KarrotaKun
I adore this game. It's a strong contender for best in the series. Characters, combat, narrative. All great. Only issue is availability and the fact that the first half didn't get a release until years later. I sure do love that Atlus opted to make this duology as hard to get as humanly possible by separating them on two different systems over a decade apart. Bravo.
2016
Great soundtrack but definitely my least favorite out of the three "popular" entries in the series.
2012
Vast improvement from its PS2 release. It's a vibe through and through. Third best in the series.
2007
"Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
It very well may be the greatest action game of all time. Still need to pick up the switch version for that on the fly style swapping. 10/10 5/5.
'Nuff said.
'Nuff said.
2003
It's as bad as everyone says. You will come to accept the square button as an ally.
2001
It's still a classic. Combat can be a bit stiff at times and doesn't flow as smoothly as later titles, but it's still manageable once you get a flow. My biggest gripe is style ranking clock is mercilessly short. Otherwise still worth a couple playthroughs.
1990
It's the first game on crack.
1988
It speaks for itself.
1988
I will never not be impressed that a game this good looking came out on the NES.
I said before that the original Castlevania is a fair challenge. Well here comes Castlevania III to kick you in the balls. It's unforgiving at times with checkpoints that'll make you claw your eyes out. Still a hell of a time, especially on original hardware. Beating this game as intended without save scumming should earn you a medal.
It should be two stars, but I have a soft spot for this ambitious mess. It set the groundwork for future entries even if we didn't know it at the time. It's biggest flaw is it's piss poor translation that makes it near impossible to figure out where to go without a guide. Still worth a play. Plus it introduced "Bloody Tears" to the franchise. That alone bumps it up a peg.
1986
A pinnacle of any NES library, Castlevania is old school balls to walls challenge. The game is hard, but it's (for the most part) fair.
2012
It gives me a headache in all the right ways, baby. Punishing difficulty, ear pounding soundtrack, and that oh so enticing call to ultra violence. Hotline Miami rings you up and asks if you'd like to jump down the rabbit hole into the garden of madness. It draws you in and then after all the chaos and bloodshed is finished, makes you look upon the misery you wrought. "Do you like hurting people?" A question that I never thought too hard on as an early teenager. Only years later did it finally click with me what Hotline Miami was trying to tell me. The violence gets you nowhere. It's fueled by unchecked PTSD, mass xenophobia, and pure rage. It feels good in the moment. Hell, it's fun. But what are you left with afterwards? Nothing but the droning of an emotionless score as you walk past the bodies back to your car. Rinse. Repeat. Hotline Miami is perhaps the greatest piece of anti-violence media ever made. The fact that so many players don't see or outright ignore the themes of this series says a lot for the state of media literacy. Maybe we're too hardwired to violence. Maybe we're just a bunch of animals fighting.
2020
A glorious last hurrah for the PS4.