Super Hexagon

The Short

Pros
- Extremely addicting, difficult action game
- Action game? Is this an action game? I'd say it's just like a reflex game
- Seriously, the default difficulty is "Hard" and then it goes up to "Hardererestest"
- Minimalist graphics and flashing colors add to the difficulty
- Only three songs. All are awesome.
- Exceptionally addicting
- Quick; one "round" can last anywhere from a minute to under a second
- Nearly the perfect game for portable devices

Cons
- Not competing for score against friends kind of makes the game less interesting
- Might give you a seizure
- The "Game Over" and "Begin" voices are a bit obnoxious; I wish you could turn them off.

Screenshots don't really describe this game, so here's a video.

The Long

The thing about Super Hexagon that's so great is...hang on, I died.

Ok, we're rolling again. So the thing about...dang it! One more.

So ok, if I just quickly get this...nope. Hold up, one more go.

What? I died in under a second? That run didn't count. This one's for serious.

Ok, no, this one is for serious.

What were we talking about again?

This has reaffirmed my theory that all things hexagonal are evil. 

Ok, right, Super Hexagon. It's a game that's out on Android and iOS and also your computer, Mac, Linux, probably Palm Pilot for all I know; I don't care. The point is: you should probably go get it. If you have all the above devices and can't decide, there's clearly only one course of action: buy it on all of them. It's only $3. But if you for some reason don't have unlimited funds to buy the same game over and over, then I'd suggest the portable (iPhone, Android, etc.) version over another version.

Or you can kick yourself because you didn't buy it in the Android Humble Bundle a few months back. Like I did. Gosh dang it. 

Anyway, this is supposed to be a review, but I seriously can't stop playing this dumb game long enough to write it. Let me just...ok, hang on, we'll do it between rounds.

It's like every stop sign I ever ran is back for revenge.

So the point of Super Hexagon is simple. You play that little bitty dot on the screen, and the world around you spins and sucks all those walls in towards the hexagon at the center. Your goal is to weave through the gaps of this labyrinth, because if you so much as graze one of those solid blocks of color your run is over and you're back to square one.

That's seriously the entire game. There's milestones that are associated with shapes, with line being the start at 5 seconds, triangle at 10, etc. And yes, you heard me right: the first goal is to survive just five seconds. If this sounds easy, note that my current record for Hexagon Hyper Mode (the "Hardester" difficulty, and a remix of the first "Hard" level) is 4.11 seconds. Yep. Just can't get to that 5 second mark.

But you can bet I'll be back every 4.11 seconds to try again. 

What else is hexagons? Well, bees make their honeycomb in it. And bees are evil, too.

This game is purity incarnate. It's minimalist graphics, extremely simple controls of just left and right (it plays like a dream on both touch and computer, though I tend to prefer it on touch controls), and obvious goal are so simple a baby could figure it out. But when you get to the actual game, aka dodging stuff, this game is exceptionally tough. Tough, but very rewarding. When you're on a fourty-five second run on Hexagon (the default "Hard" difficulty), knowing in only fifteen seconds you'll get the much-wanted "Hexagon" shape call and unlock a new level, you start sweating a bit. Or a lot. It's the most intense minute of  your life, and that's the easiest difficulty.

There's six difficulties total...well, three actually. The second three are unlocked after passing a minute in the first three, and are the same levels amped up to extreme speeds. This is the kind of game where you'll play the hardest level, failing out after 5-10 seconds, then jump back to the first one and realize how slow everything is moving in comparison and how much better you suddenly are at the game. And then die anyway. And play again. Because a run is hardly longer than a minute, and everybody has a minute. I have a minute right  now, actually...whoop, died again. 

The tunes of shapes. And rotating death.

The excellent, pure visual design is accented by some kickin' chiptunes. If you don't like them, you can use your own music, but I seriously dig them. One of the best parts is after you die and restart it'll jump to like 2 minutes ahead into the track, meaning you'll hear a different song. But if you want to hear the in-between stuff, the song that happens from 1-2 or 2-3, you'll have to live long enough to hear it. I'll fully admit I haven't heard any of these songs all the way through in-game. Seriously. I can't do it. But I'll keep trying. 

The only thing that's obnoxious is the female voice that says "Game Over" every time you die, or "Begin" when you start. But even that becomes a sort of hypnotic quality, urging you to try again after hearing her say "Game Over" in that kind of disappointed way, giving it one more run before...ok, I died too fast that time, let's try one more time. 

According to Wikipedia, this is how you make a Hexagon. Note the lack of bright, spinning colors and constant failure. 

Perhaps the only real complaint I could lodge against this purity of video game addiction is the fact that it's longevity is, primarily, based on personal accomplishment. If you aren't the kind of person who likes to stretch oneself without others being involved, this might not be the best game for you. However, you can easily fix this by convincing a few friends to buy copies of the game (or buying it for them yourself during a Steam sale) and then competing for top scores. That greatly increases the game's lifespan, assuming your friends are as determined to dodge spinning shapes as you are.

Seriously...there is so much one could say about this game, but really it explains itself exactly perfect in the trailer video I posted above. Super Hexagon is a fantastic experience, and a damn near perfect game. It's extremely addicting, unbelievably challenging, an impossible to put down. Like Tetris on the Game Boy, Super Hexagon is my modern-day mobile killer-app. 

Five out of five stars. 

I was going to put an outro graphic here, but instead I just played more Super Hexagon. Hey; not my fault my phone is right next to my computer. 

Browser based MMO: Ironbane

I wanted to write about this browser-based MMO game called Ironbane for a while, but never actually got around trying it (it's easy though, no need to register for the alpha currently, just hit play; but for me under Linux with Firefox 23 it just kept loading and loading... could have been my very slow connection though). Luckily the creator got into contact with us to remind me about it.

Here is an slightly older video of the tutorial level:


The code (GPLv3) can be accessed on Github, and there is a nice contributors guide. The author also confirmed that there are plans to release all the artworks under CC-by-SA soon, so it can be called a proper FOSS game.

But regardless of that, I feel they need to work on the huge pixel (ok actually texel) density spread, e.g. the strongly different size of individual pixels on the screen ;)

We also asked the creator about any longer plans to commercialize it and this is what he got to offer in that regard:

When we reach beta we would like to offer optional stuff like houses, special clothes and other things for donations (nothing that can give an unfair advantage). So in a way this can be classified as F2P, yes.

Which I guess sounds like a good idea to fund further development and hosting costs.

Anyways... unless you live in the same internet darkage like me, there is no reason not to give it a try!

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

The Short

Pros
- Reinvented Castlevania by taking the aesthetic and mixing it with Metroid-style exploration
- Single-handedly invented the "Metroidvania" (or "Castletroid" if you're a tool) genre
- RPG elements including leveling, gear, and currency all play a role in this new style
- Fantastic 2D art mixed with some 2D and 3D backdrops make the game look good
- Music is absolutely some of the best in the series with almost all new tracks
- Long adventure, with the "inverse castle" twist still crazy
- First game to introduce Ayami Kojima's fantastic gothic artwork for the series
- Buttload of secrets, including fighting game-style magic combos
- Can be a genuine challenge if you play with the "max luck, low everything else" code, which makes the game as hard as the old-school Castlevanias (aka the best way to play SOTN)
- "WHAT IS A MAN?!"

Cons
- Game balance in terms of difficulty is all over the place.
- That being said, 99% of the game is pretty easy, the exception being a few bosses
- These said bosses you pretty much have to cheese using the broken and op items (the sword dropped in the inverse library or the Shield Rod + Alucard Shield combo)
- Recycles a lot of assets from Rondo of Blood from the CD Engine.
- Marked the official end of linear style Castlevania games, which is too bad
- Spawned roughly eight trillion modern day indie (and commercial) games that knocked off the game's formula
- Inverse castle is basically just a hard-mode straight shot, without any story and just one song for the whole area (what is up with that?)
- PSP re-release re-dubbed and retranslated all the lines. They aren't much better, but the corniness is gone, so that's a con.

Dracula: Expert on men and what they are.

The Long

Symphony of the Night was NOT the first Metroidvania game I ever played. That reward goes to Circle of the Moon, though I beat Aria of Sorrow first. I just figured I'd toss that out there just so you know I play games in totally the wrong order, and that's ok.

Anyway, everybody's heard the story, whether or not it's true. Koji Igarashi went to Sony to say that they wanted to make not a 3D, but a 2D Castlevania game on their new Playstation system. Sony told him to suck it up and make it 3D, because 3D was the future. Then Koji went to Konami, and Konami said "No 2D Castlevania, no Metal Gear Solid," so Sony relented. Then the game actually sold pretty badly on release and only really picked up after gaining a cult following a few years down the road (enough to get it "Greatest Hits" status, at least).

I think this story is totally fake, but it does prove a point: game developers know what is good for their series. Most of the time. If you look at Symphony of the Night and compare it to the "modern" 3D Castlevania 64, it's pretty clear that Sony got the way better deal out of this.

Nintendo really should have looked into that "Blast Processing" tech when it had the chance. 

Anyway, the game is pretty much a legend at this point, because it spawned the genre that Castlevania stuck pretty rigidly too in regards to it's handheld iterations for over a decade. It wasn't until Lords of Shadow had to show up and ruin everything that our 2D Castlevanias were squarely in the "Metroidvania" category of game design.

But let's say you know nothing about this nonsense I'm spouting, and need a full rundown. Is this game good? Has it aged well? Is it worth playing on it's re-release on every gaming system ever? Well...probably. I guess. Here's a review anyway.

That's using your head. 

Story-wise, it's the same old nonsense, though it does present it in an interesting way. The game actually starts on the last level of Rondo of Blood (complete with it's level intro graphic, though it calls the stage "Bloodlines," which is in fact the first stage in Rondo of Blood. Come on, Konami, I'm just a huge nerd, I didn't even design the game and I noticed this!), where you as Rictor Belmont bust into Dracula's joint and whip him good. Following which you get a massive text crawl explaining Rictor is missing, and Dracula's son Alucard (last seen in Castlevania III: True Blood) is off to punch him in the face and blow up his castle.

So you play as Alucard instead of a whipping Belmont. This isn't the first time we've mixed it up (Bloodlines didn't have a Belmont, and it had a dude with a whip and a dude with a spear), but the fact there are no whips at all until after you beat the game and enter an unlock to play as Rictor is pretty unique.

Anyway, the story's simple. Rictor's lost his marbles and thinks he's the king of Castlevania, and his sister Maria (who has gone from being a tiny girl to an actual woman) wants Alucard to beat some sense into him. The game does have different endings (based on if you kill Rictor or bring him to his senses, which unlocks a buttload more game to play) which is neat, but the story is hardly worth mentioning.

Minus the atrocious script and god-awful voice acting. It's so bad it's downright lovely. Seriously, I really, really dig this game's atrocious voice actors. They weren't even trying.

You tell 'em, Rictor. 

No, the biggest change is this is not a linear, straight shot Castlevania game. Instead, you as Alucard are tasked to explore the entirety of the castle, gaining power-ups and items that allow you to access further and deeper portions in your quest to find the princess. Wait, that's Mario. Whatever. 

If that sounds like Metroid, then you're both right and have reading comprehension, because I only mentioned that like fifteen times already. The map screen? Ripped from Metroid. Power ups like double jump to get to new areas? Metroid. It does have a few super cool changes, like Alucard can change into a sprinting dog, form of mist to pass through grates and other small areas, and a bat that can fly, all of which unlock new areas to further your exploration. It's cool, and you can see how they took the Metroid formula, flavored it up with some Castlevania style, and it ended up alright. 

The main difference is this isn't a game that you can speed run, nor one that is based on skill like Metroid or the earlier Castlevanias. While, yes, some skill is required for the bosses, the game actually has a level-up system, similar to Simon's Quest. Sort of. Only not at all. I just thought I'd drop that comparison for some reason.

You get XP and level, learn spells by inputting fighting game-style combo moves, find new weapons and armor and equip them, all in a 2D platforming sense. This isn't the first time this has been done (one could argue Zelda 2 did it a billion years before), but it actually feels...well, good. While skill can technically be replaced with level grinding and number crunching, it's still very satisfying to get that 3D "Level Up!" text and have Alucard glow all crazy. Mixing RPG elements with Metroid exploration was, frankly, brilliant, and it shows because they kept using it for future games.

The combination of 2D and 3D in the backgrounds makes this game gorgeous. 

All is not perfect in Symphony of the Night, however. While the equips and level up system are nice, they're also a bit simple. In fact, the whole game feels a bit dumbed down. Focus isn't really on the enemies or the challenge, the meticulous platforming and merciless bosses. Instead it's about exploration and the adventure of finding every secret and rotting in every nook and cranny the castle has to offer. Is this bad? No, not really. But it is quite different from other Castlevania games in nearly every regard. As well as much, much easier. 

While one can argue the second or inverse castle offers the real challenge (and it does), the whole first half of the game is an absolute cakewalk. This is mostly because Alucard, unlike his Belmont buddies in earlier games, controls like a dream. He slides gracefully with way too many frames of animation across the screen, can change his direction mid-air, can easily morph into any animal or form he wants, and has a quick-dash to get him out of sticky situations (or just slide across the floor for fun in reverse). Much like Super Castlevania IV, the game didn't really scale it's difficulty for all these new abilities, meaning if you even have a basic grasp of how to play a 2D platformer you'll stomp your way through this game in no time. Minus the few secret bosses that you have to cheese to beat with the absolutely broken "ultra" weapons. Balance is thrown out the window pretty quickly in, and it just keeps blasting out of control from there. You could be murdering things without even trying, take a wrong turn, and die in two hits. It's a bit like a massive mixed bag of imbalance. 

That looks like a good place to go. 

What isn't a giant mixed bag of imbalance is the graphics and music. I'll say I think this is one of the best looking and sounding PS1 games out there, and certainly the best 2D one. The pixel art is phenomenal and gothic, with the backgrounds often hybridizing 2D and 3D elements to make it feel both modern and retro. As mentioned, Alucard has way too many frames of pixelated animation to be legal, and the enemies all look phenomenal, from the huge bosses to the tiny skeletons.

The music is also absolutely rocking, so much so I actually imported the soundtrack. The opening song (which I will embed below) is probably one of my favorite intro songs in a game to date, with all the rest being just as fantastic. I really only have two gripes: the absence of any "classic" Castlevania tunes (Bloody Tears, Vampire Hunter, etc.) and the fact that the inverted castle uses the same song for 90% of it. Seriously? And it isn't even that great of a song compared to the rest. Come on, guys.

Now that's rockin.'

Symphony of the Night is difficult to review, mostly because of my immense love for the linear Castlevania games. That being said, I absolutely fell in love with SOTN after I first played it, and even to this day I often revisit the game and rebeat it, both with Alucard and the unlocked Rictor. While it does have some serious balance problems, and most skill is easily replaced by grinding or just knowing where the broken items are, Symphony of the Night remains a complete and wholly decent adventure into Dracula's lair. While I honestly wouldn't rank it up as high on my favorites as the best 2D linear Castlevania games, I can say it is still one of my favorites in the series, and highly recommend you get the re-release on PSN or Xbox 360 if you haven't already. 

A new direction, a new style for Castlevania, and a hundred indie game creators rejoice. Finally, something they can overuse now that they've ground duel-stick shooters into the ground.

Four out of five stars. 

What is going on here I don't even know.

Castlevania: Bloodlines

The Short

Pros
- Brings back the regular, forward whipping Castlevania to the Sega Genesis
- But wait! There's a bonus character, who has a multi-hitting spear!
- New abilities like a power-spear vault and the ability to whip onto hooks to swing do a great job combining the old with the new
- Speaking of which, the game is designed around these abilities, meaning you get an equal challenge regardless of which character you pick
- Refines powerups to three key ones, all of which work great
- An excellent mix of difficulty: challenging while still being very much beatable
- Graphics and music are both excellent. Lots of blood and gore for a retro game, which is weird and kind of great.
- Honestly feels like a direct sequel in every regard to the first Castlevania game.

Cons
- While the sprites look great, the backgrounds are severely lacking, especially when compared to Super Castlevania IV
- The music also, while introducing and remixing some iconic tunes, does fall a bit short
- Password system is massive. Seriously. Why is it so big?
- Often overlooked by many fans, which is straight up tragic.
- The last 2D linear Castlevania game ever made that wasn't a remake or a re-release. Think on that for a moment, and cry a little.

It's Castlevania, now with Blast Processing.

The Long

I'm just gonna give it straight: I reviewed the other Castlevania games in order just so I could get to this one. And yes, chronologically Rondo of Blood/Dracula X came out before this one, but hush now, we'll get to that after I finally beat the PSP re-release.

The point is this: Castlevania (1) was a masterpiece. It's the kind of game you know they drew out the levels on grid paper, calculating exact jump and whip distances, judged player reaction and the screen view, and plotted every single corridor down to the utmost detail. It was a level of meticulous game design you just don't get anymore, with infinitely spawning enemies, monster closets, and linear pathways where enemies just pop out to be killed, rather than poise an actual threat.

We got sequels, some good, some bad. Castlevania 3 came close to matching this sort of OCD level design Castlevania presented, but it still felt lacking. Plus the extra characters sort of broke the game because they didn't bother designing the levels around these additions. Super Castlevania IV was a game where enemies just existed to die, your character a powerhouse and the challenge usually platform related rather than a blend of world and enemy. Good, but still not up to par.

Castlevania: Bloodlines is the true sequel to Castlevania on the NES. It is a game that you feel they designed every single stage, every screen, and every enemy with a purpose. The sprites are kept to the same ratios as the original game, with just the right amount of vision and weapon length to make the game intimidating and yet accessible. Jumps and platforming are tricky but not overly frustrating (like many in Super Castlevania or Castlevania 3). And, on top of it, there's a host of new features that fit right into the universe as well as provide necessary improvements to the series.

People say Symphony of the Night was the game that took Castlevania forward, but I honestly think it could have been Bloodlines. The problem is nobody bought this game or played it; they were too enamored with whipping all over the place in Super Castlevania IV, and it became a game nobody talks about, hardly ever reviews, or even remembers.

Luckily, I'm here to set the record straight.

It even brings back the old "Monster Movie" aesthetic that permeated the first game. 

The story is pretty much routine at this point. Dracula's niece or daughter or something is trying to bring the ol' Count Chocula back to life to just be a nuisance again or something. Seriously, what does Dracula actually do? What is his end goal? World domination? Just being annoying? In a world full of dragons, Medusas, and living skeletons he seriously seems like just another annoyance. Dunno what the fuss is about.

Anyway, a major difference is this game covers all of Europe, and is set in 1917 instead of medieval times. As either John Morris, who apparently is a Belmont despite not having it in his name, or The Long Haired Dude Who Has The Spear (I think his name is...Eric? Maybe?) you travel across the continent lookin' for trouble in all the wrong places until you reach the revived undead lord himself and either whip or spear him back to the afterlife. Pretty basic. 

But honestly, the story doesn't matter. It's a unique setting (and surprisingly less "gothic" than previous installments) and you have some new dudes to play as. Big whoop. On to the game.

Well gee, doesn't this look familiar?

Probably the reason people glossed over this game is it came out a good deal after Super Castlevania IV, and didn't have the most notable feature from that  game: the extendo-whip. It also had characters that weren't massive and was on the Genesis, which is known to be an inferior system graphically. However, what makes Bloodlines good is that it goes back to Castlevania 1, looks at how that game was set up, and improves on that formula rather then adding some stupid gimmick like "whip anywhere you want." It then works off that and the Castlevania 3 idea of multiple characters to make this game incredible. 

John Morris is pretty standard. He whips forward relatively quickly and deals a lot of damage. He can also whip diagonally up when in mid air, but this is more for a grab/swing (one of the few things taken from Super Castlevania) to get over specific ledges. Because the "whip everywhere" is gone, sub weapons are actually useful again, which is intelligent design. More on the sub weapons later. 

Eric is a bit different. His spear can attack diagonally, as well as straight up, but it is a slower weapon and a bit clunkier. Missing will mean having to retract it and possibly take a hit. He also doesn't move quite as quickly or jump quite as high, but he does have a duck+jump move that makes him vault off the spear to get to higher areas. He can use the same sub-weapons (which are useful because they attack fast, which makes up for the slow spear) but you'll probably use a different set because of his increased normal weapon versatility. With John it's about hitting the blind spots, with Eric it's compensating for speed.

Also, dat spear. It's huge!

The point I'm getting at this this: the game is brilliantly designed around both characters. Levels feel equally difficult regardless of who you are playing; Eric isn't just a cakewalk because of his versatility and John isn't "hard mode" or anything (in fact, I tend to prefer him for some levels). There also are traversal areas where the way to go splits depending on who you are playing; if you're Eric you may have to vault up to a different path, while John will instead swing forward another way. It's clever and cool and encourages replays with different characters to master their styles.

This is even more impressive considering how well designed each level is regardless. As I said in the intro, this is OCD game design at its best. Every trap, every enemy, and every jump seems planned for a reason. Enemies are put in frustrating spots that require memorization to overcome (or very quick reflexes). Jumps are tricky but not unfair. Health is hard to find but still available, and those who play cautiously will be well rewarded. All this makes this game feel more like Castlevania 1 than any of the other games I've reviewed just far. It's sublime in how well it all fits together, which is something I haven't seen in this series for a while. 

Plus, since it's on the Genesis, blood galore. 

There's other minor improvements that really make this feel like a sequel to the first game. Sub-weapons have been rethought out and redefined so that there's less of them, and the fat is trimmed away. If you liked the Clock or the Knife...too bad, they're gone. Instead you have just three: the axe (the necessary "arching" weapon for John), the Scythe (a mixture between the knife and the cross), and the Holy Water (same as it was before). Also, in a smart change, candles no longer drop hearts but gems, but they serve the same purpose. I mean...come on. Even that makes more sense then hearts. Hearts are life, dumb dumb.

This refinement of the sub-weapons is brilliant because it trims the fat and modifies them down to the three important ones: the arching weapon, the quick forward directed weapon, and the sustain/hit enemies on lower platforms weapon. Choosing which one to use where is actually worth thinking about, and if you remember levels you may find yourself avoiding swaps. Unfortunately, it still doesn't do that thing it does in Symphony of the Night where if you accidentally pick up a new sub-weapon you have a brief second to swap back, but nobody's perfect. 

It ain't Castlevania without a clock tower level. 

I could ramble on and on about the design, but let me just end saying that the difficulty is darn near perfect. The challenge is there but after getting used to the controls and figuring out your characters, you'll be totally rocking it hard. You'll come to anticipate the design (much like Castlevania 1) so that you'll play cautious but with an idea of what to expect. The game does get quite tough the further in you get, but it's a good difficult. It feels beatable, and you actually feel like you're getting better at the game. As all good games should make you feel.

Graphically, the game doesn't dress to impress as much as one would hope. The foreground characters and enemies all look decent, and there's a delicious amount of violence and gore (in the NA and Japan versions; the European versions got censored). Like...a lot, though. Like the first zombie you whip rips in half and leaves bloody innards on the ground. Genesis does what Ninten-don't, it seems. Aside from the new gore, however, as well as a few tricky stages using "blast processing," the game is a bit dull to look at. The smaller sprites are appreciated (unlike the freakishly huge ones in Super), but the backgrounds are particularly drab and the overall game is underwhelming. It's easy to see why, just looking at screenshots, a kid of the 90s would grab Castlevania IV over Bloodlines.

The soundtrack is also a mixed bag. It does have some really cool tunes (as well as remixes) and I always felt the Genesis's sound chip was better suited for electric guitar and really kickin' beats. However, Bloodlines doesn't hit the level of awesome that games like Castlevania 3 and 1 did. That being said, it does have remixes of key songs from those games in addition to the new songs, and hearing them on the Genesis chip is a treat. 

That's some serious Genesis-level tunage going on.

I'm gonna say it again: Castlevania Bloodlines is the true direct sequel to Castlevania. It improves perfectly on what that game set out to do, and refines and trims the fat and isn't afraid to make some dramatic change to the gameplay styles to do so. While this may be considered the black sheep of the linear Castlevanias for not being on a Nintendo system, adding a non-whip character, and axing hearts for gems, Bloodlines is as pure Castlevania as you can get. It's a massively overlooked gem, and should be an essential part of both a Castlevania fan's collection as well as any Genesis collector's stash.

This could very well be my most favorite linear Castlevania game. With solid design, excellent improvements, and multiple characters to encourage replaying, there really isn't any other game in the series quite like it. Super Castlevania IV may have had "Super" in the title, but Bloodlines was where it was at my friend.

Kick Dracula back for good, or at least until Konami needs to make another game to pay the bills. Five out of five stars. 

And off we leap into the sunset. 

Super Castlevania IV

The Short

Pros
- It's like Castlevania, only SUPER!
- We're back to Simon again in this...remake? Prequel? What is this game chronologically, anyway?
- Graphics are pretty dang snazzy
- Also, the music is awesome
- Has like five trillion levels
- Simon has learned how to look up, down, and diagonal. Meaning he can whip in all those directions for the first (and only time) in the series
- Some cool SNES effects like room spinning, chain wipping on stuff, and some giant bosses
- Throwbacks to earlier Castlevania are pretty great

Cons
- Your sprite and whip are so big it covers like 1/2 the screen
- Also, it's absurdly powerful when fully upgraded, and can hit in any direction, removing any challenge
- What I'm saying is this game is absurdly easy
- Lacks the feel of tight, meticulous design that permeated Castlevania and Castlevania 3. 
- Sub-weapons are useless because the whip just rocks everything.
- Less of an actual series upgrade and more of a side-step into a new development

Simondiana Jones

The Long

What is your opinion on whipping? Or perhaps whipping things good? 

If you said "I'm down with whippin' stuff!" then Super Castlevania IV has got that covered and in spades. If you aren't down with whipping a whole arsenal of baddies, then why the crap are you reading a review of a Castlevania game anyway?

So the Super Nintendo came out and Konami decided it was time to port their big fat vampire killing series over to the new hotness. However, after Castlevania 3 mixed up stuff with multiple characters, what could they do to spice up the gameplay for the new kids?

How about having Simon whip in every direction known to man? And, like Castlevania 3, have a whole first portion of the game take place outside the castle? And then add like fifteen quadzillion levels? 

Super Castlevania IV was Konami's attempt to take what was basically an untouched system of gameplay (we aren't counting Simon's Quest here) and spruce it up for a new console. And, while it certainly is...spruced, does that actually make it better? Well...sort of. And sort of not. And with that ambiguous statement, here's the actual review. 

More like Man-dusa. 

I'm like 99% sure that Super Castlevania is intended (chronologically) as a retelling of Castlevania 1, but I'm too lazy to look it up so you're just gonna have to take my word for it. The intro is the same (Simon strutting out in front of the castle and whipping angrily), many of the levels are homages to the original game, and you're Simon...so yeah. Pretty sure. But the story doesn't matter.

What matters is whipping, and whipping beasties, and boy does Super Castlevania have that and in spades. The game's loaded with a truckload of levels, with bosses capping off each level end to provide a fun challenge. You start by going into the castle (sort of?) but it's like a courtyard...then underground...then above ground...then inside...and yeah, it goes forever. While some may argue that old school platformers are short, nobody's gonna be saying that about Super Castlevania. It's a loooong game, with absolute loads of content and cool places to visit. And while this does mean the enemy designs kind of fall apart (a grass scribble monster that looks like a MissingNo from Pokemon? Really?), having this may levels, enemies, and bosses, is pretty incredible. They totally crammed all that data into the 8 MB or 16 MB or however big SNES carts are. 

Again, not doing research.

This game's got next-gen water effects going on. 

But the most important thing about a Castlevania game is Draculas and whipping them, and this is where the biggest major change happens. Well, minus Simon's bigger sprite. Seriously, while taking about "big changes," did he go on steroids or something? He was a little bitty dude in Castlevania and Simon's Quest, and now he's an absolute monster. He takes up a ton of screen space! But that's nothing compared to the whip.

Simon, it seems, has learned how to look up. Rather than being satisfied with just lobbing axes blindly in that "unviewable spot" in an arch ahead of him, now he can whip up, diagonal, or even down when jumping. Dude's graduated from whip college with a Doctorate in Vampire Ass-Whipping, and he's ready to show his skills to the emerging job market of Whippers Inc. I think there was supposed to be a joke in that sentence, but looking back now I'm really not seeing it. Whatever.

When the whip is fully upgraded, the sucker takes up roughly 1/3 off the screen with every swipe. Compare that to the rather pitiful, delayed action from previous games, and you'll see how this is a massive game changer. Sub-items, which were once necessities because of the whip limitation (a ranged weapon like the knife for distance, the bottle to hit low enemies or enemies on lower platforms, the all-necessary axe to hit enemies above you) are now totally useless. This also renders Hearts, which are back as currency for item uses, also totally pointless. Some other dude goes over this in greater detail, so I won't harp on it, but considering sub-weapons making up for your suckyness of having a totally lame whip is kind of a Castlevania staple, getting rid of it so you can just whip everywhere feels a bit like a misstep.

Like, seriously, you can use Mode 7 for good or for evil. Making a huge, nauseating rotating room in your platformer falls under the latter, good sirs. 

The overpowered-ness of the whip also makes Super Castlevania IV: Simon's Whatever a total freaking cakewalk. Enemies haven't really been retooled to match Simon's new skillset, and they sort of just do that "spawn in easy to kill places and exist to just easily die" thing that made Simon's Quest so boring. The main difference is it's satisfying as hell to whip the everloving bones out of a skellington (and thanks to the power of the SNES everything explodes in awesome violent fury), and the game does get challenging as it goes along. Just expect the first 4-5 levels to be kind of absurdly easy, and don't expect the same level of challenge and precision level design you got from Castlevania 1.

Going back to the crazy new whip, this also adds a few new ideas that mix stuff up. Simon can whip diagonally onto hooks and such to make longer jumps, as well as some tricky room-spinning bits. This is cool but unfortunately underplayed; I'd love to have seen some more advanced jumps or platforming that uses the new whip options. The jumping still is a set angle that can't be altered, meaning you have to buy an engagement ring for every jump in terms of commitment level, so it's this weird mix of clunky platforming with new-fangled options and an super-buff weapon. It feels a bit weird, but hey...you can whip birds out of the sky. That's cool.

And don't get me started on the frogs. Those damn frogs. The hardest enemy in the game is little frogs hardly the size of your foot. Seriously. They never stop chasing you. 

Simon you fat lard, you're taking the bridge down!

The game looks phenomenal. While it wasn't the earth-shattering graphical masterpiece the first and third games were on the SNES, it still uses a ton of SNES processing power and has some cool 3D tricks amongst the 2D levels that spice it up. It's consistently good, which is more than one can say for most games, and the background especially are gorgeous. 

The music is also absolutely kickin', though again it doesn't quite match the level of the previous games in the series. The intro song packs one hell of a punch, though, and the remixes of classic songs are awesome.

Dis song is da bomb.

My only real grip with Super Castlevania IV is its attempt to innovate ended up kind of ruining what made the games great. The clunky whipping was always paired with sublime enemy placement, a combo that made the games really hard but also satisfying and an engaging challenge. Super Castlevania IV feels almost like God Mode of Castlevania 1; with this new screen filling, multi-directional whip you're just wrecking shop to any and everything that stands in your way. And while the game does get tricky later on, it never, ever reaches even the levels of the first game in terms of raw challenge. You're just too badass to get taken down.

It feels like they added that mechanic in at the last minute, like they'd designed the whole game around a forward-whipping only whip with the sub-weapons used (as before) to counter specific enemy types, and then at the last second were like, "Aw balls, we didn't add anything new except eighty jillion levels. What if we make him just whip all over the place? That's innovation, right?" and then didn't bother to rebalance the game for this new mechanic.

As a Castlevania game, it's still an absolute blast, and contains most of the small elements that make a Castlevania game great. I still wholly recommend it (it's practically essential for an SNES collector's library), but as a fan of the series it feels a bit like a black sheep.

Regardless, it's still a blast, and you can whip like all over dawg. Who don't want dat?

Four out of five stars.

"And I couldn't have done it without the power to whip at an angle not directly in front of me!"

Assault Cube reloaded, version 2.5.8

I'm a bit hesitant to cover this game, as media licensing is a complete mess, but well some might enjoy playing it and the source-code is there ;)

Here is a longish game-play video of Assault Cube Reloaded:



You can follow the latest development and see the change-log here.

P.S.: Funny to see some of the Red Eclipse artwork and Xonotic sounds (I think) reused, but I wouldn't want to open the can of worms in regards to them being copy-left licensed...

Lips of Suna 0.7.0 released

After a long hibernation a new version of the 3D RPG Lips of Suna was released today!

Take that you, ermm brown something?

More screenshots here, and there are quite a few great new features:

• New terrain system.
• More responsive controls.
• Real single player mode.
• New spell and enchantment systems.
• Many graphical improvements.
• Added limited scope game modes.
• Improved script performance.
• Extended character modeling support.
• User interface improvements.
• Improved mod loading.
• Major code cleanup.
• Several less interesting changes.

Looks like the developers are back at it full-force, so give them some encuraging feedback over here!