It was waaaaaaay harder than I remember it from 12 or so years ago, but today I conquered the game. Excellent. Dracula took 8 attempts (although I’d tried yesterday about 20 or 30 times), but in fact, his final “form” was much easier than his first few. I managed to force myself to only get a hit in when it was safe, concentrating on avoiding projectiles rather that smacking him in the face. This really helped. Getting my health back …
So very, very nearly there! Finished A (and killed a Mummy at the end), then moved onto B, which was a bit of a boss-a-thon in the end, with some bats, Death (it seems the other Death wasn’t Death at all), and a big blue gargoyle thing. And then, Dracula! Thankfully, at this stage in the game you can continue from just before each boss, so I don’t have to go far back each time I run out of lives. …
Really getting very hard now. I did manage to completed all of Level 8, and then (with much cursing) Level 9, but now I’m on Level A (hexadecimal level numbers FTW!) and it has become too hard again. Grr. I can manage the first bit, then the bridge (Run Forrest! Run!), but it’s the bit with the spinny spikey thing that chases you up the level that I’m stuck on. I just can’t seem to get half the staircases to …
Yes, I’m back. I’ve had a week away from games, and I have returned anew. Or something. Time to get in and complete some of those games I’m very nearly there with. Like this one! Sadly, I didn’t manage to progress much further. I got as far as 8-2, on bit with seemingly random spikes that come out from the platform above, and are impossible to predict or dodge. So I died. A lot. Rubbish. And I’m so close as …
And now I’m on Level 8. Well, Stage 8, or whatever they call them, anyway. The boss at the end of stages 6 and 7 were not especially difficult. Well, the one on 6 (some ghost dancers) was tricky, but each time you died you could pick up a replacement life, so it didn’t actually matter. I got to the boss at the end of Stage 7 with no spare lives, but luckily managed to kill him on my first …
It turned out the spinny room was solved by just holding on for longer, as a platform eventually appeared. I’d obviously just got impatient and tried something else. I got to the boss at the end of the level (Death wasn’t it, it seems), who was a big golum thing that shrank every time he was hit. Thankfully, he was really easy, as I didn’t have much health (and no energy) when I got to him. So Level 6, and …
Got through the level I was on without too many problems this time. I’m not keen on the Indiana Jones style whip swinging, however, as I tend to let go at the wrong time and die. The end of level boss was a two headed dragon. Like the two headed dragon in Circle of the Moon. Sort of. A bit. With the aid of my axes, I killed it without even getting hit, on my first go, which was good. …
Just a short go. I got through a large section of the next level, up to what seemed like “almost the end”, only to lose all my lives falling through holes. You see, rather than land on the platform below (which I’d been standing on moments before), the screen doesn’t scroll down again and you die. Bah.
Well, I wasn’t going to buy this until after I’d done all three GBA Castlevania games, but it seems I did. Oh well. It’s pretty good. Better than I remember it (which is good), but not really as good as recent 2D outing in the series. Anyway. I’ve killed two bosses, and I’m now on level 3-1. I think.
Just in case I was misremembering that this was one of the good linear Castlevania games, and my thoughts on Vampire’s Kiss were based on warped memories, I decided to give this a go. It’s on the Switch Online Mega Drive collection too so it wasn’t difficult figuring out a way of running it. And, I was completely right. It is so much better than Vampire’s Kiss it makes that game look like a dodgy c-tier “Dracula’s Castle” knock-off and …
Vampire’s Kiss is A Bad Game. I’ve no idea why Konami decided to dump this poor Super Castlevania IV followup on the Castlevania Advance Collection because it’s neither a GBA game nor is it a “metroidvania” style game. And it’s rubbish. I’m trying not to represent it badly because it isn’t the same genre as the other three games on the collection, and it’s several years older, but no – it’s just no fun to play. It’s short, it has …
Boldly going where nobody without the surname Belmont has gone before.
That’s right, folks – I’ve completed a Spectrum game. But not a Spectrum game from 30 years ago – one from last year. Or this year. It’s new, anyway. And it’s also really good. A new Castlevania game (a fan one, not a Konami one) that manages to fit into the Castlevania canon, with astounding graphics and sound considering the hardware it’s on. And it’s a full adventure experience too, like Castlevania II was on the NES, which abilities you …
