I'll definitely second/third/whatever Circle of the Moon. It's a solid game in the metroidvania series, and I really liked its Card system and its slightly higher difficultly level than the other GBA/DS castlevanias. Not the soul collecting stuff in AoS and DoS was bad, but it's just a personal preference I guess. And whoever said it had better castle design, I definitely agree. It's a great game all around.
It also called upon alot of classic music, which is a huge plus.
The graphics are a little rough though. That, and the fact that your character moves.....very.....slow.
I am ashamed to admit I've never beaten the original Castlevania.
For some reason I just can't beat Dracula. I've gotten to him a zillion times, and one evening a couple of years ago I even went to a friend's house (for emotional support) with the express purpose of beating the fucking game. I must have fought him 75 times in a row before I finally gave up. I was so frustrated I haven't yet been able to play the game again.
Eventually I'll finish it, once the scars heal.
Do it man. It's not hard, which I know, is a limp thing to say under the circumstances, but seriously, Dracula can be one of the easiest bosses in the game with a little delicacy.
Keep the holy water. Hang onto it for dear life. You need it for part II of the fight. Part I? Easy. Leap towards him as he appears and you'll clear his fireball entirely, putting you in the perfect position to strike him in the head. Repeat, and you won't lose a single block of life.
In form II, just spam the hell out of him with the holy water. Pin him in place and he's yours.
I'm inspired. I am going to go beat Castlevania.
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Big DookieSmells great!Houston, TXRegistered Userregular
I'll definitely second/third/whatever Circle of the Moon. It's a solid game in the metroidvania series, and I really liked its Card system and its slightly higher difficultly level than the other GBA/DS castlevanias. Not the soul collecting stuff in AoS and DoS was bad, but it's just a personal preference I guess. And whoever said it had better castle design, I definitely agree. It's a great game all around.
It also called upon alot of classic music, which is a huge plus.
The graphics are a little rough though. That, and the fact that your character moves.....very.....slow.
The only Castlevania that I actually liked was III on the NES. Being able to climb on walls was awesome.
Beyond that how many times can you remake the same exact game? I mean really, I had gotten my fill of collecting hearts out of candleabras that I smacked off the wall with a whip in the first one. Do something original already.
The only Castlevania that I actually liked was III on the NES. Being able to climb on walls was awesome.
Beyond that how many times can you remake the same exact game? I mean really, I had gotten my fill of collecting hearts out of candleabras that I smacked off the wall with a whip in the first one. Do something original already.
They can keep making it until it isn't awesome anymore. And they aren't even close to reaching that point yet.
I remember liking that show but now it's just so horrendous. I hate how the characters are portrayed, especially Simon.
On topic, as much as I like the classic style Castlevania games the modern "Metroidvanias" are my favorite. I'm going to go out there and say that Dawn of Sorrow is the best and if you liked that game then you need to get Aria of Sorrow. The Castlevania Double-Pack isn't that hard to find and you'll get Aria and Harmony in the same package. Can't beat that.
I'll put down another vote for Circle of The Moon. You'll have to do some hunting for it, but it's worth it since it's the only metroidvania not developed by IGA and his team, and it's the only one with any semblance of the difficulty from older castlevanias. However I will say that IGA's sequels have a more streamlined feel to them, and for the most part all are enjoyable.
Harmony of Dissonance should only be played if you get the GBA double pack. It was a solid entry but definately weak compared to its contemporaries. SOTN is definately worth picking up.
As for old-school castlevanias my only experience is with CVIV, which seems to be the most accessible of the older entries.
I never got into any of the Castlevanias, I thought it was pretty retarded that the hearts in the candles never gave you any life back. That in itself was kind of a game-breaker for me. I never did understand what those were even for. They didn't add to the points, and all they did was add up. Actually, the lack of 1ups or any kind of health restore made the games much harder then they should of been.
I would say that maybe my version of Castlevania on the NES was broken, but in the SNES version it was the same thing, so I chalk it up as a mechanics thing.
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
edited March 2007
You used hearts to use your subweapons, like the boomerang, holy water, dagger, etc. And there was health restore in the form of meat hidden in walls.
I never got into any of the Castlevanias, I thought it was pretty retarded that the hearts in the candles never gave you any life back. That in itself was kind of a game-breaker for me. I never did understand what those were even for. They didn't add to the points, and all they did was add up. Actually, the lack of 1ups or any kind of health restore made the games much harder then they should of been.
I would say that maybe my version of Castlevania on the NES was broken, but in the SNES version it was the same thing, so I chalk it up as a mechanics thing.
Actually he has a point. It is pretty counterintuitive to have hearts work as ammo rather than life, considering all the other games out there where hearts ARE life. Not that it's all that difficult to figure out after playing for a bit, but for the first few minutes it can be a bit confusing.
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Big DookieSmells great!Houston, TXRegistered Userregular
Actually he has a point. It is pretty counterintuitive to have hearts work as ammo rather than life, considering all the other games out there where hearts ARE life. Not that it's all that difficult to figure out after playing for a bit, but for the first few minutes it can be a bit confusing.
Or one could just read the manual.
I mean, honestly - who cares what the games uses as ammo and/or health? Kid Icarus uses hearts as currency, so is it a bad game as well? It's really dumb to say a game is retarded because time isn't taken to understand how the health and ammo system even works.
I wish I could remember how I figured out the red crystal trick back in the day, but somewhere in that game is a clue that you need to do it. Its not totally impossible
Oh, no. It is frickin' impossible. There's no clue in the game that tells you you have to go right to that specific cliff, or have the crystal especially equipped, or - and this is the breaker - kneel for ten seconds, particularly in the 45-character-or-so limit they had on the NPC text boxes.
I wish I could remember how I figured out the red crystal trick back in the day, but somewhere in that game is a clue that you need to do it. Its not totally impossible
Oh, no. It is frickin' impossible. There's no clue in the game that tells you you have to go right to that specific cliff, or have the crystal especially equipped, or - and this is the breaker - kneel for ten seconds, particularly in the 45-character-or-so limit they had on the NPC text boxes.
Worse than that i think was that the way to get to one of the mansions was to hold out the rib while riding a specific ferry.
I was totally enthralled of Castlevania III and it's "character" system. The idea at the time that your decisions had an impact on the gameplay of the game was really appealing to me. At first I could only get through the game using Grant a lot due to his agility and wall climbing, but I became able to use Trevor (who, by far, is the BEST Belmont), Sypha (who we may or may not be female), and Alucard (who was a pretty horrible character at the time, but we saw the result of that) to go through the game.
Also, freezing aqueducts of water with Sypha's ice spell was awesome.
You used hearts to use your subweapons, like the boomerang, holy water, dagger, etc. And there was health restore in the form of meat hidden in walls.
Keep in mind, I was probably 13-ish when the original Castlevania came out. I didn't even know there were subweapons. All I ever had was the whip. I guess the whole thing is that when I played it so long ago, I pretty much passed it off as being way too counterintuitive. It's only now that I someone told me that they were "ammo" for weapons that I guess you get later on in the game. It was pretty frustrating to die in the middle of the first level with no way to bring your health back. Actually, it was the utter frustration of not getting the "health" to work right which is how I remember the game! It never occured for me to look for hidden meat in walls, especially when the "power ups" were coming from the candles.
I didn't actually own the game mind you, it was a rental on an NES that wasn't mine. This was in the day where Nintendo was suing Blockbuster for having copies of manuals in the games.....
When I played the SNES game a few years later, I cracked my whip on a candle only to get a heart that didn't seem to do anything. My first reation was "God Damnit! The health is still fucking worthless!" I put game away after getting raped on the first level again.
When the GBA version came out, I now as an adult. I borrowed a friend's copy and did the same thing. When though the first level, got hurt, candle, whip, heart, and..... nothing. I turned it off after that. All I could remember is the frustreation of having a "broken" health system.
It's that single point that is such a turn-off for me. It's the reason why I don't play the game. It's a shame because it looks like it can be a really fun platfromer, and I see everyone else enjoying the shit out of it. I might give it another go looking for meat in walls this time. I take it you break the square blocks in various places. I also assume you get different weapons somewhere past level 1.
On a realted note, I remember having the same issues with Megaman. I only played it once or twice in my NES days, but I recall the health system being screwy in that too, where the powerups didn't do anything. I also remember getting raped on the first level of that game too, no matter which one I picked.
Metroid... I could play the hell out of some metroid though. So it's not like I'm hating on platformers here.
I'll definitely second/third/whatever Circle of the Moon. It's a solid game in the metroidvania series, and I really liked its Card system and its slightly higher difficultly level than the other GBA/DS castlevanias. Not the soul collecting stuff in AoS and DoS was bad, but it's just a personal preference I guess. And whoever said it had better castle design, I definitely agree. It's a great game all around.
It also called upon alot of classic music, which is a huge plus.
The graphics are a little rough though. That, and the fact that your character moves.....very.....slow.
Uh, you do know you can run by double-tapping, right?
Tell me you didn't get through the whole game without running!
You used hearts to use your subweapons, like the boomerang, holy water, dagger, etc. And there was health restore in the form of meat hidden in walls.
Keep in mind, I was probably 13-ish when the original Castlevania came out. I didn't even know there were subweapons. All I ever had was the whip. I guess the whole thing is that when I played it so long ago, I pretty much passed it off as being way too counterintuitive. It's only now that I someone told me that they were "ammo" for weapons that I guess you get later on in the game. It was pretty frustrating to die in the middle of the first level with no way to bring your health back. Actually, it was the utter frustration of not getting the "health" to work right which is how I remember the game! It never occured for me to look for hidden meat in walls, especially when the "power ups" were coming from the candles.
I didn't actually own the game mind you, it was a rental on an NES that wasn't mine. This was in the day where Nintendo was suing Blockbuster for having copies of manuals in the games.....
When I played the SNES game a few years later, I cracked my whip on a candle only to get a heart that didn't seem to do anything. My first reation was "God Damnit! The health is still fucking worthless!" I put game away after getting raped on the first level again.
When the GBA version came out, I now as an adult. I borrowed a friend's copy and did the same thing. When though the first level, got hurt, candle, whip, heart, and..... nothing. I turned it off after that. All I could remember is the frustreation of having a "broken" health system.
It's that single point that is such a turn-off for me. It's the reason why I don't play the game. It's a shame because it looks like it can be a really fun platfromer, and I see everyone else enjoying the shit out of it. I might give it another go looking for meat in walls this time. I take it you break the square blocks in various places. I also assume you get different weapons somewhere past level 1.
On a realted note, I remember having the same issues with Megaman. I only played it once or twice in my NES days, but I recall the health system being screwy in that too, where the powerups didn't do anything. I also remember getting raped on the first level of that game too, no matter which one I picked.
Metroid... I could play the hell out of some metroid though. So it's not like I'm hating on platformers here.
Heres a thought: Maybe it's not necessarily the health system being screwy, you just don't know what does and does not restore health.
Dude, you get the dagger sub-weapon at like the very beginning of the freaking game.
I'm pretty sure every seven year old in my second grade class figured it out.
edit: I just checked. The first screen of the game, before you even go into the castle or fight any enemies, there are five torches. Heart, whip upgrade, whip upgrade, heart, dagger.
Ok, so I decided to give the NES version another go...
Sorry, it looks like this game isn't for me.
Collected hearts... Ok, ammo for weapons, gotcha. At the end, the dagger. Cool. Time to fire off a few...
A - Jump.... B - whip.... select - nothing(?).... start - pause.....
Now wait! This isn't right! I want to give the second weapon a go and I don't have any buttons left on the controller! Now, as opposed to bothering you guys, I do the smart thing. I go to GameFAQs and do me some reading....
Ooooooohhhhh! *UP* and B. There we go.
Now, where is all that tasty meat for my beloved health. First game faq doesn't mention them. I pick up the second, and cool! On level one I'll find them....
There's only one?
There's only one goddamned chunk of meat on the whole level? It's non-renewable? It's up on a column? The blocks don't even look breakable, they look like every other stone in the place. No wonder I coudn't find it when I was 13. AHA! I was right... The health system *is* the game-breaker for me. There is no way to heal yourself before a boss fight, or when you get bumped with bones. I'm sure you guys love it, it's not for me...
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NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
edited March 2007
Halkun, this was back when games were challenging. Hell even after all this time I've only SEEN Death once and have gotten to the Creature and Igor TWICE.
Though on a side, I did get to play the japanese version of 3 before it was released in the states. Grant's PRIMARY weapon was the dagger. He would throw a dagger for his attack and it still used up hearts.
(can't remember if he could get other weapons though) Now that made the game easy.
I loved Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow and of course Symphony of the Night. I liked III quite a bit but it was hard as hell. I never made it very far in it. I LOVED II but I wouldn't reccomend it anymore.
One of my favorites, tho, was the recent one for the PS2. I forget the name, Something of Darkness. The one where you're the devil forger. I found it to be pretty ridiculously fun. It never got very good reviews but MAN was I hooked on that thing. I was really into evolving my devils and the steal/item creation system was just to much fun if you get into the whole "collect everything" mindset.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I wish I could remember how I figured out the red crystal trick back in the day, but somewhere in that game is a clue that you need to do it. Its not totally impossible
Oh, no. It is frickin' impossible. There's no clue in the game that tells you you have to go right to that specific cliff, or have the crystal especially equipped, or - and this is the breaker - kneel for ten seconds, particularly in the 45-character-or-so limit they had on the NPC text boxes.
Admittedly, I knew vaguely what to do thanks to a Nintendo Power column.
But there is a clue, somewhere in one of the dungeons, about the red crystal. Just like there's a clue about the blue crystal and the ferryman taking you to different parts of the countryside.
... God, I wish they'd remake Castlevania 2. But I highly doubt IGA ever will.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited March 2007
Yeah, well, they were better than no saves. And not many companies back then wanted to spring for EEPROMs. When you consider that Zelda was the first and Dungeon Warrior was the second save-able game (IIRC), it makes sense that many games of the time didn't have proper saves.
You know, one time I put in a random (completely random) password in Metal Gear, and it worked? It gave me a ton of weapons and equipment out of sequence, putting me in a jail cell right before a boss. But I digress.
Yeah, well, they were better than no saves. And not many companies back then wanted to spring for EEPROMs. When you consider that Zelda was the first and Dungeon Warrior was the second save-able game (IIRC), it makes sense that many games of the time didn't have proper saves.
You know, one time I put in a random (completely random) password in Metal Gear, and it worked? It gave me a ton of weapons and equipment out of sequence, putting me in a jail cell right before a boss. But I digress.
I was a smart kid, but I fucked up - and this is a rough estimate - at least 60% of the passwords I attempted to copy down. It's really frustrating as a 7 year old to get up to some difficult part in a game, write a password down, have a parent DOUBLE CHECK IT, and it doesn't work the next morning.
The worst was King's Bounty on the Genesis which was like 35 or 40 characters. It was so bad I simply refused to play the game except in one sitting.
Wasn't Faxanadu a password-"save" game, too? I remember that one being rather frustrating.
It was O's and 0's and all that shit.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited March 2007
Yeah.. Faxanadu was probably the worst offender, NES wise, because it was a game that pretty much required a save to get through. It was essentially a side scrolling RPG. Believe it or not, Simon's Quest could be plowed through in a day, if you were masochistic (and got lucky with your money). Same with Metal Gear. Faxanadu, however... *shudder* And the later areas looked kickass, if Nintendo Power was anything to go off of. I always wanted to see the giant tree.
But yeah. My suspicion is that the passwords were based on Japanese characters in the original, and so they just converted them to English for the US. Without, you know, thinking about how similar o and 0 look to each other.
... Oh yeah, Guardian Legend. You would have to be a God to beat that in one sitting.
My love for this game knows no bounds...the music was especially memorable for me. Great gameplay, and it really used the SNES' special graphical effects well. Thank you Konami!
Ok, so I decided to give the NES version another go...
Sorry, it looks like this game isn't for me.
Collected hearts... Ok, ammo for weapons, gotcha. At the end, the dagger. Cool. Time to fire off a few...
A - Jump.... B - whip.... select - nothing(?).... start - pause.....
Now wait! This isn't right! I want to give the second weapon a go and I don't have any buttons left on the controller! Now, as opposed to bothering you guys, I do the smart thing. I go to GameFAQs and do me some reading....
Ooooooohhhhh! *UP* and B. There we go.
Now, where is all that tasty meat for my beloved health. First game faq doesn't mention them. I pick up the second, and cool! On level one I'll find them....
There's only one?
There's only one goddamned chunk of meat on the whole level? It's non-renewable? It's up on a column? The blocks don't even look breakable, they look like every other stone in the place. No wonder I coudn't find it when I was 13. AHA! I was right... The health system *is* the game-breaker for me. There is no way to heal yourself before a boss fight, or when you get bumped with bones. I'm sure you guys love it, it's not for me...
Yeah, I guess not. Really, the first level isn't that tough -- you just have to learn how to avoid getting hit. But I do think you might like the more recent Castlevania games if you gave them a proper try -- there's a save point before almost every boss fight, and all save points in the game fully restore your health. On top of that, you find food everywhere which you can use from your inventory at any time in order to restore health.
Still, a shame you can't deal with the earlier games. Sure, they're challenging, but that was always part of the fun.
I did appreciate the Castlevania IV password system, which was pretty much lifted from the Mega Man series. I could easily write those down, rarely making a mistake. I even had one for the last stage memorized.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited March 2007
Scotty, let's be honest.
In that above pic, you are going to swing your whip over the skele, miss, and then hit him before you land, causing you to bounce back and fall down into the pit.
You are already dead, you just don't know it yet. =P
In that above pic, you are going to swing your whip over the skele, miss, and then hit him before you land, causing you to bounce back and fall down into the pit.
You are already dead, you just don't know it yet. =P
Ha! That's funny, I was thinking the same thing. "What the fuck is Scotty thinking?"
Then the famed song from Eurotrip started playing in my head: "Scotty doesn't know, Scotty doesn't know, so don't tell Scotty..."
In that above pic, you are going to swing your whip over the skele, miss, and then hit him before you land, causing you to bounce back and fall down into the pit.
You are already dead, you just don't know it yet. =P
Nah, the whip in CV4 is fairly slow. It'll hit on the way down. Won't even miss a beat.
Posts
It also called upon alot of classic music, which is a huge plus.
The graphics are a little rough though. That, and the fact that your character moves.....very.....slow.
I'm inspired. I am going to go beat Castlevania.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Beyond that how many times can you remake the same exact game? I mean really, I had gotten my fill of collecting hearts out of candleabras that I smacked off the wall with a whip in the first one. Do something original already.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnuLL0Mh6eI
I remember liking that show but now it's just so horrendous. I hate how the characters are portrayed, especially Simon.
On topic, as much as I like the classic style Castlevania games the modern "Metroidvanias" are my favorite. I'm going to go out there and say that Dawn of Sorrow is the best and if you liked that game then you need to get Aria of Sorrow. The Castlevania Double-Pack isn't that hard to find and you'll get Aria and Harmony in the same package. Can't beat that.
Harmony of Dissonance should only be played if you get the GBA double pack. It was a solid entry but definately weak compared to its contemporaries. SOTN is definately worth picking up.
As for old-school castlevanias my only experience is with CVIV, which seems to be the most accessible of the older entries.
I would say that maybe my version of Castlevania on the NES was broken, but in the SNES version it was the same thing, so I chalk it up as a mechanics thing.
My Backloggery
This post makes my brain hurt.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
I mean, honestly - who cares what the games uses as ammo and/or health? Kid Icarus uses hearts as currency, so is it a bad game as well? It's really dumb to say a game is retarded because time isn't taken to understand how the health and ammo system even works.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Oh, no. It is frickin' impossible. There's no clue in the game that tells you you have to go right to that specific cliff, or have the crystal especially equipped, or - and this is the breaker - kneel for ten seconds, particularly in the 45-character-or-so limit they had on the NPC text boxes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFGvvlWHS-s&mode=related&search=
ha nice
We'll get there.
Also, freezing aqueducts of water with Sypha's ice spell was awesome.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Keep in mind, I was probably 13-ish when the original Castlevania came out. I didn't even know there were subweapons. All I ever had was the whip. I guess the whole thing is that when I played it so long ago, I pretty much passed it off as being way too counterintuitive. It's only now that I someone told me that they were "ammo" for weapons that I guess you get later on in the game. It was pretty frustrating to die in the middle of the first level with no way to bring your health back. Actually, it was the utter frustration of not getting the "health" to work right which is how I remember the game! It never occured for me to look for hidden meat in walls, especially when the "power ups" were coming from the candles.
I didn't actually own the game mind you, it was a rental on an NES that wasn't mine. This was in the day where Nintendo was suing Blockbuster for having copies of manuals in the games.....
When I played the SNES game a few years later, I cracked my whip on a candle only to get a heart that didn't seem to do anything. My first reation was "God Damnit! The health is still fucking worthless!" I put game away after getting raped on the first level again.
When the GBA version came out, I now as an adult. I borrowed a friend's copy and did the same thing. When though the first level, got hurt, candle, whip, heart, and..... nothing. I turned it off after that. All I could remember is the frustreation of having a "broken" health system.
It's that single point that is such a turn-off for me. It's the reason why I don't play the game. It's a shame because it looks like it can be a really fun platfromer, and I see everyone else enjoying the shit out of it. I might give it another go looking for meat in walls this time. I take it you break the square blocks in various places. I also assume you get different weapons somewhere past level 1.
On a realted note, I remember having the same issues with Megaman. I only played it once or twice in my NES days, but I recall the health system being screwy in that too, where the powerups didn't do anything. I also remember getting raped on the first level of that game too, no matter which one I picked.
Metroid... I could play the hell out of some metroid though. So it's not like I'm hating on platformers here.
Uh, you do know you can run by double-tapping, right?
Tell me you didn't get through the whole game without running!
Heres a thought: Maybe it's not necessarily the health system being screwy, you just don't know what does and does not restore health.
I'm pretty sure every seven year old in my second grade class figured it out.
edit: I just checked. The first screen of the game, before you even go into the castle or fight any enemies, there are five torches. Heart, whip upgrade, whip upgrade, heart, dagger.
Sorry, it looks like this game isn't for me.
Collected hearts... Ok, ammo for weapons, gotcha. At the end, the dagger. Cool. Time to fire off a few...
A - Jump.... B - whip.... select - nothing(?).... start - pause.....
Now wait! This isn't right! I want to give the second weapon a go and I don't have any buttons left on the controller! Now, as opposed to bothering you guys, I do the smart thing. I go to GameFAQs and do me some reading....
Ooooooohhhhh! *UP* and B. There we go.
Now, where is all that tasty meat for my beloved health. First game faq doesn't mention them. I pick up the second, and cool! On level one I'll find them....
There's only one?
There's only one goddamned chunk of meat on the whole level? It's non-renewable? It's up on a column? The blocks don't even look breakable, they look like every other stone in the place. No wonder I coudn't find it when I was 13. AHA! I was right... The health system *is* the game-breaker for me. There is no way to heal yourself before a boss fight, or when you get bumped with bones. I'm sure you guys love it, it's not for me...
Though on a side, I did get to play the japanese version of 3 before it was released in the states. Grant's PRIMARY weapon was the dagger. He would throw a dagger for his attack and it still used up hearts.
(can't remember if he could get other weapons though) Now that made the game easy.
One of my favorites, tho, was the recent one for the PS2. I forget the name, Something of Darkness. The one where you're the devil forger. I found it to be pretty ridiculously fun. It never got very good reviews but MAN was I hooked on that thing. I was really into evolving my devils and the steal/item creation system was just to much fun if you get into the whole "collect everything" mindset.
Admittedly, I knew vaguely what to do thanks to a Nintendo Power column.
But there is a clue, somewhere in one of the dungeons, about the red crystal. Just like there's a clue about the blue crystal and the ferryman taking you to different parts of the countryside.
... God, I wish they'd remake Castlevania 2. But I highly doubt IGA ever will.
Password "saves" fucking blew.
You know, one time I put in a random (completely random) password in Metal Gear, and it worked? It gave me a ton of weapons and equipment out of sequence, putting me in a jail cell right before a boss. But I digress.
I was a smart kid, but I fucked up - and this is a rough estimate - at least 60% of the passwords I attempted to copy down. It's really frustrating as a 7 year old to get up to some difficult part in a game, write a password down, have a parent DOUBLE CHECK IT, and it doesn't work the next morning.
The worst was King's Bounty on the Genesis which was like 35 or 40 characters. It was so bad I simply refused to play the game except in one sitting.
Wasn't Faxanadu a password-"save" game, too? I remember that one being rather frustrating.
It was O's and 0's and all that shit.
But yeah. My suspicion is that the passwords were based on Japanese characters in the original, and so they just converted them to English for the US. Without, you know, thinking about how similar o and 0 look to each other.
... Oh yeah, Guardian Legend. You would have to be a God to beat that in one sitting.
My love for this game knows no bounds...the music was especially memorable for me. Great gameplay, and it really used the SNES' special graphical effects well. Thank you Konami!
Yeah, I guess not. Really, the first level isn't that tough -- you just have to learn how to avoid getting hit. But I do think you might like the more recent Castlevania games if you gave them a proper try -- there's a save point before almost every boss fight, and all save points in the game fully restore your health. On top of that, you find food everywhere which you can use from your inventory at any time in order to restore health.
Still, a shame you can't deal with the earlier games. Sure, they're challenging, but that was always part of the fun.
edit:
I did appreciate the Castlevania IV password system, which was pretty much lifted from the Mega Man series. I could easily write those down, rarely making a mistake. I even had one for the last stage memorized.
My Backloggery
In that above pic, you are going to swing your whip over the skele, miss, and then hit him before you land, causing you to bounce back and fall down into the pit.
You are already dead, you just don't know it yet. =P
Ha! That's funny, I was thinking the same thing. "What the fuck is Scotty thinking?"
Then the famed song from Eurotrip started playing in my head: "Scotty doesn't know, Scotty doesn't know, so don't tell Scotty..."
And then I saw your post.