October 2019 TR - Is That A Nightmare In Your Pocket...?

[Michi]

I finished The New Addams Family Series!
.....
Anyway, it's definitely an Addams Family game. Unfortunately, there are some seriously bad incarnations of The Addams Family and this game is one of them.

Oh, that is...unfortunate. I kinda got excited when you said it was Addams Family and point and click. But that just sounds like no fun

[marurun]

There’s a TG-16 Addam’s Family game, too, if’n you want a difficult puzzle adventure platformer.

[noiseredux]

I finished The New Addams Family Series!
.....
Anyway, it's definitely an Addams Family game. Unfortunately, there are some seriously bad incarnations of The Addams Family and this game is one of them.

Oh, that is...unfortunate. I kinda got excited when you said it was Addams Family and point and click. But that just sounds like no fun

yeah, bummer.

Have either of you place Scooby-Doo: Classic Creep Capers on GBC? It's basically an ode to Maniac Mansion.

...

RE Revelations cont'd:

Around the middle of Episode 3, the cruise ship really opens up and you realize just how vast this thing is. I mean... when I said it's like being in a mansion in the middle of the ocean, that's true. Except this thing makes the Spencer Mansion look cute by comparison. My goodness.

As vast as the ship has gotten now that I've opened more areas up, I feel more like I know my surroundings. When I found a weird medallion thingy, I knew where to backtrack to so I could use it to access a new gun. So now Jill's got her standard pistol which has some upgrades on it, along with a shotgun and a fancy sniper rifle. Whoo!

Toward the end of the episode is a pretty tough boss fight. It was actually the first time I've died in the campaign, as I just didn't know what to expect. This dude is HUGE and scary and has a one-hit kill attack. Add to this that unending swarms of zombies or whatever swarm the whole time. It's pretty overwhelming.

I did eventually figure out a strategy that works - basically, I found a spot where two rooms were connected by a window, and found that hopping through the window kept the boss at bay. He couldn't come through the window after me so he'd instead keep going around to try to get me all the while me and Parker kept unloading on him from a distance. Good stuff.

The story holding all of this together remains utterly baffling. There's cut scenes between episodes to kind of create a narrative but I mean... if the mainline RE games are b-movies, then these spinoffs are SyFi Channel made-for-TV movies. That may sound like a knock, but honestly, it's part of what makes me love RE as much as I do.

[Michi]

I finished The New Addams Family Series!
.....
Anyway, it's definitely an Addams Family game. Unfortunately, there are some seriously bad incarnations of The Addams Family and this game is one of them.

Oh, that is...unfortunate. I kinda got excited when you said it was Addams Family and point and click. But that just sounds like no fun

yeah, bummer.

Have either of you place Scooby-Doo: Classic Creep Capers on GBC? It's basically an ode to Maniac Mansion.

I have not, but I do own it. I've been debating whether or not to play it this month. I seem to have a decent selection of GB/GBC games to choose from. Seems like a good Halloween-lite option.

[noiseredux]

it's a true GBC hidden gem. I highly recommend you giving it a spin.

[Nemoide]

That Scooby-Doo game certainly has my interest piqued. As does the Genesis one, which is also a point & click-style adventure. But I'm trying to not buy more games right now, so I'l hold off on those two.

For the rest of this month's TR, I may start Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for PSP. It's been a long time since I played that game and I'm curious to experience the PSP version's alternate translation/voice acting.

[opa]

I finally finished SotN on PSP. I got to around 160% and had my fill.

The game is great until you get to the inverted castle. I know this sounds painfully obvious, but the castle was not designed to be traversed while upside down. It's bad enough that Alucard walks as swiftly as a two-legged tortoise, but now you have to platform in spots that are now mostly inaccessible to normal jumps or double jumps. You can turn into a bat or mist to navigate but those are horrendously tedious (and the bat leaves you vulnerable to attack). Turning into a dog is cool because in the long corridors you run fast enough to run through enemies at rocket speed. However, these moments of canine-euphoria are short lived as most corridors have bumps or hills on the ceiling (now the floor) that prevent you from running in some of them. The super jump is okay but pales in comparison to super jumps in later titles and is most useful to get a good jump to turn into a bat.

Symphony becomes a slog-fest because you've been to all of the locations already and have seen all there is to see. Most enemies, though fairly awesome looking, do a whopping 1 damage and are just an annoyance in the way of the next doorway. On the other hand, the inverted castle bosses are kind of cool. Beelzebub was a real wtf-moment. There was one boss that handed me my rear every attempt I made at it (though if you have some amulet or something it's a push-over apparently). After a while I said "screw it" and went straight to the door of ol' Nosferatu himself. It wasn't a difficult fight. I had saved all my status boosting items and his attack patterns are easy to learn. Dracula faded once again into dust and the castle disappeared. Richter and Maria left to open their own doughnut shop, Alucard joined a Swedish death metal band, and they all lived happily ever after.*

I know there's a different ending if you get like higher than 196% or something but I watched it online and I'm glad I didn't waste hours of my life for three other lines; not worth the extra work to get it. I also unlocked Richter and Maria as playable characters but I'm not in any hurry to try that out.

I don't know, guys. I know this is considered a classic - and was probably the bee's knees back in the day - but the next time I want Castlevania, I'm reaching for a GBA or DS iteration. At least they're fairly streamlined and have a warp system wherein you can pick your destination; imagine that.

*may or may not be the real ending

[prfsnl_gmr]

I loved the inverted castle and played the game compulsively until completion. I still consider it the very best 2D non-linear platformer (i.e., metroidvania) and the very best game in the Castlevania series. To be fair, however, I played all of the GBA and NDS games to completion too, and my high regard for SoTN is probably based, in part, on nostalgia.

I’m about to wrap up Dracula X Chronicles. I’ve found three of the four girls, and I’ve unlocked both the original versions Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. I’ve also beaten every boss and alternate boss up to stage seven, and I’ve unlocked all the alternate levels. Once I finish the game - tonight, finger’s crossed - I’ll run through the boss rush mode a few times to unlock Akamajou Dracula Peke.

I still really enjoy the game. The graphics in the remake aren’t the best, but it is still a solid remake of one of the best Castlevania games. As I noted earlier, though, the voice acting is horrendous. Richter’s nasally voice sounds worse in this game than it did in SoTN...seriously, he sounds like such a dweeb in every cutscene, it’s hard to believe he’s this awesome vampire hunter.

Finally...do we have two Jill avatars on here now?! How will I tell Michi and Noise apart?!

[Michi]

Finally...do we have two Jill avatars on here now?! How will I tell Michi and Noise apart?!

My Jill still has her stylish hat.

[Ack]

Finally...do we have two Jill avatars on here now?! How will I tell Michi and Noise apart?!

My Jill still has her stylish hat.

Word.