What I’m Playing Right Now #14

4 to 1. I’d say it wasn’t the World Series everyone was hoping for, but as far as gentleman’s sweeps go, that was pretty f’n amazing. The first walk-off grand slam in World Series history to start it. A historic comeback to end it. A collapse so unfathomable that it’s literally never happened to that degree in any of the previous 118 World Series that came before it. Ouch. Plus, two of the three games in between were really great and the one blow-out featured two douchebags losing their Game 5 tickets to a kid with cancer who WAS going to be part of a special event earlier this year, except he became so sick he couldn’t participate. Now, because someone’s brain shut off and they tried to literally rip a potentially-still-in-play ball out of a player’s glove, that kid got prime seats at the World Series! What’s not to love? Well, besides the cancer. It’s too bad the kid wasn’t at Game Four. It sucks that a kid who was probably a HUGE Yankees fan had to witness.. that.

“START THE PARTY LOS ANGELES! YOUR DODGERS HAVE WON THE WORLD SERIES!” is a great call, though. California domination, baby! So, what AM I playing?

Sigh.

Folks, I really wanted to have Vampire Killer, the MSX version of Castlevania that’s so different and weird up today for Halloween. It’s probably not happening. It’s one of those games that’s so putrid that I really don’t want to play it. I hate that it’s as bad as it is, because this has some amazing ideas. Ideas that have legs. Ideas that I want to see someone try again. I love that the concept of doors is actually important this time around. That it’s not merely a point where you restart if you lose a life. I like that there’s hidden keys that open the doors, and the keys are ACTUALLY HIDDEN and require exploration. I quickly ditched the StrategyWiki page for this because I wanted to enjoy the exploration aspect. Also, the sub-weapons AIN’T sub-weapons this time. They’re YOUR weapon. The axe now works like a short boomerang, while the boomerang is.. well, still a boomerang, BUT it goes further (but does less damage). There’s shops and everything on this. It’s a one off, totally original style of game that uses Castlevania as the foundation for something that was never attempted afterward.

And it’s TERRIBLE.

This is the first silver key, all of which are hidden instead of just laying around. There’s other keys that open treasure chests, but they won’t open the door.

The collision detection, at least with the candles, is miserable. The enemies are all mostly pretty fast, and sometimes you can enter a room and immediately take damage. There’s also screen-wrapping, which is used in the puzzle design sometimes. There’s some truly inspired ideas here, and I’ll always be grateful to Vampire Killer for the originality. But, I don’t know if I want to keep playing it. As interesting and enticing as it is, I’m not really having any fun. It’s just not very good. Don’t get me wrong: this absolutely should be re-released as it is. But, it also really should be remade. In fact, this is the game they SHOULD have redone, instead of Haunted Castle. I suspect if they end up doing one more Castlevania collection, we might get that remake from M2. I’ll still get this review done eventually, but for now, I need a replacement game. I don’t want my Halloween 2024 series to be too Game Boy-centric so I’ll save Legends for next year. SNES sounds better.

That’ll do.