Games I’ve been playing recently

Mutant Mudds (3DS) It’s really hard now. I’ve done all 16 main levels, some of the secret levels, and collected all of the diamonds so far. I’ve done the first three Moon levels, but the last one? Nightmare. It’s so difficult! It doesn’t help that you can only have one power up at a time, and you really need all three to make it through. I’ve swapped around which ones I’ve been using, but it’s too hard with any of …

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)

What’s this? A game that isn’t on the Wii? Amazing! It’s been around for a while, but for several reasons I never picked it up. I saw it for under £12 this week though, so couldn’t resist. And, like every other “Metroidvania” game ever, it’s excellent. So far at least – I’m only about an hour in. It differs to most others by not being almost entirely set within Dracula’s Castle. I’ve not even been near it yet. This makes …

Castlevania Rebirth (Wii): COMPLETED!

This is how I want new additions to old 8 and 16-bit game serieses to be made. As if they’re for 8 and 8-bit consoles. Like Megaman 9 was. Rebirth is a remake (or rather, complete rewrite borrowing nothing but the plot) of The Castlevania Adventure for the Game Boy. A game I played, and completed, almost exactly three years ago. It was rubbish. Rebirth, is not. It looks like a SNES game, only with more detailed sprites. It plays …

Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP)

Next week on ugvm is Retro Week, and so I was hoping to play this a bit then. Only… I can’t. For two reasons. Firstly, in order to not break the rules of the week, I would have to play either the original Rondo of Blood (rather than the 2.5D remake that makes up the main title in this collection), or Symphony of the Night. Both of which have to be unlocked in the main game. Secondly, the main game …

Castlevania (Wii)

I have decided that this is officially the Hardest Game Ever (except for Game Over on the Spectrum). I’m still getting trounced by the axe armour and medusa head combo en-route to Death. Which is ironic, don’t you think? I did actually make it to Death. Once. But I only had one notch of energy left and one of his sickles materialised exactly on my head, so I lasted less than a second.

Castlevania (Wii)

Hurrah! I did it! No, not completed it. That’s a Whole Other Thing, but I did manage to get to and defeat The Creature. And it only took $hlmun attempts! It’s his imp friend that causes all the problems, as The Creature itself doesn’t really do a lot. In the end, I found it easiest to just dodge the imp and his rocks wot he chucks, and just get the occasional hit in to The Creature when possible. When I …

Castlevania (Wii)

Gah. This is getting really annoying now. I can get from the restart point to The Creature without dying most times now, and often without even getting hit. However, that stupid imp that keeps hopping around the room once I get there kills be far too easily. I even managed to get The Creature down to two energy bars – one more whipping would have done it. But no. I died.

Castlevania (Wii)

FRUSTRATION FACTOR 10! Not only is it a bit bloody hard (I managed to get to The Creature, but died), but for some reason my Wii remote keeps cutting out. I’ve tried both remotes, new batteries, switching off anything that might interfere, switched the Wii off at the wall and all sorts. Nothing works. I had this problem with Sonic and the Stupid Rings a couple of weeks ago, but nothing since. Other games are fine, as are the other …

Castlevania (Wii)

Also too hard! Well, not as hard as Dragon’s Curse, but certainly not easy. I’d left the game “saved” (using the Wii’s game state save function) on Stage 7, but stupidly didn’t continue when I died so had to start from the beginning again. Luckily, I reached 7 again quite quickly, and then moved on past it – to Stage 10, killing two mummies on the way (and only just whipping them before they killed me too). Apparently there are …

Dragon’s Curse (Wii)

Once again, it’s a Sunday, and once again, it’s New Game Time! Hurrah! This week, it’s Dragon’s Curse on the Wii. Or rather, on the PC Engine on the Wii Virtual Console, if you see what I mean. Or even, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap on the Master System on the PC Engine on the Wii Virtual Console. Yes. That. It’s a bit bloody hard, isn’t it? I’ve killed the dragon, been turned into Lizard Man, escaped the castle, …

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360): COMPLETED!

After killing another boss, I realised I had four of the five parts of Vlad already, meaning I was getting close to completing the game. However, it took me ages to figure out where the final piece was – and it turned out it was being held by Death in the Reverse Caverns area of the map. I was expecting him to be hard, but in fact, since I’d just killed another Doppleganger of me which led me to a …

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360)

Haven’t played this in a few days, as Rocket Slime had taken over pretty much all of my gaming time this week. But, since I completed that earlier, I went back to SOTN. It suddenly got hard. I’ve found loads of baddies who are difficult to kill and do stacks of damage. I’ve been trying to work my way back to the Entrance, or at least, where the entrance was in the right-way-up castle, and it’s slow going. My brain …

Castlevania (Wii)

The very first NES Castlevania at that. It appeared on the Wii’s Virtual Console downloads last Friday, so I downloaded it but didn’t play it until today. Some people have said that Super Castlevania IV is a sort of remake of the original game, rather than a proper sequel. Konami themselves have retconned the story a couple of times themselves, so that it was, and then it wasn’t – so I’m not sure how it stands officially now. Either way, …