My first Castlevania game.

The movements were really responsive. Alucard isn't slippery, he doesn't gain a weird momentum as soon as he starts moving forward, or any other shenanigan. It just felt very smooth. The same can be said about the bat form.
It was such a sick ability btw, being able to fly wherever you want, dodging every enemy while backtracking. And I like the detail of the bat changing color depending on Alucard's outfit.

The soundtrack is extremely catchy. There are elements from multiple musical genres, including classical, techno, rock and metal. It fitted perfectly with the gothic aesthetics of the game. The atmosphere is just very charming.

The game has a good amount of teleporters that are well spaced between each other. I could reach any part of the map pretty quickly. It's too rare in those retro games.

While some of the Bosses were too easy, I still enjoyed them a lot overall. Many of them have a really cool chara design, like Granfaloon, Medusa, Scylla and Shaft. And honestly, I usually prefer too easy rather than too hard.
By the way, having to fight Doppelganger 30 minutes into my playthrough was a big surprise. It was probably the most difficult Boss in the entire game. Still a great Boss tho 👌

I liked the RPG aspect of the game, with the items you can drop on defeated enemies, or by finding them during your exploration. Whether it's weapons, cloaks or talismans to make Alucard stronger, or consumables to heal yourself and boost your statistics momentarily in battle. I wish we could use items without having to unequip our weapon or shield tho...

The sub-weapons I used the most were the knives for their ease of use & high damage, and also the stopwatch. I didn't use the other ones very often.

I like how there is a possibility of getting a bad ending if you rush to the top of the castle before doing the necessary to save Richter. I ruthlessly killed him even though he is a human, and immediatly realized my mistake.
Hopefully I was able to reload my save right away to get the true ending.

I remember being stuck at some point, and I found a clue while looking at the tactic for Dracula, in the Librarian's Shop. When you watch this tutorial where Richter is fighting him, you can see that he opens a secret path at the very beginning, right before the fight. So I was able to go there myself, and I found an item that helped me to progress. I just think that was a cool way to proceed.

At first, when I reached the Reverse Castle, I was excited about the idea to go through the same map but upside down.
But when I realized that many of the rooms were now filled to the brim with enemies, I decided to keep using the bat & mist to breeze through the map and reach the Final Boss a lot quicker.
This last segment in the Reverse Castle felt like padding to be honest. It wasn't as great as the rest of the game.

Still, I had a very good time with the game overall. I enjoyed it more than Super Metroid which I played right before SOTN. (I mention it because I saw that there is a heated debate between the fans of both games to decide which one is the best 😂)
Anyway, if I play another Castlevania game in the future, it's gonna be Aria of Sorrow! 👍

----------Playtime & Completion----------

[Started on May 8th & finished on May 10th 2024]
Playtime: 13 hours
I was at 88% after getting the first ending.
And at 150% after getting the true ending.

This is my first Metroid game.

Samus movements are a bit clunky. First, I never became truly comfortable with the Spin Jump. I couldn't get used to the momentum of this move, and often ended up slipping off platforms.
Figuring out how to use the Wall Jump wasn't obvious at all. I had to train on a wall for a few minutes to get a good grip of it.
And worst of all, the Space Jump: Underwater, I was able to perform this move without any issue, but outside of that, I was never able to chain them consistently. The timing is just so weird and unintuitive, and that's the reason I had such a bad time in the last area, Ridley's Lair. You need to fly across rising lava as quickly as possible using this move, and that was terrible.

Also, this isn't the game's fault, but I don't vibe with the sci-fi/alien/futuristic setting... Different strokes, right?

There are some items that are fun to use. I liked being able to freeze the enemies to use them as platforms, thanks to the Ice Beam. Swinging myself around with the grapple beam was also kinda fun.

I didn't like the abundance of hidden paths. Having to stop constantly to use the X-Ray kinda ruins the pace of exploration. It's the biggest issue in the game for me.

I enjoyed the boss fights for the most part. They aren't too easy nor too hard. I do want to note that I was using save states. So whenever I died against a Boss, I could respawn in front of it and retry immediatly.
Crocomire was pretty cool, the fact that you need to push him into the lava rather than reducing his HP to 0. And the way he comes back as a skeleton to scare you one last time was neat.
Draygon was my favorite Boss in the game, and I also had a good time with Golden Torizo.

Using the Power Bomb in Maridia to break the glass tunnel was such an Eureka moment for me. I was stuck for so long, and it felt very satisfying to finally figure this out!

As I said earlier, I kind of had enough once I reached Ridley's Lair. I got stuck at the 2 Ridley's Guards.
I didn't have enough ammo to deal with them, and I was really fed up with this area, so I didn't have the courage to backtrack to gather HP & ammo. The lack of teleporters is definitely a deal-breaker.
So I stopped here and watched the rest of the game on YouTube.

Honestly, I had a good time in the first half of the game. Before I reached the last quarter of the game, I thought about giving it 3.5 stars, or even 4 stars. But it became really tedious near the end, hence my final rating.
I'm still happy I played such an iconic game, it was about time I played this series! I feel like I would have more fun with Metroid Dread tho?

----------Playtime & Completion----------

[Started on May 5th & stopped on May 7th 2024]
Playtime: 18 hours
I stopped at the 2 Ridley's Guards.

It’s bizarre that a game that teaches you how to cope with grief from so many different angles and characters left me so emotionally devastated at an ending that ties its themes together so perfectly. I’ve been crying for like 12 hours, I can’t seem to get over it.

Forever grateful for the video game gods to deliver this remake to me at the peak of my Persona fandom. It's everything I could've ever wanted and more. I have notes... there are some really weird plot and pacing issues... but I can't bring myself to care when I had such a great experience overall. For a third time, Persona became my second life, and a home away from home. It's a little concerning how I managed to play this in two weeks though, so I think I'll be able to handle the long wait for Persona 6.

There is absolutely nothing like Illbleed.

Illbleed is an absolute achievement. Bonkers. Wild as hell. Absolutely unpredictable in everything its doing. Designed to entertain and fuck with you to a degree I haven't seen a horror comedy joint ever really quite do and only really in the way that a video game can.

Illbleed is a reminder of the kinds of things only video games as a medium can do in the ways in which they interact and interface with the player and the way the player interacts and interfaces with the game. You could adapt The Last of Us, Dead Space, God of War and Final Fantasy XV into a series or film or something. You could NOT adapt Illbleed into anything else.

You could not remake Illbleed and get the same result. You could not make a sequel to Illbleed and have it work the same at all. This is a culmination of absolutely deranged ideas all culminating into a beautiful package at one specific time by one specific team at one specific moment. This shit is special.

Illbleed frankly is fuckin peak. The more I played the more I fell in absolute love with it. It trolled me, it baffled me, it knocked me on my ass and every twist and turn had me waiting for where the fuck this thing was gonna go next.

Sorry to be vague but you should really just play it for yourself and see what this has to offer. I want people who experience it to have the raw experience I had with it. I really wish there was some Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind type procedure so I could wipe my memory and play this shit fresh cause it is such a transcendent and wild experience. I will absolutely never forget it. Don't be afraid to use a guide if ya need to, it's absolutely worth experiencing.

Make sure ya invest in them worm stocks alright?