Except the stupid Clock Tower with all the spikes and stuff. That level needs to burn in the fires of hell from whence it came. I’m really glad I stuck with Aria of Sorrow
Anyway, this is just a quick update, since it looks like I’ll actually be finishing this game sooner rather than later. It’s also a quick thank you to all those who encouraged me to play and keep playing it. Castlevania is actually kind of fun! Except the spikes. Even the bosses are fun in a despairing kind of way. I’ve come this far without cheating or getting anyone to help me, and I’m going to try and try again until I can finish it on my own.
What’s the most fun about it? The backtracking! When I first struggled through my first two bosses and finished the earlier stages I thought “I’m never going back there again, not for a million dollars!” But it’s great when you’ve leveled up a bit and got some new skills and equips to go swaggering back to your old haunts all like “How d’you like me now?” Enemies that used to take a good chunk out of your life are now hitting for 1 damage. Mwahaha, you’re 100 years too early to defeat me!!! etc etc. Though of course the real purpose of backtracking is to visit places you couldn’t get to before. Which is nice and all, but not nearly as fun as bullying the enemies that used to bully you.
I’m at roughly 50% map completion and it’s taken me weeks to get here, so it’ll probably take another month to finish the game or ‘die’ trying. I’ll report my final thoughts whatever they are when I finally finish it or quit playing (haha, not likely).
Glad to see that you like it, although you should probably have started with Symphony Of the Night on the PSX, which is way easier.
Still I assume you’ll want to play something other than Castlevania after this.
A handheld game just seemed more approachable than a console game, but now that I’m starting to like it I’ll probably play them all sooner or later.
Hey, off topic but I saw your “messed up my page” post back from 2011 or whatever and I thought I would recommend a great WordPress plugin for backing up wordpress and restoring backups. UpdraftPlus, it has a free version, saves backups in your dropbox, google drive, ftp, one drive, etc. Works really well for migrating wordpress sites. I’m a web developer, no affiliation with the plugin, I just use it alot for client work and its awesome, saved my ass many times.
While on the off-topic of your blog – You have a LOt of reviews on here, you could probably make some money with adsense or affiliate links. Just a thought. I bet if you installed google analytics you’d be surprised as far as your page views etc.
Also off topic, and actually the original reason I was going to comment – you play a lot of SRPGs! I am an indie game developer working on an SRPG. It’s still in a super-early-prototype state, not much to show yet. But I would love to pick your brain some time and talk about SRPGs. Up to you.
Apologies about the flurry of off topic comments – I couldn’t find any other way to contact you via the blog.
Great blog, love the reviews!
Thanks a lot for the recommendation! I take occasional backups using the WordPress Export tool, but it does make sense to look into plugins that can automate the process. I’ll look into UpdraftPlus.
Affiliate links, huh… I started this blog because I like games and I like talking about games. I don’t know if I’d enjoy blogging as much if I started seeing it as a financial venture. Not right now, anyway.
I love SRPGs and the reason I don’t play as many these days is that I’ve played almost all the ones I’m interested in. I have an email address for this website… something @tehvidya? I never check it though ^^;; Posting a comment here is the easiest way to reach me, I’m afraid.
ahh, I see. Well I mean it wouldn’t necessarily have to turn it into an unfun financial venture. For example, I have this website for ragnarok valkyrie uprising, it’s a forums, it makes like $50 – $100 a month just from putting adsense on there. That’s from just like a couple thousand page views a day. That took like.. a few minutes setting up a few ads, then copy + paste the adsense HTML onto the page. Autopilot from there. Free coffee or games or whatever. I’m a web developer – saw some untapped potential, I like helping people, just an observation!
If you’re down for a SRPG on the PC: Divinity Original Sin is fairly new, it’s a great turn based tactical game that I played quite a bit and would recommend.
Also for PC, Blackguards had good graphics, and got alright metacritic reviews, but I couldn’t get into it for some reason. I think everyone’s played XCOM, but that’s kind of a sci-fi one if you haven’t played it.. There are quite a few strategy rpgs on PC that kinda slipped through the cracks and never got much attention.
I like how you try and play games even if you can’t stand them! Your disagaea posts were literally like the same thing that happened to me with that game; I couldn’t stand it. Was funny to read like 3 posts about trying your hardest to play Disgaea, lolol.
Play mobile games at all? Shadowrun Returns was kind of interesting, I played it on Android and I think its available on PC and possibly console? Arma Tactics on android was okay..
I love SRPGs also, I wish there were more to play! It’s always been kind of an underserved genre. That’s why I am working on developing one! I’d love to talk some time and pick your brain about SRPGs. The reason I ask, is because you’re obviously an SRPG veteran, you have a lot of great opinions, and do an excellent job of picking apart the good/bad aspects of game design, user experience, etc.. I’d be willing to pay for your time if you’re interested, I guess it’d be kind of like “strategy rpg game design consultant” lol. If you’re interested, email me pdub87 at gmail.
In any case, I love the blog – good stuff. I’ll stop posting this random offtopic stuff in the comments now 🙂
I dunno about ads, but I could look into affiliate links, I suppose. It doesn’t cost that much to maintain this site, but it would be useful if it paid its own way, I guess.
RE: SRPGs, I don’t consider myself an expert by any means and I wouldn’t dream of accepting money for that, but I guess I’ve played enough of them to know what I like and don’t like. I could talk about that much. I’ll sort out my email and send you a message one of these days.
Yeah, I’d love to talk SRPGs some time. Completely up to you tho!
Also, just as a heads up – Wasteland 2 came out the other day, pretty cool post-apocalyptic strategy rpg available on PC. If that’s your thing 🙂
Understandable regarding the ads. For affiliate links, I’d recommend Amazon. They have nice widgets / tools available for adding stuff to your site. And people don’t necessarily have to buy what you link to. If someone clicks on your link, and make *any* purchases on amazon within 24 hours (or something) you get 7-13% commission.