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 Castlevania: The Adventure | Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge Hello everybody! It is time to end the trifecta of Game Boy Castlevanias with its final entry: Legends! But really, it should be just a single Legend, the legend of Sonia Belmont, first of the clan to hunt vampires. Or rather, a single vampire. You know.  I'm starting with the story this time, because it is utterly tragic and honestly the most interesting thing about this game. This is entirely due to the strength of its protagonist, who outclasses Chillstopher in basically every way. Sonia Belmont was born with a special power around the time when Dracula first rose to power, her destiny being to eventually defeat him, probably. Honestly, the "special power" is vague as hell. The Castlevania Wiki says it's the ability to "sense spirits nobody else can see", which sounds honestly rather worthless. So I'll just believe Sonia is simply the only one to realize that poo poo is going down with that eponymous castle appearing in Transylvania und going to fix things by introducing ol' Drac to The Belmont Way. Oh, apparently Dracula also killed her grandfather whose last memento was a certain Whip so it's personal as well. Also also Sonia met a mysterious young man called Alucard who was looking for his father, possibly maybe in the direction of Castlevania. So she's got like three motivations to go in there and whip rear end. All of this info is barely in the game and manual, I got it off the Wiki who presumable translated the Japanese player's guide. Sonia is wonderfully mobile compared to Chillstopher (she can change directions mid-air!). She can make weapons out of defeated enemies' souls. She's so badass she can just decide to become invincible and plow through all enemies, damaging them on contact. When confronting Dracula, Sonia isn't content with whipping him into a pathetic pile of vampire meat, she's putting him down with a neverending series of sick burns as well. Of course, she does all of that while 17, and obviously she is the first and only other female Castlevania protagonist besides Shanoa in Order of Ecclesia.  Please ignore that godawful back-pose and check out how cool she is in the others. So, Sonia's the best. There's only two problems, none of them her fault. This game is not very good. And Sonia doesn't exist. After a cancelled Dreamcast Castlevania (Resurrection) which was supposed to star her around 2000, nothing more happened with her, and she was unceremoniously declared non-canon five years later because...well, let's just the series' creator tell us the reason. IGA posted:"Koji Igarashi didn't like the idea of having a female protagonist in the respective time period that Castlevania Legends takes place in, since it didn't quite fit with the motifs of a vampire story. He stated that: 'Legends remains something of an embarrassment for the series. If only that development team had the guidance of the original team of the series'" IGA is bang-on with Legends being an embarrassment, however. Also, ouch.  Let's not beat around the bush, this is not what anyone expects from a Castlevania entry that was released in 1997. Yes, six loving years after Chillstopher's Revengeance, and after Symphony of the Night. Legends has only five stages plus a secret one, is linear to a fault, has singularly unimpressive music, terrible bosses and even worse stage and enemy design hampered by an engine that needed at least three more passes to be as solid as the second Adventures', and I can't believe I'm saying that. The previous entry is way, way more polished than this. Legends is an uninteresting and unappealing mess and a terrible capstone for a series that could have been a really cool example of the leaps and bounds possible by learning from your initial mistakes and rigorously fixing them. Though I guess as confirmed before, this was an entirely different team working on the game. They had done one other game before - Goemon on the Game Boy - and went on to make Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon on the N64. That was good, though, right? Maybe they needed the bigger platform? Anyway, you could rightfully claim that Castlevania: Adventure was way more of a terrible mess than this, and you're absolutely right, and yet I wasn't nearly as down on the game as I'm on this one. Well, consider this: Adventure came out six months after the Game Boy's release and was a very...interesting exercise in cruelty sometimes. Legends competes with every other platformer that graced the Game Boy since then, but all that pales before its one critical fault: it's very, very boring. I'm so sorry, Sonia.  Like before, I've played this blind. Unlike before, I'm also already done with playing it, so I can give you all those juicy details above. I'm also editing in important revelations into the videos themselves so you don't have to scream at past-me for not reading the OP. Initially I didn't even read the manual fully even though the game clearly expects you to, good call though because it spoils basically everything including all bosses. So click at your own discretion. For this thread though, please don't spoil without bars because the story at least has some reveals for us which I promise are juicy and ruin the game even further in my mind, poor Sonia.  Update Post 1  Update Post 2  Update Post 3  Update Post 4  Update Post 5  Update Post 6  *sigh* Now, this is all subjective of course. And this soundtrack isn't bad, don't get me wrong. But Adventure and Revenge has face-meltingly awesome soundtracks with some absolute masterpieces, while Legends has...this. Some interesting remixes. A good boss theme. And some tepid garbage. The absolute worst thing about this, however, is that the music isn't nearly good enough to support being stretched out over levels that can take up to 40 minutes (!) to complete on your first pass. Hell, even Revenge's music compositions would be hard-pressed in this situation. But here? I'm loving sick of these tracks, I never want to hear them again. To spare you even more whining, I just...won't comment individually during the update posts. Prologue Bloody Tears (Stage 1) Inside the Castle (Stage 2) The Clock Tower of Darkness (Stage 3) Highest Castle Floor (Stage 4) The Castle Lord's Room Underground Watercourse (Stage 5) Dungeon of Silence (Secret Stage) Dracula Castle Cathedral Trap Room Boss Battle Gatekeeper (Mini-Boss) Alucard Battle Count Dracula Battle Vampire Killer (Final Battle) Ending Epilogue Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Oct 24, 2018 |
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Oct 1, 2018 10:12
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 The stage names are incredibly creative for this one. The stage, and this is something I could say about every stage in this game, is nothing to write home about. It's mostly flat, with a few enemies put in seemingly at random, and you really gotta strain to look for setups that were actually planned out to inconvenience the player in any way or make you work for your victory. The fights themselves are super easy, everything that doesn't die in one hit has a practically nonexistant AI, and I'm forgetting parts as I write. The biggest feature of the stage are probably the trap rooms, which are a bafflingly stupid concept. They are foreshadowed by the candles being white, but design-wise, I fail to see their purpose: make you wake up after long minutes of nothing happening? There is ONE thing they could be there for, and that is teach you for how to unlock the secret stage, but even for that, I don't think they're needed per se. Also, later there's a trap room without a candle attached, so...? I'm equally not fond of the special item placement, the Axe from the classic games, because it's a blind choice between the dead-end path and the progress path. There is no way to tell which is which, so you end up getting lucky or backtracking. Wait, you end up backtracking anyway because of the "dead end" thing. And the collectible doesn't even do anything - baffling. The boss is named "Creatures Bat" and, according to the manual, artificially created via fusion of human and bat traits. That would explain why its legs are so stiff. Its pattern, like all of the bosses in this game, is dead simple and I won't bother to spell out any tactics. Whip it when it stops moving. Music Prologue Bloody Tears (Stage 1) Boss Battle Trap Room Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Oct 1, 2018 |
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Oct 1, 2018 10:13
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NGDBSS posted:How many times has Konami declared that a given Belmont was "first"? I know we have Sonia, whozit from Lament of Innocence, and then the most recent entry of Gabriel from Lords of Shadow. At least we're not dealing with the absolutely silly bullshit that is apparently the Legend of Zelda timeline with three distinct branches all forking from Ocarina of Time. HoD can die in a fire for all I care, I played through all of it just so I can complain with full authority: it is insanely boring from start to finish and way too long for how utterly unfun it is to play. I bought the original for a friend as a gift once because the box art looked awesome, and to this day I regret having lost contact with that friend because I still feel the need to apologize.
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Oct 1, 2018 11:39
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Edvarius posted:Been a long time since I've played this one. I forgot just how bad some of those sprites were. I mean yeah, the bats and boss weren't so bad, and there probably isn't much you can do with the worms, but those shadows and spearmen are just awful. They look like something that would be on one of those cheep things where you could see where all the sprites might be even when the thing was powered off. Even the worms (my wife said they look more like leeches, actually) are super crappy because they are in a completely different style from the rest of the sprites. They have super sharply defined outlines, whereas most of the other sprites are deliberately muddled at the edges. quote:As for the merits of other Castlevanias, I actually kinda liked HoD. It's not the most original in design or plot, but it had an interesting special weapon system with the way the books could alter the subweapons. CotM was crap. Way too over-reliant on luck for getting any equipment, the hero was slow as Christopher while playing in a massive metroidvania, and even if you were lucky enough to find spell cards a lot of the time you wouldn't even know what the combos did unless you looked it up. I know they offered different stat builds to allow you to play the game different ways after the first time through, but if I had such a miserable time the first go around, why would I bother? The only thing I'm willing to grant it was the different elemental variations of the armor enemies could be interesting. That's it. My biggest issue with CotM except for the already mentioned repetitiveness of some areas (though it's WAY more varied in geography and enemy placements than HoD is) is that you need to double-tap to get a move on, and that's a little annoying after a while. If you always do it, the movement speed is fine, though. And you can't hate a game where you can make your whip into a rose whip with thorns. That's fabulous and I love it a lot. I get that collecting all the drops is a serious pain in the rear end, but just the few combinations I happened to find randomly were already fun enough to play around with. I never finished it because of some hard bosses and I'm always a little hard-pressed to motivate myself to get deeply into games I just emulate, but I still liked it enough to try it twice and never got really bored. Maybe if I can find a used cartridge at some point... To bring it back to the topic at hand... Discendo Vox posted:I think I was the one to request the blind run  .It's fine though, I had fun recording it, but just playing would have been torture. I'm also having fun editing the videos, so all's well. Still, the flaws we already saw in Legends will only become more apparent as the game goes on: there is no level design. It's just corridors with random platforms and enemies. In a sense, pretty much exactly like HoD with (system's fault, I guess) less bells and whistles...
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Oct 2, 2018 01:01
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 Told you about the creative stage names. It's been four days or so since I edited this video and I had to watch it again just to remember the stage. It might be even less memorable than the first because that at least had the (stupid) trap candles, this one has...badly programmed Boo skulls...? That's like double spooky. Consider this in the spirit of Halloween or something. Oh, right, it's super dumb how the "secret" passages in this game work. It's going to get even worse as the levels get (how???) even longer. The boss (Death Dragon  , slain by Drac himself then resurrected!!!) might be quite difficult if it didn't die so fast. I think it'd be fine if I was just more patient, however it doesn't require me to learn it, so...why should I?Music Inside the Castle (Stage 2)
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Oct 4, 2018 20:43
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Right! That must be it! I will finally activate BURNING MODE in the fourth video, and Sonia does indeed gain a significant speed boost. So you have to sacrifice your one activation of invincibility to heal, when you could instead use it...to prevent getting hurt. I love the logic of this game.
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Oct 6, 2018 18:53
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 This stage is a tragic travesty. Or a travestic tragedy. It's a loving Castlevania Clock Tower, it's meant to be serious poo poo, and in Legends? It's, like, three moving platforms in total, which is somehow the entirety of those in the entire game. I have never seen a platformer that just eschews the idea of moving platforms instead of going "well they're technically an obstacle". I thought just putting random moving platforms somewhere was the most lazy way to design a jumping puzzle or whatever you want to call it. I was wrong. This stage convinced me that this game is boring garbage, and I adjusted the editing accordingly. You're welcome to join me in mockery. Apart from how terrible it is that there is nothing to the stage at all, there's not much else to say. They go for "rope poo poo" like the other Game Boy games (and because of stuff like this, how the whip upgrades work and other small things like the [atrocious] password system, I do consider these games a trilogy), but do it worse than Adventure, somehow. Revenge nailed it, but Legends, as almost always, just doesn't get it. The rope dudes are so loving bad, I want to cry. EDIT: Jesus Christ I completely forgot to comment on the boss. It's DEATH and I forgot to comment on him. That's all the comments this guy needs. Freakin' non-memorable AI-challenged "Grim Reaper" Death. How utterly pathetic. EDIT˛: Right as I make the final updates, I realize I have artwork of the dragon miniboss in this stage lying around unused. Guess who forgot about ANOTHER boss?! It's in the update and OP images now. Music The Clock Tower of Darkness (Stage 3) OF DOOM! Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 11, 2018 01:30
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Kheldarn posted:My guess about the Clock Tower not having moving platforms is that it's a limitation of the GameBoy, with regards to how many moving objects can be on the screen at once.
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Oct 11, 2018 10:46
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Blood Sally posted:this game makes me sad, Simon 
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Oct 13, 2018 13:15
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 Already forgot everything about the stage again. Okay, I edited this video before a two-week vacation, but still. There's some moving ropes that are a pain in the rear end to use but hey, a level gimmick?!??!?! They can, but they don't most of the time. The spiders are a semi-interesting enemy which would be right at place in the first or second level of an actually good game. The big sword knights can suck my nards, I have no idea how they work and I suspect the game doesn't either. Aaand I just remembered that there's a miniboss in this stage. Actually had to go back and change the picture for that because drat, Medusa. What a non-event. First glimpse of BURNING!!! mode.  A severe "lol" at Alucard. The boss that might be a roadblock if you couldn't loop him easier than Luigi Raceway in Mario Kart 64. Also, what the gently caress is his role in the story? He meets, befriends and sleeps with Sonia, at some point leaves her to deal with devil dad but tells her about Castlevania and where to find it, apparently just expecting that she's like "cool, see you later bae, good to know that you're not in the local whorehouse"? Then when she actually shows up after having fought through all of the castle (remember: top floor), he gets super indignant and thinks she's tooootally not up for Drac. Sonia then humiliates him so hard that he decides to sleep for a hundred-odd years like that's a reasonable response to a rough whipping session he wished for himself. IGA probably erased Legends from the timeline because Alucard is so pathetic in it. Even Sonia doesn't try to convince him to stay awake instead of scurring away tail between legs. What a loser. Also, thanks for mentioning the trap door, rear end in a top hat. You're lucky Symphony and your contributions in CV3 are so good. Music Highest Castle Floor (Stage 4) The Castle Lord's Room Gatekeeper (Mini-Boss) Alucard Battle Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 16, 2018 09:58
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Quick LP organization question: I just edited the next video, it's the final stage (but not the final video! Ooooh) and it's 35 minutes long. There's a good cutoff point 12 minutes in, so I could easily split it there to make the thing a little more watchable. But if you guys prefer a longer episode, that's also fine with me, just tell me what you want  .While deciding, you can also check out the footage of the canceled Resurrection I found which would have been Sonia's second game. Gotta say, after seeing that outfit, especially the skirt situation, I'm kinda glad that she got spared that further humiliation... EDIT: Oh hey they give her some pants in later pictures! Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Oct 16, 2018 |
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Oct 16, 2018 10:01
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Thanks for the video length comments! The final stage is encoded in one piece at 35 minutes and will go up sometime later this week. I didn't remember how long the footage for the final final video is but it's just 25 minutes raw, so that's the only such "issue" for this LP.FeyerbrandX posted:Same. Kheldarn posted:I could only make it half way through that video and it's bad porn soundtrack. One thing I noticed is that her legs are messed up there, too. I guess Sonia just has bad legs. chiasaur11 posted:Also, by the timeline, Alucard hadn't been born yet. His mother hadn't even met Dracula in 1450. Further, it's pretty weird that the Belmonts were a legendary clan of monster hunters who the church had to go crawling back to in 1476 when, with this game, Trevor would only be the second Belmont to hunt monsters. Anyway, the biggest problem I have with Legends being erased from canon is the justification for it. It's obviously not a shame for the game itself to be considered a weird black sheep because it is. It really is all about Sonia and the potential she could have had in anything but this waste of good cartridge Nintendium.
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Oct 17, 2018 16:56
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Magil of Shadow posted:This is the reason that makes the most sense for me, if only because I can see IGA wanting the Belmonts to have their power come from their own skill/bloodline, and not because their family has Dracula's blood in their history. Also, where are you getting that Drac's blood thing from  ? I said no story spoilers for exactly this reason...
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Oct 19, 2018 17:43
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 This stage is a mess on almost every level, conceptually, challenge-wise, structurally and especially in its level design. It should by all rights be two stages with the Minotaur as the proper boss, but it's not; you have to do all of this poo poo in one sitting, unless they stealthily give you a new password after one half, which I doubt. I'll spoil a bit for the next video: there is indeed an entrace to the ~Secret Stage~ just hidden in this level, after the minitaurboss, so they probably depended on the player finding that, as I'm moderately sure it will give you a new password (has an extra map screen, even). On the other hand, while the Secret Stage is short, it's a full level, and it boots you to right after the Minotaur fight, so...you still have to do the equivalent of two stages before reaching Drac! Infuriating! If this piece of poo poo didn't basically obsolete its own extra life system, this game would be complete torture to complete instead of just unimaginably tedious. As should be obvious from my struggles, the Minotaur is probably the hardest boss in the game, though I don't know how hard Alucard would be if he didn't fall the the easiest loop in the world. There's just no good way to dodge him and his movements are totally random. Fortunately, you can probably just Burning up, but then you don't get a Whip upgrade because I'm pretty sure Burning is 100% required to get it without taking damage. You can get yourself hit into it, but the engine is so bad, that sometimes enemies knock you forward instead of back, apparently. There's quite a lot of these tiny moments of annoyance and complete dumbshittery in this level that make it somehow worse than the rest of the game, like they had given up on trying to actually design levels even more. Also, as I don't fail to mention at the start, having the final level be "a cave" for most of its duration (because the final stretch up to Dracula is actually laughably easy) is nonsensical if you want to follow any sane idea of escalation of concepts. It almost makes sense if you consider Sonia to be literally dumped by Alucard's idiotic decision to just lie down for a while, but...that doesn't make sense in the first place. So whatever! gently caress the cave! I'd also like to note that the map screen doesn't actually show anything BUT the cave, and as we'll see from the next level's map screen, the tiny stretch of path between the last dots is actually meant to encompass both the cave and the cathedral, as the secret stage entrance is smack-dab in the middle of it. Maybe we fight Dracula in an overdesigned garden shed where he spends Dad Time because Alucard is hogging the master bedroom. Come to think of it, did he go to sleep way up there? Have fun crumbling down with the rest of the castle, dipshit.  Then there is Dracula himself, and I'm super happy that the game opts for "pushover" instead of "nightmare" like Revenge did. It's actually not that easy and with its two stages, reasonable but not excessive health pool and small things like his projectiles blocking yours a step up from most of the other dross we had to wade through. The little touch that you can (and should) get exactly 20 hearts in the lead-up to the fight is honestly brilliant and the one piece of actual thoughtful design in the entire game, so kudos for that. Together with Sonia's non-stop barrage of merciless putdowns, this is the singular high point of the game and my one and only argument for "needn't have been that bad" and the potential of the main character herself. A shame, innit. Stay tuned for the Secret Stage and a true ending that will completely stomp out and crush the tiny spark of goodwill I just let fly! Music Underground Watercourse (Stage 5) Dracula Castle Cathedral (also Stage 5 I guess) Count Dracula Battle Vampire Killer (Final Battle) Ending Epilogue
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Oct 20, 2018 17:14
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Thanks for removing the spoiler, Magic of Shadows! Could you also do so, Ryushikaze? Only one video to go - as I said, not as long as this one (just under 20 minutes), some time next week then that's it already! I noticed that I had an unused concept artwork lying around and realized it was for the dragon miniboss in Stage 3. I had so completely forgotten that dude that I had to quickly rewatch the video just to make sure it was the right level. This game has some Issues. Adjusted the pictures accordingly, so keep an eye out for the deadly deadly Dwagon. Also, I hadn't realized that Alucard has his own boss music, that's in OP and update now as well. I also added a piece of Alucard concept art, if you're super starved for content  .EDIT: I checked out the forgotten music and already forgot it again, so I'm now listening to the original Adventure soundtrack again because it's so fuckin' rockin' good. Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 20, 2018 17:18
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All's fine! Also thanks for your comment towards the editing - nobody outside of Youtube has said anything, so I wasn't sure if it was appreciated. Now I know . Just wish I'd have thought of it for the first two videos, but alas.Actually, I initially wanted to do that for Chillstopher ("why do I have to do this...I'm in no hurry...don't stress me!!!") but wasn't confident it was funny enough to justify the effort, so I did straight LPs instead. Maybe in the future!
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Oct 21, 2018 15:57
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Discendo Vox posted:Yes, the editing was fantastic. FeyerbrandX posted:Spoilering this in case you show the good ending, but if you don't here it is in its entirety. Even considering this is a late gen GB game I'm shocked they squeezed this out of it.
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Oct 21, 2018 18:14
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You hit the nail on the head, Xavier - as I say in the final video (or did I say it in this one?), Legends commits the imho greatest sin a game can: it's completely mediocre. If a game is actively bad, it's at least worth making fun of, or trying to work around all the glitches, or figuring out what the hell the designers were actually going for, but this one is just boring. It's competently made enough, the engine is a little janky but we've seen worse in this series, but it all adds up to a completely unnecessary game, if that makes sense. If this didn't exist, nobody would weep for it, except for Sonia herself of course. It's just a sad little nothing. Because ThornBrain has just finished his Link's Awakening LP, and someone commented "it never gripped me, seemed a little janky but I guess they did what they could with the hardware" I looked up release dates again and LA is from loving 1993, four years before this. I hate reiterating that point, but there is zero excuse for this being so devoid of anything. Six stages with three gimmicks between them if you squint, a password system instead of proper saving, bosses with barely existing AI is pathetic for this time period. They had the entire SNES library to look for inspiration on how to do a platformer, and almost all the GB games as well. FeyerbrandX posted:No, I got that from my uncle at Also dem canon colours for Sonia
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Oct 22, 2018 16:51
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 This super extra secret stage is...come on. Accessing it is the only clever puzzle in the game, first in you needing to figure out that the death pit isn't one from the level geometry, then by making the trap candle into something you WANT to hit. And then you get THIS. It's a whole load of even more nothing than the rest of the game, presented in an acceptable aesthetic that is reminiscent of the first Castlevania. In fact, even the level design is, what with the two floors! What Legends obviously doesn't get is that this is only interesting if you have enemies that can attack from above or below so you're always in danger and have to move cleverly. And that you have to double back on the other path eventually to recontextualize what you've already gone through and squeeze everything out of the limited screen real estate given to you. Oh, and there should be SOME sort of challenge, obviously. At least the aesthetic is kinda nice for an early Game Boy game that came out around 1991, right? I think the boss has the exact same AI (if you want to call it that) as the Minotaur, which is "totally random and will get you cornered", so I just said "gently caress it" after a long recording day. As the stage is so short and easy, there shouldn't be any temptation even for a player way worse than I am to use BURNING! on anything but the boss anyway, so I pity whoever tries to figure out the boss pattern and painstakingly plays the positioning game instead. Why would you? I do that for Mega Man bosses because bustering them is fun. Key difference! Leaving this pitiful excuse for a bonus round behind, let's talk about the Good Ending. Well, I think I made it abundantly clear that the name is a joke - the ultimate reward for going into all of those stupid loving dead ends for meaningless rewards should not be the confirmation that Alucard impregnated a 17-year-old before turning into the ultimate deadbeat dad, and it is very much not kind to Sonia to basically say "she did kill Dracula in the normal ending which was okay, but in the good ending she's a mother, and that is her real use". In fact, it's disgusting on any level. gently caress this game, I'm glad it's gotten itself decanonized, though for a reason that is in fact completely in line with the ending's casual misogyny. I'd have been fine with the "Good" ending only having Sonia letting her hair down, that would have been an awful reward but kinda funny for its utter banality. But this? Just imagine Castlevania 1 ending with "and so, after slaying Dracula, Simon went into the next village and got totally laid so the Belmont line could continue. Soon he had many children and was a great father, The End". Music Dungeon of Silence (Secret Stage) Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Oct 24, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 21:23
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XavierGenisi posted:Man, what a wet fart of a secret stage and second ending. Like, the inclusion of finding these hidden items and the secret stage is kinda neat, but you kind of have to question why they even bothered in the first place, given how the only challenge in hunting down the items is wasting your time going down extremely linear dead-ended offshoots, and the secret stage is literally just more of the same poo poo they've been doing for the previous five stages and topping it off with an absolutely brain-dead boss fight. And for what? A garbage bit of extra stuff tacked onto the normal ending? Dabir posted:wow that ending is kinda gross and uncomfortable huh some random rear end in a top hat posted:So, for the most part your text jokes were good. But as it went on your hit rate started decreasing, I'd put it at a 60-40 split. I'd recommend being a little more self-critical, and maybe writing the jokes, then coming back to review the video the next day to see if you still think it's funny. If there's any doubt, just cut it. We're here for the gameplay and your analysis of the experience, the jokes are just seasoning that can and should be cut if they don't add to the experience, doubly so if they detract. Zanzibar Ham posted:It's been mostly cool watching you go through these GB 'vanias, but to be honest this game was so aggressively boring I didn't watch the last 2 videos. Also, my next LP is already planned because I need something to tide me over the lonely Scandinavian winter, it's secret though. Unrelated, you guys could help tell me if this looks and sounds fine, tia!
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Oct 24, 2018 09:55
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Magil of Shadow posted:So yeah, as I accidentally spoiled before the last video went up, and as revealed in said last video, the casual misogyny, and, of course, implying that Alucard would go all deadbeat dad, is exactly the reason why I view Legends was gutted from canon. Well, that, and being a poo poo awful game in comparison. . Also thanks to Ryushikaze for editing out the spoiler earlier, I appreciate it!LP organization stuff: so this is officially over (just confirming that there's not gonna be any bonus material), and I am indeed preparing the next project already, dunno when I'll have enough material to start a thread though. As usual, I'll let you guys know in here then close the thread, and ask for archival somewhen in the meantime. Feel free to discuss stuff for as long as you want in here until the thread closes, then it's too late .I guess if you want to play a little ARG, you can also hop into the YT comments and tell the idiot off together with me, or just read further thoughts of mine on why this story sucks specifically there. EDIT: lmfbo same moron posted:That's really unfortunate to hear. I was with you for a while, I even lean on the side of "I can't have it both ways" on the canon aspect. I can still defend my point, but I understand that it would be convoluted and would not matter in the grand scheme. Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Oct 24, 2018 |
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Oct 24, 2018 19:29
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Many people would automatically assume that the ending that takes more effort to get is the "good" or "true" ending, because that's how it works in 99% of videogames. Because good things are a reward for your effort. Castlevania is not a Cavia game, after all, and in all the others the more-effort ending is not only the obviously better one, but often fulfilling the conditions for it unlocks a good chunk of the endgame you still have to do. This is a trend for CV games since Symphony, which, and I can't repeat this enough, came out before Legends. There are examples for a "good" or "true" ending not actually being one or the other; many people hate that the super tediously to get 100% ending of Final Fantasy X-2 hints at Yuna getting Tidus back for example, when the stronger narrative is (obviously imho) that she lets him go. And Mega Man X5's mess of a story has three completely different endings, of which the hardest to get (you destroy the colony and Zero doesn't go Maverick) is the objective best (because humanity doesn't get wiped out), but it's also the "least" canon. Or maybe I'm wrong there because good lord does the X story make no sense. Anyway, "good" is not an ideal word both in the literal (outcome for the character) and the meta way (how we interpret it). But imho, that's just semantics, because after all, most players would consider the 100% ending of a game "the good ending", no questions asked.
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Oct 26, 2018 21:10
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| # ¿ Apr 20, 2024 01:28 |
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Ryushikaze posted:I mean, CV3's Trevor (Ralph)/ Sypha ending sorta does that, talking about how they're falling in love. Not the same, though. Crazy Achmed posted:From a gameplay perspective, this looks all the more infuriating when you consider the enemy design. Most of them can't be engaged without taking damage unless you abuse level geometry and/or have a ranged weapon, and the rest of them boil down largely to "can you mash the attack button fast enough to kill it before it touches you", because Sonia is slower than just about everything in the game. The bats are particularly egregious as they seem to be designed to attack from sharp upwards and downwards angles, which are lines that Sonia can't cover with her weapon, even while jumping or ducking. I also would hesitate to use the words "designed to attack". From how it seems to me, the bats are not designed at all; they have a completely random movement pattern that might or might not generally gravitate towards Sonia. The randomness is the true killer. Consider the shadows in the first level; they always home in on Sonia, which is terrible when they respawn from off-screen if you dare move a pixel upwards, but generally they're fine because you know when they will be where and can whip accordingly. The bats are just not predictable at all, and that's why they suck so much. Oh, the big knights are also a huge problem because they'll charge whenever the gently caress they want, but for those you almost always have a ranged whip, so...
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Oct 28, 2018 09:42
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