A Quick Update

The blog is on pause while I attempt to get ALL the 2d Castlevania games.  (My other blog "Wargame Dork" is actively updated on a 4 posts per month average however!  Lots of retro gaming content is showing up there too.)

Sadly I still need 3-4 games and they are all the most expensive ones.

Castlevania Legends (Game Boy)
Vampire Killer (MSX)
Haunted Castle (Arcade, PS2 port)
Castlevania X (SNES)

All of these games are generally not considered that good yet most even for a loose cartridge/disk go for 50+ US dollars.  Yeah.  I am cheap.  And even worse would be to try to get the Gameboy Color versions of Castlevania Adventure 1 and 2!!  Super rare in the European English editions, and probably sought after in Japan as well.

CV X I can kind of ignore as it is just a remixed and not as good version of Rondo of Blood which is helpfully on the PSP amongst other legal options.  (Wii IIRC along with a remake of one of the GB CVs which I have and may cover.)

I am not really covering or caring about the 3d CVs otherwise that adds another handful of games I do not much care about.  Especially the Wii fighting game with the ridiculous character redesigns.

The other Dracula related type games I am kind of searching for but VERY casually.

So don't forget about Blogging Castlevania.  Its just.. hiding in its coffin till NOT ELIZABETH BATHORY WITH BIG HONKIN HOOTERS shows up to wake it back up! :v

Work Continues!

That's right!  Both CV 2 and CV 3 have been completed.  I just now have close to 800 screencaps to turn into comic reports of my trials and suffering.  CV 3 is BRUTAL even with the odd savestating.  Dunno how I ever would have completed this game on an actual NES legit.

Have I risen from the grave?

                                                                      I believe I have.

My long delayed Castlevania 2 comic will begin very soon.  I have nearly 400 screenshots taken with the whole game completed over a rough 5-7 hours of gameplay rarely referring to any maps or FAQs.

Vampire Variations: Fan Made Music Tribute to Castlevania is OUT!

http://kngi.org/vampirevariations/

Yes it is!  Go to "music" to download for free, or you can buy it for 8 bucks.  I haven't had a chance to listen to it or anything yet, but hey!  Its Halloween and its a remix album devoted to Castlevania, as opposed to the usual game remix albums which are mostly Final Fantasy ones.

Whenever I get the time to listen to it I will probably add my opinions here.  Soo.. maybe by next Halloween?

Halloween Approaches!

Yes this blog is still mostly on hiatus, but I do think about it quite often.

But there was a nice little article by the normally completely annoying Jeremy Parish today (he is one of those obnoxious snotty Nintendo worshipping types who acts like any other game system simply didn't exist, or at least was beneath notice.  Which of course makes him COMPLETELY wrong.  The Nintendo machines had some fantastic games.  So did almost every other game or computer system out there.) about the Castlevania series, albeit its a tad short:

http://www.1up.com/features/castlevania-chronicles-killing-dracula-25-years

If you are in the mood to be inspired to do some vampire slaying for the season you could do far worse than to read it.

Now what have I been up to Castlevania wise?  Well on my main blog (Wargame Dork) I have posted my initial house rules for my Castlevania D&D 4th edition campaign that is set to start tomorrow and hopefully will continue past the first game.  (Unlike a 2nd ed AD&D game I joined where we had a whopping TWO game sessions and then the host and her husband the DM basically quit communicating with the group entirely.  Which is NOT COOL.)

I have been rereading the 2 D&D system Transylvania/Vlad the Impaler sourcebooks that have been released that I know of (a 2nd ed "Masque of the Red Death" AD&D Ravenloft supplement, and a D20 system supplement about Vlad the Impaler by Avalanche Press, they of the cheesecake covers and bad customer service infamy.)  and refreshing my knowledge.

The AD&D 2nd one is MUCH better than the AP one.  Its classier in its presentation and coverage of Vlad's atrocities while not whitewashing it, while the Avalanche one seems to revel in going into detail of the physical and sexual abuses the Impaler Prince both perpetrated and had inflicted on him.

But both books help give me the detail I need for my fantasy Europe.

I have also picked up a couple 1 dollar foam weapons from Target which seem to be all but Belmont weapons.  Double bladed axe, and flail/morning star.   Why?  Just because.  My friend mentioned having a 16 bit costume party recently so upon me remembering I bought things makes me think maybe a Richter Belmont costume might be in my future plans.  Probably a "on the quick" one.  White jeans, a headband, wristbands, blue tunic.  Then I can go around telling monsters they don't belong in this world while your average person has no idea what the hell I am on about.

PC Engine was 16 bit man.  And a seriously underrated games machine in the west.

I may even get back to playing through the CV games proper.  My Let's Play of a D&D Turbografx (US name for the PC Engine) title should be done this week, and there is a chill in the air now.

My iMac (the slow one that still works) is even ready for the season:

We shall see though.

If nothing else, expect my Castlevania campaign notes either here or on the main blog, with links from one to the other.

DIE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES! YOU DON'T BELONG IN THIS WORLD!!

                                                   ( Video from Youtube by MrYaridovich )
Blogging Castlevania will return this March.
See, my high powered Windows XP Dual Booting iMac decided to have its SECOND hard disk die on it since August 07.  (And third drive fart total, but the drive fart I could reinstall from.)

So I looked at prices and the reality of things and with a heavy heart and big income tax return decided it is best to return to the land of Windows where I can easily fix my own machine when I have to.  (iMacs don't make it easy and its minimal what you can do.  I can swap out parts on a PC for years saving me THOUSANDS of dollars.)

So until I can get the new PC home, up, running, then swap motherboards in April due to Intel having its biggest goof since the original Pentium 66mhz chip minor flaw, I am currently stuck on a tiny slow 1.8ghz 1 Gig of Ram G5 iMac which doesn't make for high efficiency Comic Life Deluxe use and the Mac emulation scene sort of blows.

Thus my continuing mission to play through Castlevania games must take a break.

And of course when the new machine comes in I sort of have a backlog of recent PC titles I want to work through.

But I will return.  Its just not a priority right now.

Rating the Castlevanias in a Dumb Way

A gift for you fine folks! Over at Something Awful there is a thread about putting a game series in a graph of quality. I have chosen to cover Castlevania because well.. DUH look at this place. I kind of like the series.

So why not be fancy pants and like make one (badly) using my photos and games and a comic format?

Sadly Blogspot is being cruel right now and won't let me use the good new post editor so I am stuck in ghetto old school one for now. Click pictures for bigger.

Expect me to start Simon's Quest next week! I am ready for this dangerous task!