VideoGame_Discussion

@BleedingViolet I don't think it even took 45 mins per Mission. The first one took me longer to get the hang of things, but it felt like I breezed through as the 2 guys with a little more comfort vs. my first run. I did skip the 1 cut scene by accident, but they're equally campy and hilarious - and also only like 6-10 seconds long.

BleedingViolet wrote:

If you want one badge for each mission, I'll make them.

Not for Missions 4-6, though, because (a) they're just harder versions of the first three, and (b) I suck too much to play through them.

Lol only whatever you feel like doing, I figure for a game like this it’s nice to have more
since more people will be inclined to play through if they can find a way to play it.

I still gotta work on Super Ghouls and Ghosts some more. I haven’t touched it this month.

If you make the 3 badges, then I will 100% HAVE to make sure I beat Mission 3 since I fell just short.

Well maybe not... I tried 2 more times just now and was going good for the first few areas, taking little damage but 2 sections (the sea-life boss being 1) ate up my health and I failed to even reach the final boss on the first run. Then I tried as the black guy and did a little better and made it to the final boss but with zero continues and barely got anywhere in the fight. It's crummy that the first 2 Missions are apparently a LOT easier or they give you more credits? Or did I somehow earn more credits in the regular playthrough of M1/2? I dunno, but I was enjoying the game until failing now 3 times on M3...

Mission 1 has infinite credits. Mission 2 has ~7. Mission 3 has ~3. I think there is a difficulty ramp as well, independent of credit count. I did fairly well against the Kraken in Mission 1 once I figured out how to deal damage, but the same strategy turned me turned me into ground beef in Mission 3.

Mission 4, 5, and 6 spikes the difficulty again, and I believe you only have a single credit for each of them. No thanks.

Ah that makes sense. I know I got a little better as I learned, but the credit limit in Mission 3 stunk. I for sure push to attack most of the time and that can be foolish, might try M3 again and see if I can use some save states to limit effective damage taken. As well as seek to be a bit more cautious.

I GIVE UP... tried yet again on M3. Took zero damage through the first couple of fights and was doing pretty good overall until the stupid chef. I knew about the apples and tried to get them only to take more damage from his grenades vs. the little health they provided. Then the lifeboat fight against the 2 sword F*k's ate another continue. Giant squid also sucked, then I foolishly forgot to strive to stay away from the next to last fight guy after knocking him down and went into the final boss with near full health but none of my 4 credits left. Not shockingly his BS cheap spinning teleport-to-shoot your butt attack was employed a good 4 times to end my run.
I 'get' the ramp up in difficulty, but it sort of ruins an otherwise largely enjoyable game... oh well.

Badges are created, and OP is updated.

Hey, everyone.

I'm vacationing right now and don't have access to my usual monthly post templates, but this is right around the time that I'd be soliciting game nominations for October.

Since I don't have the appetite for managing a spreadsheet from my phone and since October is usually our spooky games month, I'm slamming down the executive hammer and saying October's Game of the Month is any game from the Castlevania franchise.

We haven't played a Castlevania game as a thread since 2020, and I'm sure we can all find one or two we want to pick up. Each game will have its own badge. Play one, play many... or play none at all. I'm a nerd, not a cop.

In the meantime, seven more days to finish Dynamite Cop while it's still cool.

Yeah I think I just beat Dynamite Cop with Jean on mission 1.

It was fun. I’ll prolly play some more before the end of the month.
I wanna try out the other two characters.

Does:

Wallachia: Reign of Dracula count?

Renaissance2K wrote:

First!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails...

Edit: I'm also gonna try to beat the original Dracula X (if I can figure out PCE CD emulation) and the SNES version (also in CV Collection.)

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Is this too new to count?

Kommie wrote:

Ooh good one. I need to get back to it. And 2.

2 sucks. 1 was great though.

OK. Well I don't see anyone else nominating anything else!

He did say any game from the franchise would count. And the game is already 12 years old.

Ohhh. We're just playing something from Castlevania. Not nominating. Maybe I'll be a rebel and play Lords of Shadow anyway.

I've been meaning to replay LoS as it was great and I finally got the DLC like gosh 2 years ago now and tried it but it had been SO long since I played the game I felt like replaying. Plus I have 2 and figured I could follow on with it, even though I know 2 is mediocre. So I might do LoS as well, either that or one of the GBA ones I haven't made time for yet, or Rondo or X, heh I wanted to play a number of them in '20 after getting back into the franchise, so I'm not short on options.

Foxhack wrote:

My interpretation of the meme was "Yes," the game is too new, "but actually no," go ahead and play it. I think the retro cutoff is when consoles got digital output (2005) but I'd rather have people playing games that are past that threshold than skipping a month.

In any case, I'm back from vacation, so time to properly highlight the Bruce Willis' (Willi?) in training that finished Dynamite Cop so far:

Renaissance2K {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/b7RJ6LF.gif 100 75{imgt} Slickriven {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/b7RJ6LF.gif 100 75{imgt} {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/tBHTydW.gif 100 75{imgt}

You can earn a badge at any time, but earning it during the first month gets you a special GameTZ NFT badge. You can't see it or add it to a wallet, but trust me, it's as real as all the other NFTs out there...

As I announced in the last post, start thinking about what Castlevania games you want to play in October. If you need some inspiration, check out this Wikipedia page or this YouTube video to check out some options.

Castlevania month will start on October 1.

I already beat CV1... and I was bored last night so I did a full CV3 run, Trevor only. I suck. XD

Lords of Shadow is back on the menu boys!

Unironically not even that bad. I need to give the follow-up a better shot at some point, but most of the jazzy exclamation points are done in the first game.

I already beat Dynamite Cop once, on the first mission.

I just haven’t played it since that night yet.

Also we can literally play through ANY Castlevania game so hopefully
there will be multiple icons or whatever. I’m happy either way,
but does this mean we aren’t allowed to nominate anymore Castlevania
games after this? It’s literally one of my favorite series.

BleedingViolet wrote:

There will be one badge per game, but nothing too crazy; probably just cover art based, like Tony Hawk and NBA Jam were.

I don't have any plans to restrict Castlevania nominations moving forward. Feel free to nominate specific games, and the game will get a specific animated badge.

Heck, I don't care if you repeat nominate any game, for that matter. If enough people are willing to play it and vote for it multiple times, who am I to stop them?

Beat it on the Caribbean Pirates mode with a pal. Game is awesome fun.
image

Dynamite Cop sailed off into the horizon on the back of a kraken. Here are all the badges we earned this month:

BleedingViolet {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/b7RJ6LF.gif 100 75{imgt} Renaissance2K {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/b7RJ6LF.gif 100 75{imgt} {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/tBHTydW.gif 100 75{imgt} Slickriven {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/b7RJ6LF.gif 100 75{imgt} {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/tBHTydW.gif 100 75{imgt} Snappy {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/b7RJ6LF.gif 100 75{imgt}

Many thanks to everyone who experienced this beautiful monstrosity. If you happen to finish later on, feel free to ping me in this thread, and we'll add the appropriate badge to your total.

As announced last week, to get psyched for Halloween, we're playing games in the Castlevania franchise.

Castlevania got its start in 1986 with an action platformer for the Famicom Disk System and has been spanning generations ever since. The formulas changed a lot over the years - starting out as a series of tough-as-nails platformer, but morphing into one of the namesakes of the Metroidvania genre - but most games can promise a good challenge, some awesome weaponry, and a whole mess of gothic monsters to take down along the way.

Beat any game in the Castlevania franchise to earn a new badge based on the game's cover art. {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/iKZyry3.png 79 75{imgt} {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/WPvL9Rq.png 79 75{imgt} Beat Castlevania: Bloodlines to earn either the John Morris badge and/or the Eric Lecarde badge - both of which first debuted in June 2019. {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/Xr6ckht.png 91 43{imgt} {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/zU6EeKH.png 56 72{imgt} Beat Castlevania: Rondo of Blood to earn the Grand Cross badge, debuting this month for the first time. {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/niqVzCH.gif 128 75{imgt}

Don't keep Dracula waiting. Once you whip it good, feel free to post a #BeatIt screenshot.

I will be playing Lords of Shadow and you can't stop me!

So... do backlogged games played last week count? XD

I ended up beating CV1, CV3 and the craptacular 1st Castlevania Game Boy game. I wish Konami would acknowledge CV Legends...

Foxhack wrote:

I suppose.

{imgt}https://i.imgur.com/TP1ixYP.png 79 75{imgt} {imgt}https://i.imgur.com/W6rldfv.png 79 75{imgt}

I didn't realize this, but October is also Castlevania month in the MiSTer Discord, if you feel like doubling up on Internet points.
https://twitter.com/MiSTerFPGABot/status/157608634...

I was going to start off the month with Symphony of the Night on Saturn because (a) it's probably time that I check Symphony of the Night out, and (b) I'm a weirdo that likes playing games on odd platforms, but in a turn of events that could only happen to somebody with too many modded consoles, I sold my Pseudo Saturn cartridge and my Satiator, and I flat-out can't find my Saturn's MODE, so I have no way to play the game. I'm going to start with the 8-bit titles instead.

Edit: Found it.

I just started the second GB game and it is SUCH an improvement over the first one. GB CV1 plays like it were the jankiest, pixel hunting platformer released for the ZX Spectrum. The player's collision boxes are godawful, you have to step like half a body off a platform to be able to make a ton of those impossible jumps. You need some serious TAS skills to beat this game legitimately. Konami allowing a game in such poor shape to ship in that condition is bonkers.

GB CV2 feels like a mix between Simon's Quest and Dracula's Curse. It's very playable, but not unfair. I'd actually place it just under Dracula's Curse in playability.

Honestly, if the frame issues in the first one were addressed I'd like it a lot more, but yeah, overall CV2 is like going to the moon whereas CV1's like walking through Brooklyn. Both really good, both have really hard encounters but pacing, music, general stage design much much better in the second. Drac was tough in both games. Second game has what I think may be the first handheld jump scare spooky moment.

I might play through the first GB title again since I have it in a compilation digitally anyways.
It really is pretty awful though. Most Gameboy games are anymore.
I’ll prolly start with the first NES title though since I always love playing through that one.
If only there were an extra badge for playing through the second time on hard mode
or whatever it’s called 😉 (mostly kidding unless it’s an easy badge to make 😃)

The first Game Boy game is really short, so at least you're not suffering for long.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Oh I know plus I thought you could use save states on the digital Xbox version which helps
especially for some of those lame af platform jumps that had to be kinda perfect.

The compilation has savestates on all platforms, which is a blessing. That game fudging blows. Savescumming is the only way I could beat it.

If I get my Trimui with a week or more left in OCT I will probably beat one of the GBA ones. The Trimui is a small emulator with a screen almost as small as the micro.