CottonSwab
1989
It's crazy how the one simple tweak of letting you hold a piece adds so much depth, strategy, and fun to a pretty great formula. Unfortunately, this game doesn't have that, and so it gets kinda boring after a bit since you're just at the whim of what the game decides to throw at you. But I mean, come on, it's still Tetris. Tetris will always be fun in any form and always.
(Side note: played the Japanese version, generally considered the easier and better region between the two, and went for the Alucard route which is considered the hardest I think? Unsure on that one)
I find it so hard to rank this game. On one hand, it does everything the original Castlevania does, but better (except the soundtrack -- I prefer the original's a tiny bit). Multiple playable characters, more interesting settings and creative level design, more interesting creature designs and much more fun bosses. But... there's Block 7. Block 7. I swear, Konami hired a different team to design this one level. It would already be the longest level in the game with a whopping SEVEN stages with two bosses and no, you don't get a checkpoint after the first one stupid, go back to the beginning if you die. Oh and also here's the most annoying enemy in the game that's like the flying Medusa heads on crack. Not satisfied? Well let's throw in a section where you get to wait for blocks to fall for a full minute. Oh wait, you can skip that with Alucard? Okay, too easy, throw in another one but this time you can't skip it and it's three times as long!
Block 7 is so bad, so poorly designed, so unfun, that it was the breaking point. I didn't use any save states anywhere in the first game and was determined to do the same here, but I couldn't. I couldn't suffer through that one horrible level anymore. I put a save state at the beginning of the last stage and eventually cleared it, and it was the best decision I made. I didn't cheat anywhere else, but I sure am glad I did. But that level's existence is more than enough to place this solidly in the 7/10 range. Good game, so close to great with so many fantastic moments and easily some of my favorite levels and bosses on the NES. But man. They really could have been fine without Block 7 in the game at all.
I find it so hard to rank this game. On one hand, it does everything the original Castlevania does, but better (except the soundtrack -- I prefer the original's a tiny bit). Multiple playable characters, more interesting settings and creative level design, more interesting creature designs and much more fun bosses. But... there's Block 7. Block 7. I swear, Konami hired a different team to design this one level. It would already be the longest level in the game with a whopping SEVEN stages with two bosses and no, you don't get a checkpoint after the first one stupid, go back to the beginning if you die. Oh and also here's the most annoying enemy in the game that's like the flying Medusa heads on crack. Not satisfied? Well let's throw in a section where you get to wait for blocks to fall for a full minute. Oh wait, you can skip that with Alucard? Okay, too easy, throw in another one but this time you can't skip it and it's three times as long!
Block 7 is so bad, so poorly designed, so unfun, that it was the breaking point. I didn't use any save states anywhere in the first game and was determined to do the same here, but I couldn't. I couldn't suffer through that one horrible level anymore. I put a save state at the beginning of the last stage and eventually cleared it, and it was the best decision I made. I didn't cheat anywhere else, but I sure am glad I did. But that level's existence is more than enough to place this solidly in the 7/10 range. Good game, so close to great with so many fantastic moments and easily some of my favorite levels and bosses on the NES. But man. They really could have been fine without Block 7 in the game at all.
1994
STILL PEAK!!!
Some of the sickest ideas and one of the best soundtracks on the Game Boy, completely squandered with some of the slowest, most boring movement I've ever seen in a video game, a terrible framerate that slows and stutters whenever there's two enemies on screen, and some just abysmal level design full of cheap one-hit kills. The tough-but-fair brilliance of the first game is replaced with unrelenting tedium, even for such a short game. Just skip this one, it's not worth playing (but you should listen to the soundtrack though it goes CRAZY).
EDIT: 3/10 -> 2/10 if the game is nearly irredeemable why did i give it a 3???
EDIT: 3/10 -> 2/10 if the game is nearly irredeemable why did i give it a 3???
2019
Extremely predatory and scummy game that represents the worst parts of modern Nintendo. But it is still a little fun.
All the hype surrounding this game is pretty much purely nostalgia. It's got some creative settings but the levels themselves are fairly uninspired and it really isn't that much of an improvement over the predecessor if we're being honest. Especially the soundtrack, like come on, how are you going to follow up a great Mario soundtrack with something that sounds this bad? There's some fun to be had but this game is nothing special and is incredibly mediocre today.
2022
It's good, but way too similar to the previous games. The story mode is literally just Octo Expansion again but with slightly better level design. I'm kinda worried about this series if the third game (fourth if you count OE) still feels too similar to the first, even 7 years later.
2001
Very fun game, I was a little surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It's very satisfying to take down enemies and build up an army to help you conquer the dangerous landscapes. My only gripes were the inconsistent difficulty and the AI of the pikmin which led to some disasters that weren't my fault. It can also get a little samey as the game goes on, but it doesn't overstay it's welcome and ends up being a fairly short game, so I didn't get very sick of the gameplay. Overall a great game and I'm excited to play the rest of the series
1994
Very good video game.
1985
Pretty fun and innovative platformer. It's a shame it didn't see much success -- I can't even imagine what kinds of games we would have gotten in the Super Mario series in a different world
Okay in all seriousness this was one of the first games I ever played and man this game seemed impossible as a kid, I could barely get to world 4. But I decided to go back and give it a shot, beating every single level without warps and it felt amazing to finally complete this game that holds a special place in my heart. That being said it's not perfect, Mario feels extremely stiff and imprecise in this game which can make a lot of sections really annoying as Mario seems to almost disobey the player at times. It's kind of amazing Mario feels as good as he does since it was the first game in the series, but every game after (except for JPN 2) improved vastly on this one. Also, game overs in this game are bogus. Replaying levels you've already beaten is simply not fun and, again, every game that came after handled this much better. All that to say, a really short and sweet platforming game held back a bit by stiff movement and a lack of continues.
Okay in all seriousness this was one of the first games I ever played and man this game seemed impossible as a kid, I could barely get to world 4. But I decided to go back and give it a shot, beating every single level without warps and it felt amazing to finally complete this game that holds a special place in my heart. That being said it's not perfect, Mario feels extremely stiff and imprecise in this game which can make a lot of sections really annoying as Mario seems to almost disobey the player at times. It's kind of amazing Mario feels as good as he does since it was the first game in the series, but every game after (except for JPN 2) improved vastly on this one. Also, game overs in this game are bogus. Replaying levels you've already beaten is simply not fun and, again, every game that came after handled this much better. All that to say, a really short and sweet platforming game held back a bit by stiff movement and a lack of continues.
1982
Not my personal favorite of the arcade classics but still really, really fun.
1996
Has some terrible level design at some points, but the moment to moment platforming and gameplay loop is just so good. Amazing start to 3D Mario games.
Pretty good, but has a lot of rough spots
2018
idk
This game had SO much potential, and the open-world sections are indeed very fun, but it completely screwed it up with the levels, a lot of which are just not well designed at all.