About 16-17 hours into my revisit to Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne HD Remaster, game is still so damn good! The remaster doesn't do anything too fancy compared to the version I played on the PS3 as a PS2 Classic but the voice acting in English has been surprisingly good and I feel like outside a random black screen tinkering after opening up an item, that this is a decent enough remaster. Yeah the cutscenes are still PS2 esque graphic wise so they didn't fully remake this from the ground up but outside of that, the game looks fine as a cel-shaded JRPG experience.

The story is still great in a pure post apocalyptic clash between two philosophies and a war between angels vs demons(Which a lot of the SMT lore revolves around from the ones I have played) with innocent bystanders being caught in the power struggle, the combat still slaps(I am playing this on NORMAL mode, I don't remember you even had a choice in the original? Normal is a little more forgiving but still I died a few times and was playing with death a couple of times!), the music is as good as I remember it to be and the dungeons are so PS2 esque, especially the optional Labyrinth of Amala that I have done 2/5 of thus far, so I feel I am well ahead of the curve level wise for where I am going next IIRC. I have zero shame in using a guide for some of these dungeons, these dungeons are very old school in the sense that you will end up running around in circles. Big example is missing the littlest detail in the background like a switch oft to the side, that makes the difference in progressing in an area vs wandering around.

Game has been every bit as good as I remember it to be. There are 11 fiend fights with like 3 being mandatory(Or was it 2?) and all of them give you absolute heart attacks and I just unlocked the

SPOILER: Click to show

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.......White Rider, Black Rider, Red Rider & Pale Rider

and from what I remember, these guys are no joke. I am going for the True Demon Path AKA the toughest ending in the game with requires you to advance and fully explore the 5 kalpas/depths of hell from the Labyrinth with is full of gimmicky traps and strong enemies. For example, I had to traverse with a half health per step cutting acid floor that lasted like 5 minutes to get 250K in money which is a mega big deal given your lucky to even have 40K at the time you can even attempt this. 

I do remember some of the big fights and twists in this game as it's only been like 8 or so years ago but admittedly, a lot of the parts I even forgot myself. I imagine as I move forward, more will flash back to me.

May 26, 2021 0:02:20 GMT Blindy said:

May 25, 2021 23:31:57 GMT @ness said:

So how "old" do you think a game has to be before it can be considered "retro". Or is it just code for the pre cd era of gaming?

I would say two gens in between are the difference for me so to me, PS2/GameCube/XBOX OG are retro. They will be soon 20 years old!

I am so old!

For me Retro is Atari / Commdore 64 / Nintendo Original / Sega Master System / MS-Dos

My first PC was a Commodore 16
Then a PC-8086 XT Running Ms-DOS
Then a PC AT-286 running a monochrome screen and no HDD. I think we had Windows 3.1 on that one

Jun 9, 2021 5:32:17 GMT iNCY said:

May 26, 2021 0:02:20 GMT Blindy said:

I would say two gens in between are the difference for me so to me, PS2/GameCube/XBOX OG are retro. They will be soon 20 years old!

I am so old!

For me Retro is Atari / Commdore 64 / Nintendo Original / Sega Master System / MS-Dos

My first PC was a Commodore 16
Then a PC-8086 XT Running Ms-DOS
Then a PC AT-286 running a monochrome screen and no HDD. I think we had Windows 3.1 on that one

That's what we called retro retro as in way before I was born :lol:

Mega Man 6

Some belief amongst the diehard Mega Man fans that they didn't care too much for this one but I actually enjoyed this. It wasn't as difficult so maybe that's why, a lot of this game can be cheesed via the Rush Jet pickup you get(I didn't get this until one of the last Robot Masters since I didn't look up a guide for the order or weaknesses) but the concept of having 3 different Mega Man powerups between Mega Buster/Rush Jet which gives you a very temporary jetpack boost up for some otherwise impossible platforming obstacles and the Rush Blaster is a charged up mega power swing that breaks certain dented walls for pickups and areas otherwise left untouched. In addition, this is the first game that features good ol' Beat the robotic bird companion who is a staple in later Mega Man games, who is basically a side scrolling helper who can kill enemies with his pellet shots in addition to Mega Man. Heck if I used it throughout this playthrough though I did just fine without him but still a cool option and very nice reward for going the alternative paths to beat the Robot Master.

Speaking of that, this game does a cool trick by introducing side areas where there are going to be two paths to take with the end goal all being the same, going against the Robot Master waiting for you in a duel to the death. As I mentioned though, what is available if by going the alternative path(Often you need Rush Jet or Rush Power which is the tell that your going a different route) is the B-E-A-T letters that unlock the aforementioned companion. In addition, the Eddie A.I. was pretty damn good, dude was giving me extra lives whenever I was at 0 or energy pickups when I didn't have much health at the time and even the rare occasion of E-Tank which fills your HP full no questions asked. Uncle Eddy did his thing this game no doubt.

Plot has a brand new mysterious bad guy named Mr. X who takes Dr Wily's trolling ways and "Brainwashes" 8 tournament competing Robot Masters to take down Mega Man(Spoiler alert, they don't, when do they ever?) in addition to the usual post Robot Master levels that I can say only one of the levels gave me any fits if at all, the 1st Dr. Wily stage(Yes I said Dr. Wily, as in he is in this game..........play to see why!).

As with MM5, the lone gripe I can say is I am not sure if it's the Mega Man Collection issue or this really did happen with the NES limitations(Maybe latter) but I often did not get a jump input when holding down the Mega Buster and an enemy I am trying to snipe is on screen shooting their shots, often there was a delay where I needed to press a second time the jump button to get the command, which as you can imagine resulted in me getting hit sadly.

But honestly, this was nitpicky. So much of this game, particular the later levels can be breezed on through with Rush Jet where that Jetpack ability makes this so much more easier. It's a really nice option to give players, they can do it traditionally and not do the shortcuts or take advantage of the shortcuts and use of the Rush Jet to guide themselves to safety from the perils.

I had a nice time with this one, took like 3-4 hours.

While you sissies have been playing Shin Megami Tensei III, I've been busy playing the toughest Atlus game of them all, I present to you the one, the only...

Also known as in Brisbane Australia: Shin Megami Tensei: Snowboard Kids.

Atlus' mascot racer for the N64, Snowboard Kids is what I would classify as a Blockbuster rental. It wasn't the type of game you'd save up your pocket money for, rather once you had enough of Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing this was the game you'd rent out at your blockbuster and play it over the course of the weekend.

The first downside of the game, it eats up an entire memory card.

For years I had only ever played the first six courses and some of the side-games just for the fun of it. Which was fine, because Snowboard Kids strengths lie in it's presentation. Like Mario Kart 64 the game has a really satisfying sound design where even clicking onto a menu has a nice clicking noise to it. The OST is fantastic as well and one of my favourites of all-time. I remember talking about Mystical Ninja 64 and it's tracklist, Snowboard Kids comes to the field with some absolute bangers.

Right in the nostalgia.

So as it turns out there's actually nine courses in total. The first three are your beginner courses and they're designed to ease you into the game. They have nice music and they're just the right length. Things don't get real until Night Highway, a map filled with all kinds of pitfalls and short-cuts with really tight turns. It's the first level that actually requires you to do some board upgrades which is one aspect the game has going for it. Unlike DKR or Mario Kart 64, there's an RPG-lite mechanic where you accrue gold for winning races and pulling off tricks. Typically I like to upgrade Alpine first since it's the speed board and just makes the game a little bit more intense, but everyone has their preferences.

From there it's a steady climb, Grass Valley has a couple of split paths and it really comes down to what character you have. This is where strategy comes into it and you really have to have some familiarity with the race tracks to know your limitations. Fortunately the AI will always take the long route regardless so even if you never quite get it down you can fake your way into victory. Meanwhile for the sixth and final course of the base game, Dizzee Land, the AI is turned up to 11 and they're constantly after you. You can have the perfect race, but suddenly they're pulling out golden pans (SK's version of Lightening from MK64) or ghosts who slow you down to a snail's pace. Even worse, the bastards can pull a parachute at just the worst time which completely kills whatever chance you have. You could be neck and neck with first, only to be pulled into the air for 10 whole seconds and from that point on you're racing for an honorable third. I feel like it's in these moments the SK crew were trying to instill anger management techniques into their videogamers because if you can't laugh in those circumstances, you're probably going to throw your N64 controller into the screen.

Not that I would do anything like that no sir.

This was the first track where I switched up my character and went for the most nimble and just waited until I had a decent go with RNG.

However, that doesn't prepare you for Quicksilver Desert. Forget Alpine, you've got to go with the best cornering just to stand a chance. On top of that, you have to employ even more strategy than an SMT game. Usually in SK you're just spamming your best items willy nilly. However, Quicksilver has a habit of giving you the worst draws on the final phase. For instance I would constantly pull out rocks or invisible - first place items when I'm coming third with barely any space between me and first. Flip roles and I'm always getting gold panned because the game is more unforgiving than SMT III.

Quicksilver is like Grass Valley where it has two split paths. Both are really difficult with sharp turns and terrain that's constantly trying to send you down pitfalls. What makes it difficult then is that the AI has no issues navigating these roads, whereas your typically locked into playing the slowest character Nancy. Watching Speedruns, they still use Alpine, but they'll take the L on certain pitfalls and make small time saves here and there. My ego is too big to take those sort of falls, so in the end my strategy came down to calling the AIs bluff. I'd grab the best weapons on the 3rd lap, hold them until the final short-cut, go neck and neck with first, trigger their invisible with a standard weapon before blasting them with a pan.

Once you conquer Quicksilver you're ready to take on the world. Rocket science? Brain surgery? Nothing compared to Quicksilver. Is it even called Quicksilver? Well hold-up it's actually called Quicksand Valley.

I'm getting mixed up with the 8th course - Mt. Silver. This is more of a back to basics course with one route a couple of jumps and sharp turns but really it just comes down to memorising the level. The big gimmick is that you can barely see what's infront of you, but once you do it's a pretty fun level. This took me more attempts than I care to admit because again, the AI at this point are just bullies who will constantly eat your lunch. I had it won first attempt only to get ghosted and somebody came in with a suicide bomb just to let the fat character overtake me.

The final stage is Ninja Land which features a hidden character Shinobi who's gimmick is that he's completely broken. The goal here is just to bully him so he doesn't get too far ahead. So you basically hold off on ghosts until he takes first and you make sure that your golden pans are always going to hit.

And that's Snowboard Kids, one of my favourite 'Blockbuster' titles from the N64 catalogue. There was a PlayStation port that was Japanese exclusive which featured more characters, cut-scenes etc. but ran slower. The game also received a sequel two years later which included boss races and crazier tracks.

Thank god for the Everdrive 64. I was able to transfer my control pack data to an SD card, so now I can carry all sorts of saves.

Other Blockbuster 64 titles...

Bomberman Hero
Clayfighter 63 1/3 - Director's Cut
Mario Party 1-3
Space Station Silicon Valley
Gex 64: Enter The Gecko
Glover
International Superstar Soccer '98
Chef's Luv Shack

Earthworm Jim 3D

Monster Truck Madness

AKI Wrestling games (always a blast to check out the other feds)

and of course the greatest Blockbuster game of them all:

Pokemon Snap

Speaking of N64, I visited a friend this weekend and played some N64. Mostly Goldeneye. He had to teach me the controls so I played a bit of single player to get used to things. I got the hang of moving and aiming fairly quickly, enough to manage but not more than that.

Then he proceeded to annihilate me in multiplayer. Usually he'd outsmart me by planting mines or camping with a rocket launcher and waiting for me to run into his trap. I wasn't willing to just stand around so I just ran randomly around the map until he blew me up. Occasionally we'd get into direct firefights and he'd win most of those. I found it impossible to turn around quickly so keeping sight of him while we danced around each other was infeasible. There were times when I wrecked him with seemingly infinite bullets but he didn't die. I seemed to die far more easily. Frustrating.

Also played a bit of F-Zero, but when we kept crashing and burning - which eliminates you from the race - we switched to Mario Kart 8 because that's a more casual and fun racing experience. He beat me convincingly at that too.

Was a lot of fun despite my incompetence.

Jun 13, 2021 20:50:39 GMT Emperor said:

Speaking of N64, I visited a friend this weekend and played some N64. Mostly Goldeneye. He had to teach me the controls so I played a bit of single player to get used to things. I got the hang of moving and aiming fairly quickly, enough to manage but not more than that.

Then he proceeded to annihilate me in multiplayer. Usually he'd outsmart me by planting mines or camping with a rocket launcher and waiting for me to run into his trap. I wasn't willing to just stand around so I just ran randomly around the map until he blew me up. Occasionally we'd get into direct firefights and he'd win most of those. I found it impossible to turn around quickly so keeping sight of him while we danced around each other was infeasible. There were times when I wrecked him with seemingly infinite bullets but he didn't die. I seemed to die far more easily. Frustrating.

Also played a bit of F-Zero, but when we kept crashing and burning - which eliminates you from the race - we switched to Mario Kart 8 because that's a more casual and fun racing experience. He beat me convincingly at that too.

Was a lot of fun despite my incompetence.

I gotta ask... was he Oddjob?

I was Oddjob and he picked a generic Russian soldier.

Does it matter which character you play?

Jun 13, 2021 21:47:11 GMT Emperor said:

I was Oddjob and he picked a generic Russian soldier.

Does it matter which character you play?

Oddjob has a notorious low hitbox due to his size which makes him difficult to hit compared to the other playable characters so he is given an advantage in that regard. 

Jun 13, 2021 21:47:11 GMT Emperor said:

I was Oddjob and he picked a generic Russian soldier.

Does it matter which character you play?

Basically if he (the expert) picked Oddjob against a novice he's a DICK.

Mega Man 7

Boy what a mess. Yeah I totally get why this game isn't held in the same regard as Mega Man 1-6. For all the flack that Kenji Inafune gets nowadays for the Mighty No.9 debacle, and believe he, he earned it............the level design he put forth in the first 6 entries blows MM7 out of the water. MM7 tries to build off of some of what Mega Man 6 did with the alternative routes which, as I mentioned in the MM6 writeup, makes it fun to explore these otherwise linear stages to see the content put forth in a level. But with MM7, it just isn't as well done as it was in Mega Man 6. Having to make dash jumps which on this collection is sometimes not responsible where if you don't make the jump, you either don't grab the ladder that is necessary to move or fall to your death with instant spike deaths is ridiculous. Having regular enemies be bullet sponges where you have to wait around on some enemies to go out of a phase to bring forth their hitbox is time wasting, I can count on one hand the enemies that die in 1-2 shots from the almighty Mega Buster, a vast majority take 7-8 bullet shots and a full charged shot still requires more followup shots to take down a REGULAR ENEMY. Not a boss or a mini-boss, a regular enemy. Some levels have gimmicks that are pretty cool but they overstay their welcome rather easily like having a room made completely in the darkness with instant death spikes below that your line of vision is gone which makes jumps borderline YOLO unless you got the weapon necessary to light up the room(Which isn't the boss's weakness which I will get to in a second). Forcing the player to either know this room via trial and error or to have to have that weapon to progress seems ridiculous and unless you killed the mini-boss a certain way which triggers a side route(That avoids all of this), I kind of question that design choice. I will also get to that a little more in a second.

What this game does good is there are very small dialogue portions in the beginning that doesn't take too much of your time and the game having a instant vendor outside of the levels where you can stock up on extra lives & ETanks is amazing based off of bolt currency earned from pickups from downed enemies you encounter throughout. The side areas are cool in itself but it's sorta like with MM6, it's nothing groundbreaking but the concept in itself is dope. The sprites are pretty groundbreaking since this is the first non NES game with this being released a little bit after the far superior Mega Man X title. 

This game does some questionable stuff though no doubt. Having robot masters weak to TWO special weapons is And defeats the purpose of Mega Man 1-6(Sans Metal Man of MM2 having a weapon that kills everything) incorporating the idea that you want to find THE weakness of a robot master with everything else minus the traditional mega buster being near worthless. I try and use the weapon originally meant to be the weakness of a robot master but I find something better that isn't meant to be the weakness and it does as much damage and equal the animation/tell that the boss was hurt by it. So like what gives?

The Wily Stage bosses, particular the final two take the cake. The 2nd to last boss(Well unless you count the routine robot master boss rush) is abysmal, in large part due to being required to land on these fast missiles that are much smaller than the Mega Man sprite which had me one second slower and getting hit by the missiles instead of landing on them and slashing or firing the lone hitbox on the enemy. The 2nd Dr Wily Fight is considered one of the toughest fights in the game and in large part due to a very tough to dodge 4 elemental shot that tracks you and freezes/burns you if caught which does stupid damage. Took all 4 ETanks(You are limited to 4 tanks instead of stockpiling up to 9 in say MM6) and a weapon refill to beat him, what makes the boss shitty IMO is you are limited on how to hit him and have 2 weapons, a fully charged wire powerup & a blizzard shot that is low percentage, all the other weapons either don't hit him specifically in the hitbox necessary or don't reach him at all when he's at a higher elevation. Just not fun.

The soundtrack really has nothing that stuck with me either which is saying something given this series has produced so many great tracks and all time great ones no less. 

Overall, just not a great game and certainly not a good Mega Man game. The stage themes are cool, going from a Jurassic Park esque level to a Ghosts N Goblins inspired dark level is cool. Just sucks the game has so many fundamental flaws ranging from enemies who take too many hits to die which in turn makes the game slow to the late game bosses being ridiculous to even hit to having only 1-2 ways to play a level or boss to even progress despite having so many powerups and all.

At least the next Mega Man game, MM8 has the campiness attached to it and is a silly game to play for the cutscenes & boss warcries alone. 

Added the 3 Donkey Kong Countries to my SNES collection, refurbished, for a new battery life.

Jun 13, 2021 21:55:16 GMT Blindy said:

Jun 13, 2021 21:47:11 GMT Emperor said:

I was Oddjob and he picked a generic Russian soldier.

Does it matter which character you play?

Oddjob has a notorious low hitbox due to his size which makes him difficult to hit compared to the other playable characters so he is given an advantage in that regard. 

That explains a lot. I actually help up reasonably well with Oddjob, then the second time we played I picked another random character and he beat me far more easily.

Jun 14, 2021 5:32:19 GMT RagnarokMike said:

Added the 3 Donkey Kong Countries to my SNES collection, refurbished, for a new battery life.

The stuff made of legends. Also available on SNES Library for the Nintendo Switch, all 3.

Yeah, cartridge games may be the one spot I have to forgo my physical copy desire, just because a disc is good as long as it's not damaged, where any cartridge that saves will eventually die, and be useless outside of playing start to finish. It'll do for now though.

Mega Man 8

This is much better. Let me first get this off my chest.........



(Astro Man, Grenade Man & Aqua Man make me laugh all the time. Clown Man and Tengu Man too. Frost Man is underrated)




This is not a brand new playthrough for me, I had played this at least twice as a elementary school kid when this game came out on the PS1. Even as a kid, these cutscenes and warcries from the Robot Masters made me laugh my ass off. 25 or so years later, these just hit home, to the point I still remember a lot of the shit they say :rofl: One of the few Mega Man games on this revisit I knew the weaknesses from start to finish and remember much of the content in the stages too. These should normally be condemned with how cheesy and lame all of this terribad voice acting is for the game but dear god, it adds so much charm to it, especially with how baron MM7 was for me, this was highly appreciated. Keep in mind, I grew up on 90's anime and terrible dubbing so this was right at home for me.

Most important is the gameplay, gotta be a redemption for the blue bomber after (IMO) a real meh effort in MM7. This game hits it on home, one of the better mega man experiences for me thus far in this revisit/new replay of MM 1-8. Yes the sprites look different being this game came out for both Sega Saturn & PS1 but unlike in MM7, I felt the obstacles and environment played up to the sprites properly, which I felt was a little weak in MM7 when it made the conversion from NES to SNES. Yes the hideous Mega Man slope obstacle course rears it's ugly head in this one, where I knew right off the bat, was a stuff full of nightmares. Especially with a legit half second delay via the Mega Man Collection 2 edition, I died on this stage about as much as I did the rest of the game. Your are riding pretty fast through a snow level and get prompts of JUMP or SLIDE and you better follow that prompt if you want to survive as both instant death pitfalls & spikes await if you don't take the advice. It wasn't terrible but man the 1st Wily Stage with this shit got a little annoying and what was the worst about this in IM FROSTMAN's stage is putting bolts in these which were tricky if you didn't know what your doing.

There are 40 bolts in this game and they serve as the currency in this game and buying powerups from Miss Roll(This might have been the 1st game she was in or at least had a prominent figure in) that are really good, things like quicker full charge for the mega buster shot, sliding quicker, energy converter which has been a staple for a few Mega Man's now among other goodies. What kinda sucks is there are only 40 bolts(Which I got em all btw because I just had to) but the powerups altogether will rack you up for a good 65 or so which means on one run alone, you just won't be able to get all the powerups. Kinda wish there was a way to get that near invincible Mega Man but I get it, replay it if you want to experience the other stuff.

Some of the gameplay highlights is Mega Man's 1st ever venture into Schmps genre with a really cool flying sequence on everyone's favorite Capcom doggo, Rush. In addition, powerups can lead you to get Uncle Eddy dropping bombs, Beat the robo-bird coming in as a minion and pecking enemies and Auto the vendor(Well in MM7 he was) who pops a bazooka that shoots out fireworks upon contact. Pure Mega Man Justice League if I ever saw one myself. Each level has two parts and the greatest thing is if you die or lose all your lives, you don't have to start all the way in the beginning. You reach a continue spot, you start from there, no questions asked. Unless you leave the stage entirely IIRC but why do that? Weaknesses really feel like weaknesses here which is what the older MM titles got right, feels really good to do your homework and exploit it as the robot masters are practically hopeless when you pop em with it. With the Mega Buster, you do get decent fights admittedly and you get to see their full dialogue(Which aforementioned is hilarious) and full moveset which you would not see otherwise. As always, the choice is yours if you want to cheese em or not.

Rush takes on a prominent role here, he has different abilities from RUSH BIKE which you (no lies) ride Rush as he turns into a red motorcycle around for a certain amount of time(Until his energy goes 0) or RUSH health which he flies around and drops both weapon refill and HP refill(So important) to an attack he can do where he just bombs the shit out of people while flying horizontally around which took down a later boss when I was experimenting this accidentally. If you like Rush the Robo-Dog, your gonna love this game.

Story is whatever, you have this good robot named Duo who seizes to exist in trying to protect the world from an evil force and you recover what is left of him and good ol' Dr Light revives him back and you see him pop in and out of the story and ultimately be the good guy of all good guys for what he does at the end to save Mega Man from peril. Protoman makes a brief cameo, Bass & Treble(Who debuted in MM7 and I forgot about their inclusion as they become fixtures in this series) also are appearing here. The same crew for the most part makes their appearance here.

Game runs about 5-6 hours if you go full completionist, a little more than a typical Mega Man game, I quite liked this game. Quite a bit actually. Still holds up decently, it's just silly fun and the over the top voice acting and shitty dubbing makes this such a fun experience.


Next Mega Man I play whenever, wherever.............Mega Man 9, will be in the "other" thread so unless I have the balls to jump into MMX6 or X7 or if they release Mega Man Battle Network as a collection, this might just be it for Mega Man and I in this retro thread. Man oh man.

Yesterday I went back to my old university city. Whenever I go back a required stop is Sore Thumb, the retro video game shop. Bought six more PS2 games to fill out my collection:

Manhunt
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Red Dead Revolver
Sly 2: Band of Thieves
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
Super Monkey Ball Deluxe

The top three are games RagnarokMike namedropped in this thread a few months ago (thank you!) He also mentioned Stuntman which was in stock but I did a quick google of Stuntman reviews and it did not look appealing, essentially the game is a series of difficult and fiddly trial-and-error challenges. Exactly the kind of game I wouldn't like.

I've been looking for the Sly sequels for a while even though I haven't played the original yet.

Super Monkey Ball just looks like such a fun game concept that I've been keen to play one of them.

If I'm not mistaken Thieveius Racoonus is really short. I mean it's a 3d platformer, so you're not really gonna expect to get beyond 15 hrs in a single game but the first one is like half as long as any of the other ones. It's actually a series I really would'vd liked to have more of.

Jul 11, 2021 14:51:02 GMT Emperor said:

Yesterday I went back to my old university city. Whenever I go back a required stop is Sore Thumb, the retro video game shop. Bought six more PS2 games to fill out my collection:

Manhunt
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Red Dead Revolver
Sly 2: Band of Thieves
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
Super Monkey Ball Deluxe

The top three are games RagnarokMike namedropped in this thread a few months ago (thank you!) He also mentioned Stuntman which was in stock but I did a quick google of Stuntman reviews and it did not look appealing, essentially the game is a series of difficult and fiddly trial-and-error challenges. Exactly the kind of game I wouldn't like.

I've been looking for the Sly sequels for a while even though I haven't played the original yet.

Super Monkey Ball just looks like such a fun game concept that I've been keen to play one of them.

Yeah you def. gotta get on the Sly games whenever you can! Fantastic games. Sly 1 is pretty short too. I am planning on replaying them on my PS3 very soon, all four games.

Manhunt is terrific, very solid stealth game and the snuff film aspect is interesting. I think the gore is a bit overstated, especially in 2021 as the graphics haven't aged well but honestly the game is so good in immersing yourself in the environment and the story is simple that I think you will like it. One thing though, it runs on the PS2 Grand Theft Auto gameplay system so it's a bit clunky if your not really used to that.

Jul 11, 2021 14:58:04 GMT @ness said:

If I'm not mistaken Thieveius Racoonus is really short. I mean it's a 3d platformer, so you're not really gonna expect to get beyond 15 hrs in a single game but the first one is like half as long as any of the other ones. It's actually a series I really would'vd liked to have more of.

Think it's 7-8 hours if you try to do everything, game is a bit hard. Haven't played it in years. Game is oozing in character and personality though. Tons of fun, the 2nd one is the best one though.

Tales of Eternia (Namco Bandai; 2000)

Ever since beating Berseria I've been making my way through all the Tales games I've owned but yet to clear. Of all of them, Eternia is the one I've taken the longest to beat having bought it back in February of 2006 for the PSP. It was a victim of being on the PSP which was a handheld I found really unreliable as it would struggle to load areas and would shut off at random times. I remember enjoying my time with Eternia but I only got about 8 hours into a 40 hour JRPG.

Since then I've read a lot of hype about it. Veterans of the series tend to talk it up as one of the best entries and it's a more respectable choice as a favourite than Symphonia or Vesperia which are looked down as casual. Of course if you really want to sound like you know something about the series you have to talk of Destiny Director's Cut or Rebirth, fans seem to get their rocks off whenever you mention those titles alone.

I've been considering the rationale behind that and I think nostalgia plays a role here. The only Tales game to have come out in the US at that point was Destiny which was a rushed entry that played more like a Super Nintendo port. Eternia (or Destiny II as it was known in the US) spent 3 years in development and those that took a chance on it in 2001 was rewarded with a really good JRPG. Sure it followed a lot of JRPG conventions but therewas just enough changes to stick out, namely the active battle system.

Compared to later entries, the gameplay can feel primative. The characters don't have as many moves at their disposal with a lot of moves merely being enhancements of previously learned moves. I'd imagine when this was released it was state of the art and while it's not as impressive it still holds up OK. You really have to time your moves and know when to be aggressive and when to counter-attack your enemies.

One thing I loved about the game was the town design. A lot of JRPGs can play it safe and make generic teams, but here just about every town has some kind of theme. It just makes the adventure stick out more and makes visiting those locales more enjoyable. One of my favourites is this town that appears to be haunted and has really ominous music. The only business that's open is the inn. However if you choose to stay, you automatically wake up at night and the town comes to life giving you access to all these mini-games and the auction house which sells all the best equipment.

Story-wise the game isn't rewriting the bible or anything crazy but it's solid. The basic gist is that a young girl from an alien planet visits and warns you her world is about to crash into yours unless you collect all the summon spirits from both planets to keep them apart. It's pretty standard JRPG fare but I like the characters involved. They don't act like typical fool-hardy JRPG characters, they're kind of like the cast of Earthbound where they're just kids with their own anxieties and regrets. I like how the game hints at this through out before it pulls a Final Fantasy VII and makes you go on this spiritual journey where you see what all these characters have been through.

For instance in the game you get the sense that Keele is this know-it-all pretentious douchebag who looks down on everyone. However you get to look into one of his memories and see that Reid has constantly put Keele down for being weak and never supports him. They do an effective job of this by having you play a dungeon where every fight as young Keele is a slog and Reid just keeps endangering him. You experience this flashback as an older Reid and it was a cool moment of self-actualisation.

I can see myself coming back to this in a few years time. I barely touched any of the sidequests and they seem to be the highlight of the game. One sidequest I did complete involved a haunted house which was really creative and fun to play through.

Unfortunately I just sort of gung-ho'd to the final dungeon. It was fun to play through as well with six puzzles to play through which were just right. Not easy enough to be a cakewalk but not hard enough to where I begin having self-doubts. The final boss was fun as well where both you and it are just spamming your best attacks and doing your best. The final blow is a QTE as well where you have to use your special skill at just the right time and if you're drained of TP it's game-over which I learned the hard way. :lol:

XIII

I took a brief hiatus because I was stuck on a boss. Well, I figured out a strategy to beating the boss. Camp him out. He has a lot more health and a lot more damage output so going head-to-head with him is instant defeat. If you get too close, he will bullrush you and you stand no chance. However I figured out he has a predictable movement pattern and there's one point where he stops for a couple of seconds. So I shot him with 7 crossbow bolts while he was there. He had over half his health left. Normally one headshot or two-three bodyshots is enough to kill a regular enemy with a crossbow, so you can see how jacked up this guy is. For the rest of the fight I got medium distance range, waiting for him to arrive at the same spot and peppering him with assault rifle bullets until he died. A bit tedious but the only way.

Following that boss there's a series of levels that offer a lot of variety in terms of both environment and mission type. You have to infiltrate a submarine hangar, then board the submarine itself, do a run-and-gun mission on the submarine itself, navigate a second hangar to find a bomb to blow up the submarine - which involves some underwater combat with a harpoon gun. Then you sneak into a winter base, fight a chopper with a bazooka, sneak around a hotel to overhear a secret meeting with a distance microphone, escape said hotel, sneak into another base by navigating a garden maze, find your way to the chapel at the back of the base, which leads to a secret crypt where the bad guys convene in KKK-style robes. Overhear the secret meeting to gather intel, then escape the burning chapel while killing KKK-robed grunts, and then fight a few enemy helicopters while standing on a cliff edge.

Lots of levels, but the action is really fun. Some levels you can go full gung-ho and just shoot everyone. Other levels you have to be careful not to alert the guards too soon or they will trigger the alarm before you can get to them - game over. There are some timed submissions and a few interesting boss fights. It does very much capture the heightened adrenaline of a spy thriller. The AI is also getting smarter as the game goes on. There were a couple of points where they saw me when they were a mere pixel in the distance, so I had to be extra careful. They also tend to run off and activate the alarm instead of engaging you - another smart strategy. Once you get used to the enemy locations and pattern movements it's pretty easy but very difficult to complete a level first time without failure.

The level I'm currently stuck on involves me sneaking around a pentagon-esque military base. Although the security is pretty terrible as a guard leaves a security locker room unlocked which allows me to sneak in, knock out a guard and grab his keycard. The tricky part about this level is that you can't kill anyone. So to get past guards you have to knock them out, either with a karate chop or a blunt object such as a wooden chair. Very pro-wrestling. The execution of these techniques is very difficult because you need to have absolute pinpoint accuracy. If you screw up a strike they will notice and it's very unlikely you will punch them into unconsciousness before they trigger the alarm.

Another interesting feature is that guards can sometimes appear out of nowhere. You think you have all the guards and their patterns figured out, but you get past a few guards, then suddenly a guard appears at the start of the level, spots an unconscious body and he will trigger the alarm before you can spring back to the start. Sneaky. These extra guards enter the game through doors that you can't interact with which is extra sneaky.

Run-and-gunning, while fun, is very easy once you get the hang of it, so I do appreciate the extra handicap in what is perhaps the final level of the game. Does get frustrating though.

XIII

The game is coming to a close. Managed to complete that stealth mission from the previous post.

Following that you are ambushed by a terrorist team who have taken The President hostage. I should have seen it coming because right before there is a room full of weapons and armour,but I blindly walked into a big open room in stealth mode, suspecting nothing.

You kill five grunts then the big boss steps out of the door. Not an easy fight, as usual he has superior firepower so you have to fight smart, plus I've been weakened by the grunts. Took me a few attempts but a strategy of hiding in the corner and chucking grenades at him worked to drain most of his health, but even then it was a struggle to beat him in the direct firefight. In the end I killed him with only 7 health left. Extremely tense.

Unfortunately that's not the end of the level. You have to carry the unconscious president to safety. Naturally there are bad guys. With 7 health I died pretty quick. Fortunately there's a checkpoint after the boss and the game is kind enough to give you 25 health on a retry. That was just about enough for me to finish the level (I had 11 left), with real careful survival horror type gameplay.

Next level you have two minutes to stop a self destruct sequence. Great level, tests all your movement tech and gets the heart pumping. Reaching the control room is easy, figuring out what to do is not. There's a big red button, you press that and trigger the self destruct. Oops. After 5 or so attempts I managed to unravel the game's vague hints and destroyed all the power generators.

Then you have to escape and on the way out the next boss steps in your way. The Mongoose. He completely wipes the floor with me, I can't even formulate a cohesive strategy. The room has no real cover. He's fast, has perfect aim and whittles down my health real fast. I accidentally stunned him once but not sure how I did it. Might need to consult a guide because I'm really stuck.

That was a superb couple of day revisit upon my 1st ever Castlevania game as a little kid, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, which was brought to you by the newly released Castlevania Advance Collection 4 in 1 digital download that came out last week. This was the 1st ever game I got for my Game Boy Advance(Along with Golden Sun) so I played the living hell out of C:CotM. Did Vampirekiller(Which is the intro mode), Fighter mode which is only whip, no magic, magician which is reliant on magic, Belmont which you play as Castlevania staple Simon Belmont as the protagonist, thief which I think is items only. Well actually I don't think I finished this game with items only in fact, because that's just downright boring Unless you get the cross asap which is considered the weapon of all side weapons in the series.

The game holds up extremely well but there are flaws for sure that I could overlook as a 7th grader that I cannot now but we will get to that shortly. What this game does extremely well is it borrows off of the foundation that well beloved Castlevania: Symphony of the Night brought forth and that's a level system and damage system that is calculated by hit points. You get rewarded in your grinding which level ups which like in every single RPG ever, makes you stronger, sturdier and luckier. In addition, enemies drop armor, or wearable items that increase your stats or elemental resistances which is typical RPG goodie stuff. Circle of the Moon is no different, it makes you want to kill everything on the screen. Enemies are typical Halloween esque monsters from Frankensteins(!) to witches to medusa head to skeletons to bats to mermen to a heck ton of enemies all throughout the game. It's Dracula's minions after all that are trying to kill you as you attempt to do what so many have done before you and it's to slay Dracula and save the world from impending DOOM!

Plot is simple Castlevania stuff, Dracula is revived after dying once before by a nutjob antagonist, that's very bad but for him to get full power he needs a ritual of a previous Vampire Killer so in pure revenge he locks up your mentor, with your being Nathan Graves who has no blood lineage of a Belmont or any of the notorious Dracula slayers but is someone chosen by Morris Baldwin, who along with your protagonist parents ended up sealing Dracula away. Morris Baldwin has an annoying, envious son in Hugh Baldwin who is the rival/partner of yours and is frustrated his father chose you/Graves as the Hunter Whip(Knockoff, much weaker version of the Belmont's Vampire Killer whip) controller and not himself. The envy plays throughout the journey as H. Baldwin feels slighted each time he cannot do something that you as the protagonist end up doing like slaying a boss that nearly killed him or getting far into a part of the game that it took him ages to even get to. I mentioned a nutjob antagonist had a role in reviving Dracula in Camilla who helps play a huge role in reviving Dracula as she supports and agrees with his philosophy that darkness controls man and should help bring an end to civilization so you know she will get her teeth kicked in down the road for that because we can't have that nonsense & tomfoolery going on!

Game plays like a typical post Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, it allows for double jumping and very nice traverse throughout parts of the castle. By no means are you some super speed demon but lets just say....you learn some awesome abilities throughout your journey inside the castle. Every boss is rewarding you with something, from a path being opened to a new item that lets you progress further. What's awesome with this game is there are technically TWO optional bosses that don't have to be done, I even remember not bothering to do them ages ago. But the catch 22 there is because your not treking to take down these two bosses(And one of them is really tough), you are making the mandatory part of the game much harder so there's a real reward in going the extra step to finishing the two optional areas along with trying to get the most out of the game.

On this run, I did everything except the Battle Arena which is a optional colosseum of tons of enemy fights which I guess is there for you to do but I felt good with the over 90% map completion by game's end that I skipped that. The game time says I beat this game in 6 1/2 hours but that's a lie because I had to have easily needed 10 or so hours of real time, not sure how the game calculated that! And about 1 1/2 hours of game time(3 hours maybe? of real time) were on me trying my best to grind 2-3 levels for the final boss and try and collect some cards in this game! Cards? Yeah cards.

The real perk of this game is the card system, which is basically combing two different elemental cards, to get an experimental outcome of a new ability exclusive to the combination. Example, you can get a rose whip attack from a combination of MERCURY+MANDAGORA or you can summon a Stone shooting Cockatrice by combining COCKATRICE+URANUS. It's the planets in combination with a mythical creature, which is otherwise known as the "DSS" system. It's a really useful perk and sure you could play without the card gimmick but it really makes life a lot easier. Like lots. The real drawback of this is the drop rate of these cards are terrible, we're talking it took me over a half hour to get a certain enemy to finally drop me the damn card I really wanted! Even by increasing your luck(Luck effects drops, which is big time here), it was no easy task to even get the damn cards so despite a trophy/achievement being attached to getting all of the cards in the game, to me, it just wasn't worth it! I got the card(URANUS) that I remember using to abuse the final boss and sure enough it saved my bacon for the final boss here as well. There was a glitch that you didn't have to get all of the cards to use their abilities as there was a start button exploit that had you get the power of cards you didn't even have which was ridiculously broken since you can do this as early as the beginning game and essentially increase your stats and damage output way beyond what you should even be doing that early in the game.



The music which is a core positive of the series is very good here, you get Vampire Killer among other iconic tunes that maybe due to my nostalgia of the game, was a fun listen when traversing through parts of the castle that made me want to rip my head off. Took me a few minutes to get used to the control of the whip, what's good in this collection is the ability to reconfigure the attack and map buttons differently because on my PS4 controller, SQUARE has to be attack and CIRCLE can be the map which is the total opposite of what the game has to present to you. One big drawback of this game(Which I don't remember in the GBA version) is minor slowdown when multiple enemies or the use of the aforementioned summons via the card system happen. Not really anything major but it was evident nevertheless. One core mechanic standpoint is the lack of a merchant to sell off the abundances of items/duplicates that you will get throughout the journey. We're talking 20+ leather god damn gloves that serve no purpose! Other games later in the series had this so maybe it's due to this being an early 2000's game and all but man it would have been great to sell off unneeded items for health potions or what not!

You best save when your given save points because you will kick yourself if trying to get greedy and not save and end up dying and losing all of the hard work and discovering that you made. I do wish the quick points were done a little better but the game is a product of the times. There are 5 different portals scattered very far out throughout the castle that allow you to bounce all over the castle in warp spots, these become massive when backtracking for HP UPs or MP UPs or HEART(Items) UPs or progressing in the story but heck if I wish there were more portals available in what is a large castle.

The game is certainly challenging but nothing head banging diabolical worthy either, this collection does offer up a REWIND ability that allows you to rewind previous to your death or mistake that is very beginner/casual friendly which is great for those who need it. That I never got to use, nor didn't because that's not how I want my Castlevania experience to go!

An overall great game, it might not be as great for brand new players to the genre or game itself but for people like me who did numerous playthroughs of the game as a kid, this was a real throwback and brought back so many good memories. Such an easy and effortless game to get into, just a simple enough adventure that I had a lot of fun playing in like 3-4 nights or so it took of me to down this game. What made this such a fun playthrough is I knew I was underleveled for so much of the boss fights that I died once or so just because I did so little damage and the bosses did so much but getting their patterns down and having some decent reflexes overcame so much here. When looking at a guide for late late game information(Who drops what card wise for example), they had recommended levels a good 6 or 7 levels higher than what I actually did it at. I beat 1st form of Dracula at level 37! Some guides says should be in the high 40's! All about the reflexes, it was a typical Dracula Castlevania fight that very 1st form. The true Dracula form is no joke though, had to grind about 4 levels to down that fucker! Recommendation was at least level 50 there. Hate to toot my own horn but it's not an impossible game, especially if you have some understanding of the Castlevania series, especially the Castlevania: SOTN style and all.


1 down, 3 to go. We are far from over of this awesome Castlevania Advance Collection!

2/4 of the collection done.

Finished up Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, altogether................I thought this game was going to be a pure dud of all duds, considered the black sheep of the GBA Castlevania games, but man this game wasn't all that bad. Don't get me wrong, there are tons of flaws within the game which I will briefly touch on later but for the most part, this game was better than I thought it would be. I played the crap out of Circle of the Moon and Aria of Sorrow so I knew both games would be fantastic revisits(Or well I haven't played Aria of Sorrow yet on this collection but I would be stunned if I didn't end up loving that game again) but HoD(Get used to that abbreviation in this writeup) was a near fresh playthrough. I didn't play much of this game except ages ago on an emulator where I beat the 1st boss and just stopped for whatever reason. 

The good from this game, the movement/pace is heavily appreciated. What kind of sucked with Circle of the Moon was needing to double tap to really move fast in the game and COTM had a very methodical approach for a good portion of the game until you get the slide(Early on) and the roc wing which is a late game item that allows you to fly high to the ceiling. HoD has an item very similar to that which is obtained late game too but the slide and dash are so very much welcomed. I can't tell you how much time, legit 1-2 hours just having me dash and slide my way back and forth throughout the map. Very loose and in combat, especially for boss fights, the back dash is lovely. You start off with all of this too! 

The story is solid, very run of the mill Castlevania stuff. You play as a Belmont, have a friend who is in conflict within himself as to what happened and have a kidnapped female that needs to be captured throughout Dracula's Castle. What is well done here is it really feels like a pure homage to the old Castlevania titles. Nevermind the enemies, it just feels very stripped, very basic in the sense that while the foundation was set for future Iga/Metroidvania games with the traverse through two different worlds(get to that in a second), the old bare bone level design I actually liked, even if it was redundant. No card powers, no different weapons besides your whip & secondary items, you get some magic to use which is broken sure but I can see the influence of the NES/SNES Castlevanias put in this one. This game tried to build something off of Symphony of the Night and while it didn't succeed all the way, this truly did feel like a Castlevania, which admittedly Circle of the Moon tried to do it's own thing with the card system(Which I liked outside of the terrible drop rates). Bosses come from previous Castlevanias and even the Dracula body part collection from Simon's Quest makes it's triumphant return here. 

Now the bad............the game is really easy. We're talking I died maybe 3 times throughout my time with the game. The game is a little bit shorter than Circle of the Moon according to the end game time that was shown but you still get a decent amount of the game throughout. By no means am I some Castlevania wunderkind/prodigy but I was breezing through more than 2/3 of the bosses. In fact the game rehashes bosses and barely if at all change their patterns drastically so you feel the lack of originality in that regard, in comparison all of the bosses of Circle of the Moon were original. Two different Minotaurs, two different Legion, these knights that were sporadically littered throughout the journey after you face a boss version of one. A lot of bosses have maybe 2-3 different moves and that's about it, I think that is where the bosses become so easy to beat here, very watered down IMHO. This has to be the easiest Castlevania game, maybe next to Symphony of the Night for me which is ridiculously easy after replaying it a few years ago. There were bosses that I would straightup walk up in front of the enemies, whack them with the whip and abuse a CROSS+ICE magic spell that destroyed a boss within a minute. Sprinkle in an occasional dash and I didn't get hit once, this was a mid game boss too! Compare this to the Zombie Dragons or Dracula 2nd phase of Circle of the Moon and it's like cmon. Generic regular enemies like a slime or peeping eye get a super sized boss here in this game and it does next to nothing different than it's standard version.

The music is unremarkable to say the least. Circle of the Moon had the iconic Vampire Killer track, this has nothing that you'd want to go and bang your head to on Youtube. And the music is replayed upon your 2nd revisit as well, would have been great to have gotten even a remix, just something different. The traverse is absolutely backbreaking in the sense that there isn't a quick travel system. We had that in Circle of the Moon which wasn't perfect but it made the traversing back and forth so vital. This will make you travel the old fashion Castlevania way, which isn't a good thing for me, when trying to get collectibles or the best ending of the game. It gets really old, really fast traversing through the same couple of levels, other castle or not, gets super tiresome. 

Speaking of the best ending, boy this game really bites off the "Make it as cryptic as possible" to get it. Particularly, some of the ways they want you to get it feature invisible walls or needing to break one specific wall in a save room in the entire game(There has to be a good 10-12 of them in the game). Not sure how I would have found this without Gamefaqs or something of that nature, again this game is inspired by the old school Castlevanias but heck if it wasn't infuriating wasting a good hour or so having to traverse back and forth to find a specific spot to get those vital Dracula body parts that are apart of the best ending. I got two of the three endings, the "Good" ending and the "Best" ending so I feel pretty good about my overall run. Likewise, this game offers up collecting furniture that allows you in one small room throughout the entire game to decorate it and get absolutely nothing in return(Outside of a trophy in this collection) and while I didn't get every single piece of furniture, I did get a vast majority of it. Not too much else goes as far as post game. Game has solid enemy variety for the most part unlike the bosses that felt uninspired but you can defintely see enemies make their 2nd if not 3rd helpings of a return in random areas of the game. Random Gorgon is protecting the Dracula lair late game sure thing. 

You get to play as the secondary character in the game after beating the game but I just don't know if it really warrants a 2nd visit(Or 3rd/4th given you have to explore the castle twice) through Dracula's Castle.

What holds this back from being great is the lack of quick travel which makes the traverse sort of rough around the edges. Thank the good heavens for dashing & sliding to make the moving much more tolerable than it would without it. Borderline game saving mechanic right there. I enjoyed my time with Harmony of Dissonance, it does improve on some of the Quality of Life issues Circle of the Moon may have suffered from but Circle of the Moon is just so much more memorable(Maybe because I adored the game as a kid) and does so much right that HoD doesn't capitalize on. 

I entered this playthrough expecting to not like the game. I came away pretty happy with my playthrough altogether, a pleasant surprise if you can call it that. 

With Metroid Dread looming next week, not likely I take on Aria of Sorrow due to fear of Metroidvania fatigue so I will give my genre loving self about a week off to cool down but rest assured, I can't wait to try Aria of Sorrow soon. You know where it will be at, this very thread! 

Took down Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow in 3 sittings, game ran me under 6 hours. Did the best ending which features a couple of extra bosses. This ended up being a deathless run as well, which either means this game is pretty easy or I got 2 GBA Castlevanias in my veins down that this game could not do anything to break my stride.

And the game is about as as great as I remembered it would be, had to be a good 15 or so years ago I had played this so not a totally blind playthrough and I remembered a lot of this game pretty well! Man what a fun, Castlevania game. Solid story, cool protagonist and a cast of characters, the sprites are by far the best of the three games of this GBA collection. The story has you take over Soma Cruz, a foreign exchange student who is heavily into the occult and everything related to Dracula but he and his childhood friend both get unconsciously taken to a castle which ends up being Dracula's Castle(See the theme, you don't want to end up in this castle!) and have to survive for their very lives. In this journey, you meet four different characters, all who have different intentions, as you try and get you and your friend the heck out of dodge and back home.

The gameplay takes what Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance built and makes it really enjoyable, if not dare I say it, smooth for a Metroidvania game. The best thing I can say about this game is it's very clear on where you need to go to progress and when you do go back to an area, you really feel overpowering and feel that obstacles or spots that were barred from traverse are now easy to get to and rewards you with either progression or items for the backtracking. The pacing of Aria of Sorrow is fantastic, stages don't wear out their welcome in the least, there's enough enemy variation that despite some reskins of once faced foes in the game, they all have a different moveset where each of the enemy encounters don't feel ripped off completely.

If I were to recommend a Castlevania game for someone brand new to the series to start, this would be it. With what Harmony of Dissonance tried to do with using the Game Boy Advanced's system settings at it's time to it's full capacity with near looking pop up sprites, Aria of Sorrow takes that and does it just as good. Nothing revolutionary, especially not in 2021 but it is pretty cool to look back and see how much of a step up the GBA was to the Game Boy Color. Something that was heavily missed in Harmony of Dissonance was the quick travel spots and this game has a great amount of save points and quick travel portals scattered properly throughout. You get a weapon vendor to help sell your items off for money to restock on potions/high portions and buy some castle maps or other weapons if you choose to do so. The side characters appear every now and then but don't ever wear out their welcome or feel truly irrelevant to the lore of Aria of Sorrow. So much of what Aria of Sorrow does well, it does so well.

The negatives have got to be it's such a short game on a regular playthrough but the game does give you hard mode, a mode where you play as one of the characters 'J' and a boss rush mode. Likewise, I did not collect every single soul so you can lose hours just trying to grind for that alone.

Speaking of, the soul grind isn't much better than it was in Circle of the Moon. I had to finish the game with an under 35% soul collection rate. So with this game, much like in Circle of the Moon, you slay regular enemies and or bosses, there's a chance(Well the bosses I think are 100%) they drop their soul which becomes a side move for you. It can either be a side attack sort of the way items used to be for other Castlevania games, this can be a powerup for one of your stats(STR/CON aka magic/LUC/DEF/ATTK) or can be a buff when it comes to traveling around the castle(Like getting floating wings early game as long as you have the powerup equipped). You only can carry 3 at a time so you do need to pick & choose what you want to have but overall, it's a neat gimmick that this game has that makes it feel worthwhile when you do get fortunate enough to get one. The problem is just that.........if your fortunate to get one upon drop because you can either luck out and get one right away or you can take minutes upon minutes to finally get a drop. The LUK/Luck stats is big here for drops but even with the most luck I can get with items equipped and one of the aforementioned powerups attached to boost the attribute, it still became pretty rough to get the soul drops. Where this became a bit of a pest is that for the best ending, you had to get 3 specific souls, 1 was story driven so it's can't miss but the two others are mere drops, one which took me a good 10-15 minutes or so of nonstop killing this one enemy in a spot because if you did not get even one of these souls in addition to the 3 ancient books scattered around the castle, you get locked into the good ending and don't get to fully uncover the secret twist of Aria of Sorrow.

I wish the percentages were done better here. Not to say every time you kill an enemy should you get a soul acquisition but it's ridiculously low percentage for some of these that it becomes tedious to say the least if you are truly going for a 100% completion rate. I also have to say I missed the quick traverse of dashing that Harmony of Dissonance gave you from the get go, made moving around feel like a breeze. This game gives you the dash and backdash early but it doesn't feel as quick to me.

I found the game easy personally speaking but that's to each's own. I did have to use items quite a bit by end game so the bosses do get a bit of a difficulty spike by near end game but as long as you save/heal wisely and have any familiar with the Castlevania series, your going to be in good shape in Aria of Sorrow.

Just an overall blast of a game and for me to finish it in 2 days says it all. Yes it's somewhat short and (for me) easy, but heck the game was so much fun and not one part did I feel the game feel overwhelmingly cheap. Some absolute killer bosses by end game so I highly recommend reading up on how to get the best ending to get those boss fights as it's somewhat obscure on how to unlock it. For me, it is the best of the 3 GBA Castlevania games, even if Circle of the Moon maybe holds a little bit more meaning to me for nostalgia and for it being the 1st game of the series to hook, line and sinker me in to everything Castlevania. It just takes what the 2 predecessors do and evolve it 10x to make it the better experience. Awesome game.

Finished up Corpse Party, a horror visual novel that first came out about 25 years ago hence why it's going into this thread!

It's part visual novel, part RPG(Not in the battle system sense but more so in the exploring), very 2D RPG esque and upon reading the origins of this game, this was originally made in a Japanese equivalent of RPG Maker ages ago which explains why the game looks the way it does.

And truthfully I thought I would enjoy this game more. Truthfully speaking as well, I wish this game was 100% visual novel as the gameplay segments, however few there were ended up slowing the game down and really halting the story for me. That's probably my biggest gripe with the game as a whole, the walking around felt so monotone and redundant. Walking around the same school halls, similar looking rooms, even with different characters it just felt like such a chore to do this. Arguably why it took me quite a couple of sittings to finish this game. This game is very much go to point a, dialogue, go to point b, dialogue, check on something on ground, sometimes run from danger/ghosts that can harm if not kill you, go to point c, go back to point b etc. It's very basic hence why I probably didn't care much for the gameplay and would just like it better if it was a full fledged visual novel.

The story has a group of high school kids(Stop me if you've heard that one before in a Japanese game) and teacher upon doing a silly chant as they celebrated one of their peers transferring to another school end up getting taken to a far off, rotten, beaten down version of the school they inhabit. Upon this, they discover the paranormal have taken over the school, ranging from dead previous students/faculty that range from being helpful to downright dangerous. As a group of 8 students and 1 teacher(You only control like 5-6 of them), you have to uncover the mysteries of this school and find a way home all the while surviving the horrors of the doom filled school. These ghosts while some are good, some are evil or corrupted, and as you play through the plot, can see how they get to be this way. People will die in this game and there are some (semi) gorey spots in this game that aren't for the feint of heart. However, if you have played a few visual novels, especially horror visual novels, in the past, this one won't do anything too out of the ballpark.

That would be another gripe for me in regards to this game. The story while it makes sense, lacks the bite I really was looking for. Game has too many characters that I ended up by the end not matching the names with the people unless I got to see them on screen. You have the high school kids and teacher you start with then see previous students and faculty along with some other paranormal hunters that come in much later in the game. The twists through the game while are good for what the game tries to do, pales in comparison to some of the later visual novels of this genre ala Danganronpa provide so I think this is a case of the game being edgy for it's time but upon a visit 20 or so years later when later entries have come out of this genre, it doesn't hold up nearly as well.

I think if treated as a introductory visual novel, Corpse Party is fine but it just didn't do anything for me entirely. There were other extra chapters after the initial 5 that run you a good 8-10 hours which is decent length wise but the problem are the extra chapters don't do too much outside of introduce even more characters and maybe clean up the little things that weren't fully covered in the main campaign. Can't say I finished all of them.

This version of the game is great in that it gives you temp. saves which is amazing given this game picks it's spots to give save points/candles and given you can lose ____ minutes of gameplay due to a instant death or wrong choice, it's very much appreciated. In addition, a clutch SKIP button is great to skip the content rather than subject you to watch the same sequences again. Cannot imagine how to play this ages ago without these quality of life enhancements. The game graphically is 90's anime in the dialogue portions and is like a 2D RPG, nothing impressive but this is a game from the mid 1990's so can't hold it against the game. The music fits the game but nothing too memorable in that regard as well.

Just a unremarkable game for me altogether but for people brand new to the genre, this might click for you. It's just okay at best for me. Maybe the only thing I would check out down the road for me is all of the WRONG END/bad ending/game over screens which shows worst case scenario what happens.

Took 2 weeks with occasional days not played but Grand Theft Auto III Remastered Edition is in the books. What do I say? Lets discuss the backbone of the game first than discuss this actual remastered edition, think that's best.

This game has some good memories with me. Not that I ever beat the main story or anything like that but when this game came out, I was in 7th grade/middle school. Myself and two buddies at the time would just dick around in the game. Try and hit the 5 or 6 star rating, just do some fun shit around town. Run people over, run over the police, do some stunts, do some hilarious car moves etc. It was a thrill to play but I never got into the story, we just passed the controller around per death and just had fun. I had seen playthroughs of this game(And the two other of the trilogy) but had never really got into the series altogether so when this Remastered trilogy was rumored, leaked and announced, it seemed like the perfect time to get back into the thick of things and really dive in. I figure, lets start in order out of fairness and began with Grand Theft Auto III: Remastered!

For the meat and potatoes of the game, it's absolutely flawed here in 2021, there's no doubt about it. From the lack of quick travel to the mission structure that revolves around time to some missions flat out not giving you any markers on what to do or the waypoint travel marker leading you to the wrong place for the last mission, there's a lot to be frustrated about. The gunplay excluding the sniper rifle is abysmal, you have to hold the shoot button down with a janky autolock system that locks onto whoeever, regardless of civilian, enemy or ally AI which is troubling given it can make you fail a mission and bump your star rating to alert the police which makes the missions harder by default. It feels every bit of a 20 year old game. Despite all of this, there is fun to be had. Just driving around, having the absolute freedom to do whatever, the different people to take missions from, the amount of cars that all differ from speed to acceleration to armor, the music/radio you have access to. No doubt this game started the sandbox genre or at the very least created the foundation that to this day is one of the most common gaming genres available, even decades later.

With that being said, I did try and give the game the benefit of the doubt given the age but it just doesn't play well enough. Early on, the game is simplistic, drive from Point A to Point B, mission complete. Mid to late game however is where the difficulty spike occurs, talking missions that purposely increase star ratings to needing to catch a high tailing car around the city all the while a gang is following after you. You'd expect a difficulty spike but I am not a fan of the short time limits, talking 3 minutes to get 3 cars around the neighborhood in mint condition over to a garage. You fail to do it, mission failed. Give me being chased by police or fighting gangs while do this over a steady time limit. This is especially maddening in one the final missions that gives you 8 minutes to go around the three different islands and destroy a drug ring stand while being chased by the drug cartel. This game for it's time does what it does well but it just hasn't aged pretty in the least.

Now we get to the Remastered portion of this which I will be less lenient about given it's modern day development and was meant to transform these "relics" into something the modern day consumer can well....consume. By no means do I ask for a drastic transformation where the game's identity is lost but cmon. The talk of the gaming town for weeks was that this Trilogy rivaled Cyberpunk 2077 and while the latter had the former beat in crashes(Had 20 something in Cyberpunk, probably just 4 with GTA III), Cyberpunk (somehow) had more detail put into it despite being the more complex game. We're talking toy RV being stuck on ground, cars floating in the air when driving in the tunnel, ally AI coming in and floating in air while in the passenger seat, deformed looking identical civilians among other hilarious moments. While this is all fun, as I find this stuff to be fun, what could have been done better was the checkpoint system. This edition of the game trumps the predecessor in regards that it allows you to restart a mission without the need to drive back and forth to restart it which is a blessing. What was a massive omission is once you start a mission, you are locked into it barring a reload or if you kill yourself/get busted by police, which the latter means you lose a small amount of money but more importantly, lose all of your weapons. Due to no tell from the game, I came to a point upon looking at a guide for "Point of no returns" where I wanted to do all of the side missions that had dialogue possible. The problem I stumbled is when not reading a guide, I took on a mission that if completed, would have stopped me from interacting with another person I was getting missions on prior. It was something prevalent in the previous game but I expect more from a 2021 edition that I feel like a better map or quest menu could have been made. The maps will point out where each gang hangs out where which is vital in missions that you need to jack one of their cars to progress but the inability to see where each city is located was maddening to and something that could have been done better on the map. I hold this more on the old GTA III but for me, it got somewhat confusing driving in the 3rd island with so many wrap around bridges and entry points and the map didn't really do much to help out in the grand scheme of things.

The character models look cartoonish and are fine enough for me given the originals had a comic book like feel and when not deformed or glitched out, fit what the game was looking to do. Fair enough, the audio is straight up ripped from the older games which doesn't feel as authentic or fitting for characters as it's choppy quality at best. The rain makes this game extremely tough to look at or drive in which is fair game given bad weather=tough driving but from a graphical standpoint, it just looks terrible. Feels like white lines just shooting out from the sky than actual eye pleasing rain which we come to expect out of gaming these days.

I don't think the studio behind this game did this game enough of a service to help it be better played in 2021 outside of the checkpoint system, which as mentioned, still isn't perfect all things considered. Playing this on modern consoles helps with the loading which the original had a couple second loads each time you went island to island which is a boon in favor of the remastered edition. For me though, I think it being absolutely unplayable and refund worthy is a bit extreme. I felt the same way about Cyberpunk 2077, it wasn't well polished and could have been so much better but it was still something that can be played from start to finish. I think with this trilogy(Or well GTA III which is all I have played thus far), this rings nostalgia for plenty so most expected this to be far better done, which I understand. I am not in that group that grew near and dear with this series so I get the frustration there from people. But this isn't as terrible or unplayable as a lot would lead you to believe. Far, far, far from perfect, which is saying something given the original game is flawed in plenty of ways but I had an alright time with this game. Just alright. Really curious how they did Vice City & San Andreas. I feel like the later I got in GTA III, the more bugs and glitches occurred so I can tell this wasn't a fully baked game.

Any fans of God Hand here? I forgot I had it on my PS3 and am about halfway through it. I played it a ton back in the day but replaying makes me appreciate it even more. I love the combat and evasion system. The camera is a little wonky but really not bad once you get a feel for it. Highly recommended.

Also playing Symphony of the Night again for the 50th or so time lol. Going to actually try and get the 206% completion this time. Pray for me that I get the Crisseagrim quickly haha.