2023
For the last year I've had roguelikes blacklisted from my steam store, the overwhelming swarms of them proved too much for myself.
Once in a while however, something manages to slip through the cracks in my shield towards the onslaught. In short, it's good to have friends with good taste to spy on over steam, which is how I found myself aboard Cobalt Core. Very much a simplistic, yet sound take on the deckbuilding genre that I welcome wholeheartedly, the less Yu-Gi-Oh novel text the better, and after spending a summer once upon a time trying to run through covenant 25 Monster Train, something easy is never a thing I will bitch about. It always feel great to feel overpowered when you get the right combos, and don't need to worry about the bosses pulling a fast one on you at the last second. You would expect something simple to run itself dry fairly quickly, but the events and character/ship combinations along with the cast of pixelated animal people come into play throwing haymakers at my overly emotional heart. The writing is simply adorable, and I enjoyed thinking of the voices the characters had in my head. Something I kind of miss in a day where everyone wants voice actors.
Unlocking the memories after every run enamored me a bit more to each one, and it made the epilogue very heartwarming to play through. I very much implore you to get all the memories so you can experience it, assuming you yourself want to try and help these poor souls break out of their time loop. I mean, I sure did. No one deserves such a fate as to be trapped in a roguelike deckbuilder for all eternity! I would be very upset at that!
Cobalt Core can also sleep soundly knowing it's the only roguelike deckbuilder I have never turned the music off to listen to my own playlist, which is probably a testament to both it's soundtrack and runtime for myself. Thank you for being digestible in an age where developers value bloating their games.
More characters should be named "Dizzy", a very good name.
Once in a while however, something manages to slip through the cracks in my shield towards the onslaught. In short, it's good to have friends with good taste to spy on over steam, which is how I found myself aboard Cobalt Core. Very much a simplistic, yet sound take on the deckbuilding genre that I welcome wholeheartedly, the less Yu-Gi-Oh novel text the better, and after spending a summer once upon a time trying to run through covenant 25 Monster Train, something easy is never a thing I will bitch about. It always feel great to feel overpowered when you get the right combos, and don't need to worry about the bosses pulling a fast one on you at the last second. You would expect something simple to run itself dry fairly quickly, but the events and character/ship combinations along with the cast of pixelated animal people come into play throwing haymakers at my overly emotional heart. The writing is simply adorable, and I enjoyed thinking of the voices the characters had in my head. Something I kind of miss in a day where everyone wants voice actors.
Unlocking the memories after every run enamored me a bit more to each one, and it made the epilogue very heartwarming to play through. I very much implore you to get all the memories so you can experience it, assuming you yourself want to try and help these poor souls break out of their time loop. I mean, I sure did. No one deserves such a fate as to be trapped in a roguelike deckbuilder for all eternity! I would be very upset at that!
Cobalt Core can also sleep soundly knowing it's the only roguelike deckbuilder I have never turned the music off to listen to my own playlist, which is probably a testament to both it's soundtrack and runtime for myself. Thank you for being digestible in an age where developers value bloating their games.
More characters should be named "Dizzy", a very good name.
In a board meeting somewhere within Konami's headquarters, someone said they should just make Symphony of the Night again, and shrink it small enough to fit on a little cartridge on a system with literally no soundchip worth uttering a single syllable about.
...and well, they sure did. They made Symphony of the Night again, while exasperating my least favorite aspect of the second half of that dear entry in the franchise. They made an insanely dull version of the same castle, down to the point where one of the side quests is literally tracking down some furniture that got loose, because Dracula forgot to set up auto-pay for his maids and skeleton butlers while he was busy shoveling dirt in his mouth. The skeleton hangout with the cool Crocomire skull can only do so much as to alleviate the pain of constantly mashing shoulder buttons like I'm a Smash Bros Melee player to traverse two whole castles filled with some of the most annoying navigation, and nyquil-laced boss fights you ever did see.
In the meantime, we got "Just Belmont" over here who's actually Alucard gaslighting me and everyone else, because I guess he's just hilarious like that. The blue sexual energy he radiates along with his allergic reaction to water does little to sway me away from the fact that this is some kind of ruse, especially when he's using a name like that compared to the one he'd take while a part of a Japanese secret agency specialized in killing Draculas. I just wish he could bother to use more than just the whip, where in a standard playthrough you're only going to bother using the more damaging ones and only switch to the charging one when you need to destroy walls. This is probably prior to needing to take another scenic route to trek through the same areas like groundhog day, because without a walkthrough you're constantly smashing your face into roadblocks and locked doors. Locked doors that literally don't start opening, until about 80% through the game maybe judging by my terrible perception of time.
Okay, so we successfully made Symphony of the Night and slapped it on a Game Boy Advance cartridge. We got all these fancy shmancy effects popping off on that tiny-ass not-backlit screen, and even made them garishly bright so those little shits at IGN and Gamespot can stop complaining about the darkness imprisoning them and all the horror that they see. Oh man, oh god! We don't have enough capacity to get actual music going on here though, because the system runs it's music through software! Well let's phone up our old friend the Game Boy Color soundchip, truly they could help a sister out in need. It's a fun little soundchip that can make some pumping tunes when utilized properly. The word of the day is "properly", because to this day HoD is the only mainline Castlevania to never see it's soundtrack downloaded onto any of my storage drives. This isn't because the music is lower sound quality, it's because the compositions are straight up garbage. When it's not making me raise my eyebrow at it via it's terrible note selection, it blends with the background with tedious droning and becomes unmentionable. This is a seriously damning quality to have as a Castlevania, because that's something I couldn't even say about Haunted Castle, The Adventure, or Judgment.
That said, I can understand the artistic quality behind such a fumbly bumbly cacophony that makes up the noise in this game. I know what the subtitle is, and I understand completely. I'm one of the few people who will go down with the ship with Yuzo Koshiro and the RNG machines he used for SoR3, and I can see why kid's love Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The fact of the matter though, is that I did not enjoy it's company, especially when I'm constantly getting mixed up by a double map where the differences were essentially just some coats of paint, and a different swath of minions to deal with. For how much it could've done with atmosphere, it ended up just being another annoyance that I could've lived without, I'm sorry to say.
HoD is one of those games I remember getting acclaimed on G4 back then, at least by Victor Lucas of Judgment Day. It makes sense, the public wanted more SotN and they indeed got more of it. As the days march onward with us now having four more IGAvanias we could play on GBA or DS, and the ability to play SotN itself on basically any thumbtack if you know what an emulator looks like, HoD feels like it starts to slide more and more down the pole of quality and crashing to the bottom of a staircase. It's role as a training program and stepping stone towards Aria is appreciated, but as a Castlevania, it's one that I think I won't be replaying again for quite some time. It has almost nothing to show for itself that isn't just "SotN, but kinda crap", and the qualities it does have to stand out are unwelcomed to my eardrums.
Go home Alucard, you're drunk. Get off that synthesizer, you're embarrassing yourself. GET OFF THE DANG ROOF!
...and well, they sure did. They made Symphony of the Night again, while exasperating my least favorite aspect of the second half of that dear entry in the franchise. They made an insanely dull version of the same castle, down to the point where one of the side quests is literally tracking down some furniture that got loose, because Dracula forgot to set up auto-pay for his maids and skeleton butlers while he was busy shoveling dirt in his mouth. The skeleton hangout with the cool Crocomire skull can only do so much as to alleviate the pain of constantly mashing shoulder buttons like I'm a Smash Bros Melee player to traverse two whole castles filled with some of the most annoying navigation, and nyquil-laced boss fights you ever did see.
In the meantime, we got "Just Belmont" over here who's actually Alucard gaslighting me and everyone else, because I guess he's just hilarious like that. The blue sexual energy he radiates along with his allergic reaction to water does little to sway me away from the fact that this is some kind of ruse, especially when he's using a name like that compared to the one he'd take while a part of a Japanese secret agency specialized in killing Draculas. I just wish he could bother to use more than just the whip, where in a standard playthrough you're only going to bother using the more damaging ones and only switch to the charging one when you need to destroy walls. This is probably prior to needing to take another scenic route to trek through the same areas like groundhog day, because without a walkthrough you're constantly smashing your face into roadblocks and locked doors. Locked doors that literally don't start opening, until about 80% through the game maybe judging by my terrible perception of time.
Okay, so we successfully made Symphony of the Night and slapped it on a Game Boy Advance cartridge. We got all these fancy shmancy effects popping off on that tiny-ass not-backlit screen, and even made them garishly bright so those little shits at IGN and Gamespot can stop complaining about the darkness imprisoning them and all the horror that they see. Oh man, oh god! We don't have enough capacity to get actual music going on here though, because the system runs it's music through software! Well let's phone up our old friend the Game Boy Color soundchip, truly they could help a sister out in need. It's a fun little soundchip that can make some pumping tunes when utilized properly. The word of the day is "properly", because to this day HoD is the only mainline Castlevania to never see it's soundtrack downloaded onto any of my storage drives. This isn't because the music is lower sound quality, it's because the compositions are straight up garbage. When it's not making me raise my eyebrow at it via it's terrible note selection, it blends with the background with tedious droning and becomes unmentionable. This is a seriously damning quality to have as a Castlevania, because that's something I couldn't even say about Haunted Castle, The Adventure, or Judgment.
That said, I can understand the artistic quality behind such a fumbly bumbly cacophony that makes up the noise in this game. I know what the subtitle is, and I understand completely. I'm one of the few people who will go down with the ship with Yuzo Koshiro and the RNG machines he used for SoR3, and I can see why kid's love Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The fact of the matter though, is that I did not enjoy it's company, especially when I'm constantly getting mixed up by a double map where the differences were essentially just some coats of paint, and a different swath of minions to deal with. For how much it could've done with atmosphere, it ended up just being another annoyance that I could've lived without, I'm sorry to say.
HoD is one of those games I remember getting acclaimed on G4 back then, at least by Victor Lucas of Judgment Day. It makes sense, the public wanted more SotN and they indeed got more of it. As the days march onward with us now having four more IGAvanias we could play on GBA or DS, and the ability to play SotN itself on basically any thumbtack if you know what an emulator looks like, HoD feels like it starts to slide more and more down the pole of quality and crashing to the bottom of a staircase. It's role as a training program and stepping stone towards Aria is appreciated, but as a Castlevania, it's one that I think I won't be replaying again for quite some time. It has almost nothing to show for itself that isn't just "SotN, but kinda crap", and the qualities it does have to stand out are unwelcomed to my eardrums.
Go home Alucard, you're drunk. Get off that synthesizer, you're embarrassing yourself. GET OFF THE DANG ROOF!
1990
Heard this was dropping today via some videos people keep linking me on Discord. I'm not entirely sure what Capcom is doing randomly dropping a game for my IBM piece of shit, but we'll take a looksie at their latest attempt and only hope it's better than Trojan or Street Fighter. I'm still paying off the hospital bills from breaking my hands playing the latter's torturous pressure-sensitive button layout.
The idea of a "Mega Man" feels like someone who should be a giant among their peers, instead we have a little guy who shoots tennis balls. Adorable. In the meantime, the villain of our story who goes by the name of "Dr. Wily" apparently hangs out in some government-funded army base that requires a toll of some kind to get in. I respect this Mega Person for at the very least taking the fight to corrupt institutes looking to take advantage of their citizens, even if he's still apparently pro-toll booths. Unfortunately, he seems to be having a lot of trouble dealing with Dr. Wily's rogues gallery of wild animals and loosened indoor plumbing. Apparently all it takes to stop Capcom's latest attempt at a lovable character is to simply hire an army of possums to roam about a bathroom in need of maintenance, because Dr. Right was in fact wrong over forgoing the idea of "bendable knees", allowing their weaponized tennis balls to uselessly fly right over some friendly dumpster diving marsupials.
It's not quite as funny as Trojan, but at least it's more playable than Street Fighter even if it lacks the silly attempt at voice acting while the person was eating toffee.
The future's not exactly looking bright for this upstart Capcom company, I like that they're giving struggling programmers a chance with one-person games like this, but it's lookin' pretty bleak I think.
The idea of a "Mega Man" feels like someone who should be a giant among their peers, instead we have a little guy who shoots tennis balls. Adorable. In the meantime, the villain of our story who goes by the name of "Dr. Wily" apparently hangs out in some government-funded army base that requires a toll of some kind to get in. I respect this Mega Person for at the very least taking the fight to corrupt institutes looking to take advantage of their citizens, even if he's still apparently pro-toll booths. Unfortunately, he seems to be having a lot of trouble dealing with Dr. Wily's rogues gallery of wild animals and loosened indoor plumbing. Apparently all it takes to stop Capcom's latest attempt at a lovable character is to simply hire an army of possums to roam about a bathroom in need of maintenance, because Dr. Right was in fact wrong over forgoing the idea of "bendable knees", allowing their weaponized tennis balls to uselessly fly right over some friendly dumpster diving marsupials.
It's not quite as funny as Trojan, but at least it's more playable than Street Fighter even if it lacks the silly attempt at voice acting while the person was eating toffee.
The future's not exactly looking bright for this upstart Capcom company, I like that they're giving struggling programmers a chance with one-person games like this, but it's lookin' pretty bleak I think.
Gamer, as of this post we are nearly halfway to 2049 since the turn of the millennium.
What are you most excited for? Personally, I cannot wait to see jet-propelled cars ramping off the hillside roads in my neighborhood and sprouting wings to do somersault barrel rolls, all while at least one of them constantly hits their horn that plays a WAV file of Peppy Hare. Actually, that sounds abominable. My curmudgeon old ass while never get any sleep, what a bleak future. I'm investing in anti-air cannons as we speak for such a horrendous incoming potential situation.
I will not tolerate illegal street racing with a side of wings, consider me an enemy if you cannot wait for this most terrible disturbance of my peace.
What are you most excited for? Personally, I cannot wait to see jet-propelled cars ramping off the hillside roads in my neighborhood and sprouting wings to do somersault barrel rolls, all while at least one of them constantly hits their horn that plays a WAV file of Peppy Hare. Actually, that sounds abominable. My curmudgeon old ass while never get any sleep, what a bleak future. I'm investing in anti-air cannons as we speak for such a horrendous incoming potential situation.
I will not tolerate illegal street racing with a side of wings, consider me an enemy if you cannot wait for this most terrible disturbance of my peace.
Remembered enjoying the music to this when I played on ye old Capcom Classics Collections on Penis Portable.
Playing the Turbo version on a whim in a Discord call made me realize how dry this shit is especially compared to it's successor Forgotten Worlds, it's still better than some of Capcom's more laughable early arcade attempts like Trojan, but the bar is so monumentally low on that front that only a termite could pass under it. The lack of checkpoints and use of respawn downgrading your weapons to such terrible peashooters makes the game horrific later, where there's so many principality of zeon fuckers onscreen shooting homing missiles at you along with worms chasing you down like you owe them zenny, so you just die constantly in certain sections without a real chance to power back up.
The warship sub-bosses after the midway point show up so much in the final stage that I almost expect them to suddenly appear and ambush me on my way to the store tomorrow. Looking forward to it.
Playing the Turbo version on a whim in a Discord call made me realize how dry this shit is especially compared to it's successor Forgotten Worlds, it's still better than some of Capcom's more laughable early arcade attempts like Trojan, but the bar is so monumentally low on that front that only a termite could pass under it. The lack of checkpoints and use of respawn downgrading your weapons to such terrible peashooters makes the game horrific later, where there's so many principality of zeon fuckers onscreen shooting homing missiles at you along with worms chasing you down like you owe them zenny, so you just die constantly in certain sections without a real chance to power back up.
The warship sub-bosses after the midway point show up so much in the final stage that I almost expect them to suddenly appear and ambush me on my way to the store tomorrow. Looking forward to it.
Believe it or not, Escape From Mars is actually a fairly competent sequel to the circus act known as Taz-Mania. I know that means so little you'd need a microscope to see it, but it deserves a bit of a golf clap or two.
While the foundation was there for adapting Taz to a sidescrolling affair in Taz-Mania with his spinning and wanting to eat anything in sight, they unfortunately spent the vast majority of the time lollygagging with goofy trial-and-error mine cart stages and having the poor palooka make an ass of himself trying to jump to platforms he can't even see due to his nearsightedness (unless that in itself is a nod to that time Bugs gave him a fake eye exam, but something tells me they didn't put quite that much thought into it). Fortunately for us they decided to compact stages a bit which reduces the need to make leap of faith platforming, but does unfortunately bring in a need to constantly move the camera down constantly in order to see if you're going to skewer Taz's feet onto some spikes or land within the vicinity of a bomb. I'll take it I guess, even if that means the stages become a bit amiga-core, especially in the case of the horrifically confusing final stage in Marvin's House. Yes, that is it's name. The finale of this game is Taz breaking into Marvin the Martian's House and assaulting him.
If there is one thing I really enjoy about Taz's movement it's his ability to do a vertical climb by spinning and bouncing between walls. It's an oddly satisfying movement that I don't really see elsewhere, because I guess Taz is the only person ever who would potentially do this. Kudos to them, but a bit of a double-edged sword though, because in order for this movement to exist Taz himself has to ricochet all over the place like an oversized Tasmanian ping pong ball, which makes attacking enemies a complete gamble at times thanks to funny hitboxes, it becomes increasingly common in later stages where you'll simply bounce off a defeated enemy and find Taz's face smashing into the back of another enemy and taking damage. It's obvious the devs knew this, because enemy placement was very much intended to make situations like this happen, and they start placing a lot more gas cans for Taz to drink up for a more reliable fossil fuel-based attack.
What makes Escape From Mars fairly memorable for me though is the astounding amount of gimmicks they put in here, and by gimmicks I mean actual platforming ones and not moronic Battletoads-esque buffoonery like in Taz-Mania. You're slowly introduced over the course of the game to grow/shrink rays, digging through the ground, flying through the air via...the umbrella thing on Planet X, cloning yourself, anti-gravity, etc. By far the best one though that amazed me as a kid was the boss fight with Gossamer and the Evil Scientist. It goes pretty simple at first, until you eventually knock Gossamer into the chair in the background, and you go and stand on the other chair and flip the switch. You are now playing as the boss, complete with a move set just to destroy the ceiling weapon the Evil Scientist is using. It was so damn cool, and I don't think you even see something like that much in more recent games. It always stuck with me, and it's the first thing I think of when I remember my time with Escape From Mars.
Don't get me wrong, the game is haphazard as all hell, complete with wonky precision platforming and checkpoint spawns that put me right next to mole people ready to shoot me in the face right as the screen fades back in, but it's a game worth some kind of respect and it's obvious they tried to make it better than the last one. Hell, they even got rid of the terrible dynamic soundtrack and put in actual music. Though I will admit, I crack up every time I begin the second Mexico stage and get greeted by Beaky Buzzard flying in out of nowhere and dropping dynamite on my skull just two seconds into it. It's charm. Like a beat up old vehicle, it's shoddily built and it's seats smell terrible, but it's much less complicated and more fun to drive than most of the modern dreck.
The only thing that confuses me is how in cutscenes you're transported from Planet X to Mexico via airplane, I'm not entirely sure what they're insinuating with that, but whatever. Fuck that digging machine that chases you in Moleworld 2, that thing scared the crap out of me back in the day.
I'm electing Taz for President, he's my favorite video game character.
While the foundation was there for adapting Taz to a sidescrolling affair in Taz-Mania with his spinning and wanting to eat anything in sight, they unfortunately spent the vast majority of the time lollygagging with goofy trial-and-error mine cart stages and having the poor palooka make an ass of himself trying to jump to platforms he can't even see due to his nearsightedness (unless that in itself is a nod to that time Bugs gave him a fake eye exam, but something tells me they didn't put quite that much thought into it). Fortunately for us they decided to compact stages a bit which reduces the need to make leap of faith platforming, but does unfortunately bring in a need to constantly move the camera down constantly in order to see if you're going to skewer Taz's feet onto some spikes or land within the vicinity of a bomb. I'll take it I guess, even if that means the stages become a bit amiga-core, especially in the case of the horrifically confusing final stage in Marvin's House. Yes, that is it's name. The finale of this game is Taz breaking into Marvin the Martian's House and assaulting him.
If there is one thing I really enjoy about Taz's movement it's his ability to do a vertical climb by spinning and bouncing between walls. It's an oddly satisfying movement that I don't really see elsewhere, because I guess Taz is the only person ever who would potentially do this. Kudos to them, but a bit of a double-edged sword though, because in order for this movement to exist Taz himself has to ricochet all over the place like an oversized Tasmanian ping pong ball, which makes attacking enemies a complete gamble at times thanks to funny hitboxes, it becomes increasingly common in later stages where you'll simply bounce off a defeated enemy and find Taz's face smashing into the back of another enemy and taking damage. It's obvious the devs knew this, because enemy placement was very much intended to make situations like this happen, and they start placing a lot more gas cans for Taz to drink up for a more reliable fossil fuel-based attack.
What makes Escape From Mars fairly memorable for me though is the astounding amount of gimmicks they put in here, and by gimmicks I mean actual platforming ones and not moronic Battletoads-esque buffoonery like in Taz-Mania. You're slowly introduced over the course of the game to grow/shrink rays, digging through the ground, flying through the air via...the umbrella thing on Planet X, cloning yourself, anti-gravity, etc. By far the best one though that amazed me as a kid was the boss fight with Gossamer and the Evil Scientist. It goes pretty simple at first, until you eventually knock Gossamer into the chair in the background, and you go and stand on the other chair and flip the switch. You are now playing as the boss, complete with a move set just to destroy the ceiling weapon the Evil Scientist is using. It was so damn cool, and I don't think you even see something like that much in more recent games. It always stuck with me, and it's the first thing I think of when I remember my time with Escape From Mars.
Don't get me wrong, the game is haphazard as all hell, complete with wonky precision platforming and checkpoint spawns that put me right next to mole people ready to shoot me in the face right as the screen fades back in, but it's a game worth some kind of respect and it's obvious they tried to make it better than the last one. Hell, they even got rid of the terrible dynamic soundtrack and put in actual music. Though I will admit, I crack up every time I begin the second Mexico stage and get greeted by Beaky Buzzard flying in out of nowhere and dropping dynamite on my skull just two seconds into it. It's charm. Like a beat up old vehicle, it's shoddily built and it's seats smell terrible, but it's much less complicated and more fun to drive than most of the modern dreck.
The only thing that confuses me is how in cutscenes you're transported from Planet X to Mexico via airplane, I'm not entirely sure what they're insinuating with that, but whatever. Fuck that digging machine that chases you in Moleworld 2, that thing scared the crap out of me back in the day.
I'm electing Taz for President, he's my favorite video game character.
1992
This Christmas morning I made a big mistake, I got out of bed.
Some kids were over for the afternoon and spotted my CRT setup and asked to play something, it was then I subconsciously went to turn on my Sega Genesis and moved the cursor of my MegaEverdrive's menu to Taz-Mania. I could've simply just put on Sonic 2 or even Rocket Knight Adventures as a form of kid friendly entertainment, but somewhere in my mind I was bent on destruction.
The joke was on me however, as after about ten minutes of them floundering about on the second stage not knowing how to traverse Taz-Mania's leap of faith style platforming, the controller found it's way back to it's owner. They had the time of their life after that, watching me immediately get flattened into the ground by the truck boss entering the stage without warning, and bursting into laughter at the hundreds of times I slammed into obstacles on the minecart stage that could potentially get Battletoads to respond to it's cacophonous mating calls that make up it's poor attempt at a dynamic soundtrack. It's a bit hard to describe, it's kind of like if the world's most flaccid digitized slide whistle accompanied your every movement. It's a far cry from Desert Demolition's masterful attempt on the same system.
I felled Taz-Mania this day, but at what cost? My stomach has exploded so many times from mean-spirited bomb placement, I've gotten hypothermia in real life from the amount of times I fell in frozen water, and have been zapped dozens of times by pulling the wrong lever.
Well... at least they had a good time.
Some kids were over for the afternoon and spotted my CRT setup and asked to play something, it was then I subconsciously went to turn on my Sega Genesis and moved the cursor of my MegaEverdrive's menu to Taz-Mania. I could've simply just put on Sonic 2 or even Rocket Knight Adventures as a form of kid friendly entertainment, but somewhere in my mind I was bent on destruction.
The joke was on me however, as after about ten minutes of them floundering about on the second stage not knowing how to traverse Taz-Mania's leap of faith style platforming, the controller found it's way back to it's owner. They had the time of their life after that, watching me immediately get flattened into the ground by the truck boss entering the stage without warning, and bursting into laughter at the hundreds of times I slammed into obstacles on the minecart stage that could potentially get Battletoads to respond to it's cacophonous mating calls that make up it's poor attempt at a dynamic soundtrack. It's a bit hard to describe, it's kind of like if the world's most flaccid digitized slide whistle accompanied your every movement. It's a far cry from Desert Demolition's masterful attempt on the same system.
I felled Taz-Mania this day, but at what cost? My stomach has exploded so many times from mean-spirited bomb placement, I've gotten hypothermia in real life from the amount of times I fell in frozen water, and have been zapped dozens of times by pulling the wrong lever.
Well... at least they had a good time.
If you were Mina, what would you get a guy like Soma for the holidays?
He's got a massive arsenal of weaponry that spans beyond the generations of all legends passed down through history, from a sword with no name to Excalibur to Positron Rifles and Death's own scythe. He has that lovely white furred coat, where he most likely also keeps a purple Game Boy Advance that every cool kid keeps around on their person. On top of all this, he even has the power to rule... a power only he possesses which grants him dominion over every soul he comes across. He is a man who has everything... even dive kicks...
God, he's so cool.
However, cool people will often not know that they are "cool" or perhaps "even cooler". For them, these things are just commonplace. Sure, the materialistic possession of every mythological weapon through the ages and the power to rule will convince oneself that they are cool for the first few weeks that they come across these awesome cool things, but overtime they just become a regular occurrence. These cool things don't come with helpful advice, moral support, or even a pleasant conversation. Maybe Soma could summon an Imp to be his second player, but is that imp really gonna give it to him straight or have anything to say beyond "yeah thanks master, gee you're swell master"?
That is where folks like YOU come in, people who offer their support through thick and thin. Without them, how would you know you're even cool without someone there to tell you that they believe in you before your fight with your own inner demons? That person who doesn't mind when you ask them for a lift to work, because you don't want to garner unwanted attention by using Black Panther soul to dash through everyone on the sidewalk when you're running late. Someone whose gift will be more cherished than any sword made of gold or absurdly powerful holy weapon found in a hidden treasure hoard behind a waterfall in the basement of a floating castle within a total solar eclipse above Japan.
That is how they know they are way past cool, by being friends with you.
Happy holidays.
He's got a massive arsenal of weaponry that spans beyond the generations of all legends passed down through history, from a sword with no name to Excalibur to Positron Rifles and Death's own scythe. He has that lovely white furred coat, where he most likely also keeps a purple Game Boy Advance that every cool kid keeps around on their person. On top of all this, he even has the power to rule... a power only he possesses which grants him dominion over every soul he comes across. He is a man who has everything... even dive kicks...
God, he's so cool.
However, cool people will often not know that they are "cool" or perhaps "even cooler". For them, these things are just commonplace. Sure, the materialistic possession of every mythological weapon through the ages and the power to rule will convince oneself that they are cool for the first few weeks that they come across these awesome cool things, but overtime they just become a regular occurrence. These cool things don't come with helpful advice, moral support, or even a pleasant conversation. Maybe Soma could summon an Imp to be his second player, but is that imp really gonna give it to him straight or have anything to say beyond "yeah thanks master, gee you're swell master"?
That is where folks like YOU come in, people who offer their support through thick and thin. Without them, how would you know you're even cool without someone there to tell you that they believe in you before your fight with your own inner demons? That person who doesn't mind when you ask them for a lift to work, because you don't want to garner unwanted attention by using Black Panther soul to dash through everyone on the sidewalk when you're running late. Someone whose gift will be more cherished than any sword made of gold or absurdly powerful holy weapon found in a hidden treasure hoard behind a waterfall in the basement of a floating castle within a total solar eclipse above Japan.
That is how they know they are way past cool, by being friends with you.
Happy holidays.
2000
Motoi Sakuraba Hater Association meeting
"He will never be tennis ballin'."
Tournament Round 2 Music
Numerous Lucky Charms spat all over the place
"He will never be tennis ballin'."
Tournament Round 2 Music
Numerous Lucky Charms spat all over the place
Honestly? I expected a lot worse, and believe me the expectations were rock bottom. Even ignoring the educational intentions it's just a very mid platformer starring asthmatic dinosaurs.
I actually found the premise pretty endearing. Instead of the dinosaurs getting annihilated by the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, they actually survived in this timeline and had to start using inhalers due to the massive amount of dust from the cataclysm. They created a wind machine to keep the dust under control, only for some dickweed named Rexo to dismantle it, I assume for bureaucratic reasons to make more money off big pharma bucks. It's up to Bronkie and Trakie to keep their lungs healthy, and save the day with their uh....flyswatters, I think they're flyswatters, they're either using that or riding crops I can't really tell from their attack sprites.
Not super memorable or anything, but I myself had to use an inhaler when I was younger so maybe that's what's keeping me from wanting to bully the game more. I'd say my favorite moment was when the game told me to "look out for THIS GUY, he's got a cold!" Like specifically that guy, fuck that dude and his bad manners and not covering his damn mouth.
Would probably give 2.5 stars if I bothered still using decimals that weren't 0.5, but I like being more giving towards stuff like this than like....I dunno that fuckin' terrible No Escape game trying to bank off a Ray Liotta movie. I'm not sensing any attempt at flimflimmery here, just an attempt at spreading information, especially when it originally wasn't commercially available (as opposed to now where it's insane on ebay). I also grabbed the soundtrack too while this was fresh in mind, hey don't judge I like the funny tin can music.
Go on Bronkie and Trakie, teach the kids about inhalers and how to live with asthma! I salute you both. 🫡
I actually found the premise pretty endearing. Instead of the dinosaurs getting annihilated by the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, they actually survived in this timeline and had to start using inhalers due to the massive amount of dust from the cataclysm. They created a wind machine to keep the dust under control, only for some dickweed named Rexo to dismantle it, I assume for bureaucratic reasons to make more money off big pharma bucks. It's up to Bronkie and Trakie to keep their lungs healthy, and save the day with their uh....flyswatters, I think they're flyswatters, they're either using that or riding crops I can't really tell from their attack sprites.
Not super memorable or anything, but I myself had to use an inhaler when I was younger so maybe that's what's keeping me from wanting to bully the game more. I'd say my favorite moment was when the game told me to "look out for THIS GUY, he's got a cold!" Like specifically that guy, fuck that dude and his bad manners and not covering his damn mouth.
Would probably give 2.5 stars if I bothered still using decimals that weren't 0.5, but I like being more giving towards stuff like this than like....I dunno that fuckin' terrible No Escape game trying to bank off a Ray Liotta movie. I'm not sensing any attempt at flimflimmery here, just an attempt at spreading information, especially when it originally wasn't commercially available (as opposed to now where it's insane on ebay). I also grabbed the soundtrack too while this was fresh in mind, hey don't judge I like the funny tin can music.
Go on Bronkie and Trakie, teach the kids about inhalers and how to live with asthma! I salute you both. 🫡
During my super early years of gaming in that fun little in-between period of the 16-bit generation and the oncoming new age of low poly goodness, I managed to be graced by two Battletoads games growing up. One was the crossover game with Double Dragon that I managed to accidentally "borrow" forever from a friend that I enjoyed quite a bit, and the other was Battlemaniacs which I recall renting a few times from my local game place that wasn't either Blockbuster or Hollywood Video.
Battletoads and Double Dragon was a game I had played probably thousands of times just for the music, and to this day I could probably 1-life it with a bit of elbow grease assuming the flying saucers played nice in the fourth stage. Battlemaniacs however, I couldn't tell you what was beyond the first stage, because little me had never beaten it. My lingering memory forever was that this opening stage was longer than longcat and was more impossible than many stages that I later played emulating the NES original. These memories all flooded back like a tsunami of dread after seeing my friend MagneticBurn log this game, and I decided to become the lemming that I am once again, here to throw myself off a cliff and into the jagged rocks below because that's where they went too.
Needless to say, I understand now. I was weak, I was stupid, and didn't know how to analyze when a game was "good" or "bad" and adapt to the so-called "crap factor". This first stage was full of sudden pitfalls, assholes camping the ends of bridges to sucker punch you into the pit, and fireballs raining from the sky in a steady rhythm that I probably stank at dodging. The end of this stage? A giant boss whose hitboxes are mysterious, and is best left to cheesing by knocking him as far away as possible so that he always attempts to squash you with his ohko attack, but be juuuuuust outside of reach so you can repeat this. It was done, the first stage of terror is over. Now to the rest of the game. I can at least rest easy on that front.
Second stage was only mildly hard, and then the third stage was just the Turbo Tunnel again. Huh, wow fellas we sure got some new ideas here. Is this a remake of the first game, or are y'all just trying to pull my leg here? Are the Toads in a neverending flux as to constantly be repeating the same adventure? By George we just can't get enough of doing fuckin' Rat Race and Clinger Winger! Apparently the transition to 16-bit also mandated annihilating the stage count as well? How can the Super Nintendo recover from such a travesty?! It just got broken in half by it's 8-bit ancestor. We sure do have giant sprites though! They look like crusty rat shit, but they sure are big. I bet Sword of Sodan and China Warrior are shaking in their boots knowing that Battlemaniacs is over here nipping at their extraordinarily high quality heels.
Anyways, I'm once again skimming over a massive elephant in the room that legitimately made me angry with it's terrible whistling. Something that annoyed me to the point that I almost wanted to raise the volume of my voice a teensie bit.
Let's talk about the Turbo Tunnel, yes it's pretty hard. We know that, however there is a point in this particular version of it where you must, and I repeat MUST jump and drive INTO the ball-infested pit of the stage to hit a ramp and get back onto the road. I can overcome challenge easily, but this is just absolute trollish dickishness that defies all logic and sensibility. I could've played the game for hours constantly getting game over'd at this point, and not know what the hell the game is asking me to do at this particular moment as I watch Pimple fall into Krusty's crust-ladened turbo funtime ball pit for the thousandth time. No, I had to literally watch a longplay on youtube to see if the game was either pulling a fast one or if that was the ending of the game, because Rare legitimately is a stupid enough company to make an unwinnable game. It's happened before. (2P glitch on NES Clinger Winger if you don't know)
I seriously can't get over how amphibian-brained this is. I am skilled, there is no issue here on my end. The issue here is that pre-DKC Rare wouldn't know proper game design even if someone bounced a football off their groin with "proper game design" drawn on it with crayon. Battlemaniacs is constantly changing the rules and is constantly trying to fake you out so it can somehow feel "intelligent" and that you're not good enough to have the patience to smash your skull through it's idiotic pining for attention. "Look at how unbeatable I am! WAAAAH! WAAAH! YOU CAN'T BEAT ME! WAAAH!" A most unpleasant spoiled rotten child of a game that needs it's game designer toys taken away from it. I'm not gonna pretend that NES Battletoads is some kind of beacon of all-timer quality, but at least that game has good breaks in the nonsense where some genuine decency shines through, and that one actually looks impressive for it's system. Battlemaniacs has half the content, and because of that it immediately begins with endless sucker punches and badly plays it's greatest shits album of dumbass trial-and-error gimmicks from the original game.
A game can be a fun challenge, you can make a hard game that is theoretically possible to beat in one go if your timing is impeccable and your reflexes are better than a coked up blue hedgehog. Battlemaniacs is not one of those games, it's a moronic game that comes down to playing a slightly more sadistic version of Simon Says with very little legitimate strategy. You could have the luck of the Irish and the skill of Daigo Umehara, but you'll still find yourself eating shit in Krusty's funtime ball sack pit in the Turbo Tunnel or dying to Karnath's screen crunched lair, because again this isn't a game of skill, it's a game of testing your patience and hoping that your aging memory isn't going out on you, as you attempt to remember where the dive into Krusty's funtime ballsack is about to happen and not faceplant into the side of some Wile E. Coyote-ass slab of bedrock.
It stinks. I don't like it. Before you ask, yes I am playing this on console. I am playing this shit as authentic as New York style pizza cooked by a New York Italian in a New York oven. My console is original, my CRT is a CRT with a coffee stain on it, my composite cables aren't garbage, and I'm using a wired controller. The only way this could be more authentic would be if I got my cousin to come over and scream in my ear for her turn that she doesn't actually want, or to train my dog to come over and nibble on my pad's wire. I ended up finishing this on snes9x, if Mike Matei wants to personally come over to my house and bitch then be my guest, I've got better things to do like drawing dicks in my ipad and assaulting the Byzantines in my RTS games.
The bonus stages suck too, what's the Dark Queen's plan here? To bore me to death before the Turbo Tunnel wipes out the one life I got after an entire medieval dark age of work in a manner of nanoseconds? Absolute nonsense.
Play Battletoads/Double Dragon, you actually fight things in that instead of playing gimmicked up horseshit.
Battletoads and Double Dragon was a game I had played probably thousands of times just for the music, and to this day I could probably 1-life it with a bit of elbow grease assuming the flying saucers played nice in the fourth stage. Battlemaniacs however, I couldn't tell you what was beyond the first stage, because little me had never beaten it. My lingering memory forever was that this opening stage was longer than longcat and was more impossible than many stages that I later played emulating the NES original. These memories all flooded back like a tsunami of dread after seeing my friend MagneticBurn log this game, and I decided to become the lemming that I am once again, here to throw myself off a cliff and into the jagged rocks below because that's where they went too.
Needless to say, I understand now. I was weak, I was stupid, and didn't know how to analyze when a game was "good" or "bad" and adapt to the so-called "crap factor". This first stage was full of sudden pitfalls, assholes camping the ends of bridges to sucker punch you into the pit, and fireballs raining from the sky in a steady rhythm that I probably stank at dodging. The end of this stage? A giant boss whose hitboxes are mysterious, and is best left to cheesing by knocking him as far away as possible so that he always attempts to squash you with his ohko attack, but be juuuuuust outside of reach so you can repeat this. It was done, the first stage of terror is over. Now to the rest of the game. I can at least rest easy on that front.
Second stage was only mildly hard, and then the third stage was just the Turbo Tunnel again. Huh, wow fellas we sure got some new ideas here. Is this a remake of the first game, or are y'all just trying to pull my leg here? Are the Toads in a neverending flux as to constantly be repeating the same adventure? By George we just can't get enough of doing fuckin' Rat Race and Clinger Winger! Apparently the transition to 16-bit also mandated annihilating the stage count as well? How can the Super Nintendo recover from such a travesty?! It just got broken in half by it's 8-bit ancestor. We sure do have giant sprites though! They look like crusty rat shit, but they sure are big. I bet Sword of Sodan and China Warrior are shaking in their boots knowing that Battlemaniacs is over here nipping at their extraordinarily high quality heels.
Anyways, I'm once again skimming over a massive elephant in the room that legitimately made me angry with it's terrible whistling. Something that annoyed me to the point that I almost wanted to raise the volume of my voice a teensie bit.
Let's talk about the Turbo Tunnel, yes it's pretty hard. We know that, however there is a point in this particular version of it where you must, and I repeat MUST jump and drive INTO the ball-infested pit of the stage to hit a ramp and get back onto the road. I can overcome challenge easily, but this is just absolute trollish dickishness that defies all logic and sensibility. I could've played the game for hours constantly getting game over'd at this point, and not know what the hell the game is asking me to do at this particular moment as I watch Pimple fall into Krusty's crust-ladened turbo funtime ball pit for the thousandth time. No, I had to literally watch a longplay on youtube to see if the game was either pulling a fast one or if that was the ending of the game, because Rare legitimately is a stupid enough company to make an unwinnable game. It's happened before. (2P glitch on NES Clinger Winger if you don't know)
I seriously can't get over how amphibian-brained this is. I am skilled, there is no issue here on my end. The issue here is that pre-DKC Rare wouldn't know proper game design even if someone bounced a football off their groin with "proper game design" drawn on it with crayon. Battlemaniacs is constantly changing the rules and is constantly trying to fake you out so it can somehow feel "intelligent" and that you're not good enough to have the patience to smash your skull through it's idiotic pining for attention. "Look at how unbeatable I am! WAAAAH! WAAAH! YOU CAN'T BEAT ME! WAAAH!" A most unpleasant spoiled rotten child of a game that needs it's game designer toys taken away from it. I'm not gonna pretend that NES Battletoads is some kind of beacon of all-timer quality, but at least that game has good breaks in the nonsense where some genuine decency shines through, and that one actually looks impressive for it's system. Battlemaniacs has half the content, and because of that it immediately begins with endless sucker punches and badly plays it's greatest shits album of dumbass trial-and-error gimmicks from the original game.
A game can be a fun challenge, you can make a hard game that is theoretically possible to beat in one go if your timing is impeccable and your reflexes are better than a coked up blue hedgehog. Battlemaniacs is not one of those games, it's a moronic game that comes down to playing a slightly more sadistic version of Simon Says with very little legitimate strategy. You could have the luck of the Irish and the skill of Daigo Umehara, but you'll still find yourself eating shit in Krusty's funtime ball sack pit in the Turbo Tunnel or dying to Karnath's screen crunched lair, because again this isn't a game of skill, it's a game of testing your patience and hoping that your aging memory isn't going out on you, as you attempt to remember where the dive into Krusty's funtime ballsack is about to happen and not faceplant into the side of some Wile E. Coyote-ass slab of bedrock.
It stinks. I don't like it. Before you ask, yes I am playing this on console. I am playing this shit as authentic as New York style pizza cooked by a New York Italian in a New York oven. My console is original, my CRT is a CRT with a coffee stain on it, my composite cables aren't garbage, and I'm using a wired controller. The only way this could be more authentic would be if I got my cousin to come over and scream in my ear for her turn that she doesn't actually want, or to train my dog to come over and nibble on my pad's wire. I ended up finishing this on snes9x, if Mike Matei wants to personally come over to my house and bitch then be my guest, I've got better things to do like drawing dicks in my ipad and assaulting the Byzantines in my RTS games.
The bonus stages suck too, what's the Dark Queen's plan here? To bore me to death before the Turbo Tunnel wipes out the one life I got after an entire medieval dark age of work in a manner of nanoseconds? Absolute nonsense.
Play Battletoads/Double Dragon, you actually fight things in that instead of playing gimmicked up horseshit.
1987
Haunted Castle is funny, and you're probably asking, "funny hah hah" or "funny peculiar"? Truthfully I think it goes both ways. I would like to first articulate the "funny peculiar" part as Haunted Castle sticks out from the rest of the games in the series like a particularly sore thumb.
It is of course an arcade game, an attempt at bringing the gameplay of the beloved NES title to the mean streets of the coin-op cabinet at your local pizzeria. You may have noticed it is also called "Haunted Castle" instead of "Castlevania", unlike the JP title AkumajĹŤ Dracula where it shares the same name with the Famicom Disk System game (along with later the Super Famicom and Sharp X68000 games, thanks lads I'm sure that's not confusing over there). I could actually wager a decent guess as to why they did this change. You see, the director was a massive fan of the Atari 2600 classic Haunted House, they just had to get their reference in. Remember the bat and the ghost? They in fact guest star in Haunted Castle, that's actually the same characters from Haunted House. I shit you not, my logic is infallible.
The game also bizarrely begins with an obvious Ghosts n' Goblins-esque intro with Simon peacefully walking along with his bride-to-be, only for an explosion to go off in the distance with Dracula flying in out of nowhere to whisk her away to god knows where (Ohio maybe) as Simon gives off a "curse you Dracula!" pose. Official documents state this was supposed to be a retelling of the first game, but I like to imagine that Dracula is constantly trying to inconvenience Simon at every turn. In the next Adventure Simon will be peacefully enjoying a meal at his favorite steakhouse only for it to be revealed that his steak was well done, then Dracula explodes from the background revealing his new ownership of the place and proceeds to put on the most annoying song in the jukebox.
This is where I stop farting about and actually comment on things that legitimately annoy me that have nothing to do with the gameplay, and that's the fact that Simon does not do his famous strut in this game. Instead he looks like he's clutching his tummy and needs to take a massive shit. It turns out there's no bride at all, Simon is just breaking into Dracula's castle to use his bathroom and ruin his plumbing. I am continuing the charade that this is all a childish rivalry between Mr. Belmondo and Mr. Dracula. There is also a second thing that annoys me, and that's that the best upgraded weapon in the game is a sword. That's right, Simon has sold out. He throws out his trademark whip for the most dull weapon to ever hit dullsville. The reason all of these peculiar things happen is most likely because Haunted Castle was originally not supposed to be related to Castlevania at all, and everything kind of got shoehorned in during the middle of development. It was also painfully early in the series' life, so maybe they figured they could just do anything since it was the new hotness and would probably make massive bank.
However! If you wish to make massive bank at the coin-op, maybe you should allow infinite continues! For the original release of these games, one credit was one life. That's all you got, and you could only continue with an additional credit three times, and after that? Do I hear wedding bells? Oh my, another explosion has taken place and Dracula took another one of your wives! Dearest me. Apparently Konami couldn't quite wrap their heads around how to properly gouge people of their money, because I doubt new players are going to bother with this kind of brutality, especially when the North American release features an insanely high damage boost to the enemies. In the original JP release of Haunted Castle, a bone thrown from an enemy skeleton results in a bit of damage. In the American release? One of those bones is now powerful enough to level the broadside of a Nimitz-class Supercarrier. There is also no pot roast in this game, and your health is not refilled between stages. You are given very little room for error.
Astonishing.
To say Haunted Castle is a hard game would be the biggest understatement since they invented the word "understatement". It is a game designed to make you pull your hair out with how often your Boston Big™ hitbox will be nailed by everything in sight as you get to watch a bat pull some spectacular aerial maneuvers to somehow not get hit by your whip and nibble your face off in retaliation. To be frank as Frankenstein, I also think the game just looks ugly. Many sprites feel haphazardly drawn, which gives credence to the game being quickly rejiggered into a Dracula of some kind instead of whatever it was originally going to be. The rock golem that's the boss of stage 4 literally doesn't do anything after you kill it. The game just freezes as the victory jingle goes off and you're given no satisfaction for your patience, no explosions, no decapitation, no nothing. Stage 6 is literally just walking to the left and hoping you can get by all the bats flying at you without the collapsing bridge behind you catching up. It's meant to be a setpiece, but it's just painfully boring and feels like a creative setup to make the final stage quickly, and make it less obvious that this was rushed out to bank off the success of Akumajō Dracula's name.
Now you may be thinking, "where's the funny hah hah"? Well, there's these boulders in stage 2, they make an incredibly cartoonish Scooby-Doo "bonk" sound when they hit the ground.
:)
I feel like I've done nothing but drone on here, but I guess that's what happens when it's both a Castlevania title and a bad game. Now imagine if it were also a fighting game on top of that, wow I wouldn't shut up. Oh god, I just realized something and had a vision please keep it away, oh god, oh jeez, oh god, oh fuck, oh jeez.
It is of course an arcade game, an attempt at bringing the gameplay of the beloved NES title to the mean streets of the coin-op cabinet at your local pizzeria. You may have noticed it is also called "Haunted Castle" instead of "Castlevania", unlike the JP title AkumajĹŤ Dracula where it shares the same name with the Famicom Disk System game (along with later the Super Famicom and Sharp X68000 games, thanks lads I'm sure that's not confusing over there). I could actually wager a decent guess as to why they did this change. You see, the director was a massive fan of the Atari 2600 classic Haunted House, they just had to get their reference in. Remember the bat and the ghost? They in fact guest star in Haunted Castle, that's actually the same characters from Haunted House. I shit you not, my logic is infallible.
The game also bizarrely begins with an obvious Ghosts n' Goblins-esque intro with Simon peacefully walking along with his bride-to-be, only for an explosion to go off in the distance with Dracula flying in out of nowhere to whisk her away to god knows where (Ohio maybe) as Simon gives off a "curse you Dracula!" pose. Official documents state this was supposed to be a retelling of the first game, but I like to imagine that Dracula is constantly trying to inconvenience Simon at every turn. In the next Adventure Simon will be peacefully enjoying a meal at his favorite steakhouse only for it to be revealed that his steak was well done, then Dracula explodes from the background revealing his new ownership of the place and proceeds to put on the most annoying song in the jukebox.
This is where I stop farting about and actually comment on things that legitimately annoy me that have nothing to do with the gameplay, and that's the fact that Simon does not do his famous strut in this game. Instead he looks like he's clutching his tummy and needs to take a massive shit. It turns out there's no bride at all, Simon is just breaking into Dracula's castle to use his bathroom and ruin his plumbing. I am continuing the charade that this is all a childish rivalry between Mr. Belmondo and Mr. Dracula. There is also a second thing that annoys me, and that's that the best upgraded weapon in the game is a sword. That's right, Simon has sold out. He throws out his trademark whip for the most dull weapon to ever hit dullsville. The reason all of these peculiar things happen is most likely because Haunted Castle was originally not supposed to be related to Castlevania at all, and everything kind of got shoehorned in during the middle of development. It was also painfully early in the series' life, so maybe they figured they could just do anything since it was the new hotness and would probably make massive bank.
However! If you wish to make massive bank at the coin-op, maybe you should allow infinite continues! For the original release of these games, one credit was one life. That's all you got, and you could only continue with an additional credit three times, and after that? Do I hear wedding bells? Oh my, another explosion has taken place and Dracula took another one of your wives! Dearest me. Apparently Konami couldn't quite wrap their heads around how to properly gouge people of their money, because I doubt new players are going to bother with this kind of brutality, especially when the North American release features an insanely high damage boost to the enemies. In the original JP release of Haunted Castle, a bone thrown from an enemy skeleton results in a bit of damage. In the American release? One of those bones is now powerful enough to level the broadside of a Nimitz-class Supercarrier. There is also no pot roast in this game, and your health is not refilled between stages. You are given very little room for error.
Astonishing.
To say Haunted Castle is a hard game would be the biggest understatement since they invented the word "understatement". It is a game designed to make you pull your hair out with how often your Boston Big™ hitbox will be nailed by everything in sight as you get to watch a bat pull some spectacular aerial maneuvers to somehow not get hit by your whip and nibble your face off in retaliation. To be frank as Frankenstein, I also think the game just looks ugly. Many sprites feel haphazardly drawn, which gives credence to the game being quickly rejiggered into a Dracula of some kind instead of whatever it was originally going to be. The rock golem that's the boss of stage 4 literally doesn't do anything after you kill it. The game just freezes as the victory jingle goes off and you're given no satisfaction for your patience, no explosions, no decapitation, no nothing. Stage 6 is literally just walking to the left and hoping you can get by all the bats flying at you without the collapsing bridge behind you catching up. It's meant to be a setpiece, but it's just painfully boring and feels like a creative setup to make the final stage quickly, and make it less obvious that this was rushed out to bank off the success of Akumajō Dracula's name.
Now you may be thinking, "where's the funny hah hah"? Well, there's these boulders in stage 2, they make an incredibly cartoonish Scooby-Doo "bonk" sound when they hit the ground.
:)
I feel like I've done nothing but drone on here, but I guess that's what happens when it's both a Castlevania title and a bad game. Now imagine if it were also a fighting game on top of that, wow I wouldn't shut up. Oh god, I just realized something and had a vision please keep it away, oh god, oh jeez, oh god, oh fuck, oh jeez.
They dared to change, just like Simon dared to rid himself of Dracula's affliction in the face of ridicule by his fellow townsfolk.
At the approach of midnight, I began my journey home, my boots trudging through the mud as I pumped my fists to the Dance of Monsters. The chill of the wind rustles through the trees as I keep myself at the ready, for any moment the skeleton or wolfman could walk out from the brush begging for death's sweet release by the hand of my mighty whip passed down to me by my ancestors. Upon entry to town the sunrise brings about temporary peace, wherein I decide to visit the local grocery and throw my bottled water at it's floor to reveal the garlic salesman hiding underneath the floorboards from minions of the Count who has decreed that garlic was illegal.
Perhaps I'm obsessed with the idea of pretending to be Simon, perhaps he really is just the world's biggest badass being able to beat Dracula by himself and then again later while he's dying of a curse placed on him by the same guy. You think I wouldn't want to role play as him?
A color palette of putrid dilapidation, reminiscent of Hammer horror films, a land that continues to be ravaged by monsters chaotically stalking about despite the Count's destruction. Simon himself now as pale as a ghost due to the curse that has been sapping away at him for the past seven years, a depressing tone for what should've been a peaceful reconstruction after our past victory. The last town in the game Ghulash is completely monochrome in color with only one person residing in it, showcasing the devastation that has expanded from Dracula's castle. The townsfolk talk in riddles and lies, done in either genuine good faith or as an act of sabotage to keep Simon from completing his quest for fear of Dracula's early return. The ringing of tears flowing from a ballroom mask echo across the land, a most legendary composition.
They say if you wish to follow up perfection, then you better hit strong, differently, or both.
As I have once said before, a game that becomes more enjoyable the more you replay is but a sign of perfection. For the original Castlevania it became more enjoyable as I grew quicker at conquering it from sheer skill, and for Simon's Quest it became more enjoyable as I grew more wary of it's tricks. Instead of a test of strength, it is a test of shrewdness and clever understanding. Whereas the original opted to try and beat you into the grave, Simon's Quest looks to baffle you with illusions and misdirection. Typos appaering, translations such as the Fist of the North Star reference getting turned into a weird shout out to the Galactic Empire's infamous space station, and signs of a rushed development seem to only help it, perhaps it is perfectly imperfect. A perfect sibling to what was a perfect game.
Maybe I am obsessed, maybe Dracula exists and he put a curse on me to forever defend Simon's Quest from the never ending ridicule that comes it's way thanks to videos that were made for humor back in the times of the ancients. Simon's last adventure now cursed to being used as the butt of a joke, and constantly used as a punching bag by armchair game designers. Those who hate are numerous, and me and my fellow Simon supporters are small in number, but we are steadfast and strong in our beliefs. We stand together in the face of hostility and look onward at the army in front of us, I unsheathe my whip, brandishing it in hand and turn to my allies with but two quiet words, "For Simon", I rush into the ensuing battle leading the charge into our forever war.
Our battle is never over, but despite our curse we forever fight to the bitter end just as a Belmont would.
At the approach of midnight, I began my journey home, my boots trudging through the mud as I pumped my fists to the Dance of Monsters. The chill of the wind rustles through the trees as I keep myself at the ready, for any moment the skeleton or wolfman could walk out from the brush begging for death's sweet release by the hand of my mighty whip passed down to me by my ancestors. Upon entry to town the sunrise brings about temporary peace, wherein I decide to visit the local grocery and throw my bottled water at it's floor to reveal the garlic salesman hiding underneath the floorboards from minions of the Count who has decreed that garlic was illegal.
Perhaps I'm obsessed with the idea of pretending to be Simon, perhaps he really is just the world's biggest badass being able to beat Dracula by himself and then again later while he's dying of a curse placed on him by the same guy. You think I wouldn't want to role play as him?
A color palette of putrid dilapidation, reminiscent of Hammer horror films, a land that continues to be ravaged by monsters chaotically stalking about despite the Count's destruction. Simon himself now as pale as a ghost due to the curse that has been sapping away at him for the past seven years, a depressing tone for what should've been a peaceful reconstruction after our past victory. The last town in the game Ghulash is completely monochrome in color with only one person residing in it, showcasing the devastation that has expanded from Dracula's castle. The townsfolk talk in riddles and lies, done in either genuine good faith or as an act of sabotage to keep Simon from completing his quest for fear of Dracula's early return. The ringing of tears flowing from a ballroom mask echo across the land, a most legendary composition.
They say if you wish to follow up perfection, then you better hit strong, differently, or both.
As I have once said before, a game that becomes more enjoyable the more you replay is but a sign of perfection. For the original Castlevania it became more enjoyable as I grew quicker at conquering it from sheer skill, and for Simon's Quest it became more enjoyable as I grew more wary of it's tricks. Instead of a test of strength, it is a test of shrewdness and clever understanding. Whereas the original opted to try and beat you into the grave, Simon's Quest looks to baffle you with illusions and misdirection. Typos appaering, translations such as the Fist of the North Star reference getting turned into a weird shout out to the Galactic Empire's infamous space station, and signs of a rushed development seem to only help it, perhaps it is perfectly imperfect. A perfect sibling to what was a perfect game.
Maybe I am obsessed, maybe Dracula exists and he put a curse on me to forever defend Simon's Quest from the never ending ridicule that comes it's way thanks to videos that were made for humor back in the times of the ancients. Simon's last adventure now cursed to being used as the butt of a joke, and constantly used as a punching bag by armchair game designers. Those who hate are numerous, and me and my fellow Simon supporters are small in number, but we are steadfast and strong in our beliefs. We stand together in the face of hostility and look onward at the army in front of us, I unsheathe my whip, brandishing it in hand and turn to my allies with but two quiet words, "For Simon", I rush into the ensuing battle leading the charge into our forever war.
Our battle is never over, but despite our curse we forever fight to the bitter end just as a Belmont would.
2022
Sonic 2's back half is absolutely unforgivable, I hate those fuckin' fiddler crabs in Metropolis Zone with their Volkswagen Beetle-sized hitboxes and that dumbass final boss gauntlet that sucks the wind out of you- wait what the fuck is this shit, get this crap out of here.
elbow drops it through the announce table
elbow drops it through the announce table
1988
Konami Board Meeting circa 1988
"Hey sir, we got this Not-Gradius, how should we stink up this one for the westerners?"
"I still have never forgiven Ohio. Take away the weapons, fuck up the stage order, and put in some metal gonads that explode into nigh-impossible to avoid spread/homing shots."
"A most despicable act, god I love you sir."
They hold hands for the next 15 hours and kiss passionately
"Hey sir, we got this Not-Gradius, how should we stink up this one for the westerners?"
"I still have never forgiven Ohio. Take away the weapons, fuck up the stage order, and put in some metal gonads that explode into nigh-impossible to avoid spread/homing shots."
"A most despicable act, god I love you sir."
They hold hands for the next 15 hours and kiss passionately