Fangs for the Memories

I have been spending a lot of time and money on Castlevania of late, picking up the Limited Edition Lords of Shadow and then the Santa Lilio artbook shortly after. The sheer volume of Ayami Kojima artwork in the compilation is simply overwhelming I'm not sure if all her Castlevania works are there as I have yet to finished going through.

Could this sudden surge of interest in Castlevania stems from the 25th anniversary of the series looming this year? It felt like only a while back when the 20th anniversary package was given with pre-orders of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin but I guess the years have a way of creeping up on you. I remember gleefully going through the package as every game in the series is nicely chronicled in an art collection booklet and a series timeline foldout pinup. Aside from Mercury Steam's DLC expansion episodes to Lords of Shadow, very little is known of what Konami has in store for fans this year. Hopefully this 25th anniversary of the series will not go by unnoticed.

The Foreigner

I have a very unique history with the Castlevania series considering I was more familiar with the handheld games than its console brethens. My first Castlevania game was Belmont's Revenge on the original Gameboy a game far too easy back then to seriously considered a classic.
Then on, I have pretty much possessed or played every Castlevania handheld game before and after Belmont's Revenge save perhaps the legendary Castlevania Legends. I even have the Tiger handheld game system of Simon's Quest to indicate how far my roots with Castlevania portable goes.

The Castlevania fan in me had little interest in any new Castlevania without team IGA participation like the recent reboot, Lord of Shadows. That was until I decided to try the demo on PSN network and discovered how polished the game was. Castlevania most prominent features like the art design and music remained as striking as ever despite the absence of series mainstays Michiru Yamane and Ayami Kojima. Ultimately when the Red Dead Redemption GOTY edition announcement turns out to be a little premature, I decided to get Lord of Shadows instead. The Limited Edition was still readily available on local game forums and being priced at a standard game was just too good an offer for me to resist. I have learnt to be more open-minded about foreign developers working on big Japanese game franchise after taking the chance and being pleasantly surprised with Dead Rising 2. At the very least Lords of Shadow looks like a really good horror-themed action game, whether it can do justice to the franchise would be icing on the cake for a long time fan like myself.

Don't Judge Me

This morning I received an email informing me that Castlevania Judgment has just drop to $19.90 in Play-asia, great news for Castlevania fan like myself. Only problem is I ordered my copy a week ago and it arrived promptly at my doorstep today. Oh well the universe is balance and savings that I earned from bargain deals like this usually ended up funding pricey collector's edition and first-day purchases anyway.

Judging from the box art, the game support online versus play with fourteen classic Castlevania characters to choose from. Only problem I could only recognise about five out of the fourteen characters so much for being a Castlevania fan. I have been longing to add this game to my collection but I haven't actually play any of the last three Castlevania in my collection either so this is purely for collecting sake at this point. Looks like I haven't break away from my bad habit of buying games when I don't have time to play otherwise I would have save a bit more on this game.

Another Try

I usually have a very good instinct about what I like and what would make a game great almost to the point where my friends would make fun of me for purchasing games not based on reviews or scores. Though I'm not very fond of first-party games be it Nintendo's or Sony's, the Metroid series was a franchise I knew I would like despite not having played a single game. From the great level design that inspired Symphony of the Night (and ultimately all subsequent Castlevania games) to the John Woo film that never got made, this was a franchise for me. So when i finally had the opportunity to experience the Metroid series for the first time, i didn't hesitate to add Metroid Prime: Hunters to my collection.

Though Prime Hunters was by no means a poor DS game, it certainly didn't showcase the series' best strengths and made me wonder if I was wrong about the Metroid series. Part of the problem was I loathe playing first-person since my PC gaming days and having to perform platform leaps in first-person is an absolute nightmare if you have every played Prime Hunters. Now that the series going to be a third-person game thanks to Tecmo, i decide to give the original Prime series a try. A friend of mine played a big role in this, helping sell to me how great the Prime series is and also how desirable the Metroid Trilogy Collector's Edition is. It's now or never as the Trilogy is no longer being published, I wonder how much of a chance i have in scoring a brand new copy without having to pay an arm and leg at eBay?

A Night with Symphony

Having played almost all post-Symphony of the Night Castlevanias, i was still pleasantly surprised when playing symphony for the first time at how familiar it seems and yet, altogether different than the rest of the games that followed. Perhaps that's the true testament of an all-time classic, it's so well ahead of its time that it still possess the ability to surprised and amazed even to jaded fans of the series such as myself.

I'm amazed at how much innovations Symphony has introduced and yet, somehow all the games that followed in the series failed to adopt it. The ability to transform to both a wolf and a bat, though isn't much of any use in the puzzles or the boss battle is still a welcome addition to the series. The ability to equip different weapon in both arms, clothes and equipment that appear on-screen when equipped, it's easy to see why Symphony of the Night is such a beloved entry in the series. Perhaps it's not fair to compare Symphony with the Castlevania GBA and DS games that followed, after all Symphony was a console game and i have always maintained that console and handheld game are very different, especially in the nature of the time and resources invested by the developers onto the project.

I'm hard-pressed to decide which one i liked better between Symphony and Rondo of Blood, being an action junkie Rondo of Blood felt like the Die Hard of the series with it's endless boss battles and straight-forward action approach while Symphony was amazingly innovative.

November Rain

In the midst of the good news that suda51 is currently working on a follow-up to No More Heroes on the Wii, i discovered that the DS remake to his lost PS2 classic, Flower Sun and Rain has slipped out of the October release window and is currently scheduled to ship in November.

And that only in Europe region mind you as the game has yet to be picked up by any publisher stateside. This creates a problem, not many online stores carry PAL games and those that i know of have no current plans of bringing in this title. I haven't been buying much DS games since getting my new consoles but the upcoming Order of the Ecclesia has revived my interest in DS games. That coupled with the fact i recently stumbled onto a copy of grasshopper manfacture's Contact means that i'm running high for anything suda51 and Nintendo DS. Of course, all this craze is also partly attributed to GHM announcement of No More Heroes 2 during TGS 08.

Perhaps it's not such a bad thing that the game release date has slipped into November, i have way too many orders waiting to be ship out during the month of October and most are not even game-related. Given the current situation, i might just have to download the game to play while i continued my hunt for it. Chances are there might be game stores in singapore that will bring it in since the influx of PAL DS games into the region.

Dawn of a New Order

It seems that Play has wise up to their customers scheming ways. In the past, they would do partial shipment whenever the other items in your order is already in-stock but not without giving you the full discount on your initial invoice. That way, if you were to cancel your remaining order before it's shipped, you would have earned the full discount on only a partial shipment.

I have unintentionally exploit this to my advantage when i ordered Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow along with another game back when supply of the game was begining to become scarce and rumour started to persist about the low print run. Play partial shipped out the other game in the order which i believe was Sprung, discounted down to USD14.90 after the full USD5 discount. However they took a bit too long in securing new supply of Dawn of Sorrow and during the wait, i managed to buy the game at a local game store as i simply didn't want to take the risk. So i ended up canceling the remaining order with Play and in the process, earned the full USD5 discount on only a partial order USD19.90.

Things seem to have changed as Play have not partial ship my order for the upcoming Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia even though some of the items are already in-stock. Perhaps it has something to do with me using a bigger discount of USD10 off this time?

Order of the Day

I don't usually pre-order games aside from limited edition, the last being metal gear portable ops. However playing symphony of the night has got me all worked up that i decided to pre-order Order of Ecclesia from Play-Asia. After all, Castlevania games are notorious for having a low print run and tend to disppear off the shelf pretty quickly upon release.

I haven't decided yet whether i will play it as soon as i get it, seeing that i have yet to play Portrait of Ruins.

Bittersweet Symphony

Being an avid castlevania, Symphony of the night was a game that i have yet to play despite its huge accolades. Acquiring the PSOne really late when the system was on its way out, all i was left with were huge system sellers re-released on budget labels and some other late releases like Dino Crisis 2. Symphony of the Night was such an obscure little hit that it was very difficult to acquire it from game stores.

Having finished Jeanne D'arc recently , i thought of playing Symphony of the Night on the Dracula X Chronicles so as to drum up some hype for the upcoming Order of the Ecclesia released on the DS next month. I missed the sound of UMD spinning in the disc drive and it's always a good time to give it a good spin after running on the memory stick for so long. I always thought that the Dracula X Chronicles was a really good value for money as you are essentially getting three games for the price of one. I would probably have spent more time on it had it not been for the language barrier on the japan import, it's certain not impossible to play given Rondo of Blood distinctly old school lack of menu and text.

But Symphony was a slightly newer game with a little more emphasis on RPG so there was always that worry there. I'm going to try to play it on the import version and if it really does prove too difficult, there always the US version recently discounted on Play-asia. When i initially boot up Symphony, the graphics took a little getting used to as it was from an era of Castlevania that i was not entirely familiar with. Widely regarded as the pinnacle of the series, this should keep me busy for some time to come.

Patapon tee

Despite being an avid gamer, i have only got a couple of game shirts in my wardrobe. I wouldn't want a shirt screaming fanboy at everybody but this patapon tshirt is just too good to resist. It isn't official though, all part of the hard work and passion of a fellow gamer and he was nice enough to print a couple more for us gamers too. Thanks myxery!

Just the other day i was at Borders picking up my Nintendo Power cover story of Castlevania, a lady browsing at the same corner asked me for some help to locate the Metal Gear Solid 4 Prima strategy guide. I sure wasn't wearing a game shirt then so i wonder how she knew i would even have a clue as to what she was looking for. She sure didn't, seeing that she had to refer to her sms for help....

any ideas?

New Order

I pick this up today while i was at Borders waiting to pick up my Patapon tee from a fellow forumer. It's been a while since i got this excited about a DS title but i always had the problem of buying more than playing when it comes to the Nintendo DS. Part of the reason for this is because there are just too many great titles coming out on the Nintendo DS, especially during it's peak a couple of years ago. That's why i stop buying any new DS games after my last one which i think was Hotel Dusk. Now that the Nintendo DS has peaked and is slowly winding down, the titles are far and fewer but that doesn't mean the quality has diminished too. There is still this Castlevania title in the horizons plus another Ace Attorney spin-off from the minds of Capcom.

It's been a while since my last DS purchase, but i hope i will get to work on this game right away when it comes out unlike what happened with Dawn of Sorrow,Portrait of Ruins and the many other DS games i have picked up. Of course, with the propects of not able to track down a copy of Dawn of Sorrow soon after it went out of print and the pre-order premiums i didn't really have much of a choice then.

Sound of the Inevitable

How much is a soundtrack disc worth? Quite a lot in this case, apparently local asian forumers are tearing up a storm over the fact that the region 3 Metal Gear Solid 4 Limited Edition will not include the bonus soundtrack disc like the US Gamestop exclusive. While i myself am sore over it too, it's not like i didn't see it coming. I have never really been a fan of region3/asian release of games, i find them cheap and practically worthless in my eyes nor do i care about supporting the local gaming community like some others. I think it's a mere illusion that purchasing an asian release will help drive up the sales of games in this region and encourage publishers to do more regionally release, after all most of these asian releases are meant for the Hong Kong market anyway. Nor do i have much of a choice in this case, seeing that I don't have access to ordering the exclusive limited edition from Gamestop and i'm not planning to go out of my way to acquire it.

I remember a similar scenario occurring when i pre-ordered the konamistyle edition of Castlevania Dracula X Chornicles only to later discover that the "complete" version should contain the soundtrack disc as well. Major bumper as i have always been a fan of Castlevania music but ultimately i bought the soundtrack separately and ended up with the complete collection anyway. Now that this has happened with the Metal Gear Limited Edition, i have to make some changes and formulate a plan to make the most out of it. I intend to sell the R3 version of the game included in the Limited Edition package as i'm not much of an online gamer anyway and keep the R1 version of the game that comes with the console bundle.

And of course, the bonus blu-ray from the Limited Edition.....hehe

Now i can put the R1 game together with the R3 bonus blu-ray disc and have my ideal collection. I just need to get hold of the soundtrack disc somehow...

Dark Secret

The secret is out....well, it has been speculated for some time now that Castlevania was heading for the Wii console when leaked pictures of the new Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia game menu featured a link-up with the Wii console. During then, Order of Ecclesia wasn't officially announced yet so no one had a chance to grill IGA on this but now that he is currently promoting the new Castlevania DS, he still denies any truth about Castlevania heading to the Wii.

Apparently comic book specialist, Preview were the ones to leak the news in their preview of the upcoming Curse of Darkness comic adaption so i'm not sure how credible this rumour may be. The thought of two Castlevania games been released before the end of 2008 does seem too good to be true but seeing how disappointed i'm over Captivate 08, this certainly is good news rumour or not.

Bullet In The Head

Here are some of the bargains i managed to pick up from Play-Asia during the last Easter clearance sale, some unexpected buys if you consider the fact that i don't usually do budget reprints. Of particular interest is the PSOne Books release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which if you have been following this blog for some time now may know that I already own the Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP so this may seem like an unnecessary purchase. In reality it kinda is and i was contemplating for the longest time whether or not to get this especially when it already available for download on the Playstation Store (PSN) for the Playstation3 but ultimately i caved in as it was been discounted to USD$14.90 (from USD$24.90!). Guess I'm just not ready for the digital era and will still take a tangible copy which i can cherish and keep any day.The Dino Crisis japanese import was also too good to miss as it was only going for a meager USD$7.90 and was in pretty damn good shape for a pre-owned copy, i will definitely keep that in mind when i'm browsing through Play-asia's pre-owned section again next time.There are a couple of other things i would like to point out about both these games but i guess i will save it for later and get to the real meat of this post, the Biohazard Umbrella Chronicles Artbook.

Capcom are known for having some of the best artistic guys in the business, with their character design and art direction but the guy who did the character design for Umbrella Chronicles (Shinkiro) is just plain sadistic. Don't get me wrong, his characters are very much in line with the Resident Evil universe but if i could show you the contents of the artbook you will know what i mean. In fact, if you have played the game you will know what i mean, the proportions of some of these monsters are just plain ridicuious. Of course, artists usually have their own style of proportions which actually makes their work more fascinating, namely some of my idols like Todd Mcfarlane and Ayame Kojima (Castlevania). Ever notice most of the major bosses in Umbrella Chronicles all have insanely small heads?!?! Sure it's intentional to create a more challenging game but to the point where the characters start to look ridicuious is unacceptable. Ivan, the Tyrant bodyguard to Sergei is guilty of this but since he is of a similar series of Tyrant to Mr.X from RE2 who also happens to spot a tiny head i will let this one slide. Has anyone noticed how small Talos' head is? If he even have a head in the first place....

Gun-shy

Gun Survivor 2: Code Veronica is to Resident Evil what Rondo of Blood is to Castlevania, it's the holy grail of the series. Feverishly cherished by the fans, these games actually attracted more attention from their exclusivity status rather than how good these games are, having being denied of a release in the Western market. Though unlike Rondo of Blood, Gun Survivor 2 just happens to be pretty rare but not really any good.

Perhaps it's easier to go back to the beginning to explain how Gun Survivor2 ended up not being released in the US. Back when Capcom decided it would be a good idea to create a lightgun spin-off to their Resident Evil franchise, they decided to develop the game exclusively for the home console platform rather than putting it out on the arcades. The first gun survivor was released on the Playstation platform but due to the severe gun violence in America, the US version had it's lightgun support questionably dropped and even the title was shortened to the rather harmless, Resident Evil Survivor. With its clunky controls and rather unpleasant graphics, Resident Evil Survivor suffered poor reviews and sales though it still managed to attract some interest among fans of the series.

When it came to Gun Survivor2, Capcom have enough sense to partner with lightgun veterans Namco and jointly developed the game on the arcade platform. Borrowing elements and plotline from the recent Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Gun Survivor2 had next-generation graphics and a story that would interest any Resident Evil fans. However due to the poor sales in Japan and the restriction of lightgun use, the idea to release this game on home consoles in the US was completely dropped though it did wound up with a low-key PAL release. Unfortunately, Gun Survivor 2 also suffered from poor reviews but i happened to have a soft spot for this game as Code Veronica was one of the favourite games in the series. Looking back, Gun Survivor serves as a nice compliment to Resident Evil: Code Veronica similarly to how Umbrella Chronicles summarises the early Resident Evil games. It's a nice game to relive the moments of your favourite game, just too expect to learn everything from playing these games...

Code-breaker

Even with the two current handhelds, i have rarely played a handheld game devotely for some time now. Not even with the latest God of War PSP game, but Circle of the Moon recently had me playing religously all the way till the end, despite being a japanese import and i had to refer to an english script translation just to keep track of the storyline. It actually wasn't the storyline that kept me engrossed but the tight gameplay and finely-knitted level design that made things interesting enough to keep me hooked. I finished the game after having clocked 9 plus hours into it and the games' storyline and ending seems like a remiscent to one of the very first Castlevanina games i played, Belmont's Revenge on the Gameboy. Seeing that Konami decided to skip the Gameboy Color during that time by not releasing any Castlevania games on that platform, Circle of the Moon is a memorable return and an early sign of the great success that Konami would soon enjoy on the platform with its Castlevania series.

However if only the game didn't run into some slowdown issues whenever the action is too intense, it would have been worthy of the high praise and score that Gamespot bestowed upon it. Some fanboys call it "bad-coding", the fact that Circle of the Moon was one of the early games in the Gameboy Advance library certainly points towards that. Save for perhaps the last boss fight with the transformed Dracula, the game wasn't too overly difficult to the point where it was impossible. In fact, having just come off playing Rondo of Blood must have helped a lot, as i had a greater endurance to withstand and replay again and again some of the more difficult the boss battles. In the end, i manage to unlock the magician by inputting the password FIREBALL as the player's name which i have yet to try out.

Devil At Work

Castlevania fans are pretty divided when it comes to their opinion on koji igarashi, the man currently at the helm of all things castlevania. Some think he is the best thing to happened to Castlevania, since he was responsible for the most popular Castlevania game Symphony of the the Night while others just think he's the devil at work. For myself, i don't have much of an opinion on igarashi-san since i was a castlevania fan before the Symphony of the Night-era where the baton was officially handed to igarashi and he became responsible for the direction of the series and every Castlevania game to be released. From what i can tell, the guy seems to have a real passion for Castlevania and is trying his level best to keep Castlevania relevant and successful, what with the series having been around for 20 years now. Sometimes it's nice that the people responsible are as much of a fan as everyone else but we all know that passion can't be accounted for talent. His Castlevania are often criticised for having bad level design and poor attempt at storytelling though to his credit, i must say writing a good dracula story is never easy, just look at Van Helsing. Perhaps for those very same reasons Circle of the Moon, one of the few Castlevania games released after Symphony which did not feature iragashi was so highly regarded.

One of the last few Castlevania game to come out of Konami Kobe, the studio responsible for the Castleavania installments on the NES, Circle of the Moon was released as a launch game for the first Gameboy Advance in US, it's initial success was slightly marred by the fact that it was designed to be played with a backlight, something the original Gameboy Advance lacked. It was and still is the highest rated GBA game on Gamespot and has gone down as one of favourite of the series. Well playing for the first time, i must say it is harder than most recent Castlevania with the exception of Rondo of Blood, which was actually a remake of an old Castlevania game. Apart from that, it's quite hard to tell it apart from the other Castlevania games by Igarashi but isn't that the beauty of Castlevania? It never strays too far from it's winning formula and after two attempts to make the transition to 3D, i'm not sure if i would like see a third. However i get the feeling that people have under-estimated igarashi talents and that he will be recognised for his other contribution to Castlevania apart from Symphony. Of course, we are still waiting for this to happen.....

Circle of Life

Ever checked out Gamespot's highest rated games of all time? If you scroll to the all-time list for Gameboy Advance you will notice the highest score they ever awarded to a game on the GBA is actually a third-party game, in fact it's a launch game! It's none other than Konami's Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, the first of three Castlevania games to be eventually released on the GBA. Now either Jeff Gerstmann has been deprived too long of his vampire-staking fix or was feeling generous on launch day, i never really found out as Circle of the Moon was the only Castlevania title from the GBA that i have yet to play. In fact, once i got my Nintendo DS, it was one of the first title i sought to hunt down but during that time, most of the Castlevania GBA titles were already long out-of-print. I ended playing both Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow first when Konami re-printed both games as a Castlevania Double Pack. Yesterday when i happened to stumble onto Circle of the Moon lying in the bargain bins of a video game store. Though it was the Japanese edition, it was too good of an opportunity for me to pass up, especially after coming off the rather import-friendly Dracula X Chronicles.

Coming at a not-so bargain bin price, the cart and box looks to be in pretty decent condition save perhaps for a slight tear on the cover from the old original price tag.Though i was like to point out that i'm very impressed with the cover art for the Japanese edition, it's easily the best non-Ayame Kojima Castlevania cover art I have seen in a long time. Can't wait to get cracking on this game, as soon as i achieved 100% completion on Rondo of Blood....

The Good Ole' Times

They just don't make them like they used....the same goes with games. Many long time gamers who grew up during the 8/16-bit era will tell you that despite the improvements in visual and audio storytelling of games, the games of today just doesn't match up to the games of yester-years. Playing Dracula X the last two days has certainly rekindled a lot of fond memories of the 8/16-bit era, and while i can't attest to the fact that games back there weren't better than the ones now, I certainly remember them being a lot tougher. Then it got me thinking some more, were games back then intentionally made harder because they weren't half as long as games these days? Sure players moaned nowadays if a game can be completed in less than 10 hours but back in the 8/16 bit era, save for the Zelda games, most of them could be completed in one day if you really sit through it on a Sunday afternoon. Well if that myth is true, it certainly worked because i could remember some of these games better than the games of today which i completed over the last few years. Load up the ole Castlevania and i could still remember some of the more tricker level layouts and where exactly Simon Belmont should stand when the ole' Count is about to strike during the grand boss fight. The levels were much shorter and many times, player had to replay the level if they died at a boss fight...so we would play it again and again and again...

You will die a lot in this game.......

I'm afraid i can't say the same about recent games, I can hardly remember any of the boss fights from the last three Onimusha games and probably not even some of the level layouts too. Kinda sad don't you think? They just don't make them like they used to...or are we gamers getting too soft?

Are games today getting too soft?