I played a lot of Castlevania inspired indie games that just wouldn't click with me--and playing a real fuckin Castlevania made me realize that the hyper specific situations made by the game's eclectic line up of weapons and interesting enemies is what makes Castlevania one of a kind in the first place. Macabre, badass atmosphere and super interesting level design for the SNES era (MODE SEVEN CASTLE CYLLINDAR) are compounded by some of my favorite boss fights ever. I'm admittedly kind of a yo yo and not afraid to use save states on games like these, but this is truly the kind of game where any number of brute force retries won't help you if you don't grasp the boss characters' patterns and specific weaknesses. Presicely what I wanted this era's update of Castlevania to be.