Circle of the Moon, etc.

I beat Mega Man 3 later than expected. The Doc Robot levels weren't so easy for me. Wily's Castle was easier, but twice I mistakenly picked "stage select" instead of continue on the game over screen and had to start it over.

I mean, I could have just held the rewind button to reverse the decision. Sometimes I struggle to decide between modern QoL convenience and authenticity of the original experience. For games I haven't played in decades, though (or for games I've never played), I tend to lean to the latter. I figured it didn't really hurt to replay a few stages. The game is short enough anyway and I'm more likely to actually remember it later if I play through it more than the bare minimum.

I've made it halfway through the Robot Master stages of Mega Man 4. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that more of my childhood fandom for Mega Man was rooted in the earlier games than I'd remembered. Although my standard memory is that I mostly kept up on it until the PSX generation, my biggest engagement with it was with the first two games. I really think once through was the maximum I put into any game after that, and that's not really enough to remember much of anything 30 years later.

I've really been enjoying Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. It's funny; my first impressions of that game weren't particularly strong. While there wasn't anything I particularly disliked about it, it didn't feel like half the experience I'd gotten from Symphony of the Night.

And while that's still true, my second impressions of CotM are more favorable than my first ones; I guess the game has been growing on me.

A full experience of the game requires playing it through at least five times. When you beat the game, you get a password that lets you restart the game with changes to your character mechanics and progression, essentially mimicking classic RPG class tropes. When you beat that new "mode," you get a new password again to unlock the next one. It's a more interesting dynamic than I originally expected, and makes the replays feel more fresh than I thought they would.

Although it seems in principle that it shouldn't be a huge thing, I think the lack of an in-game bestiary had a disproportionate effect on my first playthrough. That's especially true when combined with the lack of a shop. With a single exception, the only way to get new equipment or DSS Cards is through enemy drops. With as many enemies as there are, the only practical way to find things without a guide is to track the drops yourself. Once I started my own handwritten bestiary and filling it in, I found it added to my enjoyment quite a bit.

It actually took all four extra game modes and then some to fill it out. I was still missing drops for four enemies by the time I finished the last one. But by this time I had learned that some DSS cards could be dropped by more than one enemy, and I (correctly) realized that those gaps were probably from DSS cards I'd already picked up from other enemies. I played through one final time without picking up any cards to verify that was the case.

Once I finished my hand-made bestiary, I allowed myself to break the guide barrier to see if I'd missed anything. It turns out that, as long as you're willing to make notes, Circle of the Moon is a fairly decent game to do full completion without a guide. There doesn't seem to be really anything I wasn't able to discover on my own.

A few things I could have seen myself missing were: the skeleton medalist (I'd visited his room several times before I even realized there was an enemy there); some of the enemies that only spawn after a certain point in the game (I'm sure I found all of them just looking for 100%, but some of them I'd forgotten about after running across them the first time; and I didn't realize at first that Lilith and Lilim were separate enemies); and the correct input to activate the effects of Apollo and Uranus DSS Card Combos (this isn't necessarily intuitive, but it's still simple enough that I first discovered it on accident, and performed it on accident at least once after discovering it.)

I've levelled my original file up to level 99. It's complete to my satisfaction. I've decided I'm going to do the same for each mode. (I don't think levelling up all five game modes altogether will be as tedious as my single original game file of Symphony of the Night was for hitting level 99).

At some points when I have time and energy, I'm also trying to play through Maria mode on the Requiem version of Symphony of the Night. It was going very quickly, but my progress slowed when I decided to go for maximum map completion, including the area where you find the Spikebreaker Armor in the main game. She's capable of getting past the spikes, but it's not easy. I've managed to pull of getting through the spikes into the area several times now, and seem to be able to manage it at least once every several tries. But there's no save room on the other side, and I haven't yet managed to survive the trip back...

The good news is that Maria is capable of restoring her own health with one of her item crashes. So I can always try the trip back at full health. If I screw up the first part of it, I can turn around and refill. In theory, it should be easier getting back, but since I can only try at after successfully getting through the first way, I don't have near as much practice.

I've got a four-day weekend for Labor Day. I'll probably break from Mega Man, since it's currently my commuter "away" game, but I'm hoping to get some good progress level and stat grinding on Circle of the Moon and Dragon Quest III, as well as finishing that Spikebreaker area and maybe playing at least one other game.