I do wish that Mondo would finish up the series and give us Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood. It's been almost a year since IV's release and I'm bummed they haven't even mentioned the last two since then. I really don't like IV's cover but the inner gatefold art is really beautiful.