Castle In the Darkness

Castle in the Darkness is another one of those games that I loaded up for the first time with absolutely zero expectations.  I don't even remember buying it but I'm sure as hell glad that I did because this game is really awesome.

Castle in the Darkness is a retro style metroid-esque game for PC.  Aside from the clear inspiration from Metroid in the design, there are also some pretty clear influences from Castlevania and I Wanna Be The Guy games.  Don't let that last one put you off though, while the game is quite challenging it's not insane like those games are.

There isn't much of a story to speak of when it comes to Castle In the Darkness.  To be brutally honest with you I beat the game a few weeks back and I forgot what the story was.  From what I do remember there is a big bad guy fucking things up and he's killed basically everyone in this royal army but you, so gear up and go kick his ass.

This is one of those games that's short on the story but strong on the game play.  So you play through each level killing dudes for gold and beating bosses to upgrade your life but in every stage there are offshoots that you can explore and find hidden items.  This game has a FUCKTON of stuff that you wont find just playing the game through normally since I played it getting a few of the secrets and my clear percentage when I beat the final boss was less than 50. 

Word of warning though, this game is tough and I feel that the difficulty presented here may turn some players away.  In terms of game play style its pretty standard 2D side scrolling fare but some of the platform segments are pretty rough and the 1 hit kill death spikes will make you want to punch your monitor a few times.  Not only this but the game also is completely void of a map which is weird considering how much exploration there is to do.  It was part of the reason my clear percent was so low because I'd fucking forget where certain things were and then found myself being too much of a lazy shithead to go get it.  If you are up for the challenge of this game then keep a pen and paper handy and make some fucking notes.  I would also like to point out that upon dying 50 times you unlock an easy mode but I didn't bother to try it out so I'm not sure what changes.

Aside from it's simplistic but challenging game play the game also boasts a pretty awesome pixel art style some great music and a surprisingly fair bit of replay value if you're a little bit of a masochist.  The game also has a decent amount of length even if you just play it normally considering it's cheap price point and has an exceptional amount of value if you try to go for 100% completion. 

So if you're a fan of difficult platformers or you enjoy a bit of the old Metroid style 2D exploration type thing then I'd say you should give Castle in the Darkness a try.  You may need to put your serious game face on a little bit but don't let the games challenge and unwillingness to hold your hand deter you from trying a great little indie title.

If you need diverse games, then make them.

I can't believe it but #GamerGate is still a thing after all this time.  I at first thought it wouldn't get very far because the corruption behind games journalism has been a thing going back ALLLLLL the way to the Commodore 64 but after checking in with it for the last few days shit has been getting real.  Certain companies have pulled their advertising for certain websites after some certain hateful comments on twitter and many interesting people have joined the fray.

However I'm not commenting on #GamerGate, I'll leave my opinion on that whole situation for another day but very recently another twitter tag popped up which was #INeedDiverseGames.  To a degree I agree, the idea of more diverse story and characters in games is absolutely a good thing.  More writers exploring more ideas for plots and exploring ways to make these ideas work within a good game is a great thing.  More innovation in both story and game play is definitely what the games industry needs.

However, while I agree with the core idea, it still manages to piss me off.  Developers have spent a long time with a lot of hard work making games to entertain people and that hard work has paid off and they've been rewarded with loyal fanbases.  These companies know what their fans like and will try to make games that their fans will enjoy and hopefully while aiming to make entertaining games they will draw in more fans and do more business.

Then this group of people come along demanding more diverse games like they are entitled to a game about trans people or whatever and SOMEONE should accommodate that idea just because.  Well no, that's not how this shit works and throwing around demands (and in some cases insults) towards developers just makes you look like a childish idiot.

If there's one thing #GamerGate has showed me it's that there seems to be a group of people on the internet who somehow think that gaming is this thing that only straight white men can enjoy and it's something only straight white men have any say in.  This couldn't be further from the truth and quite frankly if there is anyone who believes that gaming is sexist/racist/homophobic or whatever then you are a moron of the highest calibre. 

If you NEED more diverse games then put down your phone, stop tweeting, learn to code or whatever and MAKE one.  No one is stopping you and no one will be against the idea of having certain main characters/story elements or game play mechanics if you make them FUN.  Remember, people don't hate Gone Home because it's about lesbians, they hate it because it's a shit none game which requires no skill and has shit writing.

Hell, if you wanted to make a game about same sex couples, rip off Castlevania Portrait of Ruin or something.  Have your same sex couple going around killing demons and tagging each other out with their unique powers, people will love that shit.  Make the whole thing a metaphor for gay people having to fight for the right for same sex marriage or something, as long as it's a good GAME then people will dig it. 

No ones excluding you from making games and the reason games with these themes and characters don't get made is because no one who knows enough about that stuff is in game development.  So go learn to code, make something entertaining to play and tell a good story then people will be more open to the idea of these games.

Stop demanding shit from developers like a spoilt little child and do some goddamn work.

The Problem With Metroidvania

Today I polished off a replay of Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia and really there is this huge glaring problem with the whole "metroidvania" thing that I feel the need to express my opinion on because I'm a bit of a self absorbed twat.

Anyway, the first thing to mention is that I fucking love these games.  Aria of Sorrow being my personal favourite, but really I love new school "metriodvania" as much as I love old school side scrolling Castlevania.

So if I love these games so much, what could the problem possibly be?  Well let's think about Metroid for a moment since they are quite similar in game play.  In Metroid you explore a large 2D world, collecting powerups and special abilities in order to move forward, basically the same as new school Castlevania right?  Well the difference between the two games is that every single power up in Metroid feels useful in some way.  A life boost or a missile boost is always welcome, while in Castlevania not everything you get is very good.

In fact, while I was playing Order of Ecclesia I was collecting all the different glyphs that can be used as weaponry, but pretty much through the whole game I stuck to the same 3 and didn't really have much trouble at all.  I would constantly find new weapons, Armour and accessories throughout the game but I would end up ignoring most of them just because what I was currently using was a better anyway.

This problem really affects the game play sometimes because exploring starts to feel like a bit of a chore after a while.  I don't care about searching 100% of a map for that extra item or chest because I know that I'll end up not using it anyway.  I did explore 100% of every map because I'm a bit OCD like that, but your normal player might just get sick of being given sub-par "power ups" and just sack the whole exploring thing and just make a dash for the boss room.

Still, there is plenty of verity in the Castlevania equipment lists so you can always play pretty much exactly how you want, which is a plus.  To me these problems aren't game breaking, just a minor annoyance but I can imagine for some it really turns them off these kind of games.

Do I just have shit hands?

A long while ago I bought a 3DS off a friend of mine, but until my latest plane journey to Japan I hadn't touched the damn thing.

All I've really played on it is Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia for the DS, but I've had a little experience trying out the whole 3D thing with stuff like Mario and Zelda and to be honest I don't see the fuss.  The system has some good games now, at least, but I think I'll be keeping that 3D slider off as much as I can.

Anyway my biggest complaint with this system is the entire left hand side of the fucking thing.  Maybe it's just me, but I find moving a character around the screen on the 3DS to be really awkward.  The stick just feels strange and I hate using it and the D-Pad is just in this weird position that doesn't feel comfortable to use either. 

Also I can't really fully explain why but the buttons on the right hand side feel a bit crappy too.  In fact that's the best way to sum up the whole thing.  The 3DS just sucks to handle and even when your playing a good game it's just not fun because the hardware is so much shit to use.

Still, maybe the later models don't have this problem, I'm only talking about the original 3DS model here.  Since the things are fucking region locked I'm going to buy myself a shiny new updated 3DS sometime in the future.  Maybe that won't be such a massive piece of shit to handle.

Please Stop Moaning About Difficulty

There needs to be a rule when it comes to video game reviews, where reviewers should not be allowed to talk about a games difficulty at all.  This seems like and incredibly stupid and unreasonable thing to say, but what choice do we have when almost every reviewer is wrong about difficulty in games.

Let's talk about Castlevania for a second here.

A good majority of people think Castlevania is a hard game, and they would be right.  The level design and enemy placement is fiendish, the bosses are tough as nails and with no save or password system it can turn into a bit of an endurance test if you die a lot.  On top of that, you sort of have to know whats coming so that you can make educated choices about your sub-weapon.  This isn't bullshit because the games fairly kind with checkpoints, but overall, castlevania is a hard game.

Now what about Demons Souls, or even Dark Souls, are these hard games?  No, no they are not.  Everything in Demons and Dark Souls is designed to kill you and make your life a living hell if you are not willing to play by the games rules.  It's a game where you have to learn the mechanics well, take in your surroundings and above all be careful and observant.  If you do all these things then chances for survival in Demons and Dark souls is actually rather high, and while it's still a rather challenging game, the levels between these games and basically everything in the 8/16 bit generations is massive.

Let's take another example, Etrian Odyssey 4

Etrian Odyssey is a series of dungeon crawlers designed as a throwback to games like Wizardry and it falls in a genre known for it's difficulty.  A few weeks ago I was made aware of a review on IGN basically panning Etrian Odyssey 3 for being too difficult and unfair.  This is of course bullshit and really it was a case of the reviewer not being arsed enough to learn how the game works and getting frustrated when things didn't go his way.  Etrian Odyssey 4 on the other hand got a great review, because the person in question played it on easy mode and didn't have to learn the ins and outs to get by, and this is sort of sad in a way.

He's right, its a great game but not because there is an easy mode that makes it accessible to newcomers.  That is a great feature but that isn't the reason the game deserves the score it got.   Dark Souls is a challenging game but all the hyperbole being thrown around regarding its difficulty caused people to turn away.

Panning a game for difficulty, especially when you are wrong about it, is not good.  It gives the developers this false idea that people don't like challenging or even hard games.  If you as a reviewer find a game kicked your ass into next year, then say so, but don't pan the whole game because you assume that everyone else is like you and isn't willing to put in time to improve at it.  Until reviewers can talk about difficulty in a mature way, and not just throw a low score at a title because it beat them, discussion of difficulty should be disallowed from reviews.

I swear to god if Dark Souls 2 is ruined because of shit like this I'm going to be rather upset.

Castlevania Legends

Well I've had a rather busy few days, so posts have been a bit thin on the ground.  Luckily, all the stuff happening didn't prevent me from playing video games and I managed to blast through Casltevania Legends last night.

Castlevania Legends was the third original game boy Castlevania and is probably the best one, but that isn't really saying much when you think about how much ass the other two games suck.  The game is standard gameboy castlevania stuff with lots of whipping and jumping and all the crap you've come to expect from classic castlevania.

There is a major difference in this game though, there are no sub weapons.  Well, there are but you don't find them in candles and stuff like you did in basically every other game, you have to earn them Megaman style from the bosses.  This sounds pretty cool but the only spell worth a shit in the whole game is the time stop, and you get that in the first fucking level.

The game also has this "burning mode" feature, where you get a massive movement speed buff and become invincible for a limited amount of time.  You can only do it once per life/level but if you know your going to have trouble with a section you can just kill yourself and then burning mode through it since the game is nice enough to give you unlimited continues.

Castlevania Legends is not a bad game by any stretch, it's just a bit boring.  It doesn't do anything truly offensive or bullshit in anyway and it doesn't stand out either.  Probably the most forgettable game in the series, but worth a try at least once.

Castlevania Series Run: Castlevania 2: Belmont's Revenge

God, when I first learned that there was a Castlevania 2 for the gameboy, my heart sank a bit.  If you remember a long time ago, I covered Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest and I thought if this game was anything like that one, I'd be in for a long, boring, slog of a game.

Luckily I was totally wrong and the game is actually quite good, or at least a damn sight better than the first Gameboy Castlevania.  In case anyone was wondering, this game is NOTHING like Castlevania 2 on NES and it's the same side-scrolling goodness that we know and love from classic Casltevania. 

It is basically more of the first game, but the gameplay has been refined so that it's now actually playable instead of being a mess of bad controls and shit level design.  On top of that, they decided to bring back a couple of the sub weapon from the main console games.  That said, not all of them are present, we only get the Holy Water and the Axe, but they are welcome additions and are extremely useful.

The graphics are also a lot better too, gone is Belmont's gammy leg and the enemies look a lot more interesting, and the hit boxes have also been sorted out a bit, so it's a lot easier to tell when you are hitting something and when you are getting hit.

This is not to say that the game is free of bullshit.

Fuck this room

Some rooms near the end of the game are practically impossible to get through without taking a hit or 2 and Dracula, and the boss just before Dracula have some pretty stupid attack patterns that make them more frustrating than actually challenging.

That said, it's a pretty fun game, not as good as the main series games obviously, but at the time it would have been a good little side attraction for on the go vampire hunting.

Castlevania Series Run: The Castlevania Adventure

It's only when one plays the Castlevania series back to back that you notice just how polarising the quality of the games are between entries.  This is a series that has games like Symphony of the Night, which are fucking classics, and then shit like Dracula X (SNES) which is just garbage.  Unfortunately, The Castlevania Adventure is one for the kak pile.

For anyone who isn't familiar with this one, it was the first Gameboy Castlevania game to be released.  It featured 4 levels, no sub weapons and some of the most annoying controls ever.  The controls are especially bad because they feel sticky, and I'm not just talking about the delay between the button being pressed and the whip coming out, it feels way worse than that in that kind of way that's hard to describe unless you play it for youself.  What is especially bad is how there is now way to jump foward unless you are already moving, and given some of the jumps the game expects you to do, this is super annoying.

I don't want to rag on the graphics for this game, especially with it being a gameboy game, but the stance Belmont has while you are not moving just looks strange.

I mean look at it, his back leg looks like it has some kind of disease or something.  But like I said, I'm not going to criticise a game this old for it's lack of anatomical accuracy.

Generally it's not very good, but it's still more fun that Dracula X on the Super Nintendo

Symphony of the Night's Reverse Castle

The last post that I made about Symphony of the Night I gushed quite a lot, so I thought just before I beat the game I'd come back and gush a little bit more.

I'm going to get into spoilers here, so if for some reason you haven't completed or played this game yet then hurry up and get to it, you're already fucking years late.

Anyway, a ways into the game you discover that the castle is being lorded over by none other than Richter Belmont, the protagonist from Rondo of Blood.  This is where the game gets interesting because from here, you can go straight to Draculas's chamber, go and ruin Richters shit and the game will end right there.

I like to call that ending, the "lazy shit" ending, because if you go to any lengths to explore the castle (which is sort of the point of the game) then you can easily find a pair of holy spectacles.  With these equipped you can see this little green orb when you fight Richter, and killing the orb instead of him opens up a entirely different castle!

OK, maybe not entirely different, it's the same castle flipped upside down.  This sounds awful at first since it sounds like a bunch of backtracking through the same areas and having to complete the exact same game again, but it's actually really cool.  New items to find, new enemies to battle and bosses to defeat, basically new everything except backgrounds.

What I find so amazing about the reverse castle though is that the developers put it in, and made the whole thing entirely missable.  There was no guarantee when this was a new game that every player would figure that out, they programmed all this shit and it would have been totally lost on some players.

Shit like this is awesome, and with Symphony's reverse castle you're essentially getting 2 games in one.  So if you needed MORE of an excuse to pick this up on XBLA or something like that, now you have one.

Castlevania Series Run: Symphony of the Night Opening Sequence

I bet everyone forgot that I was playing through the entire castlevania series didn't they?!  Well I sure as hell didn't, so today I started playing Symphony of the Night again.  This is only gonna be a short one, since I just started playing and I should be getting ready for work right now.

It's been a long time since I last played Symphony, and the reason I'm making a quick post about it is after playing for about 30 minutes or so, this game, has one of the best openings of any game I've ever played.

The game starts with the final battle from Rondo of Blood, and once you've done that, it gives you a scrolling text screen that tells you the story, but it ends with "No man can say who will emerge victorious"

I mean good god, that's fucking genius.  I find that when I play more recent games, it never feels like I'm doing anything particularly impressive, like I'm guaranteed to win by virtue of being the main character.  In this game though, it really feels like you're going up against something that's probably going to kick your ass, or at least give you a damn hard time.

Then you get this section

Just running through corridors one shotting monsters twice the size of you, god it feels so good!  Then Death shows up and steals all your awesome shit, and the game starts good and proper.  But this game does an amazing job of hyping you up for everything to come AND it makes you want to get revenge on the prick that took all your shit.

There is a reason this game is regarded as such a classic, and this is one of em!

Castlevania Series Run: Dracula X Chronicles

Well it's been a while but I finally did it! I finally got round to beating Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for PSP.  This is going to be another gushy post about this game because it's fucking AWESOME

So for those that don't know, I'm going to explain what this game actually is.  If you remember a while ago, I made a ranty post about how much of a colossal shitfest Dracula X on SNES was.  Well this game was the original game that they butchered, but with a graphical face lift and a ton of other extras. 

So the game itself is basically everything we've experienced with previous Casltevania games, but refined and perfected in order to produce a platforming masterpiece.  The level design for this game is top notch and the bosses at the end of each stage are original and fun to fight against.  The branching paths make a return from Castlevania 3 but this time round they actually have a big impact on the outcome of the game.  Also there is a companion but I'll get into that later.

One complaint about this game is that it's a little bit too easy, but I don't really think that's the fault of the developers dumbing it down or anything.  Whenever I go online and look at forum posts about this game, there is a large number of people talking about how hard this game is.  The reason I probably think it's so easy is that I've been playing so much Castlevania that I've probably just gotten really good.  So to sum up this point, if you're a veteran CV player, you'll breeze through it, and if not, you'll get your ass kicked.  Either way it's still really fun.

But now we have to address something that is quite a glaring problem with this game, and that's your companion.

 That's a picture of Maria from the original PC-Engine version of the game, you can see her redesign on the box at the top of the page.

Anyway, this bitch right here, is too fucking powerful for her own good!  You can get her really easily, really early on and after you get her she will just destroy the fuck out of anything Dracula can possibly throw at you.  Compared to the main character, Richter, her attack is faster, she has a double jump and her item crushes are so overpowered it makes my face melt.

Now this isn't a bad thing, it doesn't ruin the game, but I have some problems with her from a storyline point of view here.  Richter is supposed this seasoned vampire hunter, with a legendary whip made for killing Dracula.  He's supposed to be a bad ass, but in the context of the game, his combat power is dwarfed by a small girl who shoots doves.  I'm aware that Maria is also supposed to be a vampire hunter too but c'mon, talk about stealing the spotlight here. 

Once you get her there is basically no reason to use Richter AT ALL unless you're doing the secrets.  Her attack is faster and you get no sacrifice in power, her double jump is extremely useful and shes a hell of a lot more nimble than Richter is.  The only disadvantage to using Maria is that every time she attacks, she makes this annoying "EY!" sound.  I think she might also have less health, but shes so fucking fast you'll never get hit anyway.

Well I'm not going to talk about Rondo of Blood itself, because it's not really all that different from any other Casltevania game prior, but what I am going to talk about, is the insane replay value in the PSP version.  There is SO MUCH SHIT here that even if you paid full price for it, it's worth every goddamn penny.

So lets go through all the big shit that you get with this game.  You get the Rondo of Blood remake, then you get the original PC Engine version of Rondo of Blood.  On top of that you get a full version of fucking Symphony of the Night! I mean holy shit that's another HUGE game just packaged in with an already meaty Castlevania game.  Finally you get some piece of shit parody game called Akumajou Dracula: Peke, but that takes about 30 seconds to play.

On top of getting an extra 3 games on top of the game you originally paid for, the remake itself contains a shitton of extra music CD's to collect that all count to a completion %age.  So if you're like me and you can't put a game down without getting the 100%, then you'll love finding all these discs.  Plus the music is awesome so they're worth getting anyway and you do need to use Richter for a couple of them, so just roflstomping your way through everything with Maria is not an option.  Finally there is a hidden ending after you fulfil a few requirements, so once you've beaten the game, you have a reason to go back.

To cut a very long story short, this game is fantastic and is easily one of the best games for the PSP.  So go pick it up and give it a whirl, you won't be disappointed at all.  If you don't have a PSP, then go emulate Rondo of Blood or some shit, because if you've not played it you're missing out.

I'll end this post with a picture of my 100% game just because I'm a dick and I like to show off

Castlevania Series Run: Castlevania Bloodlines

OK! This will be the last update in my Castlevania Series Run posts because today I finally got round to starting the PSP remake of Rondo of Blood! This was the last game I played before I took my little break but now I'm back to vampire killing in full force!

This, to me, is probably one of the most interesting Castlevania titles out there.  First of all, it was on the Sega Genesis (or Megadrive if you're not American) which is a strange fact on it's own since every other Castlevania game up to this point was on a Nintendo console at that point.  But what's really interesting about this game, is the fact that it tries to tie in Bram Stoker's Dracula book with the series of games.  Of course, the tie in is a very loose one and there are lots of problems with what's written in the manual and what actually happened in the original story, but it was a cool idea to try and pull off something like this.

So in this game, you get to choose between two guys, John Morris (Whip dude) and Eric Lecarde (Spear dude).  The game isn't designed so that it's easier with a certain character, so playing with both of them is pretty fun.   For the run is just completed, I opted for John Morris because how many games are there where you can whip things to death?  They both play in distinct ways and each character will have to tackle certain situations differently which gives the game some replay value for a while.

The level design is also really good here.  The whole game isn't set inside Dracula's castle, instead you go around most of Europe whipping the shit out of whatever nasties are being thrown at you, and the stage traps are fun and interesting without falling into the realms of bullshit.  The most famous example of this is probably the "mirror" room right near the end of the game.

The whole room starts to split up and it really fucks with your sense of where you are in relation to the platforms, but it doesn't feel like an unfair challenge.  Everything can be figured out with a bit of thought and careful planning, but the game does a good job of making you think on your feet.

My one real complaint about this game is the difficulty.  Good lord is it an easy game, I'd imagine even people not that familiar with the challenge of the past games would be able to breeze through it without too much difficulty. 

That said it's still a good laugh and worth at least a single playthrough, so give it a go!  The next post will come when I beat Rondo of Blood, so expect a bit of a gush at that time.

Castlevania Series Run: Castlevania Dracula X

What another horrible night to have a shitty fucking castlevania game! Ho-ly shit this game is fucking TERRIBLE, I hate it so damn much.  If you have been reading these posts, you can probably guess I'm a big Castlevania fan, but this? this is just fucking crap.

Now, if you're not a big castlevania fan, and you've played Dracula X: Chronicles on PSP, you're probably wondering how I can hate such a good game?  Well I don't, that game is awesome, and the original Rondo of Blood is also awesome, but this game is a fucking abomination and I want to punch it's development team in the goddamn soul.  Fuck this game.

So first of all, what is it exactly?  What Drac X is, is a shitty "port" of a awesome Castlevania game that was originally for the PC Engine known as Rondo of Blood.  This game was originally never released outside of Japan, so back in the day, the closest you could ever get to playing Rondo was this hunk of rotting anal leakage.

So what is it about this game that makes it so vomit inducingly awful?  Well, anyone who saw the original Rondo of Blood back in the day was hyped as shit for this getting a release over in the west.  The original had multiple pathways (like CV3) and a different character to play as (like CV3 but she didn't suck ass this time round) and all sorts of good stuff.  Instead, we got a mess of a game where the multiple pathways were pretty much cut, the graphics weren't as good, at the second character got demoted to yet another damsel in distress despite being a hardcore beastmaster death machine in the original.

So what the Super Nintendo players got in the end was a semi-remake of the PC Engine game, that was really fucking hard, and I don't mean the good kind of really fucking hard.  I mean the horrible, shitty kind of really fucking hard where every time you die you want to tear out your own eyes and throw them at the wall just so you don't have to look at this shitty game again.  Bullshit death pits, bullshit enemy placement and bullshit level design, none of which were an issue in the original game.

Sure, the music was nice and there were some good graphic effects, such as the fire in level 1

See look, it's fuckin' pretty! But you need more than just pretty fire effects in one level to make a good game, and this game doesn't have anything going for it outside of that.

Oh yeah, and the final boss is bullshit too.  It's Dracula as usual, all you have to do is smack him in the face with your whip, but this time, you have to fight him while bouncing around on columns over instant death pits.  It renders the whole purpose of your life bar fucking useless because if he hits you ONE FUCKING TIME that it, you're fucking dead. GG no re, fuck off back to the monastery with your whip shithead.  As soon as I beat this pool of stale spunk I instantly had to take a shower because I felt dirty after wasting all that fucking time.

But you know what?  If it wasn't called Castlevania, it would have been a passable platformer.  Hell, even if it was another CV game it would have been OK, but it was SUPPOSED to be Rondo of fucking blood.  How do you fuck Rondo of Blood up this goddamn much?!

Luckily we got Dracula X: Chronicles for the PSP a few years back, giving us a remastered version of Rondo, the original version of Rondo AND Symphony of the Night all bundled in.  Now that is an apology I can accept.

Castlevania Series Run: Super Castlevania 4

With the 3 NES games done and dusted it was time to start whipping Dracula's face in 16 bits!  The first game on this list was Super Castlevania 4 for the Super Nintendo

Although we have a problem right here, I gushed pretty hard about castlevania 1 and 3 and this is pretty much the same stuff again, but now in 16 bits.  The level design is clever and makes good use of that Super Nintendo hardware, the bosses are cool and the game is challenging as usual so there isn't really much to say that you havn't already heard before, generally speaking.

However, when talking about the challenge in this game, I'm not talking about the bullshit NES Castlevania challenge, where the game will kill you for some bullshit monster placement or flying back into insta-death pits.  Super Castlevania 4 is all fair challenge, and if your die it's your fuckin' fault.  It's an incredibly simple innovation that gives the game this sense of fair play, and that's the ability to whip in 8 different directions.  No longer those Medusa heads get a cheap hit in because they were underneath you.  No longer do those annoying as shit crows get to peck chunks of your life bar off because they were too high to hit.  Being able to whip 8 ways is a simple yet effective way to make the game feel fair, but without making it easy.

Don't think that just because Konami didn't want to fuck you over on mechanics that the series has lost it's challenge.  Chances are you're going to get your ass kicked a few times, but I don't think fans of castlevania would want it any other way.

So yeah, this post is a little short but it's hard to say a lot about a game this good when I've already said all the good stuff in previous posts.  Anyway just check it out, it's a fantastic game and if you haven't played it already, SHAME ON YOU! go do it right now.

Castlevania Series Run: Castlevania 3

So the third game in my Castlevania run was obviously Castlevania 3, and this game is fucking awesome.  Basically, all the shit Konami did in Castlevania 2 they realised was a complete total load of muffgarbage so they brought it back to its original format and holy shit is awesome.

This is going to be a kind of short post because there isn't exactly a lot to say about this game, it's essentially the exact same thing as Castlevania 1 but the game play is a little bit more refined the the level design is a bit more clever.  That said it's still full of its bullshit instant death traps and arsehole bosses that will just wreck your shit, but the game is still a ton of fun despite all that.

The game is a prequel and follows the adventure of Trevor Belmont, once exiled by the church, called to go and vanquish Dracula.  But of course you don't give a flying fuck about the plot to the old school 'vanias, you just want to whip Dracula in the FACE.

This game basically brought 2 new things to the table, level choices and a companion system.  First the level choices! for the first half of the game, you're not actually in Dracula's castle, you have to go on a grand journey to get there first.

While you are on your way there, you get to choose what kind of path you want to go down.  This has an effect on what companion you get down the road as well as what kind of enemies an bosses you encounter.  The downside to this new thing, is that despite being kind of cool it gets thrown out of the window after a while because there is only really one way you can go through Dracula's castle.

The companion system is also a little bit stupid.  Basically, if you look at the top picture, you may notice 3 people alongside Trevor.  The guy in the front is a little midget man who can climb on stuff, and he's fucking useless.  The woman(?) in the back behind Trevor can cast spells that are fucking useless.  Finally that vampire looking fuck in the very back is Alucard, and he can turn into a bat, which is the most overpowered fucking skill in any castlevania ever.  He can literally just fly over everything and then when you arrive at your destination, switch to Trevor to and wreck some shit.  It's a cool system but the fact that Alucard is the only good extra character makes the whole thing a little pointless.  Last time I played I got that mage bitch and I never ONCE switched to the companion, because why bother when I have a dirty big magic whip to dole out the harshness.

So basically, if you liked CV1, go play CV3, its more of the same fucking shit you like it so damn much.

Castlevania Series Run: Castlevania 2

What a horrible night to have a SHITTY FUCKING GAME! HOLY CRAP THIS SUCKS SO BAD!

OK, cruise control out of the way, yeah, the second game as part of my Castlevania series was obviously, Castlevania 2: Simons Quest.  This game is so bad it makes me want to cut off my own hands for having played it, it's a disaster of a game and was barely worth my time, but still, I couldn't say I did a proper go through of the series if I didn't play it.

Anyway, before I start talking about how awful this game is, lets go over some good things about this game, and surprisingly there are a few.  First of all we have the day and night thing, which is surprisingly an awful thing and a good thing at the same time.  See, it's a cool idea and it does a lot for building tension when your low HP and quite far from the nearest town to heal in, but it's so badly implemented it kind of just falls flat, but more on that later.

The other good thing is the soundtrack, most notably Bloody Tears.  When ANYONE thinks of Castlevania, they think of that damn song and this is where it all began, as an overworld theme in the daytime segments of this shitty game

But unfortunately, that's about it for the good points behind this game, so time to dive headfirst into the shit.  So yeah, back to that day and night shit.  Sure, I said it's a cool concept, but the problem is that every time the game transitions between phases, EVERYTHING stops and you can't do shit for like a good 15 seconds.  It's a pain in the ass and it really adds a lot of unneeded length to an already arse game.

Leading me onto my second point, GRINDING!  Now I'm a bit of a glutton for the grind.  I used to play the shit of World of Warcraft back in vanilla and Burning Crusade days and hell, I've even had my fair share of hours on those free Korean grindfests, but THIS is a pisstake.  Basically you need hearts to buy important shit that you need to move on.  However these hearts take fucking ages to get and the only thing you ever really want to do is walk back and forth between 2 sets of enemies hoping one of them drops a big heart so you don't have to grind as long.  What's super double bullshit turbo is that if you die, you lose all your goddamn hearts, so you have to grind out those 4,000,000 skeletons AGAIN! fuck this game...

So when you do eventually get your shit together, you get to go questing in what is quite possibly the worst designed levels fucking ever.  There are 4 mansions in this game, each housing a bit of dracula that you have to pick up.  The first 2 don't even have a boss and you just have to fight your way through some easy mode skeletons and slimes or whatever.  Then when you finally do hit a boss, it's so easy it may as well have not existed in the first place.  But your worst enemy in this shitheap game, is the floor!  Some of the blocks you just fall through and you either day or have to backtrack like 5 minutes to get to where you were, and by that point you're so angry you forget AGAIN and fall down AGAIN.

Writing about this game is actually giving me pretty much ever disease ever, so I'll wrap up with this last point, and that's the puzzles.  Holy shit the puzzles.  This is the most cryptic as shit game that you'll ever play, more cryptic than Z grade point and clickers from the 90's.  Unless you have gamefaqs (which lol, you wouldn't have done if you played it new) or a copy of Nintendo Power (lol, enjoy spending more money, dickface) you were just fucked up the ass with a broomstick.  There is NO WAY you would ever figure out from the hint "hit your head off the cliff" to go buy a red gem, and duck in front of it for 5 seconds, and that's just the most famous example.  There is so cryptic shit in this game that it could take up a good 10+ entries on the "Thats some BULLSHIT" bit I'm doing.

So yeah, that's Castlevania 2, and if you're still interested after all that, here's one last thing to maybe put you off the game entirely.  The final dungeon has no enemies or traps, and you can stunlock Dracula with fire until he dies.

Fuck this game, and fuck everyone associated with its development

Castlevania Series Run: Castlevania

What's that? Is that come Castlevania?! HOLY SHIT ITS SOME CASTLEVANIA!  Basically, since before I came to Japan me and a buddy have been slowly working out way through the Castlevania games.  Most of these playthroughs are replays for me as I've already played the ever loving shit but the series is always a ton of fun and I can't get enough.

So the story so far is that I've beaten Casltevania 1,2 and 3 along with Super 4, Dracula X and Bloodlines.  Once I finally finish slogging through R-Type tactics I plan to move onto the Rondo of Blood remake on PSP and then Symphony, Aria of Sorrow and all the games after that.

So what I thought I'd do, was retell my experience replaying this series.  It's been mostly rage, but that's OK, it would be boring if every post read "beat it in like 3 hours, game's well easy" so at least my lack of skill makes things interesting.

Well, the best place to start I figured would be at the beginning of the series, so about 3 weeks ago I fired up Castlevania for the NES!

Now before I continue, reviewing old media has been kind of played out and it's not something I want to spend a great deal of time doing.  Granted, I've been playing video games since the age of 4, so old games have been a big part of my life, and using this blog to reflect on them would be fun, but it's not something I want to get bogged down in.

Anyway moving on...HOLY SHIT THIS GAME IS SO DAMN GOOD!  One thing I really love is a hard game, and Castlevania is one hard goddamn game.  Most of the time the challenge isn't too bad, but other times it's just complete bullshit, but that's fine, when you do beat this beast of a game it feels satisfying as all hell, like you really earned that win.

Anyway, the story is simple NES stuff, you play as Simon Belmont, professional vampire killer and you have to storm Dracula's castle and go wreck his shit.  On the way you'll fight all sorts of shit like bats, mummy's, gorgons, Frankensteins monster and all sorts of shit.

Now with NES games being limited in space it's not exactly a long game, so of course its hard as all damn hell.  Like I said before, mostly the challenge is fair except for one thing that really makes me want to go and smash my face against the closest flat surface, and that, is the damage jump.  What I mean by this is when you take damage, you fly backwards, and when you fly backwards, you usually end up in a bit or some spikes or whatever, and you die.  The level design is actually really good for this game but it's so hard to appreciate it properly when you die for the god knows how many time because of that damage jump.

That said, I think I've gotten a lot better at this game since I last played it because this time round I got through the game with little to no problem.  There is one corridor, that's famous for being the ultimate in 8-bit dogshit, where there is these resilient axe throwing enemies, and their backed up by flying gorgon heads and getting through that corridor is a real trail in patience and skill, however, CHECK THIS SHIT OUT!

This is a screen shot I took to show my buddy of me getting through that godawful corridor without taking a damn hit, pretty proud of that crap right there.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how proud you might be of pulling that off because the boss right after that is Death, which is something that always confused me a bit.  Death himself, takes orders from goddamn Dracula, how does that even work?  I mean, Dracula's pretty strong in this series, but why is the deity of death itself taking orders from one goddamn vampire, surely Death is stronger than Dracula?! but whatever, Death makes a good boss, albeit an annoying as shit one in the older games

So you kill Death, go through some more annoying as shit stages and then you fight Dracula.  Dracula has 2 forms, one where you gotta hit him in the face, and then some big monster form...that you have to hit in the face.  In all the older castlevania games you ALWAYS have to hit Dracula in the goddamn face.  You think after being killed and coming back so many damn times he'd have one of his minions make him some kind of metal face mask or something, but no, I guess he's not that smart.

So you kill Dracula and his castle crumbles, you watch the credits and then you can walk away safe in the knowledge that the world is safe from evil Vampire bastards.  Castlevania 1 is a brilliant little game and it's a shame that a lot of the fans of Lords of Shadow or the newer metroidvanias, the younger fans that is, probably haven't played this. 

So go buy it or emulate it or whatever, just play it, its really goddamn fun.

Next time I'll be recanting my tale of Casltevania 2.....oh dear