During the initial year of when I discovered emulation I browsed a bunch of sites for completely legal downloads that no doubt put a few bits of spyware on my family's PC, which sat nicely along with all the bloat from grabbing those Stone Temple Pilot songs that were misattributed to Nirvana off of Limewire.
I recall running across this one while browsing the NES section of LousyWAREZ [made up] and being completely mindblasted by seeing a song by Dio just sitting there. "This ain't real", said the dim-witted naive teenager. Lo and behold, it was a Castlevania of sorts, featuring who I figured was Ronnie James Belmont clad in armor and a cape, walking while pumpin' his fists in the air like a complete badass. There was one thing though that guaranteed it would stick with me regardless of it's quality, and that was just how much it didn't give a shit about your livelihood [or your kids].
Castlevania if it started with the Axe Armor hallway and it's difficulty kept ratcheting well past fighting Death without cheese tactics. Screen flashing that would make Transformers Convoy no Nazo proud, and would get an entire family of Porygons to howl like a pack of dire wolves in approval. Enemies that don't play by the rules, and are placed more haphazardly than your average five year old with Super Mario Maker. Stages that feel like they take a lifetime to traverse despite these GameFAQs maps showing otherwise, all thanks to the "I think I overdid it chief" style of difficulty that the lads over at Irem attempted in order to appease the gamerbase that thought Ghosts n' Goblins was too damn easy. Well, I hope they were happy over there, because I'm sure I know the reason why it wasn't released to the west originally. If we hated Super Mario Bros 2. Japan, I'm pretty sure Holy Diver would've destroyed at least ten states after riots sprang out across the country if it managed to get over here. An outcome comparable to ten Philadelphia losses at the Super Bowl via a last minute holding call.
Holy Diver is what I feel like most people play when they slag on NES era games, because I've played a lot of the more maligned hard-hitting titles on it such as Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads, Silver Surfer, etc and all of those feel outright easy compared to this. I'll go to my grave stating that Ninja Gaiden is one of the all-time greats for the system despite it's flaws, and Silver Surfer is almost a good game albeit tarnished with fatal weaknesses regarding the tankiness of it's enemies/bullets. Holy Diver is just cruel, downright unplayable without save states or the patience and luck and timing of Buddha. It isn't satisfying at all to overcome, and instead feels like a waste of time.
It's a shame, I love everything else about it. Welp, into the same pits as Jersey Devil it goes. Was happy to tank my approval rating on BL by nominating this for Game Club, but y'all need to remember that you voted for this. Ya can't just pin this one on me.
You did this.
I recall running across this one while browsing the NES section of LousyWAREZ [made up] and being completely mindblasted by seeing a song by Dio just sitting there. "This ain't real", said the dim-witted naive teenager. Lo and behold, it was a Castlevania of sorts, featuring who I figured was Ronnie James Belmont clad in armor and a cape, walking while pumpin' his fists in the air like a complete badass. There was one thing though that guaranteed it would stick with me regardless of it's quality, and that was just how much it didn't give a shit about your livelihood [or your kids].
Castlevania if it started with the Axe Armor hallway and it's difficulty kept ratcheting well past fighting Death without cheese tactics. Screen flashing that would make Transformers Convoy no Nazo proud, and would get an entire family of Porygons to howl like a pack of dire wolves in approval. Enemies that don't play by the rules, and are placed more haphazardly than your average five year old with Super Mario Maker. Stages that feel like they take a lifetime to traverse despite these GameFAQs maps showing otherwise, all thanks to the "I think I overdid it chief" style of difficulty that the lads over at Irem attempted in order to appease the gamerbase that thought Ghosts n' Goblins was too damn easy. Well, I hope they were happy over there, because I'm sure I know the reason why it wasn't released to the west originally. If we hated Super Mario Bros 2. Japan, I'm pretty sure Holy Diver would've destroyed at least ten states after riots sprang out across the country if it managed to get over here. An outcome comparable to ten Philadelphia losses at the Super Bowl via a last minute holding call.
Holy Diver is what I feel like most people play when they slag on NES era games, because I've played a lot of the more maligned hard-hitting titles on it such as Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads, Silver Surfer, etc and all of those feel outright easy compared to this. I'll go to my grave stating that Ninja Gaiden is one of the all-time greats for the system despite it's flaws, and Silver Surfer is almost a good game albeit tarnished with fatal weaknesses regarding the tankiness of it's enemies/bullets. Holy Diver is just cruel, downright unplayable without save states or the patience and luck and timing of Buddha. It isn't satisfying at all to overcome, and instead feels like a waste of time.
It's a shame, I love everything else about it. Welp, into the same pits as Jersey Devil it goes. Was happy to tank my approval rating on BL by nominating this for Game Club, but y'all need to remember that you voted for this. Ya can't just pin this one on me.
You did this.
PasokonDeacon
1 year ago