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Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night (iPhone)

That Rev Chap — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:08:02 +0000

Still thoroughly enjoying this. I’ve got thirty-three percent of the map uncovered now, but I suspect the two-thirds I’ve got left is going to take a lot longer to uncover. Had some trouble with a boss fight over the weekend, but it didn’t hold me up for long – I just had to make sure I played better. The normal enemies are mostly very easy, as long as you keep an eye on your health between fights. (The bats seem to have a “paralyse” move that’s intensely annoying, though. I thought the game was broken the first time it happened.)

Not a boss - this fight should be over quickly.

I’ve noticed that some people seem to be having trouble with the “swipe down” move… probably because there are two different ones. A long swipe down with your finger speeds up the speed the blocks drop, but you can still move left and right while doing it. A short swipe down drops the blocks in place straight away and is a much more useful move, I reckon. If you’re having trouble with the controls, I hope that helps.

Also, you can skip a lot of animations by tapping the screen – including the pointless pre-battle screen.

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Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night (iPhone)

That Rev Chap — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 09:35:32 +0000

What do you get if you cross Castlevania, Puzzle Quest and Puzzle Fighter? Yep, you get this game.

(Okay, it’s not actually based on Puzzle Fighter. It’s based on a very similar Konami game nobody (i.e. me) has ever heard of.)

It sounds like one of those terrible, terrible cash-ins that pop up on handheld consoles and mobiles, but it’s been executed with such love and care that it actually damn well works.

You play as Alucard, obviously, and have to play through Symphony of the Night, but without any whipping or jumping. You move around a map and in each room you might find an item, an enemy or nothing at all. (Yes, you can choose where to go at certain points. Yes, there are areas blocked off until you get the correct relic to let you get to them.)

If you find an enemy you battle them by destroying falling blocks. Combat is divided into rounds and when the hourglass flips to end a round, you and the enemy damage each other, with the damage dealt being based on your strength stats and the amount of blocks on your respective boards. First one to lose all their hit points loses.

It's hard to keep track of your opponent's board in the heat of battle.

By killing enemies you gain items, money and experience. There are tons of stats to put your experience points into when you level up – I’m concentrating on strength, because I keep forgetting to use spells – and all sorts of items to find and use. There’s an awful lot going on in the game, but you’re eased into it just slowly enough for it to make some sort of sense. There’s still an element of trial and error with the menus and upgrades, but I don’t think you can ever ruin things for yourself too badly if you mess up.

It’s surprisingly compulsive and oddly faithful to the source material – so much so that I found a health-restoring room by remembering where it was in the “real” castle. I’m only an hour and a half in, so I can’t speak for length or late-game difficulty, but I think it’s already been worth the three quid it cost me.

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Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)

That Rev Chap — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:51:00 +0000

Hmm.

HMM.

I’m not sure about this. Maybe this is where there Castlevania meets diminishing returns. It seems to be half made up of changes I’m not sure I like (complicated glyph attack system, small level maps travelled to on a top-down, no-gameplay world map, more talking than normal) and the same old gameplay, but made a little bit harder by throwing a few too many enemies at you. (Including some highly annoying floating tentacled brain-suckers that don’t seem to have a name.)

That said, it’s Castlevania, so you can’t go very wrong. Maybe it’ll click at some point, maybe the level design will get more interesting – there have been far too many flat left-to-right trudges so far – and maybe the glyph system will seem less random.

Fingers crossed.

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Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP)

That Rev Chap — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 18:15:00 +0000

I won’t bore you with the details. Online reviews will give all the details about what this release contains. Rondo… 2.5D… etc.

What do I think about it all? Well, the main game is very hard. It’s good, but it’s harder than any modern Castlevania and, I think, harder than Super Castlevania IV.

I’ve unlocked Symphony of the Night now, though, so I’m playing that instead. You unlock it in a really stupid way (you have to find a certain item on Level 3′ (not to be confused with Level 3) but I’ve done it now, so I can’t complain too much.

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CastlevaniaRL (PC)

That Rev Chap — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 22:35:00 +0000

Not an official Castlevania game, but a roguelike in a Castlevania skin. At first it was annoying because I kept dying really early, but then I discovered I should be attacking (a) with my weapon and not firing (f) my weapon. Then it was annoying because I kept falling into a lake from which there seems to be no way out. But I discovered the jump (j) key and all was well. Now it’s annoying because I’m in a town, I need to heal myself at the church, but nobody will tell me where it is and I can’t find it. And some people say I need to heal by shouting outside the church, some by resting inside the church, but there’s no church and no key to rest and no key to shout and I’m getting very annoyed indeed.

I’m probably being really stupid, but I just can’t tell what I’m meant to do.

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Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360)

That Rev Chap — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 11:21:00 +0000

Beat the boss who is me, got the Soul of Wolf, then died a long way into the Long Library, making me gah and gnash and turn the game off.

I wasn’t enjoying it that much anyway. Any illness that can stop me enjoying Castlevania is evil. Evil!

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Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360)

That Rev Chap — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 19:27:00 +0000

Yes, I have the Playstation version. But it’s on a disc and therefore not the future, so I used some points to get the 360 version. (There’s also the fact that I have no idea where a Playstation memory card might be.) It’s just as I remember it… almost. I don’t remember the mirror-me being so bloody annoying. I’ve left it for a bit.

(If you don’t know what “just as I remember it” means it translates to “one of the best games ever made”. The graphics aren’t as good as I remember and the endless GBA and DS versions mean it’s slightly over familiar, but it’s still wonderful.)

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Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)

That Rev Chap — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The Creature nearly got me.

Well, The Creature did get me. About twenty times, until I trekked back to the shop and got some potions.

Now he’s dead.

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Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)

That Rev Chap — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:14:00 +0000

Oh.

It’s got to hard again now. I got one of Castlevania’s trademark fake endings, then worked out how to avoid stopping at that point. Now I’ve got to go through lots more paitnings, only this time their far too hard.

It doesn’t help that I made a terrible mistake and sold half the really good stuff I was wearing and I didn’t notice until after I saved. I’m stuck miles into one painting, short on cash and out of potions. It’s not fun.

I may pretend the bad ending was the real ending and leave this now.

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Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)

That Rev Chap — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:58:00 +0000

After a long break I’ve come back to this refreshed and I’m finding it so much easier than I did before. Bosses have been dropping all over the place and I found a great new weapon called Nebula, that’s sort of a slow homing whip. Sort of.

I still hate Medusa Heads though. Oh yes I do.

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