Your Daily Dose of Gaming.

[majors]

Lately I've been sucked into Castlevania:SotN again.

Brothers from a different mother! I too had recently played through SotN on my Chinese handheld. Those medusa heads in that "gear" room with the water STILL drives me mad. (the location where you have to hit the 4 gears till they "click" to open the secret passage). After getting an ending, I've been trying out the plethora of Gameboy games on the handheld.

After messing with the RMenu Kai update to the ODE's, I started playing Powerslave. Originally, I just wanted to test the new software, but 4 weeks later, I'm still playing through it. I find the game to have great balance and pacing along with impressive performance for a 3D game on the ole Saturn.

[roflmao]

Brothers from a different mother! I too had recently played through SotN on my Chinese handheld. Those medusa heads in that "gear" room with the water STILL drives me mad. (the location where you have to hit the 4 gears till they "click" to open the secret passage). After getting an ending, I've been trying out the plethora of Gameboy games on the handheld.

I saved those medusa head clicky gear rooms until the end, haha! I hate those rooms with a passion. But I cleared 200.6% today! Woohoo!



Then I made it to Level 9 in Blazing Lazers, but wasn't able to beat the game this time. Still, making it this far on a little handheld felt like an accomplishment. I need to polish my chops before next weekend's MGC!

[seieienbu]

Since learning how to heart refresh glitch to reach the room beneath the castle gate, I've always wondered why 200.6 was considered complete.  Is there some way to reach the room legitimately that I don't know about?  The save point down there even seems kind of glitch-y so I really don't think you were intended to reach it.  Meanwhile, there are achievements in modern ports of the game for getting 200.6%.

So yeah, heart refresh glitch.  Or there's the Sword Bros. glitch to go out of bounds around the chapel towers; I feel like if it's accepted that you need to go out of bounds for sake of completion for the first, why not for the second?  You're more likely to have the Sword Bros spell + the bat transformation you need for this one.  It'll still get you the achievement regardless of getting the "correct" 200.6%.  You can get substantially more defense from Walk Armor just by going outside the chapel towers in both castles.  IIRC there's a myriad of other ways to get out of bounds for a few more percent but I never did any others so have no real opinion on them.

[lukester 3.0]

brother and i booted up parasol stars on the switch. we only made it as a team to the mountain level. i ended up (barely) soloing it after I got the secret 99 credit coin beating the bubble bobble stage with 3 star icons 

also played the haunted castle remake on the switch. still the weakest of the 16-bit games asides from dracula XX snes but it's a huggggge improvement! would've liked the option of the original music, didn't think the remake music has the same "punch". its also surprisingly "too" easy, i got to the 2nd phase dracula on my first go and i haven't played a castlevania game in years.
M2 always does a great job with their new ports and remakes

[lukester 3.0]

played through a few more games on my list recently, while i'm on vacation

riot zone pce - never got around to playing the pc engine's "premier" beatemup. i didn't mind it was easy but more variety in moves would've been fun, and maybe some weapons. graphics ain't bad for a mid gen pce game but the animations were pretty goofy. but if i want a pce belt scroller in the future, i'll stick to river city ransom.

final fight 2 snes - i've beaten the 3rd one a long time ago, which was alright. this is also "alright", but the music is worse and no dashing/special moves, but it plays pretty mechanically tight overall. this is certainly a step up from riot zone but at the same time felt even more repetitive, due to its length, and i think riot zone had more interesting bosses. the blue swordsman dude is my favorite character. kinda silly how few weapons there were, or boxes/barrels that were empty. mighty final fight on the nes is still my favorite in the series. if riot zone is a 5/10, this was like a 7/10

goof troop snes - had a lot of fun with the first 3 levels, but then the last 2 levels really dragged the pacing hard with all the box pushing puzzles and backtracking. feel like i'm playing soukoban...maybe someday i'll replay this in co-op with my brother as intended. if the whole game was like the first half, it would be a solid 8/10 for me, but it ended up being more of a 6/10

rambo iii (genesis) - absolutely kickass. the best top down shooter i've played in a while, and surprisingly good soundtrack. the 3rd person tank/helicopter bosses are easy but super awesome, i think its still impressive today. i struggled hard with level 5 though, too mazey and you generally only can take 3 hits before you lose. i 1CCed the game on normal by grinding out extra lives on the 3rd stage (theres a regenerating bush man near the boss gate. i left the boss gate on minimal HP while I kept stabbing the bush over and over. stabbing in this game is high risk iffy reward, but your range is increased when stabbing the bush dudes. overall, 9/10

dynamite duke (genesis) - i like really short games, like rambo iii above, but there needs to be some challenge to make up for it. normal mode is an utter cakewalk and easy to 1CC up until the final boss. cabal style games are always interesting and i do like the melee component they added, but the melee is clunky and only comes in play for bosses. overall pretty playable but disappointing, 4/10

i also played through the forgotten worlds pce port not long ago, was kinda lazy i did easy mode with auto fire (and the buttons are easy to configure on an emulator)
holy moly, solid 9/10, such a creative experience. kicks the pants off the genesis version. someday i'll re-visit it on normal mode

[lukester 3.0]

Guardian legend (nes)- dang, this is definitely a contender for one of the best nes games I?ve played, I plowed through it in one 5 hour long sitting, the gameplay loop got me hooked. Reminds of neutopia where you have the ?areas?.also not very cryptic! I hardly had to look anything up. However, three flaws for me unfortunately. Wayyyy too much repetition in shooter levels and boss fights. Most of the weapons tend to be pointless. I used either the fireball or the cutter for 90% of the game. Final boss is also quite a damage sponge. despite all that, it?s a 9/10 for me.

bio miracle upa (nes) - freaking awesome platformer. You play as a baby of all things?and you have this rattle. You hit enemies with the rattle and you can either float on the enemies of launch them in various directions. It?s a really fun mechanic and im surprised more games didn?t copy it. There?s a big difficulty spike once you hit stage 6, it?s doable but kinda frustrating. I played through normal mode but this cartridge version includes a new easy mode that I didn?t try. Compared to yume penguin monogatari, konamis other quirky import platformer, I felt this was a fully refined game and didn?t leave me disappointed. Only real flaw is boss repetition, mainly the pig (looks like and reminds me of birdo in Mario 2, you fight the pig on most levels) but each fight is varied due to room layout changes to keep you second guessing. I give this one a 9/10. I guess at some point i should play kid Dracula, as I?ve only beaten the gameboy version where half the levels are totally different.



mitsume ga toru (nes) - I know absolutely jack about the manga so idk if it?s accurate or anything. It?s a really fun megaman clone though with some of the best graphics on the system. Still a shame the nes had such big color limitations. Unfortunately, I did not know about the money juggling mechanic until I had finished the game, that might?ve been somewhat helpful. I think your character is a little too large, and the game could?ve used one extra level for little more variety. Wasn?t really impressed with the weapons except for the one that you could aim in a curve. Overall an 8/10 because it?s still super polished.

I am also replaying megaman V GB, but this time trying out the color hack, im about halfway through. It?s not one of the best but I appreciate the robot masters are easier than the other games, and the shop mechanic mixes things up. The hack removes ?most? of the slowdown which is the big benefit, asides from the colors. Personally, I dislike how the mega buster was changed to a mega arm, even once you can upgrade it to steal items. The decreased range is a bummer. For me it?s a 7/10, I?d replay any of the nes games over it except the real mega man 5, which felt generic, or mega man 1, which was a one and done for me like castlevania 1 just because of how brutal the difficulty gets.