What? Already? Yes indeed. I thought there was at least another world after 8, but no. And World 8 was somewhat shorter than previous ones too. The final boss battle was quite hard, until – yes – I got a Tornado power-up, and then after that there was another boss. I sort of expected it, as it seems to be the norm with Kirby games. You even get a weapon not unlike the Star Rod from Kirby’s Adventure. I seem …
So it’s easier than Super Monkey Ball. That much is now very clear. But it’s not a totally fair comparison. Yeah, both games have you guiding balls through mazes, but Kororinpa is more about the vertical and the twisting and the almost-upside-downness of the mazes. And there’s the crystal collecting too. So it’s different enough to not be classed as a clone, in my opinion. Anyway. I’ve finished Level 45, which it told me was the last one. Afterwards, there …
TA-DAAAH! Completed! I gave up on the Nest of Evil thing, and went back to the game proper. Decided it was time to actually learn to use the Vampire Killer, so set about killing Richiter Belmont. Yes, really. Well, a “memory” of him anyway. Bizarrely, the weapon I killed him with, was the Cream Pie. It dealt a fair amount of damage, and could be thrown at such an angle so as to be just out of reach of his …
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. …
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 …
Well, it was actually several sessions play today, rather than just one long go, but I reached the end, defeated Dedede, and then beat Nightmare. Hurrah! I noticed that the last level (the one in black and white) was actually some sort of medley of the levels from the original Game Boy Kirby game. I’d never realised that before. I just thought it was black and white for some sort of arty reason. It explains why you don’t get any …
Amazing scenes. I found a warp to Star World (yeah, I’ve played SMW a few times before…) and worked my way around that, finding all the secret exits and ending up at Bowser’s front door. Chose route 4 and route 5 through his castle, and reached him without getting hit. Then it was time to kill Bowser himself, who was the easiest thing ever, ever, and I didn’t get hit there either. Game over, win!
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 …
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 …
After trying several times to kill Dracula, I gave up. The final boss has two phases: one where he appears and disappears, and has three attacks – poison clouds, laser beam, and meteor strike, and after that he flies around a lot, then turns into a load of bats and a giant eyeball. The first phase was easy, especially if I used the DSS card combo that effectively grants you double energy. The second, however, was not. Dodging Dracula flying …
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 …
Yes, I am well aware that it’s one of those goes-on-forever games, but the thing is, it has 12 Achievements. And I Achieved the last two of them today: get over 100,000 points (which for some reason isn’t listed on my score table, even though the achievement itself is – bizarre) and Complete Stage 16. So I’ve never managed to “do” all of the achievements on any 360 games before, and then I do two in three days. Ace.
Right, before I start I really should qualify my “completed” status thing for this game. Yeah, so I haven’t done every last thing possible (yet), but I have had every single pinata resident at some point, and – most importantly – I have not gained all 1000 points worth of achievements. That’s 50/50 achievements. All of them. So I can take that as “complete”, seeing as there’s not really another way of completing it, is there? Well, aside from the …
Just squeezing in at the end of the year is this, my 45th completed title of 2006. I got as far as Level 24, and was knocked down accidentally to Level 23, so I decided to keep falling until I reached 17 to see if there was a ship piece I’d missed – and there was. Found that, then dropped all the way to Level 1, used an innertube to swim to the island in the bottom left, dropped to …
After much playing of this today, and rolling up piles of animals, some clouds, loads more flowers, a gingerbread house, the sumo bloke again, and entire continents (including volcanoes, some sort of god, and a giant 1km octopus), I completed it. I finally created enough celestial bodies to allow me to roll up the Earth, into these planets and moons and stuff, and then move on and actually roll up the Sun. No, really. Excellent. And an excellent game too. …