Funny enough you'd think something like this would be a reskinned Panel de Pon, replacing Lip and friends with a Pokemon skin but no, this is actually the original game, made with the Western 4kids dub world of Pokemon. Must've been interesting when the Japanese finally got to play this one on their NSO and see Takeshi and Kasumi called Brock and Misty.

It's still a pretty good game. I managed to beat Normal without a loss, but Hard I could only get up to Giovanni and do that so many times before I caved and started using Continues to plow through Gary. I like that there is no penalties for unlimited attempts, but your continue counter will show up on your Records (if you don't exploit the real infinite tries trick anyways).

The whole thing is a big nostalgic package for me, given I grew up during Pokemania. All the music is remixed from the show, so sometimes you can't help but sing along, like Erika getting What Kind of Pokemon are You? or Blaine getting My Best Friends. I think my only issues with the music are Bruno and especially Giovanni getting the goofy ass chase music, and that it goes in and out of the Danger variant constantly.

You can choose your Pokemon to go into battle with you, they don't really do anything but they provide an extra bit of flavor during some of your attacks. I think they ran out of time or something though because some like more notably Nidoqueen just get stock animal sounds that don't evoke the Pokemon at all. But it makes you feel like a team at least.

If you're from the Pokemania era, this is definitely a game for you. If not, hey, you can't go wrong with a version of Panel de Pon that has a Pokemon flavor to it!

So this game is a "remake" (really feels like an enhanced port) of Castlevania for the Sharp X68000. Because the gameplay is so similar, I'll recap some of what I said there
it's a good remake that I like more than its SNES sibling, with the multidirectional whip being not as busted and a fair compromise (you gotta jump first and you can't whip upwards) and the new areas being really creative and Werewolf being one of my favorite fights in the series.

What's different here in the Arrange Mode are a few minor things, like new sprites for Simon and Dracula, but also the addition of Difficulty options to make this game more fair. The original Difficulty is still there on Hard Mode, but the new Normal Mode goes from the original's 5/4 hits before you die to 8/5 or 6 hits, and in addition on all difficulties Simon no longer bounces back upon taking a hit which cuts down on cheap deaths and most notably makes Level 2's water raft segment a lot easier. While I think it makes damage tanking too viable in certain spots, that's only because I beat the original game first, and really this mode is much fairer.

Also new is the music, arrangements, which are really good. Not much else to say there. But what is else to say is the last big new thing, which is a Time Attack Mode. Castlevania is usually a game thats difficulty more so rewards slow and meticulous play, but a mode that encourages you to go as quick as you can really changes your approach which definitely made it really welcoming!

This game is a remake of a remake, one of the earliest games to be so I believe, and is most likely to be the version of Castlevania 1 I'd recommend!