The super duper retro gaming review thread

Dr Bob wrote: »

grand!, I was using Yabuse(?) satorune and SSF , they're not to bad (well satourne refused to read the disk).problem is that Fraps is the only recorder that works on my main pc , and it can slow down emus somewhat (I need a new PC!)
I'm 99% sure I got both E's on an earlier saturn playthough, I'll dig up the recording and check.
There are 2 different coloured E's by the way , first is orange , second is another color and seems a lot less common
.Some of the bonus triggers are definetly there(the xx0 score trigger that gives 700 points for all bubbles at the end of a level) .TBH if you treat it as a port (not the 100% correct emulation we expect now)its not bad.plus I reckon that game was originally going to be shipped as Rainbow Islands , with a bonus copy of BB in as an extra rather the other way around , based on the work done on the enhanced Rainbow Islands and the intro.

Must have been the D then that is missing. I remember at the time there was loads of bitching on saturntorrents.com about how bad the port is and the one thing was not being able to get an extend and I remember my short time playing it never getting one. It was a long time ago so probably got the facts muddled. Mame definitely had trouble with the extend thing for a while as well. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to bubble bobble so was rightfully disappointed with the ports. Taito lost the bubble bobble source code well before those ports because I read in Games TM I think that one of the 8-bit coders mentioned that they lost the source code so had to play the game to figure out the bonus conditions. I think the 8 and 16 bit ports are far more faithful than the saturn and PS1 port which do seem to just be inaccurate emulations of the roms.

Something relatively retro up on my blog. Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles review:

http://lifein16bit.blogspot.ie/2012/09/castlevania-dracula-x-chronicles.html

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

And back to Castlevania!
The only one I own is SOTN, what are the essentials I really should have?

I hate to say this but pretty them all. I mean there's absolutely no bad Castlevania's with the exception of Haunted Castle the arcade game and Judgement.

On the NES there's Castlevania which after finishing it is one of the best designed games I've ever played. It really is up there with Megaman 2 and Mario 3 as one of the games best.

Simon's Quest is a heap of fun as long as you use a FAQ to get over some of the BS you need to beat the game. It's definitely the weakest of the NES games but still worth it.

CV3: Dracula's Curse. This one here is an absolute masterpiece. Tonnes of levels, different routes through the game, different characters to use. Just so good damn good. The famicom version with the extra sound chip is the one to get bu the US release is fine.

Now for the NES games do not get the PAL versions. CV is a slower paced game than most action games but on a PAL system it's downright lethargic. On a NTSC system it boots along at a zippy pace.

There's an MSX game called Vampire Killer that is part of the series and came out before the first castlevanis but it's a rarity.

On the Gameboy the only one worth getting is Belmont's Revenge. It's a great game. Adventure and Legend on the GB I like but nobody else does, they are a bit crap.

Now the 16-bit systems.

On the SNES you have the stone cold classic Castlevania IV. There's also Dracula X/Vampires Kiss. This is a pretty good CV game that gets a bit of a bad rep because it's a poor mans Rondo of Blood. Ignore the negativity, it's a great game taken on it's own merits.

On the Megadrive you have New Generation/Bloodlines. It's a superb Vania game but make sure you get the US version, the PAL version has gore cut out of it. It's probably the most technically impressive game on the Megadrive and does some crazy hardware tricks the MD was never meant to do.

On the PC Engine CD is Rondo of Blood which you read about. Superb stuff.

On the X86000 is an exclusive Castlevania. However this is available on the PS1 as Castlevania Chronicles. It's a brilliant old school Vania game, well worth getting. Get the NTSC version as per usual :P

For the N64 is Castlevania and Legacy of Darkness. Castlevania 64 gets a bad rep but it really isn't that bad, it's mostly from Nintendo fans pissed off they didn't get Symphony of the Night. Some people make it out to be the worst game ever but it's a lot of fun despite some flaws. Legacy of Darkness improves on the first game in every way and is a much better game.

On PS2 there's Lament of Innocence which is good but a bit dull and repetitive. There's also Curse of Darkness which I'd only really recommend to fans of the series. It can get very dull.

On handheld pick all the games up, they are great. On GBA you have Circle of the Moon (good but extremely difficult), Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow. From Harmony of Dissonance onwards the games play very like Symphony of the Night.

On DS you have Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia

There's also a CV game on Wiiware called Castlevania Rebirth which is very good and well worth picking up, it plays like the more linear games than the SotN type games.

That should keep you going.

Yeah it was a good game, load times on the PS1 nearly killed it though. Looking back it looks a little ropey especially the combat but some things like the voice acting hold up really well. Still for vampire based games it's not a patch on Vania :P