PixlBit

It's difficult to think I took a month to complete it, considering I captured pretty much everything I played and, at most, it took me 8 hours of actual game time to finish. In fact, it's probably closer to 6, if you take out the one puzzle I couldn't get past and even messaged Nick about when it turned out I simply forgot about how a certain game mechanic worked. That's my issue with doing puzzle-heavy games piecemeal: I forget the rules and end up taking way longer to figure things out because of it. Unfortunatley, getting a new part-time gig and being sick in the middle of the month delayed my ability to review the game faster and I wasn't always able to focus on it easily. 

Anyway, I'll be reviewing the game soon, hopefully doing a video review as well with the capture footage from my laptop. If you want a quick synopsis, it's a pretty good point-and-click with some good ideas as far as making sure you're not searching in the wrong places for too long, good art and sound, but falls into some of the same traps other point-and-clicks do and could have benefitted from some kind of a hint system when you get stuck. Don't get me wrong, the puzzles are pretty simple, but maybe an option to highlight areas where objects you need are likely to be after a certain amount of time would have been nice. And the story is a bit anticlimactic, but I'll elaborate on all this stuff in the review (no spoilers of course, although there aren't many to be had in this dialogue-free game). 

In other news, I broke down and bought the Rondo of Blood/Symphony of the Night collection last night when I decided I needed more Castlevania in my life after another excellent season of the R-rated Netflix show. They've borrowed from a ton of different lore in the series to create a coherent adaptation with intriguing character motivation and heavy blood and gore action and I'm all about it, despite some of my issues with animation, dialogue, and sound design (which all have high highs and low lows, in my opinion). 

If you own the games on any other systems, don't get this one as it literally is just the two games as far as I can tell. No extra bells and whistles to speak of. Hell, apparently these two games were free unlockables in a PSP remake of another Castlevania game. I definitely only bought this for $21.64 because I'd never played either game before. I was planning on just playing Castlevania IV on my SNES Mini for Halloween, but it wasn't hooked up since I took it to my friends' place last and I knew I'd end up buying SotN for PS4 one way or another, so 'tis the season. 

Anyway, since I've been on a Castlevania kick, I found some interesting videos about the history of the series from GameSpot that mostly just lists the games and says some things about gameplay and a YouTuber I'm not really familiar with who runs down all the canonical lore in chronological order. 

As for my personal timeline with the series, I forgot that the N64 Castlevania was my first Castlevania game. It left a kind of bad taste in my mouth, despite the awesome opening cutscene that spooked me in just the right way as a kid. I think I played the Legacy of Darkness version, but I really don't know for sure. I rented it once or twice, but I don't remember liking it much. 

Later, I would play Lament of Innocence on PS2 and actually beat the rental copy I had.  People rag on 3D Castlevania, but I thought that was pretty fun. Apparently, it's the first story in the canonical timeline, according to that YouTuber (games like Castlevania Legends are out because they conflict with other games' lore and Konami even officially took them out of canon, I guess; too bad, cause I like the idea of Sonia Belmont). 

Then I played Portrait of Ruin and beat it on DS, then got stuck somewhere in Order of Ecclessia, then barely got past the first few/couple of bosses in Dawn of Sorrow. I plan to finish those 2 games at some point, since I own all 3 DS Castlevanias. 

Some time down the line I emulated the original NES Castlevania and liked it (I think I've gotten a little past Medusa but never actually beaten the third stage?), then got Castlevania IV on my SNES MIni and am not too far in that, now I have the Requiem collection on PS4. 

You forget how many of these games there are when they're not numbered like Mega Man. 

What's your favorite Castlevania, have you watched the Netflix show, and have you seen anything outside this blog about My Brother Rabbit? 

Well, I'm off to either sleep or start working on making the ads for my part time gig. Have a good one.