Basically just expanding my zoo more today. In fact, I’m almost out of space. Animals added include sea lions and my zoo now has a reptile house and aviary too. I had a look at my budgets, but things there don’t look good. Although I have more money than I started with, most of that came from one-off awards which have started to dry up. My outgoings are higher than my incomings and although everyone thinks my zoo is ACEBEST, …
Added some more animals to my zoo today – an elephant, two polar bears (that soon became three with the birth of a baby) and some Emperor penguins. I put a few more buildings in too, including an Animal Theatre (which is neither for animal performances, nor for surgery) and a huge gift shop. I’m getting used to the really bizarre control system, but it is still so unintuitive I keep making mistakes.
This arrived today, along with Potatio Leg Ends. Had a quick play through the tutorial, and it seems OK but suffers from a rather stupid problem – the screens on the DS seem to be the wrong way round. Basically, you use the touch screen for things that don’t need to be touch activated, and the d-pad to control the top screen, which really needs to be touch activated. And you click on a simple bottom-screen map representation of the …
I didn’t even mention that I’d played Midway Arcade Treasures 3 over the weekend. Mainly because it was rubbish. Of all the games on it, only Super Off Road was any good. Tch. So I was somewhat chuffed when Potatio Leg Ends (which arrived today) turned out to be SUPARBEST. It is worth buying just for Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands and The New Zealand Story, but then they go and stick another 26 games in there! And they’re not all …
Hurrah! The Abyss wasn’t as hard as it seemed at first, as you could just sail through it ignoring many of the baddies. Found a save point right before another boss, who threw bats or something at me. He was reasonably easy to kill, although he did take millions of hits. It seems using the laser beam thing on him was the best way to finish him off. Plowed further on into The Abyss, and found a warp point (so …
I can’t believe I say that yesterday and then make the SAME mistake AGAIN. Rubbish! There’s a Magic Door I can now get through, but didn’t as I had to go back and tool up. And stuff. So forgot about it. Again. And in there, was a very simple to kill boss, who, yes, I was right, jumped in and out of a mirror, whilst using other mirrors to shoot lasers at me. And with him dead, I had to …
You know, I really should pay attention to what I’ve already done, you know. I keep getting stuck as I reach somewhere, and then either die or thing “I need more potions and then I’ll come back”, and then forget where I’d been and assume it’s a dead-end on the map. I did the same thing today, again, and as a result ended up exploring and doing other stuff, and ran out of places to go. Even though I knew …
Duh. It seems I’d forgotten my previous foray into the Clock Tower (where I’d died last time), so went back in there. And lo, a new Magic Seal (which looks horribly complicated), loads more map, some new weapons, and a new Magic Door to go through. Let me guess – a boss?
Gah. Stuck. I spent a merry hour or so wandering around and trying to “solve” the moving rooms slide puzzle (and it turns out if you do, you don’t get anything), and trying to reach new areas. And failed. Most parts of the map I can’t get to are blocked off either by jumps too high to make, or what look like corkscrew wall things that I can’t move. However, there is one room that is most odd. In the …
Castlevania seems to have turned into a sort of Metroid clone since Castlevania IV. Not that I’m complaining, since I really enjoyed Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission, and this kind of fills the hole that their completion has left. In may ways it is better too. You get more freedom over where you’re supposed to go, and there is less hand-holding. There is still all the exploration and upgrades, but there are so many upgrades to find, choose, use, and …
More exploring, and also making new weapons from cheap weapons with easy-to-obtain souls to sell for huge profits. Hurrah! Worked my way through the top-right of the map, finding some harder baddies to kill (most of the others die in one or two hits now so were becoming a bit easy), but then made the mistake of walking through a Magic Sealed door and into a boss – a giant eel, underwater, who fires ice things. I died. Pah.
I’m stuck. After working my way through some more tumours and polyps and stuff, I can’t get past the multiple aneurysm level. They just keep appearing and bursting and bleeding and I can’t keep up with them. Worse, is that they appear off-screen too, so you can’t even see them. So I keep killing the patient. Technically, you never actually “kill” anyone, as another doctor takes over at the last second, but still.
This DS game (yes, another one – there are MILLIONS of MAXIMUM NEEDAGE games out for it at the moment, it seems) came today. It’s a little bit gruesome, what with you having to perform surgery on patients and stuff, but good, anyway. Cut out some tumours, lasered some stuff, removed large chunks of glass from someone’s heart, and sewed up assorted cuts, slices and other holes. I have learned the “healing touch” now too, which allows me to slow …
Mostly just exploring the castle and leveling up today. Found a few more souls and had a play with what they did too, although none seemed to be particularly useful.
Well, the vampire thing was killed first go this time. Why didn’t any tell me I had potions to heal myself, eh? Tch. He gave up a soul that allowed me to double-jump, meaning I can now reach areas I couldn’t before. Went off exploring then, mainly through the village and into the Demon Guest House area, finding new areas to open up. There’s a large ballroom bit, and after that I found Dario – the other Dark Lord Candidate. …