deKay's Gaming Diary

Hmm. Not really enjoying this a great deal any more. Well, I was never enjoying it loads as it is, but there are just too many things I don’t like about it – the camera, the controls, the lack of platforming, the bits where there is platforming being difficult due to the camera or controls, etc. It’s all a bit rubbish, really.

So I found the “e” stone to put in the “meth” stone in the Lab level, which brought a golum to life. And then I killed it. Which kind of defies the point, really, doesn’t it?

I then moved on to the garden level, and opened up loads of the map, found a power-up to protect me from fire (or something), and couldn’t find a door in a room to the right of the map that is marked on the floor plan, but isn’t actually in the room. Gah!

So I left, and then went back to the House of Thingie (the churchy level) and tried to reach a high platform in a room near the start. But I can’t. Not even double-jumping and whip-grabbing can do it. I gave up for the day.

Sand painting boss found! It was some woman who, who had a strange attack – she throws hearts at you, and if you’re Jonathan, and they hit you, then she takes control of you and you control Charlotte. Jonathan then attacks you. Erk.

Luckily, I killed her without too many attempts, and then it was back to the Castle to rest up, and move onwards (and upwards). I found the next painting – Nations of Fools – which was set in a circus, although some of it was upside-down and sideways and all sorts.

The boss there was Legion, the giant ball of people with tentacles inside. He wasn’t too hard, but wasn’t anywhere near as easy as the kill-without-being-hit version in Harmony of Dissonance.

After that, I explored more of the castle and bumped into Stella, one of the twin vampire girls. She attacked me, but was pretty easy to defeat. I got a locket from her, which revealed the true identity of Wind – linking the game further to Castlevania: Bloodlines, which I haven’t completed yet. Confronting Wind explained some more backstory to what happened between Bloodlines and Portrait of Ruin, how the Morris family ended up with the Belmont’s Vampire Killer whip, and foreshadows an event due to happen in 1999. The same event Julius mentions in Aria of Sorrow that Konami haven’t turned into a game yet. I wish they would!

Finally (for now) I spent a while doing quests for Eri^H^H^HWind, gained a few new moves, and figured out how to mince the meat – you need to punch the animal corpses – Rocky style!

I’m just over two and a half hours in, on Level 21, and have uncovered uh, 344.5% of the map. And you thought the 198.8% of Harmony was extreme…

And into the next painting I went! One nice thing about the paintings is that it allows Castlevania-ing in locations not normally included in Castlevania. So there’s a bit less castle, and more, well – this painting is in Egypt, so it’s got sand. And sandworms! It adds a bit of variety to the proceedings, anyway.

So I’ve gone though loads of this Egyptian level, and not found a boss yet. I’ve found a few places I can’t yet reach (even though I now have the double-jump power-up), and I have a better whip, which means I’ve ditched the slow sword I was using. I bumped into Brauner and his twin daughters, but they don’t want to fight me, instead wanting to dispatch Death who I’d previously seen poking around.

Wow. Just wow.

Yeah, so it doesn’t have the soul collecting of Dawn of Sorrow, and the tag-team system ranges from pointless to annoying, but how any reviewer can say this is anything less than fantastic is beyond me. It ticks all the boxes: save points and warps in sensible places, a shop to buy potions, a great (if confusing, currently) story, and excellent graphics and controls.

Today’s play took me back to the City painting, as Wind told me to “find the butcher in town and mince some meat”. So off I went, found the meat, slapped it about a bit, and erm, nothing happened. Tried all sorts of powers and skills and magic and weapons on it, and… nothing. Hmm.

Then I left the painting and went off exploring the castle. I found another painting (which I haven’t entered yet) and another boss (some green goo in a big pot) who was pretty easy to kill. Level 12 and 130% explored now!

Just in the nick of time! With my handheld versions of Castlevania having run out yesterday, Play Asia delivered Portrait of Ruin today. Phew, eh?

And… is it any good? Of course it is! It’s ACES!

The first thing to hit me was the graphics. Not the character graphics, as although they’re good – they’re nothing special, but the backgrounds. Several layers deep with detailed parallax. 3D objects in the distance (like a big abbey thing which you see ‘around’ as you walk past). Of course, Dawn of Sorrow had much of this, but having spent the last few weeks with the GB and GBA Castlevania titles, it’s enough to blow you away. There’s also some nice use of 3D on some of the enemies – the Peeping Eye, for example, is fully 3D and swoops and rotates and flicks its tail at you. Lovely.

So progress, then. I’ve found Wind, entered my first painting, found the boss therein (a headless suit of armour and a flying separate head) which was really very hard until I discovered (a) the pattern, and (b) a tag-team giant lightning cross “smart-bomb” type move. Yes, I said tag-team: you control two characters – Jonathan Morris and, um, a girl whose name I’ve forgotten. You switch between them by pressing a button, and can operate both characters at one for pushing things and pulling levers and using each other as a boost up. Anyway, I’m digressing.

I killed the armour boss, and “finished” the painting. I then moved on through the main castle itself, and found another boss (who is a creature that chased me at the start of the game). It was pretty easy, actually. I’m now in a new part of the castle, and I’m looking for another painting. I’m about one hour 20 minutes in, and have explored 112%-ish of the castle. Yes. 112% and I’ve only done two bosses. Hmm.

Another day, another completed Castlevania! So this was a fair bit easier than the last one, although there was a tricky bit near the end with ropes that move up and down and then change direction, with the cogs on either end killing you.

The end-of-Dracula’s-castle boss wasn’t Dracula, but Solieyu Belmont, the son of the main character (Christopher Belmont). He was under Dracula’s power, or something, and was actually bloody hard to kill, what with his whip and stuff.

But kill him I did, and then it was the shortest of short levels before I had Dracula himself to kill. He was pretty easy, once I’d figured out you had to whip him in the face.

Game Over, then!

No sooner was the first GB Castlevania over and done with, I moved straight onto the sequel. And guess what? It’s ace. Not Aria of Sorrow ace, or even Super Castlevania IV ace, but it’s certainly waaaaay better than The Castlevania Adventure. Yeah, so it’s still slow (although not quite as slow), but it’s easier (so far), not jerky, has more detailed graphics and there aren’t any pixel-perfect jumps! BEST.

You have four castles to tackle, before moving on to a fifth, housing (I assume) Dracula. I’ve already completed the first four, finding them fun to play and not console-smashingly impossible, and the bosses are much better too.

And the game has a password system, so I can stop and continue later. Which I will do!

Oh my! Only four levels? Just as well as if there were any more, things may have been broken on purpose.

Level 3 is the real killer. The spikes are really rather hard to get past. Once you do, however, the rest of the game is pretty easy in comparison. The boss at the end of Level 3 was some sort of Harpy, who was easy to dodge, and then it was on to Level 4. It looked like there was going to be a SuckySuck(TM) bit, with all the previous bosses one after another, but thankfully it was just the first one. Again. And again. And again. I must have killed him about ten times on this level alone.

After some more spikey bits (which were actually pretty easy), I finally made it to Dracula. And killed him on my second attempt. He turns into a bat after you die, but thankfully he’s not too difficult.

So that’s the first Game Boy game I’ve completed in years, and the 9th game this year so far. And the 5th Castlevania title this year too. I’ve got the second Game Boy Castlevania lined up now too!

What? In? Hell?

This has to be the slowest, hardest, most irritating game ever made. Ever. Your character (Simon? It doesn’t tell you) moves as a snails pace. You have no subweapons. You can’t jump very far (and the game is full of pixel-perfect jumps), you only have three lives, often when you die you go back miles, and the whole game jerks and judders all over the place.

Ace!

So I spent AGES trying to get past the Stepping Stones of Doom (pixel-perfect jumps) near the end of Level 1, and finally made it. Then Level 2 threw up some heads that spit balls which aren’t nice, and boomerang men, before finally making me kill a load of moles. Which I eventually managed. But since when did Dracula have moles?! Bats and zombies and rabid dogs, yes. Moles?

Now I’ve just got past an awful forced-scrolling vertical run-from-the-spikes bit, only to think “Phew!”, and then have another forced-scrolling horizontal run-from-the-spikes bit. With pixel-perfect jumps! Hurrah!

I’m this close to smashing the game into a billion pieces.

I worked my way through the House of Whatsit (I can’t remember it’s real name) and found three buttons which seem to activate locks. Or parts of them, anyway. I then got to a door that I need a Yellow Dragon Key to open, and generally ran out of places to go. I warped back to the shop, and bought some stuff, before going back into the castle and trying the Anti-Soul Mysteries “level”. No, really. That’s what it’s called.

It seems a lot easier than the other bit, so perhaps you’re supposed to do this first? I made it up to the third floor, but I’m stuck needing a key again. I did, however, find the Yellow Dragon Key, so all wasn’t lost. I’ve found what I think is the boss too, albeit shattered into bits. There’s a giant Polo on the wall with a word on it, that I need to find an ‘E’ for, I think.

Anyway, I warped out, bought stuff, and found a save point.

A new Castlevania game for me to play! And my first 3D Castlevania too. Well, aside from about ten minutes with the abortion that is Castlevania 64. I didn’t really know what to expect. Incidently, in the UK this game is just called “Castlevania“, which kind of makes sense as it’s chronologically the very first “episode” in the series, but elsewhere it has the subtitle “Lament of Innocence“.

I’ve not spent long with it yet, having only watched the opening film, explored what I can to start, completed the “training” section, and then moved on to some House of Somethings. I’m not at all sure about Leon Belmont’s double jump, nor his blocking. Or his whip-grab-jump move. But it’s early days yet.

The camera is already annoying though…

So I went rummaging around for three books that Mina suggested I might need. I actually had one already, and the other two were found pretty easily once I’d taken a good look at the map. I found another boss (Legion) who was alarmingly easy to kill, and then got another soul or three.

After all that, I had the books required, and the three souls it was suggested I equip (Flame Armour, Succabus, and Giant Bat – all traits of Dracula, if you think about it…), so I set them all up and went after Graham again. He was even easier to kill than last time! Not least because the Succabus soul gives you HP each time you get a hit in. Oh, and I was on Level 39 instead of 32 or something too.

Then a thing happened that I won’t say as it’s a spoiler, and then instead of the game being over, I could carry on playing. Got another soul and some better armour from the room just past Graham, then set off to the black mist door (with the floating garden baddies now complete walkovers – even the huge Devil which previously took a billion hits), where I had to fight Julius. He wasn’t easy at all, as it turned out, and I used just about all my potions on him. Managed it though, then retreated back to Hammer to get more supplies, saved my game, then stepped into the Quantum Leap acceleratorwarp to Chaos and vanished.

Soma awoke to find himself trapped in the pastin a twisted version of the castle, where going from one room to another seemed to warp him around the various areas I’d previously been through. It almost became a SuckySuck(TM) bit, as there were loads of previous bosses, but since they’re all really weak now, or I could just skip them (flying bat powaz FTW), I won’t complain.

Then Chaos came. And he was easy. Like, realy easy. OK – not as easy as Dracula at the end of Harmony of Dissonance, but still pretty simple to beat. And the game was over – properly this time, with the happy ending and everything!

New Virtual Console Game Day! Yaay! Mind you, I haven’t really played Mario Kart 64 much after buying that last week, but that’s mainly because The Castlevania has stolen my brains.

So I downloaded Super Mario World, and tried very hard to get used to the “proper” way of holding the pad (I have this freaky way of doing it with the SNES pad and the classic controller for the Wii isn’t quite right). I think I may have it sussed though.

I’ve found the yellow and green switch palaces, killed Iggy, and am about to embark on the Donut Plains Ghost House. It’s aces, is this.

Bossaroo! Did the third boss-room-that-isn’t-a-boss first of all today, and then moved on to the actual next boss. At first, it seemed like it was going to be a giant bat, but then a huge hand came out of nowhere and squashed the bat, killing it.

Instead, I had to kill the two hands and two eyes of a, uh, thing. Balgone? Something like that anyway. It was actually pretty easy once I’d sussed the fact you could jump on the hands as long as they weren’t swiping.

Then I got a soul to turn me into a bat, opening up more areas of the map. Went and got all the small areas I’d previously been unable to get to done first, before moving on to a new area with some really hard baddies in (flying things with pitchforks, succabuses, harder versions of previous bosses, etc.) and found a save point in a tower. Then, found another boss – Graham.

He did Dracula’s classic “warp then shoot fireballs” attack at first, and then morphed into a huge thing with grabby hands and a storm cloud thing. He seemed impossible, until I realised you could tell which hand was going to grab at you, so you got a chance to dodge. So I killed him, and then the credits came up and the game was complete!

So why no “COMPLETED!” in the title of this post? Because I think the game is lying. The end boss seemed too easy (although, that was also the case with Harmony of Dissonace), but also I’m only at 86% of the castle complete, there’s that swirly black door thing to get past yet, and the ending didn’t seem quite “right”. Also, it didn’t unlock any other modes, unlike every other recent Castlevania game does. So there’s more, kiddies!

Death = DEAD! Well, sort of. He got sucked into some sort of whirlpool thing. I’d got the lightning doll soul, which really helps, and gone up a couple of levels. In the room just past Death was a soul giving me the power to swim (I guess Soma never got his bronze swimming certificate), so off I went into the waterways in the bottom of the map.

Found lots of new baddies, souls, weapons (I now have an ice sword which is way more powerful than the hrunting), and a ring. Did get a bit stuck though, but eventually found my way into a new area with loads of beam skeletons and stuff.

And then, I found not one, but two boss doors. Neither of which had a boss behind them, instead having a difficult room each and a weapon and armour at the end of each. Did those, and levelled up a bit more. I’m now on Level 28.

Well. It looks like Death is the next boss after all. I spent ages exploring every single part of the map that I could get to, and found some more weapons, potions and armour (and collected a few souls along the way), but found no other bosses.

Now I have to traipse half-way around the castle again to get back to him! Bah.

I’m lost. I think. I killed another boss, and got a power-up to do the Jesus thing and walk on water, which let me access a couple of new areas. However, I then stumbled into some kind of garden filled with giant chickens, and then into some strange castles in the sky that are linked together in a strange way with really difficult wear-jaguars (or something) and devils in.

Then I appeared to be in a clock tower, and it was difficult with loads of Medusa heads and dragons and Disc Armours in. And then, I found Death. Surely I shouldn’t be up to Death yet? I mean, he’s usually at the end of the game? I tried to kill him, and it took ages to defeat his first form and then his second form killed me. So I don’t think I should be there…

I backtracked a bit, but the castles in the sky warped me around again and I ended up in a place with a black cloud blocking a door, and I don’t know what to do there. Eventually, I managed to make it back to known territory and saved the game. An upside of my wanderings is that I now have over 50% of the map open.

I’m 35% through this already! Lawks. Killed the Manticore easily this time, as I found that if you stand in the doorway, you can’t be hit. Grenade-tastic!

After that, it was STOP! Hammertime! As in, I met Hammer. And he told me he was going to set up a shop by the castle entrance. As you do. I then collected a soul that gave me a double-jump (finally!) and had a bit of an explore some more, heading vaguely to Hammer’s shop, and finding a few new routes and a warp point along the way.

Killed some more bosses, including a huge suit of armour and a thing which kept swapping heads, and have the group slide power-up too.

I’ve also got a nifty broadsword now, which is a bit slower than my previous weapon of choice, but does waaaaay more damage and has a wider killing arc, meaning I can swipe it at things above and below me. I’ve improved my armour as well, buying War Fatigues from Hammer, and have a soul which boosts my strength. However, I’m now in an area with some witches and persephones and it’s a bit hard.

Squeezed a bit more of this game into my day, exploring an area I’d have found far more easily if I’d actually looked at the map I’d found.

Worked my way up into some sort of bell tower, but couldn’t find anything to do up there, so came back down again. I then found another save point, followed by a Manticore boss, that killed me. So it’s harder than Harmony if nothing else…

So, no sooner had I finished Harmony, I was on to Aria. They’re even on the same cartridge (hence the same box art on the left there), so I didn’t have to swap games or anything. Ace.

Only played for about half an hour so far, and Soma’s sword (rather than Juste/Nathan’s whip) is taking a bit of getting used to. I’ve already found a few things about Harmony that I prefer to this (yes, I know – and I didn’t like that as much as Circle), such as the ability to save anywhere, and the ability to equip more concurrent items. However, since Aria has a primitive version of Dawn of Sorrow‘s soul system, you get to use several magical items at once. Graphically, it’s very lovely, and the silly blue glow of Juste is no more, which is good.

I’ve killed a huge skeleton-with-no-legs boss, gone up abut 4 levels already, upgraded my weapon and armour, got a soul to let me jump further, have assorted other souls, and have run out of places to go already. Hurrah!

Well. After getting a couple of keys, I was able to get around pretty much the entire map. Picked up the Griffin’s Wing and Crush Boots too, so I then could get round the entire map, and killed a few more bosses on the way and collected fahsands more power-ups and some well ace armour. I reached Level 48 or so, and my DEF stat was so high that almost no enemy could deal out more than a couple of damage to me. Even some of the bosses that were left barely scratched me. Excellent.

Then I found, right at the very top of the map, part of Dracula’s body. This opened a passageway – and I knew it was the blocked hole in the floor near the middle of the map. So, I set off down there, bought loads of Potions and High Potions, and saved next to the hole before jumping in to kill…

Maxim? What, no Dracula? Well, I was expecting Maxim then Dracula, but no – just Maxim. Who was easy. And then it was game over and I’d won. Sort of. Not the proper ending, methinks.

A quick search of the internet, and it seems I needed to be in Castle B, not Castle A for the proper ending (and have some specific items equipped). So off I went, only to find the hole in the floor sealed. I didn’t have all the parts of Dracula, apparently. Eventually found his missing eye (nice), and tried again. Hurrah! I was in!

Then there was Maxim to kill again (he was even easier then), and finally Dracula. Well, not Dracula as such, a Dracula Wraith (who was so easy I didn’t even get hit), followed by a second Dracula form. Who was also easy. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Dracula was in fact the easiest boss in the entire game. Tch. So much for my millions of High Potions…

And that was the REAL actual proper happy ending! Completed!

Grr! I’m stuck again! I’ve explored everywhere I can, and even though I now have the smash-through-walls whip attachment, I have exhausted every area there is.

I have killed a couple more bosses (including a Giant Merman), and found a load more HP/MP/heart Max power-ups, and have explored 125% of the castle(s) now, but I have no idea where to go next. There are loads of doors still locked, a hole in the floor that is sealed, and at least three rooms I can’t navigate as I can’t jump high enough…

After half an hour of searching, and finally resorting to watching the first part of a speedrun on YouTube, I eventually found somewhere I could reach but hadn’t been to yet. And so, I had opened up a huge new area!

In fact, my exploration status went from about 65% of the castle, to 102% in this evening’s play. No, that isn’t a mistake – it turns out there are two castles. Cripes.

Both are effectively the same layout, but with slightly different graphics and enemies. Sort of like the light and dark worlds of Link to the Past. Yeah, so not content with stealing Metroid‘s raison d’etre, Konami have nicked bits of Zelda too. ACE!

Anyway. I have killed loads of bosses now. There seem to be hundreds of them in this game. Got rid of a giant slime, a giant skeleton, a giant Peeking Eye, and a few other things which were not all giant things. Also pushed a huge Guardian Armour into a clock mechanism, mincing him and spitting out a load of Guardian Armour items I could wear, improving my stats considerably. I’ve also come across Maxim again, who is now slightly less scary than he was previously, and Death, who I couldn’t kill as he ran away.

I’m on about level 26 now too, and have collected a pile of items for Juste’s room. Yeah, he has a room in the castle. I don’t know why. It’s all a bit Pokémon, actually.

Hmm. Some of the flaws are starting to show in this game now. The map isn’t as easy to navigate as in Circle of the Moon, especially in the way that there are rooms which serve no purpose than to slow you down. No baddies, no spikes, just a poorly laid out room to navigate. They’re not hard, just annoying. Then there’s the structure of the bosses. You don’t seem to have to do them all in a specific order, and you don’t get an extra move power-up after each, meaning you wonder why you bothered killing them.

The graphics aren’t as good as Circle either, mainly due to the drab caves, busy bone caverns, awful psychedelic swirly nonsense, and strange character after-effects. Then there’s the problem of not being able to use sub-weapons and spellbooks.

I mean, it’s still good, but it should have been better, really.

Anyway. I’ve killed a couple more bosses (which aren’t that great either, to be honest), and have explored 61% of the castle. I’m totally stuck now though, as I can’t find anywhere to go. Locked doors, sealed holes in the floor, platforms I can’t reach (even though I now have the double-jump power-up) and walls that are clearly breakable (but I can’t break them) block every route. Bah.

And so it’s out with Circle of the Moon, and in with Harmony of Dissonance. I’ve played it for almost an hour and a half already, and I’m enjoying it. There’s something not quite right about it, though. Maybe it’s the way Juste (your character) has a bizarre blue glow and shadow trails. Maybe it’s the fact I had to start again completely powerless. It could be that L and R perform dashes rather than special moves. Or perhaps it’s that you don’t have DSS (like Circle, which is effectively the same as the souls in Dawn of Sorrow for the DS). It could even be that you don’t feel like you’re actually in a castle for much of it (so far), with strange rooms and caves and caverns and things.

But in other ways, it’s more like Castlevania. Specifically, some of the baddies from Super Castlevania IV reappear, like the bone snake thing, and the bone towers (which were in Circle, bit in a bastardised form). You collect money too, and can manually “twirl” your whip.

And then it has bits like Dawn. Like a shop. And great added bits like the ability to quick save anywhere. You can sort of tell it was made between the SNES and DS games, anyway.

So to the game itself proper then. I’ve killed two bosses already. There was a bat cluster, and a big skeleton with a large sword who I whipped in the kneecaps. I’ve seen about 25% of the map, collected the Ice and Fire books, loads of armour upgrades, and assorted relics including Lizard Tail. I’m really missing the double-tap-to-run and double-jump powers though. I’m sure they’ll become available at some point.

I’m saved up near a boss door for now. That’s for next time’s play, though.