Castlevania Adventures

I'm no longer working from home, and I've resumed my lengthy public transportation commute. So I've been engaging in my handheld gaming options a lot more.

For the past week or so, I've been playing my Castlevania Anniversary Collection on the Switch. I got it a little over a year ago while I was replaying the NES Castlevanias, but I didn't play it much before other games took my attention. But I've been wanting something that isn't an RPG to play when I'm not playing Dragon Quest V, and this fit my current mood pretty well.

I played a little of the original game, sampling the Easy mode on the Japanese version, which does in fact make the game comparatively pretty easy. Most notably, it stops you from getting knocked back when you take a hit, which keeps you from falling off the stage quite so much. (I didn't try the Normal Japanese mode, so I'm assuming that's a feature of the Easy mode rather than the Japanese version.)

Desiring a newer experience, I tried out Castlevania: The Adventure, originally for the Game Boy. This is a game I had never played before, as Game Boy games were never available for rent at my local video store when I was young. Playing it now turned out to be a fresh and interesting experience. I full well expected something of a shorter, simpler Castlevania style game, which essentially is accurate. What I did not expect was a difficulty level that ramped up near the end to a game somewhat more difficult than the original NES game.

The game is simple enough that there's not too much to elaborate on here. The gameplay is simple NES-era Castlevania style, minus the subweapons most of the games have. Instead you get a projectile when your whip is upgraded. The big caveat here is that you actually lose your whip upgrade each time you get hit, and upgrades only appear in select candlesticks, much fewer and further between than other Castlevania games. This notably adds to the challenge factor on this game.

The first two levels are fairly simple and straightforward. The third level is a little different. There are only a handful of enemies; most of the level is an auto-scrolling level where spikes from the bottom or side are slowly moving to impale you. It's fairly challenging and took me a good amount of practice to learn the level well enough to complete it.

The fourth level is quite a formidable challenge. It took me nearly a week, at least an hour a day trying to get this one down. No single part of the level is more difficult than the sections in level 3, but level 3 is much shorter and takes less time to figure out what you need.

It took several days before I could even get to the end of the stage to fight Dracula. It took me just as much time or more after that to actually beat Dracula and the game. I could have done it quicker, but I did not feel right about using the game's native save state feature, which wasn't available on the original game. So each time I took a Game Over, I started back from the beginning of the castle.

After a while I began to feel like using the unlimited continues itself gave an unfair advantage. If I had played the game on the original Game Boy, my battery life would have died in the time I'd spent on it. So each new day, I tried starting over from the beginning. It's not too big a deal, because it really doesn't take that long to get through the first three levels. By the time I started doing this, I'd gotten the last level down well enough that at least once I got to Dracula from the very beginning without using any continues.

Dracula has two forms. The first one is actually not very hard and I'd figured it out well enough after only a few attempts. But even though his attack pattern on the second form is still fairly simple, I found it unpredictable to the point that I couldn't avoid his attacks enough to finish him before he finished me.

I never did find a reliable strategy for it; in the end I only beat him by getting to him with a fully powered whip and hoping I didn't get hit in his first couple of passes. He doesn't take very many hits with the strongest whip, but it's so easy to get hit and lose it before you can do enough damage to matter.

I found the overall experience of the game simultaneously frustrating and refreshing. Every now and then, I suppose, it's refreshing to play a game that has a frustrating difficulty, something that pushes you to play a little harder and smarter than a typical game. This is a game that requires a great deal of patience, but it's also a game where patience does pay off. There's not much here that can't be overcome without practice and patience. It was very rewarding to finally finish it.

The day after I finished it, I played the sequel, Belmont's Revenge. I beat it in one day of playing. Objectively, I can see that the game improves in a great many ways on the original, while retaining many of the same elements. But it was a little disappointing still to finish that quickly after the time I spent on the one before.

It restores the subweapons, but just the axe and holy water. It also retains the whip projectile, though you get to keep your whip after getting hit (though certain enemy attacks will still downgrade you). There's still a certain challenge factor from the fact that this game doesn't seem to supply any way to restore your health. But even so I finished most levels after just two or three attempts. 

This game's final Dracula battle was pretty interesting, though. It follows a very specific pattern, but it's very difficult to learn where the safe places to stand are. Fortunately, you respawn just before him even after continuing, like in the original NES Castlevania, so you can try him until you learn how to beat him.

This game also has a slightly more involved storytelling element than most of the early Castlevania games, which was interesting to see. In game, it's mostly just before the end, but it's cool.

Lastly, or at least most lately, I started again on Castlevania III. I didn't actually finish that when I started it last year. I'm sure I've beaten it once before, but I'd like to play around with it a little longer while I prepare to play the 16-bit games on this collection.

Solo Dragon Quest IV finished

 Yesterday I finished my solo playthrough of this game. I made a big push this last week and weekend. As of today I am no longer working from home, and I wanted to finish as much as possible before resuming my commute.

This was not as intensive as Dragon Warrior III, or even II. I went to max level in both of those games; this one I finished at level 47. Doing it at a lower level added to the challenge to keep it interesting, but at much higher levels I think this could get pretty easy. The most interesting part of this was learning about boss regeneration values, which are not as well documented as they are on Dragon Warrior III despite this game having more bosses with background regeneration. It was fun to try this game's different item and spell sets to find the right combinations for beating regeneration on the bosses.

I mentioned before that, for reasons I can't really justify, I stepped on each square in the game. I no longer clearly remember what ever possessed me to do this in Dragon Warrior I. In some ways made more sense with I and II, which have a steeper EXP grind anyway than the future games. But, as one might expect, it was kind of ridiculous in III and IV, which have much larger worlds but a tamer EXP growth curve, as well as endgame metal enemies with much higher EXP yield. Whatever compulsion made me keep going with this, since I'd done it previous games, I'm confident I won't ever feel the need or desire to do this in any other game.

I also went back and finished off my 100% game file. I am pleased to say I found everything in this game without using a guide (other than to confirm I actually had everything). I also updated equipment and monster lists I've been compiling to track recurring items and monsters in the series.

I've decided that what I've got done is enough for me to move on to Dragon Quest V as my main game, which I started last night. I will still do my challenge quests/comparison playthrough of Dragon Quest IV, as I have energy, but my main focus will be V. I've been wanting to replay it for a long time, and have tried restarting it twice before. I think the time is finally right where I can give it the attention it deserves.

Dragon Quest IV

I hit a major milestone on this game in my solo playthrough. I finally found the last of the small medals.

As I accomplished this, it set in for me that I could finally finish my 100% playthrough of this game, and I felt a shift in my focus. It has been my plan in to finish my solo run, then simultaneously do my miminalist run, my no-magic run, and a comparison of the NES, Famicom, and remake versions. After that ambitious project, I figured I'd finally move on to focus on replaying Dragon Quest V.

But now I'm feeling a surprisingly strong ambition to compress things further. Now that I found all the small medals here, I want to start looking for them in V. And now that I found them all, any potential for spoiling their locations in the PSX version is gone, so I feel like I want to start that version sooner than later as well.

I fear I could easily burn myself out too quickly to try to add these runs and DQV simultaneously to my in-process solo run, but I think I'm going to start off on it anyway. We'll see how it goes.

I'm pretty far into my solo run, anyway. It may not take more than a few weeks to finish it, even if I start juggling more games at once. My current save is at Gardenbur, tackling the nearby cave.

On my level 99 Famicom file, I collected the last medal and I've resumed the process of collecting one each of the game's weapons and armor to store in the vault. Some time back I re-collected an iron claw after having sold it. On my last play session I re-collected a cypress stick. Surprisingly, neither of those items can be repurchased if you get rid of it, so you have to find and fight enemies that drop them. It took me exactly 100 enemies to get the drop for the cypress stick.

I suspect it will take me a couple of hours to repurchase everything I can for 100%. Then I'll check the rest of my equipment against equipment lists on the internet and see if I'm missing anything else. But I think I have all of the hard to find pieces; if I'm not wrong there I should be able to declare my full playthrough done within a couple of hours of game time.

Legend of the Holy Sword, or Final Fantasy Adventure

I finished this game yesterday. This game makes an interesting topic to write about.

This was a Game Boy game from back in the day. The original Japanese title translates to something like "Legend of the Holy Sword: a Final Fantasy Story". Its full title in the U.S. was "Final Fantasy Adventure". It was a game that had many elements from the early Final Fantasy games, including spells, weapons, and quite a lot of the character sprite designs from the NES/Famicom Final Fantasy games. But it was more of an action RPG and also clearly had inspiration from the early Legend of Zelda games. 

Significantly, it spawned a sequel for the Super NES, which gained a very large following and ended up generating a whole series of games. The Japanese series title references the Holy Sword featured in the games, but after the success of the second game, which was called Secret of Mana in the U.S., the game titles in the U.S. have all featured the word Mana. This first game is the only game to use the Final Fantasy name in it, but I believe most of the Final Fantasy elements in the game were shed (maybe gradually) from the series and the future games are not considered Final Fantasy games.

The first game in the series is fun enough. But I have a feeling that, if not for the sequel, the game wouldn't be remembered as much more than a relatively obscure footnote in the history of Square. (Arguably, that's still true even with its sequels.) As a Game Boy game, it was designed as a shorter, simpler game than its contemporary games for consoles. There's not a lot of depth to it, and the core game play can be quite repetetive, especially in the dungeons. The menus can be tedious to operate, especially when the game requires you to switch your equipment around far more frequently than most RPG's.

But it has a pretty good story to tell. You can save anytime, and it's paced well for a game that you can just pick up and play here and there when you have a few minutes. You meet and travel with just enough interesting NPC characters to keep things interesting. And the way you use different weapons in different circumstances in the game is actually very interesting, even if it is a little bit to use the game's menus to switch between them.

So while it's enjoyable to play, I don't know that it stands out particularly beyond the legacy its sequels made.

This game, interestingly, has been remade twice, under different new titles each time. Sword of Mana for the Game Boy Advance is a remake of this game; so is Adventures of Mana for modern smartphones. I plan to purchase and play the latter quite soon. I understand the remakes are somewhat different from each other. I want to play both, but the smartphone one is a little more accessible right now.

I played this game because I got the "Collection of Mana" for the Switch for my birthday. It has the first three games in the Mana series, the third of which, "Trials of Mana", never saw a release in the U.S. until, I believe, last year, on this very collection as well as a standalone release on the Switch.

I was surprised to discover that I cannot find my original Game Boy copy of this game. I was going through my Game Boy games a couple of days ago and it's not with them. I know I have the game, but I can't think of where it could possibly be if it's not with those other games. It's been well over fifteen years since I played it, and I'm not sure I've physically handled it since, say, moving into this house. I hope I haven't permanently lost it.

I'm moving onto Secret of Mana, which I think still may be the most popular game in the series. I played it through years ago when it was still a new game, but I cannot remember anything at all about the plot and only remember a few details of the game play (one thing I remember is that changing weapons is a lot easier in this game than in its predecessor). I'm just to the first save point, but it's good so far.

The last thought I have about this is that, because of the title localization choices, I did not know for a long time that Secret of Mana was a sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure. I actually didn't play Final Fantasy Adventure until years after I played Secret of Mana, but I recognized the similarities between the games' mechanics and then learned their connection. It's one of those quirks in the history of game localization. For Japanese players, it was obvious that Seiken Densetsu 2 was the sequel to Seiken Densetsu, but because of the way the titles were localized, that was lost on US gamers who didn't do further research.

Gaming in COVID, Chipping Away

Well, a lot has been going on since March, in the world in general and in my life. I've been in the interesting position of working from home. In theory, that gives me more time for things I enjoy. But it's been a stressful time. And I find that gaming for stress relief versus gaming for fun is different. Somehow I seem to end up playing fewer games with fewer accomplishments on those games while taking more time, and enjoying it less. And, as I've said before, during the stressful months it's hard to write here.

I finished my Dragon Quest III minimalist challenge. Once my wizard hit level 35, the rest of the game went very quickly. I took her to level 40 outside Samanao and then changed her to a priest. Even at a low level, with high-level Wizard spells I still breezed through dungeons and bosses. I had already done everything outside the Necrogond before I even had changed my Goof-Offs to Sages. I had to level up a little for the Necrogond cave and Baramos after, but it still wasn't much time overall.

Zoma was the part of the challenge I hadn't quite figured out. I levelled till I had all spells for my two Sages and my Wizard turned Priest turned Fighter. I still couldn't beat Zoma with no equipment and no Sphere of Light at my HP levels, and set in for another long grind, before I had a flash of inspiration and discovered a strategy that didn't require further levelling. I made use of the Transform spell, spamming Lightning on Zoma. I did some math and realized that with the right sequence of commands, I could push the odds of winning with that strategy past 10%, and within half a dozen attempts I was successful. 

I've been working on doing Dragon Quest IV solo now. I did the first four chapters with the lead party member solo (Nara was the hardest, but I finally got lucky with the Silver Tarot Cards inflicting Balzack with Surround). I'm now up to Mintos in Chapter 5.

I'm giving in to an old semi-OCD play-style on this playthrough. Like I did in the solo Dragon Warrior III challenge, I'm stepping on every square. For reasons I'm not sure I can describe, I did this in Dragon Warrior I & II and found it an interesting way to mix up the level grind. By the time I started it in Dragon Warrior III solo, I had begun to tire of it but wanted to finish what I'd started. I actually started a solo Dragon Warrior IV around the same time and started off that way too, thinking it would help with the level grind. Once I finish this playthrough I won't do this again in another game.

But I had one other motivation besides mixing up the level grind. I thought it might help me in my search for Small Medals. The last time I played I made a list of the ones I found. Since the game doesn't tell you if you've found them all, I looked up the total number and learned I was missing three. Some time back I booted up the game just to play casually for a short time on my existing game file, and I just happened to search a conspicuous spot and find one I didn't have. I thought that forcing myself to step on each game tile might tune me in to check remaining conspicuous spots.

Small Medal Spoiler Alert: I've already found one that I didn't have, right in the town where I previously mentioned I'm at. So now I only need to find one more.

Once I finish finding them, I'll go back to my Japanese game file at level 99 and finish getting 100% of the items.

I also bought myself an import PS2 to play the remake of Dragon Quest IV. Unfortunately, the copy of the game my wife had previously gifted me wouldn't work on the system and I had to buy a new copy of the game. But I'll play the different versions side by side like I did with the other Dragon Quest games, once I finish my solo game.

I got Collection of Mana for my birthday and I've been playing Final Fantasy Adventure. It's a fun enough game, if a simple one. I've played it before (I have the original cartridge) but I don't remember it well. I just got the Rusty Sword and I'm expecting to finish it very soon. Then I'll replay Secret of Mana, a game I know I played through but which I also can barely remember.

I kind of stalled out on my playthroughs of Banjo Kazooie and Pokemon Blue, but I'll probably pick them up again before too long. I beat Super Mario RPG and have started Paper Mario, but so far I've only been playing when my daughter is around (debating on whether or not to just play anyway, because it seems really good).

I also finally beat Earthbound Beginnings. It's a very interesting game, but it would be a lot more fun if the encounter rate wasn't so terribly high. I didn't make good enough use of Repel Rings because I was afraid of spending too much gold and filling too much of my inventory, but I should have got them anyway. Most other items aren't terribly useful and you get way more gold than you can practically spend.

I want to replay Earthbound, but I need to get my hands on a working Super Nintendo. (I do have a copy of the game from way back when).

I've also been chipping away at unlocking things in old Smash Bros. games again. I finally looked up how to unlock Mewtwo in Melee, because nothing I did was working. I was trying to unlock each character without using the "Play xxx versus matches" method. Turns out (spoiler alert) you can't unlock him without playing versus. Both unlock methods are done with versus games.

I was able to determine that we had unlocked him this way in our older game files, so I was satisfied that I didn't miss out on anything here by looking it up.

There's probably more I'm missing. If I get the oomph to write again before long, I'll try and pick up the slack. I'm really looking for ways to make the whole experience of my games less solitary, and writing about it in a blog is one way to do that. We'll see what happens.

So Many Games

I've been playing a larger variety of games lately than I have in quite some time. I muse on it all the time. I thought it might be time to write about it.

First off, I'm much farther in to my Dragon Quest III challenge. My wizard has around 243,000 EXP, closing in on 3/4 of the necessary experience to learn the Open spell. I had a goal to get there by the end of the month, but I got derailed from it a bit.

I recently finished playing Luigi's Mansion. I thought I had played it through years ago, when it was still fairly new, but nothing about the game beyond the first few rooms has prompted any memories. I think I must have put it in my queue and then forgot that I never actually got to it. I played it through with my daughter as an audience, because it was her interest in the recently released #3 that prompted me to get this game from my little brother and play it through.

I'm also getting close to finishing Super Mario RPG on my Wii U Virtual Console. That's a game I downloaded a few years ago also partly for my daughter's sake, but fell off playing fairly early in. But I picked it back up a little bit ago and I play it when it's just me and my daughter in the family room. I've wanted for a long time to play through the whole list of Mario RPG's, and my daughter has become a fan of the Paper Mario games. So I thought replaying this would be a great starting point.

I've picked up a few games on my Wii U, which makes a good system to play when I'm watching movies or TV shows with my family. I finally finished off 100% on Super Mario 3-D World. I had done all the original characters and about half of the game with Rosalina before falling off of it, but I've beaten everything with her now also. Her little spin jump move was surprisingly useful on Champion's Road, and the level wasn't as hard as I thought it would be after so much time (though it still took me a few hours of trying to get it).

In the last couple of weeks, I've also settled down playing Earthbound Beginnings, which I downloaded some time ago on the Wii U but, again, didn't get far in before getting distracted. It takes a bit of time to figure out what you can do at the beginning while simultaneously getting your character strong enough to do it. I finally finished the Podunk town area and just got back there after detouring through Magicant and Merrysville.

And I've officially picked up playing Pokemon Blue on my old Game Boy Advance. I played this game when it was new, but never finished it. One day back then I booted it up and found my game file had been deleted. I always thought it might have been related to accidentally sending the game through the washing machine, but I think I remember still playing my old file for a few days after that before I lost it.

In any case, I restarted, but at some point the game stopped loading properly at all. Again, I always suspected it might be related to running it through the washing machine a second time, despite the fact that I gave it ample time to dry before running it. But I've learned recently that for all these years it may never have been a problem with water at all.

Last year I was researching game cartridge repair for a different cartridge, and I was inspired to try something. I took a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol and cleaned up the contacts on my Pokemon Blue game. I was floored to find that it booted up fine. After all these years the only thing that kept me from finishing the game was dirty contacts!

After all these years, I had planned to start over, but after looking at my file and the Pokemon I'd caught and named, I couldn't go through with erasing it. Instead I found a good Let's Play video on Youtube and watched it up to the point that it caught up to my file, which was shortly after the S.S. Anne. This morning I was on my way through the Rock Tunnel when my GBA battery suddenly died (it's an SP model with the rechargeable battery). Sometime soon I want to get a Link Cable and Link with the Pokemon Yellow I bought for my daughter last year in anticipation of my playthrough. I think she'll get a kick out of that.

There's more to say, but I'm out of time. I'll try and to another entry before long.

Dragon Quest, Christmas, and More

Not long ago I finally finished Dragon Quest XI. It's quite an amazing game. Even after just one playthrough, I think it may be the best game in the series. It's got a great story and some amazing characters. The battle mechanics and character development system are engaging. It evokes nostalgia while still moving into new territory. I loved it.

It's also a very long game. It took me significantly longer than even Dragon Quest VII, which previously was the longest single player RPG I'd ever played. But I enjoyed it all the way through. The further I got, the more the game drew me in. I'd recommend this to any JRPG fan.

After finishing the game, I decided I was ready to go back and revisit my minimalist challenge on Dragon Quest III. I've been chipping away at it for a few weeks. I've made it up to level 17. EXP-wise I am about one-fourth of the way to where I was when I accidentally erased my file, which is about one-sixteenth of the total amount needed to learn the Open spell. Moving forward.

I got the game Banjo Kazooie for Christmas. I have an extensive collection of Nintendo 64 games including most of the systems biggest hits, but this is one hit that I never got around to buying or playing back then. I was inspired to put it on my Christmas list after Banjo & Kazooie made it into Smash Bros. Ultimate. I've finished the first three levels in the game and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. But I think it's going to have to be a weekend game. Trying to get everything in a single level takes longer than I have on the weekdays.

I finished replaying Startropics on my Switch, a classic NES game that was a favorite of mine long ago but which seems to have become much more obscure than other contemporary Nintendo properties. I've started playing through Crystalis, which recently got added to the NES selection on the Switch and is also a classic that I very much enjoyed back then.

I decided for the New Year I need to really cut back on Tetris 99. I've spent way too much time with new game modes and trying to unlock new character icons. The game is quite addicting.

I also got Kid Icarus: Uprising, hoping to finish off the series. I've only played the first two levels. It's very different than the games it's supposedly based on. I'm a little disappointed by how different; there don't seem to be many similarities on the surface at all, and I really liked the old games. But it's really too soon in to judge it too much.

That's all for now.