What I’m Playing Right Now #16

November 2, 2024 by 4 Comments

November is here, and the start of one of the busiest seasons for games I’m dying to play I’ve ever had since starting this blog. The lineup for Atari 50’s second DLC pack has been announced. I don’t want to say I’m disappointed in it, but I was really hoping for more never-before-ported arcade games. It’s mostly Mattel-developed Atari 2600 games that likely offer a hint of what the NEXT Gold Master Series release will be. Hopefully they get some licenses if Intellivision is up next after Tetris, and all indications are that it will be. While sports leagues are out of the question, stuff like He-Man, Dungeons & Dragons, and Kool-Aid Man don’t belong as post-review bonuses. Anyway, here’s what’s included. Unless otherwise stated, everything is for the Atari 2600.

  • Air Raiders
  • Antbear (Never Released Prototype)
  • Armor Ambush
  • Astroblast
  • Frogs & Flies
  • International Soccer
  • Dark Cavern
  • Star Strike
  • Super Challenge Baseball
  • Super Challenge Football
  • Swordfight (Never Released Prototype)
  • Sea Battle (Never Released Prototype)
  • Tower of Mystery (Never Released Prototype)
  • Video Pinball
  • Basketball
  • Hardball (Atari 8-Bit PC)
  • Final Legacy (Atari 5200, Never Released Prototype)
  • Xari Arena (Atari 8-bit)
  • Desert Falcon (Atari 7800)

Surely the Kool-Aid people and Atari can come to some kind of a deal, because I actually gave the 2600 Kool-Aid Man a YES! in The Games They Couldn’t Include Part Two. Tower of Mystery is the most exciting of the new games. To put it in perspective, I don’t even have the ROM for it. This is a NEWLY DUMPED ROM that started development as a port of Intellivision’s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons series. There’s something about newly discovered/finished prototypes from long before I was born finally coming out that puts a tear in my eye. The other big announcement is Tetris Forever added two more games: two completely different MS-DOS versions of Tetris. A few people have asked if I plan on ranking the games included. I am not. I think the YES!/NO! system will be good enough. Not that I think “Tetris is Tetris” because that’s lazy, but I think it’s just plain unfair to compare a primitive PC version to an SNES version. I also don’t plan on reviewing the Arcade Archives version of Tetris. Besides the bonus reviews, this will be enough Tetris to last me into the 2030s. So, what AM I playing?

Contra III - The Alien Wars (USA)-241101-234253

Yea yea, I’m supposed to be playing Contra Force, and I am, but this is the one everyone wants a review of. This and Hard Corps will give me a complete review of every Contra Anniversary game, and that’s my current priority. But, this is just treading water until the big November games hit. And Saturday will be “Family Day.” Sasha has no Taekwondo class today, so we’re going to be dueling all day at Camp Bloodbrook for Pinball M. And I get to stay up all night grinding the buffs for Arcade mode. Joy. I can say 100% for sure that the Pinball M version has none of the problems that the Pinball FX version has. We’re all enjoying what we’ve played so far, but the time to SERIOUSLY play it and try to defeat each-other is today. I’m hoping to at least have the Vice Family scores up by Sunday in an update to the Pinball M review.

This is downloaded onto my Switch. From Freakzone, creator of The Angry Video Game Nerd games that I hold in much esteem. Sam, you made me roll my eyes within the first ten seconds of the game. You’re going to gaming hell, my friend. By the way, I’ve never seen the movie and I’m not going to watch it before I play this. So uh, this will be interesting.

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Castlevania: Dracula X (SNES Review)

November 1, 2024 by 5 Comments

Castlevania: Dracula X
aka Akumajo Dracula XX (Japan)
aka Castlevania: Dracula’s Kiss (Europe)
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Released July 21, 1995
Directed by Kouki Yamashita
Developed by Konami
Included in Castlevania Advance Collection

This is the biggest tease of a set-piece, because Dracula X doesn’t have many more. Or any, really. Also, this thing ever shows up again. It’s not a boss or anything. It’s a random slow-speed chase that just ends without any pizazz.

After finishing Dracula X, I found myself staring at my screen, asking myself “did I even have fun with what I just experienced?” TWICE. That by itself is an ominous sign that this isn’t going to be one of the better Castlevanias. I played it for the first time in 2021 and I liked it, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember a thing about it except how awful the final battle with Dracula was and what happened in the above picture. Upon replay, that chase is really the only original set-piece in the entire game. The rest feels like a stripped-down version of Castlevania that runs through all the tropes from the previous four Nintendo games. Of course, this is credited as a “remake” of the PC Engine Super CD-ROM² game Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo. It’s not. I’m not even sure what the point of this is at all. Probably just being a quick, passionless cash-in before the Nintendo 64 hits, while SNES/Super Famicom owners are still hungry for software. It makes for an interesting review, if nothing else. It poses the question “if the game is made competently, is Castlevania’s core gameplay, all by itself, an automatic YES!?”

It sure looks like it’s going to be a fun time making your way to the Count.

It’s very easy to see why someone would be disappointed in Dracula X. All the innovations from Super Castlevania IV are gone. How gone? Gone, gone. You can’t even throw a sub-weapon with one of the shoulder buttons. You know, that convenience that opened-up the first SNES that was intuitive and comfortable? Well, screw you! That would be too easy, so back good old fashioned holding UP and pressing the attack button if you want to throw a boomerang. That really says it all about Dracula X. It’s a back-to-basics Castlevania game. Except, Dracula’s Curse was way more ambitious than this is. Dracula X’s has three major problems, and the first is that it’s too basic in every meaningful way. The level design is largely unoriginal. The opening stage, with the town burning behind you, feels like a cruel joke because that’s pretty much the end of Drac X and dazzling set-pieces. Everything else is a rehash of previous Castlevania staples run through a filter of blandness.

This screen kind of encompasses the Dracula X experience. Boring versions of themes and settings that have already been done better, only this time the game spams enemies in the most unimaginative way

It’s not like the level design is ever bad, but it just doesn’t do anything. I know the specific part where I asked myself “what the f*ck are they even doing here?” There’s a brief moment where the water starts to rise up slowly and you have to race against it. It’s been done in Castlevania before, but because Dracula X’s version uses two of the handful of last-pixel jumps in the game, it just feels less exciting and more of a glorified gotcha trap. But, even if it were idealized, it wouldn’t matter. It lasts maybe a minute, if that, and the safe-zone is so nondescript that I didn’t even realize I’d reached it. And that’s what broke me. The whole point of that type of design is you’re supposed to have an idea when the coast is clear and breathe out a sigh of relief. Without that, there’s no payoff to the tension you just created. Hell, in Castlevania III, the safety zone is exiting the screen, and it worked perfectly. Here, when I realized I was already safe and had been for a while, it wasn’t triumphant at all. It totally deflated me.

Can you see what got me? Yea, they hid an enemy between the foreground and the plane I’m on. So unimaginative. It’s just a booby trap, not a challenge. If I create a version of The Pit from Mortal Kombat in my house and then throw a rug over it and someone who expects to be able to, you know, walk on a rug falls into it, it makes no sense to scream “GIT GUD!” at them in their final moments of agony before the fade to nothingness eternal. They couldn’t have possibly known it was coming.

Dracula X feels like Castlevania made by someone who doesn’t entirely understand Castlevania OR action gaming beats in general, and that’s almost hard to believe. It’s not like Kouki Yamashita was some schmuck they found. He was one of the programmers of the NES Contra. That’s a pretty big game to have worked on, as far as pedigree goes, but it also tells me he should recognize what makes a good game. Combat alone can’t do it when you’re talking about a sequel, especially if that combat is lifted directly from the previous games. If the combat isn’t evolved, then you have to top previous settings and set-pieces, and Dracula X NEVER comes close. The only other option to topping previous set pieces is “be different” and this feels like a retread of locales and even gameplay segments from previous games, with NOTHING original after the first level.

Oh hey, look, the flying thing that drops the jumping thing.

It’s like the development meetings involved cracking open a Nintendo Power with Castlevania and just taking notes of what needed to go into the new game, without any context of how those previous pieces worked to be more than the sum of their parts. The level design is so bland and safe that it feels like it could be randomly generated by AI for how samey it is. “I guess we’ll split this screen down the middle and you walk to one end, then climb up the stairs and walk back the other way. You know, that thing that was as advanced as Castlevania 1 got? We’ll just redo that over and over, only it’s 16 bits now.” And that’s not an exaggeration. That’s pretty much as complex as the majority of Castlevania: Dracula X gets, and then the challenge is based around “how do you attack the enemies that are above or below you?” Like these pink knights with the spears are probably the most problematic non-bat enemy in the game. They can poke at you from above or below, and they have a means to defend against sub-weapons. A not-insignificant chunk of the level design throughout Dracula X is centered around JUST them.

Dude, Zordon was right. Too much pink energy is dangerous.

The sub-weapons activation isn’t the only back-to-basics aspect. The eight-way whipping is gone, even though this game is much more optimized for eight-way combat. The reason I didn’t think it worked in Castlevania IV was the enemies didn’t really attack from all directions. Eight ways of attacking requires eight ways of danger, because otherwise it allows you to preemptively destroy enemies before they pose a threat. Castlevania IV’s enemy attack patterns and placement, and even the boss fight arenas, only makes sense if you use the traditional “straight in front of you” Castlevania combat. Weirdly, Dracula X actually fits IV’s combat better. Enemies attack from below. Enemies circle around you. Enemies throw projectiles in multiple different angles. My bonkers conspiracy theory for Super Castlevania IV applies to Dracula X, only it’s the opposite: going off the way the game is designed, I could swear that it was meant to have eight-way attacking, only they changed their minds at the last second.

Fixed jumping is back, and I lost multiple lives because the game is counting on you over-jumping just as much as under-jumping. Hell, I was THIS close to dying after beating the last boss because of that phenomena. Dracula X is Castlevania: Dirty Pool Edition.

Forget Rondo of Blood. Dracula X is closer to a remake of the first Castlevania, and I’m not kidding. The combat in Dracula X is as good as any other game in the series. That’s why I think Castlevania: Dracula X proves that the franchise’s combat, historically awesome as it may be, isn’t enough to get you over the finish line by itself. It only works in the first game because of the tempo and amazing set dressing. Dracula X’s sets are boring, and it just never feels fresh. Even when it repeats established set pieces, they feel somehow lesser, even with technically superior graphics. Like, there’s a set-piece that feels almost entirely copied from the original game where you have to jump on a moving platform that carries you over a long stretch of water. It still works in the first game, but it doesn’t here because this is supposed to be a sequel. It doesn’t help that, if you miss the raft, you might have to wait quite a bit for it to return.

Look, the classics are classics for a reason. They work. And this IS one of the more exciting segments in the game. But, it’s kind of cheating, isn’t it? You know it’s exciting because YOU’VE ALREADY DONE IT BEFORE! There’s no twist that makes the Dracula X version stand out from previous versions of this segment. It’s just THE Castlevania raft across the water bit boiled down to its most basic core, then glossed-up with 16-bit graphics.

I could have lived with this mentality of game design if they had just said “screw it” and did for Castlevania what Super Mario All-Stars did for the Mario franchise and just remade the first three games in 16 bits. It probably would have been better received than Dracula X was. But, this is supposed to be a new game, and it just never feels like it. There’s some bits I like. There’s like a single frame of animation where you pull the whip behind you before cracking it, and it can hit things behind you, especially projectiles. Love it! Nice! But it also speaks volumes to how little original substance there is to Dracula X that this stood out.

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This leads to the second problem with Dracula X: the challenge is mostly based around gotchas that are trying to one-shot you. It’s not so much the infamous Castlevania knock-back, either. It’s an interception-based style that’s counting on hitting you out of the air and into a pit. Dracula X relies heavily on bats and a few other enemies that don’t spawn until you’re committed to a jump. Your whip really isn’t great in close quarters. Even the candles are problematic from close range, as I found multiple situations on ledges where I couldn’t find the right angle to whip the candle that, by all logic, I could have just reached up and grabbed with my free hand. But, that minor annoyance becomes a major hangup when enemy placement utilizes that on the edges of pits. Dracula X is so devoted to this style of challenge that the final battle with Dracula is based entirely on this concept of going for the mid-jump one-shot knockout. You can survive getting hit if you’re on your feet. The knock-back doesn’t send you that far back (but you also blink a lot less than previous Castlevania games). But, depending on what pillar Dracula is on, you probably have to jump to hit him, since only his head is vulnerable, and any jump puts you at risk of getting knocked back into a pit.

One of the most boring Dracula fights in the entire franchise. It’s not just the concept itself, but the fact that the arena is three or four times larger than the screen, making this a Dracula fight WITH DOWN TIME! Are you kidding me? And it gets even worse, because you only have time to maybe hit him twice per pass, and it barely does any damage when you do. Because the entire arena is constructed out of these pillars above a pit, it forces you to play conservatively. Again, this isn’t meant to be a punch-for-punch fight. He’s rope-a-doping you while looking for the one punch knockout. I really don’t think this is THAT hard a boss. I took damage multiple times and still won the fight. I mean, there’s a health refill in the room with you, not even hidden. It’s in a candle, and it takes all the stakes out of the fight. What were they thinking with this? It just drags.

The one unambiguous improvement is that most of the bosses are tougher than any previous Nintendo Castlevania release, which not only makes them feel like events, but it increases the satisfaction of victory. As much as I love Castlevania, Dracula’s Curse, and Super IV, the non-Dracula bosses in those games feel more like bonuses for making it to the end of the stage. Like, you got to the end, so you get the honor of totally pwning Frankenstein now. (Excuse me, “The Creature”) The fact that Dracula X’s bosses feel like climatic battles is a plus. Even though you have a triple shot built in, bosses are designed around the sub-weapons.

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Well, mostly. I beat the final form of Dracula in about five seconds by spamming the Boomerang item crash. It’s basically a bomb that works differently, depending on the item. While they cost a LOT more hearts (the holy water is the only sub-weapon besides the stopwatch that costs more than one heart, at three, and its crash costs 20) the boomerang and holy water crashes are so overpowered that you don’t have to even aim them. Whenever the battle between me and a boss was becoming a little too close for comfort, no problem. I just spammed the bomb. Hearts are plentiful and the only time I came close to running out was when I used the holy water, so I avoided it. I died a lot playing Dracula X, but only once against a boss. It was the Grim Reaper. Speaking of which, here’s Dracula X major problem #3: the game’s too short, and its concept of branching paths is ridiculously stupid.

That’s the key. It appears only once in the entire game, at the end of level three. If you want to fight the Grim Reaper and get the “good ending” you have to not die between the time you pick it up and the time you actually need to use it. Oh, and you need to use it twice. You also can’t swap it for a sub weapon. It IS the sub-weapon, and it looks ridiculous when you use it as such. It has no range and you literally just sort of punch things with it. It even has an immersion-breaking crash attack where you hold the key up to an enemy in a menacing way. It looks like this:

It’ll automatically swap which hand is the hand holding the key, aiming it for you.

So, that’s silly as all hell. Oh, and this also does the most damage in all of Dracula X, BY FAR, at no cost to your hearts. It’s four-and-a-half times more powerful than a whip crack. F*cking outstanding, gang. It’s like a satire of a Castlevania game at this point. Now, to get the good ending, you have to use the key on normal Castlevania doors, which only appear twice in the entire game. Both are in level four, and the first is done to unlock Maria. Oh you don’t get to play as her like you do in Rondo of Blood. She’s just there. Then, you have to unlock a second door which (checks notes) skips the 4th boss that’s literally in the next room and takes you to a different version of stage 5. Are you kidding me? Bosses are why I love playing Castlevania, and you want me to skip one?

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After this, the key vanishes from your inventory. I thought I’d done what I needed to get the Grim Reaper fight, because if you don’t do this part, you instead fight Carmilla. Except, Carmilla in this game looks like the Grim Reaper. I mean, look at it!

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Except, I’ve played Dracula X before and I remembered the Grim Reaper fight being different. Well, that’s because I followed a walk-through last time, and I missed one other step. And this is where Dracula X lost me. After getting Maria and going through the door, you also have to rescue Annet, and the way that you do it is completely arbitrary in every way, and it’s all without any clue that this is a thing you need to do. When you rescue Maria, she doesn’t provide a hint that you’re still looking for something hidden. “Annet is trapped in another place.” That’s it. That’s all you get. The location where you activate this final element to get the good ending is arbitrary. The method of getting it is arbitrary. You have to whip a water spout in the final room before the water dragon (Update: wrong Cathy! There’s one section left before the water dragon. In fact, it’s where the ghosts are hidden by the foreground from the picture earlier in this review, you dolt), after the room where the water rises. There’s nothing like this before you get to this point except free lives in walls. But, besides a platform that doesn’t need to be there, the game doesn’t provide you with a clue. I suppose TECHNICALLY you can see that there’s platforms flooded underneath you, but you were just in a room that flooded. It felt like set dressing.

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Come to think of it, wouldn’t she have drowned? That room was just underwater like a few seconds earlier. Whether she should be waterlogged or not, I would be totally down for this type of game design if the whole game was built around secrets like this. But it’s not. It’s a disjointed series of tasks that feel tacked-on as a last second thought. And ultimately, the game isn’t better for the branching paths. It sure isn’t elegantly handled, like how the branching paths in Dracula’s Curse are secretly and precisely scaled to three different difficulties, depending on the path you take. I honestly think the “good ending” bosses were easier. Right before I finished this review, I went back and took the bad ending path, where you have to fight the minotaur and a werewolf instead of nothing and a sea dragon, and I came a lot closer to dying against the werewolf in the “bad ending” level 5 than than I did against the sea dragon in the “good/best ending” level 5.

The strangest part of the “bad ending” path is the werewolf fight feels very similar to the Grim Reaper fight you wouldn’t get taking this path. Both take a lot of hits and alternate between big slashing attacks and a spinning, diving attack that makes them look like Sonic The Hedgehog.

This whole branching paths fiasco is a microcosm of Dracula X. It’s the arbitrary Castlevania. It brings nothing to the table except more of the same, only this time, it legitimately is tough. But, not tough in a fighting type of way. Its difficulty comes down to trial and error. I loved Castlevania 1 and 3 because it felt like I could react to the challenge instead of being caught off guard by it and having to memorize where the unforeseen death element is going to spawn when I’m mid-air. When Dracula X is about reactive combat, it’s fine, I guess. I mean, it’s nothing new and the same gameplay had already been done better and, dare I say, looked better in 8 bits. But when Dracula X shows you its teeth, you’re usually already dead. I’ve never liked games that are like that, and you know what? I don’t like Dracula X. If you want back-to-basics Castlevania, stick with the NES. Dracula X is competent, redundant, and boring.
Verdict: NO!

THE INDIE GAMER CHICK CASTLEVANIA REVIEW SERIES
 Castlevania (NES) Dracula’s Curse (NES) Adventure (GB) Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
Super Castlevania IV (SNES) Dracula X (SNES) Rondo of Blood (SuperCD²)
Chronicles (PSX) Circle of the Moon (GBA)  Kid Dracula (NES) Kid Dracula (GB)
ROM Hacks (NES) Konami Wai Wai World (NES) Wai Wai World 2: SOS!! Parsley Jō (NES)

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What I’m Playing Right Now #15 – with bonus Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2600 Review!

October 31, 2024 by Leave a comment

So, I really wanted a bigger game than Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge up today, and if I do manage to get Dracula X up for Halloween THE DAY and not the time frame, I’ll be cutting it close. This will be the final Castlevania game I do in 2024. It’s telling how prolific the series is that I’m not even close to running out of Castlevania games on classic platforms for future Halloweens. By the way, I’m also late when it comes to Camp Bloodbrook. Our review will be added to the Pinball M guide within the next week. We just haven’t had a chance for the whole family to sit down with it.

So, what AM I playing?

Dracula X is not well loved and, from what I can gather, is considered both a poor remake of Rondo of Blood AND a massive step backwards from Super Castlevania IV. I get the contemporary hate for it, but time has only been kind to Dracula X. No longer bound by any comparison to any other Castlevania, it really does stand tall on its own. And I also get how someone who is a big fan of previous Castlevanias could not love it. That review is NEXT at IGC, unless you count this bonus review of Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the Atari 2600! Happy Halloween!

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Platform: Atari 2600
Year: 1983
Designed by Ed Salvo
Published by Wizard Video Games

Hell, the chainsaw looks more pornographic than the actual Atari pornographic games.

After playing the historically maligned but actually not THAT bad Halloween in The Games They Couldn’t Include – Part Two, I figured maybe history did Texas Chainsaw Massacre dirty too. It didn’t. While I ultimately didn’t give Halloween a YES!, it was clearly a cut above most Atari games and even had an eeriness to it that nobody should still have expected in the 2020s. It felt true to the movie, in a way few Atari 2600 games manage to pull off. Wait.. I am sure I wanted to give it a NO!, right? It’d be helpful to me, dear reader, if you just imagined me looking up at the ceiling in solemn contemplation right now. Are you doing it? No you’re not. I can wait all day. Okay, good. Yea, no, Michael Myers was too easy to learn to cheese and it took the guts right out of the game. BUT, the premise was solid. You can’t say that about Chainsaw. Here, you play as the villain. Why they would do this is beyond me. If you’re the killer, there’s no tension. The horror element is gone. So is basically any gameplay. You walk back and forth, avoiding anything on the screen while you chainsaw people. There’s no gore. They just turn upside-down. When you run out of gas, you lose a life. You get extra gas every 5,000 points. This barely qualifies as a game at all. It doesn’t even have novelty value. It’s like the most basic, lazy idea. The sh*t thing is, I know Ed Salvo was better than this, but this was flawed from the start.
Verdict: NO!

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What I’m Playing Right Now #14

October 31, 2024 by Leave a comment

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.

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Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge (Game Boy Review)

October 31, 2024 by 11 Comments

CV2GBCastlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge
Platform: Game Boy/Game Boy Color
Released July 12, 1991. Missed my 2nd birthday by a day.
Designed by Toru Hagihara & Yukari Hayano
Developed by Konami
Included in Castlevania Anniversary Collection
Included in Konami GB Collection Vol 3 (JP) or 4 (EU)

“Are you sure about that? The sickly yellow background has me quite motivated!”

It’s not like Konami had a massive hill to climb when it comes to improving Castlevania Adventure. “Don’t be so bad you’re in the discussion for worst video game ever made.” No biggie. And Castlevania II isn’t. If anything, it might be the best Game Boy title I’ve reviewed yet. Does it feel entirely like a Castlevania game? I’m not so sure. At least you encounter a skeleton this time. I mean, as a basic enemy. There’s also a double skeleton dragon boss that feels more like a Gradius boss repurposed as a platforming boss. Otherwise, that’s really it. One skeleton. No, bats and ravens don’t count. Neither do the mermen or mudmen. “There’s Jellyfish!” 😶 Seriously? Why are those even in Castlevania at all? “They’re evil jellyfish things!” Sigh.

By the way, maybe the best looking Game Boy platformer. Stick with the black & white version, which fits, right? It was a black & white movie that made Dracula a major pop culture icon, after all. It works so well for Castlevania. Dare I say, the lack of color actually benefits the theme. I wouldn’t want this EVERY game, but it sure does a better job of setting the mood than the choice of enemies does. Speaking of choices, whoever picked the color schemes for Konami GB Classics in Europe really did a lousy job. It’s not having color, but the choice of colors, that really hurts Castlevania II more than it helps it, in my opinion.

Come on! I want to fight the undead! That’s the whole point of Castlevania, right? Spooky settings! Without that, it’s just any other action game, right? Well, I suppose ANY monsters count, but for some reason, it’s the ghouls, skeletons, and the Grim f’n Reaper that make it feel like a Castlevania, at least for me. Sadly, in terms of setting and atmosphere, this could mostly pass for any other generic action game, albeit one that happens to have a whip, candles, and a pair of sub weapons from the famous franchise Castlevania. It still has a bit of an off-brand Castlevania vibe, like the Master of Darkness people were given the rights to try making the real thing. Actually, that’s not entirely fair. Master of Darkness, lame and overrated as it is, feels closer to Castlevania than this does. But, this is the better game, and that’s all I care about.

This is it. The one skeleton enemy, and it’s a wily thing that jumps from rope to rope. Yea, yea, it’s a petty thing to bitch about.

The tone really isn’t helped by the lack of grit in the first four levels. The unfathomable decision was made to make the first four levels non-linear, Mega Man style. So, this Castlevania doesn’t scale at all until the game is over halfway finished. A vastly underrated aspect of Castlevania 1 and Castlevania III is the stellar job they both do of building the challenge. Scaling, when done properly, builds the excitement. Well, that’s gone here, as the first four levels lack anything resembling a sense of progression. Mega Man gets around that by adding abilities. What Castlevania II should have done was remove item drops and have you gain a new sub weapon with every boss defeated. The knife and stopwatch aren’t in this. It would have been so easy to both add them and add sections just for them. Without something like that, being able to take the four levels in any order turns them into nothing more than a checklist. And since I’m being nit-picky, one understated side-effect of this is there’s no opening level. Castlevania games often tend to have amazing first levels. That’s gone too, and for no good reason.

Apparently the ritual that revives Dracula involves four non-Vania castles which are, I’m not joking, Crystal Castle, Rock Castle, Cloud Castle, and Plant Castle. So uh, where are these in other Castlevania games? How come nobody ever tried this ritual before. Wait.. hold on.. is that what Atari was doing with Crystal Castles? Is the bear trying to bring back Dracula? They need to make this canon. And I want to kill the bear with a Belmont. I’m dead serious, and possibly mad.

Unlike Castlevania Adventure, you have sub weapons this time. Two, in fact, and like the two non-awful NES games, they’re insanely overpowered. With them, the first four bosses are total pushovers. If you play the US version, the 5th boss is too, provided you have the axe. If you play the Japanese or Game Boy Color version included in Konami GB Classics Vol 4 (in Japan the order is different and Castlevania II is in Konami GB Classics Vol 3), the 5th boss is the first instance of Castlevania II showing its teeth, but then the 6th boss is a cinch, provided you have a boomerang. Why not just bring the axe to the fight in Japan. Because the sub-weapons are different depending on which region you’re playing. Of all the stupidly weird, unfathomable design choices, this is.. one of them. The holy water is in all versions, but only Japan and Europe got the boomerang. The United States got an axe, which can hit the 5th boss when he’s inside a wall. The boomerang is big and covers the full screen, so you don’t have to be very accurate. Until the 5th boss, it really was a wash which version got the better deal. After that? Nah. I’d rather have the axe. Except, wait, the boomerang is better for Dracula. GODDAMMIT, see, this should have been a decision players get to make IN the game, not when choosing which version to play.

This was my only death in my second playthrough. The fifth boss is an auto-scrolling segment with a dragon that jumps around to different entrances. You have a very brief window to hit it, but its body is so long that it’s hard to avoid taking damage from being auto-scrolled into it. Except, in the United States, the axe can damage the vulnerable head even when it’s not in the gap. It significantly nerfs the boss. That’s not an option in Japan or in the Game Boy Color version.

There’s really only two “tough” segments, and maybe three, in the entire game. The dragon above (and only in the JP/EU builds), the 6th boss (and only in the NA build), and the final fight with Dracula are the only parts that ever made me sweat. The rest of the game is built mostly around rope-climbing set pieces. That sounds absurd, but trust me, it’s better than it sounds. While this Castlevania still feels slow and heavy, it’s not to the point that it’s unenjoyable. It’s fine now. There’s little in the way of last-pixel jumps, and there’s no ridiculous extended escape sequence. All the new ideas work. There’s an extended sequence with ropes attached to pulleys (don’t worry, they’re evil pulleys) that’s based around precision movement and timing and it ended up being one of my favorite Castlevania set pieces EVER. It’s really good. In fact, all the rope stuff is really well done, pulley or no pulley.

Dumping the notorious Castlevania staircases was probably the wisest choice in the game. The ropes just make for a more fun game, even if it logically closes off some more complicated design options. The only thing missing is a boss that you fight while on the ropes. I think they probably should have tried it. They did a good enough job with the level design, which legitimately is about 50% rope-based, that I have faith they could have come up with a clever and intense boss battle on the ropes.

Even the spiders are awesome, which is a sentence I never imagined I would say. The spiders apparently spin rope instead of silk, because whatever they’re pooping out can support your weight. The twist is, if you kill the spiders, whatever length of rope they made is all you have, and sometimes, you really don’t want to kill them. It’s very clever. While the combat never really impressed me, all the platforming stuff is top-notch. If the first Castlevania game was really a combat-focused game that occasionally had platforming bits, this is the platforming Castlevania occasionally interrupted by combat. I found Castlevania II’s offensive game to be mostly underwhelming. Not fully, as there’s some intense moments, but it was still off. The fireball from Adventure returns here, I guess because they couldn’t do the length of the whip upgrades. They even returned a few creatures from Adventure, like the fireball spitting stumps (don’t worry, they’re evil stumps) and the Night Stalkers. Bringing them back was probably smart, since those two creatures are the only ones that ever pose a legitimate threat. Most of the action is timing-based, but like with Kid Dracula, it just works.

Killing the spiders leaves the ropes, but the jumping is still tough to judge, especially off the ropes. Speed jumping off the ropes is a big part of the level design in multiple sections.

While the bosses are still mostly push-overs, Castlevania II does a much better job of making them feel like “moments” than Castlevania Adventure did. However, there’s a few missed opportunities. Not one but TWO bosses are actually two different creatures that are fought at the same time. In both instances the dual bosses share one life bar, so killing one wins the whole battle. Weird thing to complain about, maybe, but it just feels like they’re not quite as immersive as you’d hope. Also, the final battle with Dracula is pretty ridiculous. He surrounds himself with huge spinning orbs that fly off in all directions, but in a circular way that makes them hard to dodge. It’s the only point in the game where I felt the collision wasn’t spot-on. But, in my second playthrough, I beat him on the first try. I lost to him so many times on the black & white version I had to reload my save state, and I had like eight lives going into it.

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It’s funny that Konami was on such a cold streak this year at IGC. Parodius on the MSX got a NO! Monster in my Pocket got a NO! The DOS version of Simpsons Arcade got a NO! along with the US ROM for Simpsons Arcade Game. Rollergames got a NO! twice in one review. The Lone Ranger got a NO! Even NES sacred cow Tiny Toon Adventures got a NO! In fact, before the Contra/Castlevania marathon I’m on right now started, I’d only given one Konami game a YES! in 2024. It was for the Japanese version of The Simpsons Arcade Game. This marathon reminded me that Konami was once an elite developer. I’m not a huge original-generation Game Boy fan. It’s just not for me. But Konami has absolutely proved their bonafides this week with THREE elite games, and honestly I think Castlevania II is the best of the three. Better than Operation C, easily, and I think better than Kid Dracula. It might not completely feel like a Castlevania game, but as a one-off spin-off based around ropes, it’s a LOT of fun. The ropes and the focus on timing and accuracy means you could just as easily replace the “scary” stuff with Indiana Jones and it’d work as an Indy game. Not just that, but probably the best Indiana Jones game ever. You can even keep Dracula. Hell, if Indy can fight aliens, why not The Count too?
Verdict: YES!

THE INDIE GAMER CHICK CASTLEVANIA REVIEW SERIES
 Castlevania (NES) Dracula’s Curse (NES) Adventure (GB) Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
Super Castlevania IV (SNES) Dracula X (SNES) Rondo of Blood (SuperCD²)
Chronicles (PSX) Circle of the Moon (GBA)  Kid Dracula (NES) Kid Dracula (GB)
ROM Hacks (NES) Konami Wai Wai World (NES) Wai Wai World 2: SOS!! Parsley Jō (NES)

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Kid Dracula (Game Boy Review)

October 30, 2024 by 5 Comments

Kid Dracula CoverKid Dracula
aka Akumajō Supesharu: Boku Dorakyura-kun
Platform: Game Boy
Released January 3, 1993
Designed by Yukari Hayano
Developed by Konami
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED*

*Okay, TECHNICALLY Kid Dracula did sort of get re-released once. In 2000, Kid Dracula was added to Japan’s Nintendo Power flash cartridge service. So it really should be classified as NO MODERN RELEASE.

Is it a remake, a reboot, or a sequel? “Yes.”

I just reviewed the Famicom-exclusive Kid Dracula. I almost skipped reviewing the Game Boy version after my experience playing the original for the review didn’t live up to my memories of playing it in 2019, with Castlevania Anniversary Collection. I’m happy I didn’t skip it, because it sure was an interesting game. This is the only Kid Dracula that the whole world got. But, even with the global release, this was it. The end of Kid Dracula as a franchise. Why is that? Well, I’m guessing most people never bothered trying this, and it’s not hard to figure out why. Kid Dracula suffers from what I like to call “Avenging Spirit Syndrome.” A quality Game Boy release that they put about two seconds worth of effort for the box art on, so nobody bought it. Have a look.

Are you f*cking kidding me? Go through all the effort of developing and manufacturing a game only to have the box art look like how it does on the left. Compare that to the visually striking Japanese cover art that looks like a game that actual effort was put into. We’re a shallow species, and when people see a cover that’s phoned-in, they assume the game is too. That’s not unreasonable, by the way, so do not half ass your cover art. Shameful. Absolutely shameful.

Box art has nothing to do with gameplay, of course, but it really pisses me off because I’m almost certain that cover art drove a stake in the heart of Kid Dracula as a franchise. The Game Boy version, which is part remake, part sequel, slays the NES original while also making some bonkers mistakes. Honestly, the box art tracks, because there were some infuriating decisions made when developing Kid Dracula. Like, hey, who wants post-stage mini-games with so much text that it takes forever just to get to them? Seriously, these are supposed to be the fun little side-game stuff, but the game won’t sh*t the f*ck up and just keeps going and going and going and GOD DAMMIT WHY IS THIS GAME SO F*CKING INFURIATING IN SO MANY NON-ESSENTIAL WAYS?!

If a mini-game requires this much text to explain, maybe you shouldn’t f*cking include it in a Game Boy game! This particular mini-game is basically the Game & Watch disaster “Judge.” AKA the Game & Watch I ranked 51st out of 52 possible games. After painfully explaining the rules to rock-paper-scissors a half-sentence at a time (because that’s all they could fit in the teeny tiny text box), the rules KEPT GOING. You see, it’s not enough just to have the correct throw. No, if you get the right throw, you also have to press a button to club your opponent over the head. If you throw the wrong thing, you can also block. If you hit your opponent when you lost or had a tie, you get a foul. Sometimes, the opponent blocks you, causing this trash fire to drag on even more. You have to get five hits to your opponent’s two, including fouls. This is supposed to be the fun side distraction?

I’ve never seen a platform game from this era with as much downtime as Kid Dracula on the Game Boy has. The levels aren’t that much longer than the time it takes for you to (1) see the cutscene after beating the boss (2) see the new power you earned. Steps 1 & 2 are the only ones you can skip if you want extra lives (3) go through the “welcome to the bonus round” text. At this point, you can opt out of steps 4 through 11, BUT, if you need lives (4) see the text that painfully explains to you every single time what four games could potentially happen based on which crystal ball will have which bonus game (5) the animation that shuffles the crystal balls, which takes a while but goes slow enough that you can clock it (6) you have to choose one of the four crystal balls (7) the idiot telling you what mini-game was selected (8) the introduction and rules to the mini-game (9) actually playing the mini-game, some of which are timed, and some of which can hypothetically go on forever (10) the post-game wrap-up telling you what you won or didn’t win (11) then being sent BACK to the post-stage menu where it takes two screens to say the words “what would you like (next screen) this time?” and if you have enough coins to play again, you have to repeat steps 4 through 11 (12) seeing a completely pointless and non-interactive map screen. THEN you get to actually play Kid Dracula again. Un-f*cking-real! Below is a slideshow of all the screens it takes to get through steps 3 through 7, and that’s not even close to the whole process of getting back to the game!

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The worst part about all of that is Kid Dracula is a mostly really good game. Right from the start, you can use the “change into a bat” ability, and you get the walk-on-the-ceiling power-up early too. Instead of large stages, Kid Dracula is mostly broken-up into bite-size chunks, complete with an animation when you reach the end of one. Many levels and set pieces from the original game also return. The extended “bullet train” roller coaster sequence is back. The ship is back. The vertical jumping sequence up a narrow tube is back. The speed, jumping and movement physics from the Famicom game are mostly intact. Many bosses return too. This is probably 55% – 60% remake. However, there’s enough surprises for people who already played the first game to not get bored replaying the same stages and bosses in the black & white version. Hell, the first boss had a gag that made me literally laugh out loud. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil it.

And that’s not to say the levels are a complete retread. The first stage, once again a homage to Castlevania, has this brief section with tilting platforms. Kid Dracula does just enough to remain fresh, at least when it wants to be a platform game instead of the world’s most agonizingly slow mini-game collection.

The same combat that I found to be underwhelming in the Famicom original is back and more-or-less unchanged. Enemies can sometimes be too spongy and your attacks are never as good as you wish they were. The ice attack (and in fact, the entire ice stage) is gone, and in its place is a powerful short-range attack where you make three bats fly in a circle around you that sacrifices range too much. Later in the game, it surprised me by awarding me to two new powers instead of just one when I finished a stage. In addition to the bomb, I got an umbrella that can be used to shield you from some bullets and environmental hazards. It can also instakill some smaller enemies just by walking into them, but it doesn’t destroy them. It just sort of rudely causes them to fall off the screen. This version of Kid Dracula leans much more heavily into tight squeezes, spiky floors/ceilings, and timing-based platforming than the Famicom game. But, that’s for sure a plus in a game where the combat is still pretty ho-hum. I don’t think I’d describe the original Kid Dracula as “exciting” but the Game Boy version certainly is.

Oh hey, this looks familiar.

The bomb attack from the Famicom returns, only this time, it’s also used to break through walls, and this leads to the worst part of the platforming aspect of the game. I bet anyone who has already played this knows what part I’m about to talk about. Near the end of Kid Dracula, there’s moving walls where you have to charge-up a bomb (which is done by holding the B button) and use it to ping one single block of this moving wall at a time. The catch is, when the holes you’ve made scroll off the screen, they’re gone forever. Because you have to hold the button to charge, and because the bombs only destroy a single block with no splash damage and you’re two blocks tall, you have a VERY small window from which to get through the walls before your progress is lost and you have to start over. It took me quite a while to make my way through this small section. One wall is hard enough to get through, but then you have to get through two, and then three. It took me so long that my hands were hurting from this one area alone, and then a boss fight happens that involves a similar play mechanic. This idea should have been killed on the drawing board OR the bomb should have done two blocks of damage. By the way, the initial bullet that blows up is really tiny and you’re going to need to jump too, so timing and aiming this is pretty tricky.

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Kid Dracula on the Game Boy is deeply flawed in many ways. I have no clue what they were thinking with some aspects of it. It’s often so obviously ill-suited for a handheld device. There’s no saving, either. Passwords only. Now granted, if not for the downtime, this could probably be finished in about thirty minutes to forty-five minutes for a first time player. So what? It’s Game Boy! None of that matters to me in 2024. If this gets a re-release, I’m far more likely to play it on my TV than I am as a handheld. For all its flaws, Kid Dracula is clearly one of the best original Game Boy releases. The boss fights that nearly sank the Famicom game ended up being the element that had me convinced this is the better Kid Dracula game. Don’t get me wrong. The combat is still middling, but the OOMPH that I felt was missing from the TV version is here, along with added gags that land much more frequently. The best bosses from the NES game are here. The bad ones are either improved or removed.

The new stages are easily better than the ones they replaced. The ice stage was awful on the NES. The challenge was based entirely around sliding to your death. The forest works better.

Kid Dracula for the Game Boy deserved to be a hit, warts and all. It does an even better job of telling jokes and being a satire than the NES game did. The personality is dialed-up, but it never comes across as trying too hard. The quiz boss from the Famicom is gone, which tells me they figured out that it didn’t work as they intended. I assume they were aiming for Mel Brooks “going off the rails” type of subversion, but it didn’t land because it wasn’t funny. What would have made more sense was to swap to an entirely different gameplay style. ANYTHING but a quiz. A tennis game would have been funny. Or hell, Kid Dracula slaps on a pair of ice skates and a game of Blades of Steel breaks out. That’s a joke. A quiz isn’t, because it’s not a Konami thing. Thankfully, there’s nothing remotely like that on the Game Boy. There’s so many twists that I didn’t expect, especially with how the boss fights play out, that I just shook my head in disbelief. They really did a great job of subversion of expectations. On a Game Boy game! Whoa!

This was a boss in the first game. It’s a set-piece in the second. So nice.

Sure, they had more time and a few years to reflect on the original, but still, it’s the Game Boy. I didn’t expect them to trounce the NES version to the degree this does. Kid Dracula is one of the most underrated games on the entire platform, even if the post-level mini-game crap is annoying. Nice job on the cover art, gang. Bravo. You screwed us all out of a franchise. This is one of those ideas that Konami should get an indie dev to revitalize. Parodius too. Gaming has caught up to the idea of tongue-in-cheek games. Every Mario RPG is basically Nintendo roasting itself. Konami was light-years ahead of their time, and now, they’re so far behind the times that it’s actually just kind of sad. So, I’ll leave you with thought: it only takes one game to change that. Dracula arises once a century, and hey, there hasn’t been a new Kid Dracula release in the 21st century. I’m just sayin’.
Verdict: YES!

THE INDIE GAMER CHICK CASTLEVANIA REVIEW SERIES
 Castlevania (NES) Dracula’s Curse (NES) Adventure (GB) Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
Super Castlevania IV (SNES) Dracula X (SNES) Rondo of Blood (SuperCD²)
Chronicles (PSX) Circle of the Moon (GBA)  Kid Dracula (NES) Kid Dracula (GB)
ROM Hacks (NES) Konami Wai Wai World (NES) Wai Wai World 2: SOS!! Parsley Jō (NES)

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Kid Dracula, aka Akumajō Special: Boku Dracula-kun (Famicom/NES Review)

October 29, 2024 by 6 Comments

Kid Dracula
aka Akumajō Special: Boku Dracula-kun
Platform: Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System)
Released October 19, 1990
Directed by Shiro Murata
Famicom Exclusive
Included in Castlevania Anniversary Collection

If you’re unable to play this, just put on Castlevania and hum the theme song to Sesame Street.

After playing the completely charmless, unlikable Castlevania Adventure, I needed a game that is all charm and impossible to not like. Kid Dracula is to Castlevania what Parodius is to the Gradius franchise: a satire of their own games. Despite being included in Castlevania Anniversary Collection, gameplay bears little resemblance to Castlevania. Actually, Kid Dracula plays more like Mega Man: a platforming shooter where you gain extra abilities as you go along. Unlike Mega Man, ‘Lil Drac is totally linear, and there’s no ammo for your new abilities. You need only to charge-up the B button. The first level is a direct parody of Castlevania, with set pieces and art assets that will be very familiar to fans of the franchise. Even the music is a friendly remix of the first level’s theme from Castlevania III. After that, Kid Dracula does its own thing. This could have easily been a Count Duckula game for as little as it has to do with Castlevania.

Every stage in Kid Dracula has a gimmick section at some point. Here, you’re riding a bullet train? Either that’s a tiny train or Kid Dracula is HUGE.

If you want to know what to expect, the closest comparison to Kid Dracula is Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti. You can read my full review in Namco Museum Archives: Volume 1 – The Definitive Review. It’s funny how much the two games have in common.

  • Both games are hyper-cute satires of horror-themed games made by the same publisher as the original game that’s being mocked.
  • Both were Famicom exclusives released in back-to-back years (1989 & 1990).
  • Both debuted globally in retro collections released in back-to-back years (2019 & 2020).
  • Kid Dracula was shot in a Ford, while Splatterhouse was shot inside.. wait, wrong comparison list.
  • Both are not as good as you want them to be, but you can’t help but enjoy them.
  • Both games were probably just good enough to launch sub-franchises, but it never happened.

At least Kid Dracula got a sequel, but only on the Game Boy. This is probably the next IGC Review.

Now, obviously the point about how neither game is quite as fun as you want it to be is the most subjective. But, of the two games, I think Kid Dracula is clearly the winner, and it’s not really that close. Kid Dracula has superior level design and enough gimmicks to keep the game fresh for the whole experience. The first time I played it was with the release of Castlevania Anniversary Collection, and I was totally stunned by its quality. In a positive way. I remembered it as a nearly-flawless and highly idealized NES platformer. In replaying it, boy was I wrong. Not only did flaws stand out quite a bit during my replay, but I realized the gameplay is good, but not great.

I really like Kid Dracula, but the word “unforgettable” doesn’t apply to it. By the way, Kid Dracula is a surprisingly tough game. It looks like a kiddie game. It is NOT a kiddie game. There’s some stretches during it, like the subway stage pictured above, where Kid Dracula shows its teeth. The final level is even harder. By golly, this really is a Castlevania game!

A lot of that comes down to Kid Dracula’s attacks. The combat just isn’t as fun as it probably should be. You can shoot straight ahead of you and up, but not diagonally. Each time you beat a level, you gain some new power, most of which are attacks. Almost any basic enemy killed by a charged-up attack will drop coins that are spent on a randomly-selected bonus game after a level. Enemies can be a bit spongy, and attacks like “SEEK” which is a cross between Contra‘s spread gun and Operation C’s homing gun, rarely does enough damage to kill an enemy. I didn’t get a lot of coins my first play through because I used SEEK and often had to finish off enemies with additional non-charged bullets, which never pay off with coins. While Kid Dracula’s combat never gets dull, it also feels like the offensive game never heats up. Enemy placement is predictable and there’s often not enough to give the game stakes. There’s no “OOMPH” to it as I say, which is strange because Konami usually does OOMPH very well.

I recommend springing for Castlevania Anniversary Collection, which has an emulator optimized just right for this. Minimal slowdown or screen-tearing. On MY emulators, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak, and I had constant slowdown. I would love for a Super Mario All-Stars or Mario Advance-like mandate on remaking a lot of the more famous NES games. Retain pixel art, but beef it up to 16-bits and no slowdown. Kirby’s Adventure, an NES game I can’t enjoy at all because of the non-stop technical issues, went on to become Nightmare in Dream Land, one of the best Game Boy Advance titles. It’s a damn shame we never got GBA-enhanced versions of Kid Dracula, Contra, or Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. They would have been awesome.

Kid Dracula’s biggest strength, besides its personality, is a pitch-perfect pace. The level design is fantastic, with “events” spread out fairly evenly. It’s like they included every platforming trope just enough to check it off a list. There’s a desert stage. There’s a slippy ice stage that sucks ass and is the worst part of the game, easily. There’s a giant climb up a tube into space that’s really good. There’s an underwater stage that uses the concept of moon jumps to build the challenge around, and it just works. Eventually, you gain two platforming special powers that the game immediately utilizes in the level design. Really, it’s three, since the ice power allows you to freeze enemies which can then be used as platforms. I never once used it for that reason. In fact, I only used the ice power at all because the start of the final level has a boss that’s immune to all other bullets except the charged-up ice gun.

“Hey, weren’t you in Mendel Palace?”

The other two powers are the ability to turn into a bat for a few seconds and the ability to walk on the ceiling. Jeez, in 2024 I’ve played a lot of ceiling-walking games. There’s the Jetsons and.. uh.. the other Jetsons. There’s M.C. Kids. And uh.. okay, it’s THREE games and not “a lot.” But it’s four now. But, walking on the ceiling is always fun, and Kid Dracula does it pretty well. You even fight a boss doing it, and it’s one of the better bosses. My biggest knock on it is there’s apparently no way to cancel it once you activate it. I think the only way is to let the timer run out, which you can see in the status bar.

If anything, I think they under-utilize the ceiling stuff.

The bat is more problematic. It has a curling stone-like movement to it, and grazing any wall overrides it and turns you back. That wasn’t exactly game breaking, but rather it just slowed down the process of changing back and forth because you can’t be too close to a wall when you activate it. I was constantly having my attempts to switch to bat mode canceled. On the other hand, there’s a few tight squeezes where you need the bat, and I never died during any of them. Not even on my first playthrough of this review. This could have gone SO badly, as Konami proved themselves with the dam stage in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I suspect they learned a lesson making that game.

Thankfully, there’s enough clearance to not make it ticky-tacky. This is Goldilocks-levels of tightness. Narrow enough to make you sweat it. Wide enough that you don’t need to be perfect. Collision detection is mostly good too. There’s a few eye-rolling damage moments, but they’re few and far between. Yea, they learned their lesson from that damn dam stage.

So the level design and style swaps are really good, but Kid Dracula rarely sticks the landing when it comes to the boss fights. While they never stink (well, one might), most lack a certain something to put them over the top. And the one that may or may not stink is not even a real boss. You encounter the Statue of Liberty, who hosts a game show where the first to buzz in with three correct answers wins. This is one of those things that crosses the line from “genuinely quirky” to “trying too hard” like someone getting drunk and wearing a lampshade on their head.

I’m fairly sure the questions happen in the same order every playthrough too. Yea, this doesn’t work for me. If you don’t read Japanese, you’ll need a translation ROM hack or just play Castlevania Anniversary Collection, which has an English ROM.

Thankfully, that’s the only instance of something like that. The rest of the bosses are, you know, bosses. The first one is actually censored in Castlevania Anniversary Collection, and you can read why at Cutting Room Floor. The rest are actually fairly cliched as far as gaming bosses go. It never gets as wacky as the bosses in Parodius. Again, they’re not boring, and a couple manage to stand out. But they’re not spectacular, either, and even after replaying the game a few times, I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe there wasn’t enough pizazz to them. Or maybe they were onto something with the Statue of Liberty and should have leaned harder into weirdness. I couldn’t figure it out in two full playthroughs and half of a third on Castlevania Anniversary Collection. But that’s Kid Dracula’s story in general. It’s really good. It’s not great, or at least as great as you want it to be. Good thing it’s charming, because without this, I think it’d be just another above-average NES game.

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At the same time, it’s a game that deserved to touch-off a new branch of Castlevania as a series. Why couldn’t Kid Dracula become a franchise all by itself? They tried! There’s a Game Boy game that I’ve not yet played (I’m rectifying that right now), but then they just gave up on the Kid. He didn’t even get a Super Famicom game, even though this concept is BEGGING to be made into sixteen bits. It won’t happen now. If there was no outcry for it after Anniversary Collection, it will never happen. And, after replaying it for the first time in five years, I’m at peace with that. Because, enjoyable as it might be, it’s also stiff and awkward handling. I never got a real feel for the jumps. I never really loved the attacks. I was also genuinely surprised by how little of the game I remembered five years later. All I really remembered was liking the game a lot, but nothing stuck with me. Not even the trivia bit. But, after playing it again, that makes sense. It is largely forgettable. That tells me that Kid Dracula is all charm but little substance. It makes for a good afternoon with your NES, but it’s not sustainable as a franchise. I get it now, and even if I want more, I’m also fine with what we got.
Verdict: YES!

THE INDIE GAMER CHICK CASTLEVANIA REVIEW SERIES
 Castlevania (NES) Dracula’s Curse (NES) Adventure (GB) Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
Super Castlevania IV (SNES) Dracula X (SNES) Rondo of Blood (SuperCD²)
Chronicles (PSX) Circle of the Moon (GBA)  Kid Dracula (NES) Kid Dracula (GB)
ROM Hacks (NES) Konami Wai Wai World (NES) Wai Wai World 2: SOS!! Parsley Jō (NES)

According to my parents, I was scared of Count Duckula’s opening and would make sure the channel wasn’t going to show the “scary duck.”

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What I’m Playing Right Now #13 – Mighty Taito Tetris Rangers Starring Kid Dracula

October 29, 2024 by 3 Comments

It seems like November/December is going to be one of those times when tons of stuff I plan on covering releases all at once. The next update to Atari 50 is going to hit. Tetris Forever is going to launch in two weeks and I’m doing it. Taito Milestones 3 has been dated for early December, as has the new Power Rangers game from Digital Eclipse. Good lord, I’m going to be swamped.

Of course, I’ve reviewed all the classic games that bore the name “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” plus the two Super Sentai games that came before them. I just missed that review beating the announcement for Rita’s Rewind, and the truth is, that review had an audience of one: Digital Eclipse. I’m friends with most of their producers, and I have much love for them. They’re me. They’re gamers, and it’s so easy to get along with someone that you can connect with on that level. But, when the time comes to do game reviews, that friendship sh*t is out the window. But, I have faith. The benchmark for being THE BEST Power Rangers game is very, very small, but Digital Eclipse doesn’t aim for “good enough.” They clearly understand that this is a maligned franchise full of lazy, half-assed cash grabs, and they have a fanbase starving for the first unambiguously good Rangers game (don’t tell me the fighting game is. I played it. I was bored.)

I really don’t know if I’ll ever get around to doing the rest of the Power Rangers games. They’re not better. They really are all middle-of-the-road at best, and there’s SO MANY games I want to cover.

How many media properties have had dozens of games and not a single stand out in the pile? Has any media property EVER had so many games that were mediocre or worse without at least one game that everyone can point at and say “at least we got that one”? Or, to put it another way, if my analytics are any indication, the main lure of Power Rangers: The Definitive Review was the Sega CD review. The one EVERYONE knows is a trash fire. Y’all are weird, but I love you for it. So, it’s not like Digital Eclipse has a tall mountain to climb, but I have confidence they’ll knock it out of the park. This will be one of the first non-compilations I’ve reviewed of theirs. I think the only other one I’ve reviewed is Alice in Wonderland, which turns 25 next year. I really hope that Digital Eclipse, Nintendo, and Disney can work things out so that game can get a re-release.

Taito Milestones 3 hits at the same time. Jeez. The time hasn’t even arrived yet and I’m feeling the crunch of all these games I planned on reviewing hitting at the same time. Now, last time around, my review copy of Taito Milestones 2 came pretty early, but I was still late because I was completely unfamiliar with the included games. That won’t be the case with Volume 3. My readers seem more interested in this collection than they do Tetris Forever, which really speaks to how beloved Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, and the Rastan games are. Actually, going off feedback, it sure seems like people are a lot more interested in how my Rastan reviews will go than the Bubble Bobble franchise. I’m especially proud of my Taito Milestone reviews. Here’s Volume 1 (with Elevator Action and Qix) and Volume 2 (with NewZealand Story and Liquid Kids). My review copy could arrive any time now.

I’m really hoping Tetris Forever won’t require 60+ hours of gameplay to review. I haven’t used emulators to “cheat” on any compilation I know is coming. Not Atari. Not Taito, and Not Tetris Forever. Man, it was tempting with Tetris, but I want to be icy cold going into it, and I only checked the lineup so that I could decide which games to use in BONUS REVIEWS that will be a staple of the Gold Master Definitive Reviews from here on out. In addition to the Tetris games included, I’m adding a small handful of extra reviews that go after the main feature. I did this with Making of Karateka, where I also included reviews of the NES and Game Boy versions of Karateka that I’m guessing they wouldn’t have included even if they could have. In the case of Tetris, there’s a lot of games they couldn’t use because of, let’s face it, Nintendo. There’s so many options for me to go with, so I decided to limit myself to five. Or six, since one of those will include two versions.

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  • Tetris (Tengen – NES)
  • Tetris (Game Boy)
  • Tetris DX (Game Boy Color)
  • Tetrisphere (Nintendo 64)
  • Magical Tetris Challenge (Nintendo 64 & Game Boy Color)

MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!

The one that came the closest to making the cut? The Virtual Boy version. And it wasn’t because it was frying my eyeballs. It was just not that interesting. With all five versions above, it’s not just the gameplay that interests me. Tetris should be, in my opinion, fascinating to discuss. Few games have a mystique to them like Tetris does, and any game that loses that isn’t worthy of the discussion. This won’t be the first Tetris review I’ve done. I reviewed Tetris 99 back in the day. I basically had to since it owned my life for a few weeks in 2019. I pulled off a few miracle comebacks, like this one below. I also had a rare “no badges” win. Meaning I made the final two without ever knocking a single person out, so the person I was up against had all the attack power of all 97 other players, and I still won anyway. So, I think I was pretty good at it. I was also so addicted to it that I had to delete it from my Switch.

I also reviewed an indie version of Tetris called From Below that I’m completely heartbroken isn’t in Tetris Forever. It’s Tetris set during a giant squid attack. One tiny change yields HUGE gameplay results.

So, what AM I playing?

475 lines, 698,026 points on Tetris DX.

I did that today. And I think that’s pretty impressive for THE MOST RIGGED TETRIS GAME EVER dagnabbit. Yep, I stand by that, and I’ll talk about it in the Tetris Forever review. It’s weird they couldn’t get the Game Boy games since it’s basically the most famous version of Tetris. Yea, yea, I have to get back to Castlevania, but I realized I’m running out of time to do the bonus reviews for Tetris Forever as well.

The Kid Dracula Famicom review will hit in a couple hours, followed by more Castlevania goodness. I’ll be looking at the other two Game Boy releases, Dracula X for the SNES, and the MSX game before Halloween.

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What I’m Playing Right Now #12

October 29, 2024 by 1 Comment

Have you been enjoying the Contra reviews? Are you excited for new Castlevania reviews? Well, have I got amazing news for Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and Steam gamers (sorry PlayStation fans, you’re not included). Right now, you can get Contra Anniversary Collection and Castlevania Anniversary Collection for $3.99 each. FOUR BUCKS for some of the best collections out there. Wow! Any one good game in either of those sets are worth $4 by themselves, easily. Here’s what is in each set, and if they’re clickable, it means I’ve got the review up for it. Contra Anniversary Collection is weird because it has the US and some Japanese ROMs on the same menu, BUT there’s also the option to switch to an all Japanese ROM menu with different ROMs. So, I’m just going to list what’s on each menu!

CONTRA ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION
MAIN MENU

  • Contra (Arcade)
  • Super Contra (Arcade)
  • Contra (NES)
  • Contra (Famicom)
  • Super C (NES)
  • Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES) Review Coming Very Soon to IGC
  • Operation C (Game Boy)
  • Contra: Hard Corps (Genesis) Review Coming Very Soon to IGC
  • Super Probotector: Alien Rebels (SNES, European version of Contra III: The Alien Wars)
  • Probotector (Mega Drive, European Version of Contra: Hard Corps)

“BONUS JP VERSION” MENU

CASTLEVANIA ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION
MAIN MENU

“BONUS JP VERSION” MENU

If you’ve somehow never played these games, you really should. Even if you’re not a fan of older games, or even their respective genres. I think they’re good enough to transcend genres, eras, or tastes. They’re some of the best games ever. In fairness, neither set is fully comprehensive. Contra Force? Nope. The MSX games, Contra and Vampire Killer? Nope. Rondo of Blood? Nope. Alien Wars for Game Boy? Nope. Castlevania Legends? Nope. Haunted Castle? It’s the wildcard of Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection, which includes eight games, seven of which are classic Konami shooters and one of which deserves to be taken out back and shot. BUT, the set is also only $3.99 right now. Dracula X? It was released on Castlevania Advance Collection, which is also on sale, but only for $12 instead of $4. You get all three Game Boy Advance releases, all three of which are stellar Metroidvanias and probably the greatest 2D action-adventure trilogy of all-time. Dracula X is a +1 throw-in for it, not that the set needed it. If you’ve been holding out on those collections, they’re basically the best value in gaming right now. So, what AM I playing?

Kid Dracula (USA, Europe)-241028-203720

“Dad’s going to be so proud of the wacky adventure I just had! I can’t wait to tell him and.. hey wait, is that a Belmont up on that cliff, watching the castle with a content smile? Oh no, that can only mean one thing..” As Kid Dracula turned around to await the inevitable, he said to himself “man, I need to switch sides.”

It’s going to be a packed week, folks. Kid Dracula for the Famicom is coming NEXT at Indie Gamer Chick. The Game Boy sequel, which I’ve never played before, will follow it. Castlevania: Dracula X is coming THIS WEEK to IGC. So is Vampire Killer, the MSX game. MSX fans seem to have found the Contra review, and I appreciate the support so much. It’s sad that, in 2024, only one collection currently has MSX games: Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Volume 1. It has both MSX games. So, Konami does remember the platform. Hopefully, the wonderful MSX community will be rewarded soon with a prestige collection that celebrates the most underrated gaming platform I’ve seen. It’s not like it only got five games. Can you imagine me reviewing a game from a platform that only had five games?!

Nah

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Operation C and The Castlevania Adventure (Game Boy Reviews)

October 28, 2024 by 11 Comments

Operation C
aka Contra in Japan
aka Probotector in Europe
Platform: Game Boy/Game Boy Color
First Released January 8, 1991
Designed by Toru Hagihara & Yukari Hayano
Developed by Konami
Included in Konami GB Collection Vol 1
Included in Contra Anniversary Collection

The Castlevania Adventure
Platform: Game Boy/Game Boy Color
First Released October 27, 1989
Designed by Masato Maegawa & Yoshiaki Yamada
Developed by Konami
Included in Konami GB Collection Vol 1
Included in Castlevania Anniversary Collection

In terms of graphics, this is one of the first great looking Game Boy games.

“Operation C? That’s a funny way of spelling Contra Force, Cathy.” Yea, here’s the thing: I haven’t posted a new review in a few days, but I’m also not ready to finish writing-up Contra Force. It’s one of those games that requires multiple play-throughs and lots of note taking. It’s bad, but not in a simple way. It’s both “complicated bad” and “bad, but in a way that could have just as easily been really good” and reviewing games that fit both those bills is easily the hardest part of what I do. Since I want to keep the content drip coming, I need a game that’s “uncomplicated good.” Thankfully, the Contra franchise is full of those, so the marathon continues uninterrupted. Except, it’s Halloween week, so I need to transition smoothly to Halloween-appropriate games. Well, again, that’s easy. Because these games complement each-other for all the wrong reasons. Operation C really proves how good the Contra formula is. Even with the game chopped-down to five levels, only three of which are side-scrollers, by golly, it’s still Contra. If amputated, colorless, laser-less Contra is still a good game, it’s a safe bet that we should be talking about this as one of the greatest classic gaming franchises of all-time.

How about it? A boss in the top-down levels that’s better than 90% of the top-down stuff from Super C? Yea, this slaps.

There’s not a ton to say about Operation C, but getting the obvious out of the way first: it’s probably the easiest Contra. I only died once in my warm-up game, making it all the way to the elevator section of the final level when, what is and isn’t a safe distance between you electric gates that come out of platforms isn’t clear. I think the problem is the beams squiggle but their collision boxes are one straight line. In my second playthrough, I aced the game without dying. I didn’t bother to do the “can I beat it without autofire” test because my hands are killing me. Too much pinball. Oh, and at this point, I should note that the second play-through was on the Game Boy Color-enhanced European exclusive release Konami GB Collection Volume 1, which has some ugly ass use of color.

Think that’s bad? You might want to put on sunglasses for this next one.

What’s especially weird is that the collection still uses the Probotector name, but unlike the original European version of Operation C, it just stuck with the Contra characters instead of re-spriting them as robots.

Yea, that’s pretty bad. Still not as bad as Castlevania’s logo looking like it’s ready to suit-up for the Los Angeles Lakers, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Operation C isn’t just missing levels. The machine gun is gone. The laser is gone. Even the rapid fire and invincibility are gone. There’s only three guns, one of which is new and one of which is changed. The spread gun starts with three bullets but, if you collect a second spread item, it becomes five. I’m pretty sure it’s the only one of the three that upgrades like that. The flamethrower is like the flamethrower from Super C, only it can’t be charged-up. A brand new gun, the homing gun, manages to nerf Operation C even more than spread. You fire heat-seeking bullets that seem to always pick the optimal enemy. Overpowered? Sure. The most overpowered gun in the franchise so far. But, at least it’s fun to use.

Can’t stress enough: the top-down levels have made the jump from “elephant in the room” to “legitimate highlight.”

Really, the best thing I can say about Operation C is that, like the two NES games, the designers were wise enough to optimize for FUN instead of blow-harded challenge. The game might be too easy, but I just played through it twice and I wasn’t even a tiny bit bored. Hell, the top-down levels are stronger than Super C’s. Most of the bosses are pretty fun to fight. The final two bosses, a generic tall alien that flies and a tube with some kind of alien that doesn’t even fight back or have any offensive move close the game, and I wasn’t a big fan. Too generic. The jumping is also harder to clock than the NES games, but Operation C is still probably one of the better NES-to-Game Boy efforts. It feels like a smaller, black & white version of the console games everyone loved. You can’t say the same about the first Castlevania release on the Game Boy.

Oof. When players are more scared of having to start over than they are of the settings, you’re doing Castlevania wrong.

Since it’s Halloween time, it’s time for me to move off the Contra marathon for the rest of the week and hit up Castlevania for the second straight year, and there’s enough classic Castlevanias for me to make this an annual tradition for a few years at least. Nice. Not so nice is starting 2024’s Halloween run off with THIS. Now granted, The Castlevania Adventure released over a year before Operation C. Konami had a lot more time to familiarize themselves with the Game Boy to assure their Game Boy Contra felt like a Contra game. In the United States, Castlevania Adventure was released only ten days before the first Christmas of my lifetime. By the time this thing had to go to manufacturing, Konami probably had an inkling that the previously snickered-at Game Boy was going to be a massive hit and the most desired gift for their target audience of 1989’s holiday season. Well, what kid wouldn’t want a handheld Castlevania? Even if what the series was hadn’t exactly been established. This beat Dracula’s Curse to the market in Japan by a couple months, so technically, the series up to this point was the NES game, the wonky and weird RPG-like Simon’s Quest, the exploration-based Vampire Killer for the MSX, and the unimaginable trash fire that is the arcade Castlevania spin-off/remake known as Haunted Castle.

What WOULD be the best idea in the game, hidden rooms like the one I’m going into here, is significantly muted by the total lack of non-whip weapons. They’re rooms with life refills and maybe a 1up. Whoopie.

So, saying that Castlevania Adventure does a poor job of being a Castlevania game isn’t entirely fair. What WAS Castlevania in 1989? Arguably, the only unifying aspects are the whip, a gothic horror tone, and Dracula. Hey, those are in this game! Good job. And yet, there’s something sinister about Castlevania Adventure, because it sure looks like it’s going to be fun in screenshots. Hell, I’d go so far as to say it looks great! Arguably the best looking Game Boy release of its first year. But, that becomes cruel, because playing Castlevania Adventure is the pits. Christopher Belmont must be one arthritic mother f*cker because he moves like his limbs are full of sand. Castlevania Adventure’s movement speed is roughly on par with any other game’s speed on levels where you get stuck waist-high in water or quicksand. That’s when the game is moving full speed. Castlevania Adventure frequently suffers from bouts of slowdown. This often happens while you’re in the middle of jumping. That’s sort of a big deal when the designers decided to make the #1 method of difficulty last pixel jumps and single-block-wide platforms.

This would have been the most clever bit in the game. There’s giant eyeballs that, when whipped, explode like seen here. Okay, neat, except they lead to more last pixel jumps. It’s not a last-pixel jump to jump over them, so I opted to do that. As if to troll me, it started sending two out. You’re not exactly nimble with the jumps, so I had no choice but to whip them. And it made the above gaps in the platform. Oh, and this was a dead end too. Yea, there’s a level with dead ends. I hate this game.

I have no doubt that Castlevania Adventure is the worst game in the series. I’ve played Haunted Castle, and miserable as that game is, at least it’s not as sluggish or boring as this. Even the exciting parts are ruined by going too long. After about one-third of the third level, the game becomes an auto-scrolling race against a rising spiked floor. This goes on FOREVER, and even after reaching the top, the race isn’t over. Then you have to race against the right wall moving in at you. It actually was very exciting.. for about a minute. But then it just kept going until it was exhausting, and then kept going even further until all the joy of surviving had been sapped from it, and it was STILL GOING. It also didn’t help that in the Konami GB Collection version I played, the same ugly banana yellow background from Operation C had returned.

Seriously, why? Who thought this was a good idea?

I think it was probably a good decision to review Operation C and the Castlevania Adventure as a pair, because I walked away with the impression that Castlevania had to die so that Operation C could live. Everything that you could possibly complain about with one is fixed in the other. I don’t expect the Game Boy to have peppy, fast-paced games, and Operation C isn’t. But, compared to a lot of 1989 – 1992 games, it stands out among action games for coming the closest to an NES-like pace. Castlevania Adventure only has four levels, but it feels much longer, and not in a good way. There’s almost no strategy or individualism to the game because there’s no sub-weapons. It’s just a matter of getting from point A to point B, and the only aid you get along the way is a fully upgraded whip can shoot a fireball that literally bounces harmlessly off the first boss. The bosses in Operation C are big and enjoyable to fight, even if they’re easy. The bosses in Castlevania Adventure, easily the highlight of the game, are average-at-best, and some are smaller than you are.

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Sometimes I play black & white Game Boy icons and think to myself “I’m so lucky I grew up with the Game Boy Color.” By that point, most studios knew how to build fun games tailored to its strengths. But, that was happening long before I got my first Game Boy. Even the Jetsons Game Boy title was really well done. I wonder how much of my own impression of Game Boy was soured by having bad luck with the black & white games I got to play before I started running through retro games on this blog? One of the first was Castlevania Adventure, and I hated it. I hated its sloth-like pace. I hated its jumping. I hated the level design. It might not be the worst game ever made, but it’s one of the most unlikable. Even if you pretend it’s not a Castlevania game, it doesn’t work as an action game. It’s too slow and clunky to be white-knuckle. It’s just a really awful game.

The final level, which was easily the best, was also the only one that didn’t feel like time itself started ticking slower. It rises to the level of “okay.” The problem is you have to play three of the most boring levels in video game history to experience it.

In the case of Operation C, I don’t think a kid would have much regrets with it. It looks like Contra. It plays like Contra. It has all the tropes of Contra. With Castlevania, I think I would question whether this series is for me or not. It seems like it would make any car trip or down time feel longer. It comes across like a bad knock-off of Castlevania. It doesn’t even have skeletons to fight. The enemies are dull. The lack of sub-weapons assures there’s nothing to break-up the tedium. The bosses are too easy, at least until Dracula shows up and hovers above instakill spikes. But the platforming is so heavy feeling. It’s like you have sandbags tied to you, and the whole game is based around how crappy that is to play. Amazingly, another trick they use is having platforms fall quickly underneath you, which is dirty pool given that the controls are unresponsive. Castlevania Adventure IS fine tuned, but not in a way you want from a game. They built terrible movement and jumping physics, then tailored the game around that instead of fixing the damn movement. And yea, sinister is the right word, because you wouldn’t know this from a screenshot. It looks like Castlevania. But it ain’t. It’s an official off-brand Castlevania, and one of the worst games I’ve ever played.
Operation C Verdict: YES!
The Castlevania Adventure Verdict: NO!

THE INDIE GAMER CHICK CASTLEVANIA REVIEW SERIES
 Castlevania (NES) Dracula’s Curse (NES) Adventure (GB) Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
Super Castlevania IV (SNES) Dracula X (SNES) Rondo of Blood (SuperCD²)
Chronicles (PSX) Circle of the Moon (GBA)  Kid Dracula (NES) Kid Dracula (GB)
ROM Hacks (NES) Konami Wai Wai World (NES) Wai Wai World 2: SOS!! Parsley Jō (NES)

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