> A retro rival rally game with ticks in all the right boxes - except availability

I was going to post this to arcaderacers but it doesn't appear to have been migrated from lemm.ee.

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z is, at the very least, ambitious.

Is it good? Debateable.

It suffers from what I like to call Poochie syndrome. If you don’t know what that is, it’s when a franchise tries so hard to be cool and edgy that it ends up alienating everyone. Poochie was a character on The Simpsons added to The Itchy & Scratchy Show to make it more “youth-oriented.” It backfired. Spectacularly.

This game is the Poochie of Ninja Gaiden.

You play as Yaiba Kamikaze—an undead ninja who got sliced in half by Ryu Hayabusa, then resurrected as a cyborg with a robot arm and unresolved anger issues. The story? He wants revenge. Also, zombies exist now.

So yeah. Not your typical Ninja Gaiden.

This isn’t a tight, serious action game like the NES classics or the 2004 reboot. This is a loud, cel-shaded beat-’em-up where you chain combos, dismember clown zombies, and occasionally say things like “BOOM, baby” while swinging from grappling hooks.

It’s ridiculous by design.

But weirdly, it’s not that far off from the original arcade Ninja Gaiden, which was more of a side-scrolling brawler than a precision platformer. In that sense, Yaiba feels like a spiritual detour—not a betrayal, just a case of missed execution.

And to say this game wasn’t received well is an understatement.

Critics hated it. Players hated it. Metacritic slapped it with a “generally unfavorable” rating. Polygon gave it a 3. The most common complaints? Repetitive gameplay, terrible camera, sloppy controls, and painfully unfunny writing. Fair.

But I’m going to make the case that Yaiba isn’t as bad as people say. It’s just weird. And weird games don’t always land, especially when they carry a legacy name.

Spark Unlimited handled the development. They weren’t exactly industry royalty. Team Ninja helped out. So did Keiji Inafune—yes, that Inafune, the guy behind Mighty No. 9. He designed Yaiba and pitched the whole zombie-cyborg-ninja concept. The idea was East-meets-West. Japanese combat with American humor. The problem is: it leaned too hard into the West part.

The visuals are the one thing that really works. The cel-shaded “living comic book” look still holds up. Blood flies in huge red arcs. Enemies explode into color-coded gore. Yaiba himself looks like a pissed-off character from a graphic novel you’d find in a Hot Topic clearance bin. I mean that as a compliment.

Unfortunately, once the game starts, the wheels start coming off.

Combat is fast but shallow. You get a sword, a cybernetic punch, and a few environmental executions. There’s a rage mode called Bloodlust that lets you tear through enemies, but it takes forever to charge and burns out too quickly. Enemies come in waves. Then more waves. Then more. It doesn’t evolve.

There’s an elemental system layered on top—some zombies explode, some zap, some poison. If you get two types near each other, you can cause secondary effects like electric tornadoes or poison crystallization. It sounds cool but plays like a checklist. The game doesn’t reward experimentation. It just wants you to solve the puzzle its way.

Boss fights are worse. Giant sponges. They kill you in three hits, and you fight them in arenas where the camera actively works against you.

Speaking of: the camera. It’s fixed. You can’t control it. It’s bad. It hides enemies behind geometry and cuts off parts of the screen during fights. No lock-on. No recentering. Just vibes.

Also, the platforming. There isn’t any. You don’t jump. Seriously—there’s no jump button. Movement sequences are QTEs. That’s it. No room for improvisation, no exploration, just press A when prompted.

PC performance is another mess. The game is hard-capped at 62 FPS, and if you try to lift that cap by editing the config files, the game starts breaking. Physics glitches. Soft locks. Entire levels stop working. The framerate is literally tied to game logic. You’d think someone would’ve caught that.

Controls aren’t much better. Dodge is mapped weird. Block is inconsistent. Inputs sometimes just don’t register. It feels like you’re fighting the engine more than the enemies.

There’s a skill tree, but it’s shallow. You unlock new combos and passive buffs, but nothing that dramatically changes the way you play. Some users even reported skill points not saving properly unless you exit the menu a certain way.

And then there’s the humor. The writing aims for B-movie irreverence and lands somewhere between 2007 YouTube and straight-to-DVD energy drink ad. It’s all juvenile innuendo, “cool guy” one-liners, and grotesque slapstick. One scene has a truck fly through a pair of giant mannequin legs. Another has you beating zombies to death with their own intestines. And Yaiba himself? He never shuts up. It gets old fast.

But I’ll give the game this—it commits.

It doesn’t half-ass the tone. It full-asses it. The voice acting is bad on purpose. The plot makes no sense. And every single thing feels like it was made by someone yelling “more awesome!” into a headset. That kind of confidence, even when misplaced, is rare.

Length-wise, it’s short. Maybe 6 hours. Eight if you’re bad. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, which is honestly a blessing.

There are bugs. Tons of them. Cutscenes sometimes run at 30 FPS even if gameplay is smooth. Loading screens are long and repetitive. Collectibles bug out and vanish. Some levels don’t load properly if you die in the wrong spot. There’s a DLC where you can play as Beck from Mighty No. 9. It adds nothing.

So yeah. Yaiba is janky, shallow, crude, and annoying.

But also: kinda fun.

It’s not a good Ninja Gaiden game. But it’s not trying to be. The problem is it shares the name. If this had just been called Yaiba: Zombie Slayer 2099 or something, I don’t think anyone would’ve cared. The expectations wouldn’t have crushed it.

What you get here is a loud, dumb, cartoonish splatterfest with a lot of rough edges and a couple moments of actual brilliance—mostly in its visuals and sense of identity. When it’s not glitching out or annoying the hell out of you, it can be strangely entertaining.

Buy it on sale. Don’t take it seriously. And absolutely don’t go in expecting Ninja Gaiden.

It’s not good. But it’s definitely not boring.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/48084188

> cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/48084185 > > > We talked with the designer behind games such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, A Mind Forever Voyaging and Leather Goddesses of Phobos.

The NES version is one of the greatest titles of all time. The DOS version? Decidedly not.

It starts like a bait-and-switch. You see the name Ninja Gaiden—and your brain lights up with nostalgia: the cinematic cutscenes, the frantic wall-jumping, that savage, surgical difficulty.

But this? This is something else entirely. A freak of nature. A shadow of a shadow. Like someone described the original game to a committee over a bad phone connection, and the committee was made up of interns with insomnia and a shared allergy to fun.

Made by Hi-Tech Expressions—a company whose entire business model seemed to be "take beloved franchises and make them worse for DOS"—this port wasn’t so much developed as it was extruded. They didn’t craft games. They manufactured obligations. And what they slapped together here was less a port than a low-rent hallucination of the arcade version, which itself was already the dumber cousin of the NES masterpiece. So now what we’ve got is a port of a knockoff of a spin-off of a legend. A Xerox of a Xerox with ketchup on it.

You’re Ryu Hayabusa, allegedly.

You shuffle from left to right like you're late for work in a pool full of molasses. Your enemies? Identical mime-goons in red jackets, looking like rejected extras from a community theatre production of West Side Story. The punch button makes a noise. Not a satisfying thud—just the PC speaker trying its best to simulate impact and accidentally triggering your fight-or-flight reflex. You’ve got a life bar, but really it’s more of a countdown to when you give up.

Technically, it has graphics. EGA support, sure, if you’re feeling brave. But everything is drawn in migraine-vision. Sprites blend into the background like camouflage designed by a prankster. Choppy scrolling turns the act of walking into an act of protest. The cutscenes? Redrawn from scratch, probably by someone who only heard about the NES cinematics second-hand and thought, “Eh, I’ll just wing it.”

Audio is a crime scene. The entire soundtrack is piped through the PC speaker, which is like asking a kazoo to perform Beethoven. Every track is a remix in the same way banging two forks together is a remix of jazz. Worse still, the wrong songs often play in the wrong places.

Compatibility is its own boss fight. The game only runs properly on a CPU slower than time itself—an 8086. Try it on anything faster, and it plays at hyperspeed like someone sat on the fast-forward button. Unless you’re lucky enough to own a Tandy 1000—and if you are, bless your vintage heart—you’ll spend more time configuring slowdown utilities than actually playing. Assuming you even get that far.

Even the disks were garbage. Cheap floppies that degraded like bread in the sun. The physical media was actively trying to forget it existed.

Yes, they included environmental interaction. Throw an enemy into a phone booth and it explodes. Because... why not? But the animations are stiffer than taxidermy. You can’t tell if that pixel smear is a dude, a trash can, or your own disappointment rendered in 16 colors.

Critics tried to be diplomatic. Players didn’t. One called it “a slap in the face.” Another said “avoid it like the plague”—which is putting it gently. This isn’t just a bad game. It’s an experiment in how low expectations can go before they punch through the floor. It’s a warning label masquerading as software. Proof that even iconic franchises can be fed through a woodchipper if you give the license to the wrong team.

It belongs in a museum, sure. But only in the kind of museum that’s attached to a condemned strip mall. With a flickering light. And carpet that smells like old ketchup.

This is not Ninja Gaiden.

This is Ninja Gaiden’t.

I’ve been watching his videos for years. I didn’t even know he was a quadruple amputee when I first found his channel.

He was a consistent content creator that made a ton of vids exploring the history of games and would go through all the platform releases one by one. He was also pretty funny and had a wicked sense of humor.

RIP PatMan QC - you will be missed

“Boom shakalaka”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/47972282

> We spoke with one of the designers behind the legendary Day of the Tentacle.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/47907658

> cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/47907489 > > > Brøderbund might not have been among the most productive game publishers in the eighties and nineties, but you could bet any game they did publish was of a high quality. The American company released games like Lode Runner, Choplifter, Karateka, Prince of Persia, Wings of Fury, SimCity, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and Myst, and with gems like these they had a big influence on computer and video games as a whole.

We spoke with Fate of Atlantis designer Hal Barwood about how he got into the games industry, and his most famous game.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/47905188

> cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/47904753 > > > We spoke with Boulder Dash creator Peter Liepa about his classic action-/puzzle game.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/47917526

> We spoke with historian Andrea Contato about The Sumerian Game from 1964.

It's a pretty popular romhack for Super Mario World that was released in 2021. I recently discovered that the dev made a full walkthrough with commentary about a year ago. It was really interesting for me to watch :) Link to the hack.

I think Super Mario Bros might have been the first. Might depend on what counts as a "platformer" or a "water level".

Demonlisher is awesome.

Forget the Steam reviews. Most of them are bitter because this isn’t the game those folks wanted.

It’s basically a Pac-Man clone from 2004, but one of the most unique I’ve played. Better way to put it: Demonlisher is what you get if Hexen became Pac-Man.

You’re a wizard running through different dungeons, collecting souls to save. Meanwhile, demon hordes chase you down, and you have to kill them.

It has all the usual maze-game stuff: power-ups, bonuses. But also a bunch of clever traps.

Not everyone likes the graphics. I do. I spent a ton of my youth playing low-poly 3D shareware from random corners of the web (anyone remember TuCows?). Demonlisher feels like that genuine old-school deal.

I wish more games like this worked on modern PCs and showed up on Steam.

Yeah, Demonlisher is awesome. Sometimes Steam reviews just get it wrong.

My kids wanted to do a little "challenge" of trying to see which one of them would be able to finish the original Sonic game the fastest, so I set up a stream that showed both their streams at the same time and broadcasted it onto Twitch.tv.

After the stream was done I was checking the video and got a message part of my video got muted because it contained "copyrighted content owned or controlled by a third party". It muted a minute before the coprighted part and a minute after, too.

Apparantly someone made a song that uses the Robotnik theme, meaning no one will be able to stream this game anymore without getting this part muted?

Here is the "song" that supposedly counts as the copyrighted original

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CCE-QFs0e4

It's 3 years old and has 100 views.

The actual original (by Masato Nakamura):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAK1pnfod7A

Full message on my video:

"Audio for portions of this video has been muted as it appears to contain copyrighted content owned or controlled by a third party."

Here are the appeal options:

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I'm not sure how to appeal this, but I'm not sure if I could appeal this (or under what reason). What do you think?

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Civ 2 was such an improvement over the first one. I remember both playing and baking mods for it after I exhausted the base game. My second favorite in the series.

Not mine, but I always enjoy seeing these monstrosities.

cross-posted from: https://swg-empire.de/post/3724500

> This is frickin' awesome! It doesn't feel like alpha software at all, more like a beta. The Linux version froze a few times for me but the Windows version through Proton is super stable so far. Only bug I had with that was that mouse input stopped working once so I couldn't click anything. > > It looks gorgeous with the HD assets. But you also have the option of using the old graphics. It plays just how I remember it. Though I did rebind the gamepad bindings to be closer to the Squadrons settings. That's how I play X-Wing Alliance as well.

Rambo III for DOS genuinely surprised me.

I’d previously played the Commodore 64 version—a predictable top-down shooter with decent graphics for the old brown breadbox, but nothing remarkable.

The DOS version, released in 1989, really stands out. It supports VGA graphics and AdLib sound, delivering crisp colors and catchy music that were impressive for the time.

What blew me away, though, was the control options. Not only does it support keyboard and joystick, but you can also move and shoot using the mouse—a rarity for the platform back then. Even better, it actually works pretty well by the standards of the day.

Rambo III came out in many versions: arcade, Master System, Genesis. The computer versions are mostly similar, each carrying quirks unique to their platforms—you could find it on Atari ST, Amiga, MSX, C64, Amstrad CPC, and even ZX Spectrum.

The DOS release covers CGA, EGA, and VGA graphics modes plus a variety of sound options, offering a surprisingly eclectic experience. While critics favored the Genesis version, I think the DOS port holds its own. It’s more than playable and can deliver some solid fun.

Silverfall delivers exactly what you'd expect from a hack-'n-slash CRPG—nothing groundbreaking, but if you’re like me, those low-poly visuals are a serious charm.

What sets it apart, though, is its difficulty. Unlike Fate or Dungeon Siege, dying here means losing whatever gear you had equipped. That forces you to either hold back on using your best loot or grind to replace it, adding a tense layer of risk and reward.

So if you’ve already beaten the usual hack-'n-slash suspects and crave a tougher challenge, Silverfall might just be worth your time.

> The 'Third Party Deformed April Fools Day Lara Croft Controller' has been brought out back and shot, sorry for the mix-up. Welcome back to another, now slightly shorter, deep dive into the PlayStation back catalog. What PlayStation/PS1/PSX games, you ask? Only the Wheel has the answers! (Wheel spoilers below)

Tap for spoiler

• Philosoma
• Steel Harbinger
• T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger

Received the new screen and want to share my impressions about the device.

New screen

For those unaware of the screen drama, I'd suggest to read this article first.

Once Retroid announced they will send free new screen replacements, I immediately filled a request for one. They prioritized US citizens due to upcoming tarifs, so I had to quite some time until they shipped mine.

It arrived in a Retroid Pocket 5 box - looks like they just reused existing packaging. I saw some people on Discord got theirs in a Retroid Pocket Mini box instead. The package includes a full black shell, since that's the only color they offer. So, owners of other colors now have a black RP Mini with different button colors 😄

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But honestly, black is the best color for this device. Combined with the OLED screen, it makes the letterboxing practically invisible, which is perfect for retro gaming.

The replacement process was easy for me. I just followed their official video. It's not very optimal, though. Sticks and fan disassembly is completely unnecessary, you can skip those. I also occasionally checked this disassembly stream recording.

The screen has rounded edges, but I actually like it. The taller screen (31:27) makes Android interface less painful.

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But most importantly, it plays nicely with most retro games. In RetroArch I enabled Integer Scale and set Integer Scale Scaling to Smart. This way games will use overscale, but fallbacks to underscale if when the image is cropped too much. Retro games was designed with overscan in mind, so no important content is cut, the image occupies maximum possible space and everything is pixel perfect. I usually don't enable integer scaling on high resolution screens like this, but it works great for this specific device.

No surprise, GB, GBC and Pico8 looks great. They won't take fullscreen with integer scaling, but it's very close.

But the best systems to play for me are actually SNES and NES! They were played on 4:3, but their actual aspect ration is close to a square. So for SNES9x core I set the aspect ratio to Uncorrected and for Mesen (NES) I set it to No Stretching. I know they were developed with 4:3 in mind, but this way they occupy the entire screen and look pixel perfect!

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Systems like Dreamcast and PS1 look exactly the same, I don't have to turn integer scaling off, they take all horizontal space.

In Dolphin, widescreen hacks work well with the taller screen, so you can fill the entire display. However, I usually play Dolphin on my Steam Deck, since the Android version doesn't support RetroAchievements.

PS2 widescreen hacks don't work well with this screen, but it still looks fine in 4:3 - identical to how it looked before the screen swap, except with now properly aligned pixels.

PSP isn't a great fit for this device, but thanks to the OLED and black color, the letterboxing is barely noticeable. I've seen some people stretch the image, but I'm not a fan of that.

Device

Here's what I like about it:

1. Great battery life when using Android. I usually leave a game running, and it barely drains any battery while idle. This makes it easy to earn RetroAchievements in hardcode mode.
2. Pocketable. The sticks protrude a bit, but I found it pretty comfortable to carry in my jacket.
3. The stock OS is fairly clean, though I do wish I could install LineageOS.
4. It can run mainline Linux.
5. Powerful enough to handle all my favorite games.
6. Ergonomic. I can play for hours without my hands hurting.
7. And now it also has a great screen.

However, I would't recommend this device. Here is why:

1. ABXY buttons feel awfull. It's hard to explain, but I simply don't like pressing them. Even swapping to more quite PSX-style buttons from Etsy didn't help. I think it's because of the membrane and glass front. Controls are very important for me.
2. Glass front looks nice, but it's marky. Also dirt easily accumulates on edges on edges and its hard to remove it. I prefer to keep my devices clean.

I ordered the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 after asking for a screen replacement, and somehow they managed to deliver it earlier. But I'm enjoying it much more - it's more pocketable, has a bigger screen, and avoids the drawbacks of the Mini. And it's only $20 more.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/42745436 (this is my first attempt at cross-posting within Lemmy, I hope I'm doing it right)

I've played a lot of Castlevania games in my life and I wanted to break down all the various eras (as I see them) for anyone who hasn't played a Castlevania game before and might be interested. I'm going to cover all of the Castlevania games. So yes, this will be an extremely long and rambling post. We're going to see if Lemmy has any content limits for its posts.

The first thing to know about Castlevania games is that (almost) all of them have the same plot: someone resurrected Dracula (or is about to) and must be stopped. That's it. If a plot is present, that's the plot. Also, there are very few actual "sequels" throughout the entire franchise. This means there's no real continuity and you can jump in wherever you want. And with the magic of emulators, truly any of these games are available to you if you're interested.

In general (with some exceptions), Castlevania games fall into two categories. One which fans refer to as "Classicvania" and one that became "Metroidvania". Classicvanias are the "move to the right, fight a boss at the end" level-based games. Metroidvanias are the "entire map available at the start but you need additional abilities to access it all" type of game. I'll get into details later, I just wanted to clarify my section headings before diving in.

Classicvanias (8-bit era) ---------------------------

> NES games:

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• Castlevania (1986)\ The first one. It was released early in the life of the NES and is therefore more clunky than later games, but it sets the stage. The start screen has a film reel on it to show the major inspiration here is classic horror movie monsters. This isn't a horror game though, it's just a spooky game. As for gameplay, it's your standard "move to the right, fight a boss at the end" design. Overall, this is a tough game with knock-back (an enemy bumps into you and you fall into a pit) and some pixel-perfect jumps (I made that jump easily the first time, why can't I land it now??). With emulators and save states, it could still be fun. If you try to play it the way kids in the 80s were forced to though, you'll snap your controller in half.

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• Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1987)\ When the first Legend of Zelda game came out, it was a huge hit. It defined the top-down dungeon-crawling style of game on the NES. So naturally, for Zelda 2 they... completely reworked the entire gameplay and gave it side-scroller combat. Simon's Quest is a bit like that. After the success of the first Castlevania game, with its "move to the right, fight a boss at the end" design, they decided to completely rework the gameplay for the second game. Simon's Quest is non-linear. You have to talk to villagers to get clues, you have to collect items and then back-track to access a new area, and there's a day/night cycle (enemies are more difficult at night and villagers aren't around). This isn't an RPG though, it's just confusing. I said some villagers will give you clues, but some of those clues were mistranslated when brought to America so they weren't helpful at all. Today, this is a game you can't play without a walkthrough. It's ridiculous. I would absolutely skip this game unless you're a completionist.

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• Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (1989)\ Castlevania 3 is more of a "return to form" to Castlevania 1's gameplay and is better for it. This game also has some improvements. For example, after beating a stage, you can choose between one of two stages to go to next. This allows you to have more of a "journey" to Dracula's castle. Also, you can unlock additional characters along the way. Between the level selection and additional playable characters, there's actually quite a bit of re-play value here. Personally, this is my favorite Castlevania of the NES era. Castlevania 1 is an interesting time capsule, Castlevania 2 is an awkward mess (in my opinion), and Castlevania 3 is what I consider NES Castlevania to be. One interesting thing to note here is the American version of this game is more difficult than the Japanese version. For whatever reason, the enemies in the American release do more damage. There's also some minor 8-bit nudity that had to be censored in the American release to protect those poor impressionable American children.

> Game Boy games:

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• Castlevania: The Adventure (1989)\ This was one of the first games released on the Game Boy, and it shows. It's another awkward, clunky mess. It's interesting how Castlevania games tend to be one of the initial titles on a new console... and are worse for it. It usually takes a couple years for developers to really figure out what a console can and can't do, and Castlevania games seem to be testing grounds. All that is to say, this is a terrible game. The character has slow movement, there are no sub-weapons, and you have to constantly climb ropes (which are hard to grab). This game was remastered as Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth on the Wii and was improved in every single way for that release. You can play the original Game Boy title just to see what it's like, but I would recommend playing ReBirth if you actually want to try this game. You'll need to pirate the game of course since it was a WiiWare exclusive and Nintendo shut down the WiiWare shop.

• Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (1991)\ There are some improvements here, like the addition of sub-weapons. Plus, it has a stage select screen like a Mega Man game where you can pick whichever level you want to complete first. Dracula's castle then unlocks after beating all the levels, like Wily's castle in Mega Man. Otherwise, it's still a game boy Castlevania game, it's pretty clunky.

• Castlevania: Legends (1997)\ The last Castlevania game on the Game Boy. This was released towards the end of the Game Boy's lifespan (the N64 was already available by this point) so it does a lot of things right. This is easily the best Castlevania game on the Game Boy but that's not saying much. The Game Boy had a small screen and limited hardware; so even when done right, these games are pretty minimal. You could skip all of the Game Boy Castlevania games and you wouldn't be missing much.

Classicvanias (32-bit era) -----------------------------------

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• Super Castlevania IV (SNES) (1991)\ The first Castlevania on SNES. This is typically regarded as the "easiest" Castlevania game, which makes it a good entrypoint for the Classicvania style of games. You can shoot your whip in 8 different directions (rather than just left or right) which really helps manage the difficulty. I don't know what else to say about this game. It's good. Unless you have nostalgia for the 8-bit era, this is where you should start with Castlevania.

• Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PC Engine Super CD-ROM) (1993)\ I'll admit I'd never heard of the PC Engine Super CD-ROM prior to digging into Castlevania's backlog. And the game never left Japan. But among fans of the franchise, this is typically considered the "best" of the Classicvanias mostly due to gameplay and level design. There isn't much here that's unique, it's just all done extremely well. There are some branching paths in each level and you can unlock another playable character if you take the correct diverting paths. There was a SNES game called Castlevania: Dracula X which was released in 1995. It re-used a lot of the sprite work from Rondo of Blood but is actually an entirely different game. You can't play Dracula X and claim you've played Rondo of Blood, even though they look similar. That isn't to say Dracula X is a bad game, it just isn't as good as Super Castlevania IV or Rondo of Blood, which were both available at this time. There was also a PSP game called Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles which was a 2.5D graphical upgrade of the original Rondo of Blood. As far as I can tell, playing that game is more similar to playing Rondo of Blood than playing Dracula X. Also, if you beat the game it unlocks the original (32-bit) version of Rondo of Blood.

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• Castlevania: Bloodlines (Genesis) / Castlevania: The New Generation (MegaDrive) (1994)\ In America, it was called Genesis. In Europe, it was called MegaDrive. In America, it was called Bloodlines. In Europe, it was called The New Generation. Whatever. This is a fun game with some really good graphics at the time. You also get to choose one of two playable characters right at the beginning. One has a standard whip, the other has a longer-reaching spear. This is a solid Classicvania game. It isn't the "best", it isn't the "easiest", it's just a solid game. And it's better than Dracula X.

• Castlevania Chronicles (PSX) (1993/2001)\ In 1993, there was a Japan-only game called Akumajō Dracula for the X68000. It was intended to be a remake of the original Castlevania (NES) game. 8 years later, it was ported to the Playstation 1 as Castlevania Chronicles and released to the rest of the world. This game is an interesting throw-back to the Classicvania genre and is actually the last of its kind. No more Classicvania games have been made after this game. And that's because the entire Castlevania franchise was redirected thanks to:

Metroidvanias -------------------

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• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PSX) (1997)\ And here it is. The masterpiece. The game that defined Castlevania for all future games. If you want to play a Classicvania, you can play Dracula III, Super Castlevania IV, Rondo of Blood... there are plenty to choose from. But if you want a Metroidvania, you start here. Metroidvanias have become an entire genre of video games, an entire category in Steam. The genre's name is based on the two defining works of the genre: Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Those two games set the standard. And here we are.

Symphony of the Night took inspiration from that failed attempt at non-linear gameplay in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and the successful non-linear exploration of Super Metroid. It also added RPG elements, with weapons and armor of differing stats that the player could equip. The beginning of the game has you playing as Richter Belmont and throws you right into a battle with Drcaula. This is actually the end of Rondo of Blood. After beating Dracula, you then play as Alucard for the rest of the game. So while Symphony of the Night is technically a sequel to Rondo of Blood, that opening sequence is the only real connection between the two. There's nothing else for me to say. This game defined a genre.

Igavanias --------- Koji Igarashi (known as Iga) was the assistant director on Symphony of the Night. After its success, he was given control of the Castlevania franchise and had a hand in all of the GBA and DS Castlevania games that came next. Basically, every metroidvania-style Castlevania game had Iga's involvement. All of them are good, all of them have the same level of quality, and I can barely remember the difference between any of them. They're all just "more Castlevania" to me. That isn't a bad thing, but this is where the franchise just blurs together as a non-stop barrage of metroidvanias. You really can't go wrong with any of them but I find it hard to rank them. The earlier games all had some quirk or oddity to discuss, but now we're into the meat of the franchise where they hit their stride and I don't have anything to add.

> Game Boy Advance games

• Circle of the Moon (2001)
• Harmony of Dissonance (2002)
• Aria of Sorrow (2003)

Let's see... Circle of the Moon was released as a launch title for the GBA so it was of course more clunky and awkward than the games that came after. Aria of Sorrow introduces the character Soma Cruz, who is also the main character in Dawn of Sorrow, making it one of the few true "sequels" in the franchise. I remember nothing from Harmony of Dissonance. I'm sure it's fine.

> Nintendo DS games

• Dawn of Sorrow (2005)
• Portrait of Ruin (2006)
• Order of Ecclesia (2008)

Again, Dawn of Sorrow is a direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow (for what it's worth). Portrait of Ruin has less of a connected map than most metroidvanias since you have to go into separate, distinct portraits that transport you to a different world. Order of Ecclesia is a great game and I don't remember anything specific.

All of the GBA games are available on steam as the Advance Collection. All of the DS games are available on steam as the Dominus Collection.

3D Games ---------------

While Classicvanias and Metroidvanias are where Castlevania shines, there have been a couple attempts to break into 3D gameplay.

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• Castlevania (N64) (1999)\ The first attempt at 3D gameplay for the Castlevania franchise. It was awkward. This game isn't very good, even by N64 standards. Every N64 game at this time was trying to figure out exactly how to do 3D gameplay. How do you handle the camera? How do you actually "lock on" to an enemy so you don't miss? Also, this game was too ambitious and kept having to cut content in an attempt to hit their release date. It released in January of 1999.

• Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness (N64) (1999)\ The same year as Castlevania N64, Legacy of Darkness was released (in December). Legacy of Darkness is what Castlevania N64 was supposed to be. This is literally the game the development team had wanted when working on Castlevania N64. So it's more polished and coherent than Castlevania N64... but it's still clunky. I really don't have much love for the N64 era of games. This was the gaming industry as a whole trying to "figure out" how to make a 3D game. It took some time to perfect it.

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• Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (PS2) (2003)
• Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (PS2) (2005)\ I didn't own a PS2... I never played these games. But by the PS2 timeframe, the gaming industry as a whole had figured out 3D gaming and I believe these games are well-regarded. I don't think they were award-winners, but they succeeded where the N64 Castlevania games failed. I'm sorry I can't go into more detail with these games but I believe they're worth playing.

The Reboot ----------------

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• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (all consoles) (2010)\ "Castlevania has been around for over 20 years doing the same thing! We need a REBOOT! What's that? 'God of War' is a popular game? LET'S MAKE ONE OF THOSE!"

• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (all consoles) (2013)\ "What's that? Castlevania fans want something called a 'metroidvania'?? MAKE ONE OF THOSE!"

• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (all consoles) (2014)\ "Stealth games are popular now?? Make a Castlevania game with stealth in it!"

The Lords of Shadow series is an outlier in the franchise but are also the most recent Castlevania games to come out. It's a full reboot of the franchise and an attempt to make an actual storyline. They even hired Patrick Stewart to play the mentor character and got Hideo Kojima as a producer in the first game. They did their best to make this a AAA title.

The first Lords of Shadow game is very reminiscent of God of War (the Greek ones). Overall, it's a solid hack 'n' slash. I think the puzzles get a bit tedious and the game drags out, but it doesn't really do anything wrong.

After the first Lords of Shadow, they released Mirror of Fate, which was a 2.5D metroidvania game that followed the same storyline. While the graphics look a bit weird in this game, it was made by MercurySteam. MercurySteam later went on to make Metroid: Samus Returns and after that, Metroid Dread. So they know what they're doing. While it's strange to shove a 2.5D metroidvania in between two 3D-based hack 'n' slash games, it's a solid game in its own right.

Lords of Shadow 2 takes place in the modern day and is the first Castlevania game to let you play as Dracula. And yet, while playing as Dracula, you're forced into stealth sections where if a single human guard spots you the level restarts. As if Dracula can't handle a lone guard. If you can ignore the fact that you're Dracula doing all this, it's a perfectly serviceable action stealth game. It's also a direct sequel from Lords of Shadow 1 so you can't really jump straight into this game (If you care about the plot).

The Oddballs, Oddities, and Black Sheep -----------------------------------------------------

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• Kid Dracula (Famicom/Game Boy) (1990)\ A parody/chibi spin-off of the Castlevania series. You play as a childish version of Dracula (or maybe Alucard?) in a standard Classicvania-style format. I always liked how in the Game Boy version, Kid Dracula's teacher (Death) asks if he's been practicing his abilities and he says no, he forgot everything. Then as you beat each level, he "remembers" something he was always able to do and it unlocks an ability (like turning into a bat). I just liked the idea that he could've always done these things, he just forgot because he's lazy.

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• Haunted Castle (Arcade) (1988)\ This is such an awful arcade game. The main character's sprite is huge and so slow moving you can't even avoid most enemies. Just terrible. A Haunted Castle Revisited was included in the Castlevania: Dominus Collection but I haven't played it to know how much they improved it. Who knows, it might actually be playable now.

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• Castlevania Judgment (Wii) (2008)\ A fighting game using Castlevania characters. But all the characters have been re-designed to be more anime-like so you can't even recognize them. Ridiculous sexy outfits and buckles everywhere.

• Bloodstained\ Koji Igarashi left Konami in 2014. Since his departure, Konami has not made another Castlevania game. But Iga wasn't done making Castlevania games. So he made his own. Bloodstained is basically a "spiritual successor" to the Castlevania franchise from the guy who made every metroidvania Castlevania game. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a Castlevania game in all but name. It was actually the result of a successful kickstarter and one of the stretch goals was to make a Classicvania. That game is Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. If you enjoy Castlevania games, you'll want to pay attention to the Bloodstained franchise.

That's it. That's every Castlevania game. If you're interested in Classicvanias, Super Castlevania IV is a great starting point. If you can handle that style of gameplay, branch out into Rondo of Blood or Bloodlines. If you're interested in metroidvanias, you start with Symphony of the Night. After that, any of the GBA or DS games are great. I barely consider the Lords of Shadow series to even be Castlevania, but they're perfectly fine "recent' games since everything else is retro. Thank you for joining me on this journey. I wonder how many people actually read all that.

As someone with a weird, irrational nostalgia for how the PC speaker sounds, this was an interesting little showcase video.

Apparently PS3 is considered retro now so I hope this post is allowed. I'm liking the game so far even though it's a blurry mess.