Together Retro August 2020 - Birds are Jerks

[Ack]

It is a true feat to become an NES Castlevania Stairmaster.

[opa]

Is it CV 3 with the medusa clock tower? F that place.

[Ziggy]

I mean how often I have simply walked off a ledge because I didn't hit the command to get on the stairs just right. I haven't yet gotten a feel for it on Castlevania 3.

Yeah, I use to walk off edges a lot. I got in the habit of inching my way up to the stairs then tapping down until he grabs the staircase.

What's worse is trying to use your sub weapon while on a stair case. For example, if you're walking down to the left and you try to throw an axe or something, you end up going up and to the right. Usually this causes you to take damage. Very frustrating. That's why it was so awesome for CV4 and Bloodlines to have a dedicated sub weapon button!

[Ack]

Is it CV 3 with the medusa clock tower? F that place.

It's the one with the clocktower at the very beginning that you climb up and then immediately climb back down as the next level, all while Medusa heads fly at you.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I have beaten Castlevania 1, 2, 4. I have not beaten Castlevania 3 (or any other, now that I think of it).

[MrPopo]

The secret to beating CV3 is you go for Sypha. Her spells are great for both mobility and several of the bosses. Getting Grant involves doing a hard level twice, and Alucard puts you on the hard path and he's pants in a fight, just good for the bat form.

[Ziggy]

I think Grant has more skips than Alucard, too. Sypha kicks total ass, and I had a blast doing a solo Sypha run. I attempted a solo Alucard run and abandoned it because he SUCKS. I use to pick up Alucard just so I could skip a few specific areas, especially that one room in the last level where the floor falls out from under you. Fuck that room. But you can damage boost your way to the door easy enough without Alucard.

The first time I played the NES Castlevania games was after I played CV4. I picked up used copies of the NES games from Funco Land, and they were cart only. So I didn't have the manual for CV3, and I didn't know for years that you could play as the other 3 characters. I mean, I knew they agreed to come with me, and I saw their face appear in the HUD, but I had no idea that you could switch to them. It didn't occur to me to press select because so few NES games use select outside of the start menu.

[pook99]

definitely agree that CV3 has the worst stairs, I never fall off the stairs in the first game but in 3 I will just randomnly walk off a stair case to my death, and forget about using sub weapons on stairs, that is a complete waste of time and will almost always result in you walking into a skeleton.

and how can we talk about shitty stair levels and not talk about the stage that is just one giant staircase with bone heads shooting fireballs at you while gargoyles consttantly float through, that section is a nightmare.

I didnt know alucard was the hard path, that makes sense to me, the last time I played the game I went with grant and thought it was not nearly as hard as I remember but when I played it the other day I took alucard and I was blown away by the difficulty, I beat it, but some of the stages were wayyyyyy too long and ridiculously hard.

I havent actually played with slypha since I was a kid, everyone says how great her magic is and I have seen playthroughs on youtube of her just decimating bosses but I have no problem beating the bosses with trevor and have always found the navigation abilities of the other 2 much more useful. Maybe next time I play I will go for slypha.

[Omerta]

I did some Ninja Gaiden again and it caught the attention of my three boys right when I started playing. They wanted to take turns so we did and I let them go in blind.

I got to hear things like, “Why are all of your old games so hard?” and “I really hate those birds... no, I think I hate the dogs more.” Apparently dads are jerks, too.

My 11 year old couldn’t believe he’d been playing this crappy old stuff for over an hour. To his credit, he did make it to Act IV after the others had given up.

[MrPopo]

Now that's the kind of story I love to read about.