Whip Smart
Posted on | October 21, 2008 at 7:12 am | Comments Off
Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (Nintendo DS). And I finished it finally! But are you ever really done with a video game?
Since the next DS Castlevania game, Order of Ecclesia (love those names) is coming out today, I decided it was time to go ahead and finish off the previous game. I am totally addicted to the Castlevania games. I started playing them back on the old 8-bit NES, but I really became attached to the ones on handheld consoles, and I believe I have gone all the way through all the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, and DS games in the franchise. Portrait of Ruin, the second CV game for the DS after Dawn of Sorrow, came out almost two years ago. I probably bought it shortly after it was released, so I’ve been working on it for a loooong time. Of course, there were periods when I didn’t play it for months as I concentrated on other games or other activities. I like to savor the Castlevania games. In fact, I was up to the part just before the battle with the final boss for many months now, but I choose not to do battle with him and instead was concentrating on completing all the side quests, finding all the items, weapons and spells, getting 100% on all the maps, and powering up the characters. But yesterday I decided I might as well go do that final battle and get it over with even though I wasn’t 100% on everything. It didn’t take me long to win either. So I finally got to experience the “good ending” and the end credits.
And since I saved right before that battle, I can still go complete those other quests at my leisure and then do the final battle again, even more fully powered up. Or I can start all over again with many of the items I had at the end. Or I can start again on a harder mode, or as different characters I’ve unlocked. There’s a lot of replay value in these games. Assuming I keep playing, I’ll probably do the first. I never did make it all the way through the Nest of Evil, so I definitely want to go back and complete that. I guess I still want to go to 100% and then do the ending again. Or maybe I’ll just buy the new game and start on that and forget the old one. Ah, the dilemmas of a video game addict.
The Castlevania games on the handhelds are fairly formulaic. They are old fashioned side-scrolling 2D games where you play a character who can wield many different weapons and magic spells. (Weapons-wise, I like the whips the best, which is all that were available in the original NES CV games.) You traverse through a huge castle battling monsters from horror and mythology, until you finally meet up with some version of Dracula whom you have to best. Along the way, you rise in levels and power depending on how many foes you kill and items you find. Each game tries to mix it up a bit and vary the formula. Portrait let you play as two different characters (male warrior Jonathan and a female magician Charlotte), who could be on the screen at the same time. You could switch at any time between which one you were controlling, and the other one would flail around doing semi-logical things to help out. It was pretty cool, but I would often turn off Charlotte because she wasn’t very powerful and would just get in the way, making things confusing if there was lots happening on screen. I’m glad the new game is going back to the one-character scenario.
There are some who say that the Castlevania games have run their course, but I say keep bringing them on! True, they do need to vary the enemies more – the same ones keep popping up from game to game. And the level designs need to be a bit more innovative, creative, and artful. But no matter what they do, I’ll keep buyin’ ‘em and playin’ ‘em!
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: Bicyclists in downtown rush hour traffic talking on their cell phones while peddling. C’mon! Do you have some kind of death wish?
Happy Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “i don’t believe in god and im very happy”.