@r_hjort@nate38
That's fine. My nostalgic fave is Castlevania 1, anyway.

I still have to play Rondo. I'll probably grab it with my last batch of Wii Points.

@Anand
Do it! It's incredible.

I've also got a soft spot for the original Castlevania, by the way. For some reason I tend to have soft spots for first instalments that people tend to move on from as newer instalments develop the concepts more. Same thing with Mega Man. Or Resident Evil.

@r_hjort
I do, too! Metroid 1 is my favorite game of all time!

That's also why I love the NES so much. SNES had some great games, but the NES was like the primordial soup of console gaming. So many mind blowing experiences. (Or it might just be due to nostalgia...)

I also have a fondness for off-the-wall sequels, like Adventure of Link, Super Mario Bros 2, and Simon's Quest. A lot of people just consider them black sheep.

@Anand
Yes! Metroid 1! How could I forget! Also, Mother 1.Those black sheep games are great too. I wonder what people would have thought of Simon's Quest if it hadn't had all those localization issues. It's a really solid game when it's not busy being overly cryptic with what you have to do.

@r_hjort
Same with Adventure of Link. I remember getting stuck looking for that dude in the forest for a week.

But, yeah, Simon's Quest is a cool, non-linear, atmospheric adventure. The Dark Souls of its time. A very ambitious sequel.

And Metroid isn't really that hard, aside from restarting with 30 Health.

@Anand
When I get myself a Famicom Disk System I'm definitely getting Metroid to see what it's like not having to grind for energy. Although, it's been a long time since I actually did that. I tend to beat the game in one sitting these days. Well, at least I did when I last played it semi-regularly.

@r_hjort
Oh, is that not a thing in the disk version?

I typically beat the game without dying, too, but that doesn't help the n00bs.

The Health thing seems to me to be the only reason that people often judge the game to be "unplayably archaic", or whatever.

@Anand
The FDS version has a three slot save system going, like the Zeldas! Same with Kid Icarus, I believe.

@r_hjort
But do you still start with 30 Health, like starting with 3 Hearts in Zelda?

Kid Icarus is another game that's only hard at the beginning. But that's a bad place to put the difficulty wall.

@Anand
From what I understand the save files keep track of how many full energy tanks you have, but I might be misinformed. Should probably look that up.

@r_hjort
You can just update us when you get a copy!

@Anand
Expect a bump of this thread sometime between friday next week and december 2022.

@Anand
Cool! I'll post my Mellotron impressions by then, as well. And then both will stop working within a week.

@Anand
The instrument? Man, I want one of those. Such a rich, beautiful sound.

Double post, trying to get back on-topic:

On the final boss on Nightmare Mode now. Brilliant! Love the concept, love the execution.

Another cool thing that I don't know if it's intentional or not, but that final stage is highly reminiscent of stages from Getsu Fuuma Den, Konami's old sister game (sort of) to Castlevania II.

EDIT: BWAHAHAHAHA! That inverse Mega Man 2 opening ending!

@r_hjort
Yeah, Mellotrons are cool, but very, very finicky and fragile, since they use tape loops. I don't even know how many are still in existence.

A Vectrex would be cool, too, but I bet you could replicate it now with super-bright HDR TVs.

Excited to play this, I think I should have a code since I was a backer but I haven’t been following it too closely.

Started my third playthrough, but trying to go through the game with pretty much just the dagger kind of sucks. I do want to unlock all the game modes, so I guess I'll just have to get through it.

@deathly_hallows
Look into it! Like, right now!

@Anand
Personally I want an old Omnichord more than anything. But considering how much it costs and how I tend to buy instruments that I rarely use I should probably rethink that. Not that I will.

Played a bit of this over the weekend. It's not quite Dracula's Curse, but it's the most Castlevania thing since The Adventure: ReBirth. So I'm cool with it. Looking forward to unlocking the harder difficulties.

And I want my backer code! Apparently they will be released June 8. At least, according to the email I got from KickStarter....

Beat the default difficulty tonight. Fun stuff! Nightmare mode unlocked.