honestly feel like i should preface this with an apology but ff9 is kind of exhausting to me. it feels like going to a shift to work at a theme park; it's pretty and sweet, it's whimsical, and it has nice atmosphere and sometimes you even see your favorite characters walking around, but at the end of the day it's still a day of work to get through. going to just chalk it up as this one not being for me until a few years down the line where i yet again try to beat my head against this game until i like it

spooky atmospheric japanese game where you get to run around as not just one, but three lovely ladies what more can you really ask for? The combat is dumb, straight up bonkers but despite the flaws,,,,the game mesmerized me in such a way that it wasn't a turn off. Games have jank, and you just have to go with it. Steer into the skid type of situation. You're going to be walking all over the place, but you really start getting familiar with the landscape. It's cool that these virtuals worlds become navigable in such a way like your very own neighborhood. Im in a time of my life where im not beating games like I used to. Seeing this game through to the end was a pleasure and it feels good to finally beat a game after so long. Return to form boogiepop era? i sure hope so!

outside of the (understandably) on-the-nose coloured doorways nearly every instance of environmental interaction is rich and tactile. thirty years later it's still a wonder to grope and paw at every (Possibly Maybe) malleable surface and leverage every new upgrade toward greater structural manipulation and command

in ensuring how and when are given as much significance as what and where it forms a relationship between actor and environment that bears uncommonly personal patterns and markings as you learn to use Your body as an implement to interface with the world. sidepaths and back alleys that carve Under - Over - Through reshape the familiar thru layered mechanical discovery and shift the internal v external dynamic in turn; mastery of the self begetting exponential mastery of the other

a fitting problem then that the biocircuitry, plunging intestinal mazes, and gloomy dark ambient synthesis quickly become less something to endure so much as to dominate; the dissonance for show, and the brutality nakedly glamorous and one sided. so much of it exists in service to the pursuit of (Your) power, kneeling with its neck outstretched waiting to feel bones shatter for Your gratification. sure, I feel obscenely powerful, but I'd rather feel anything else

I had shelved this game for a while and did not realize how close I was to Dracula, so beating it after just 2 stages came as a bit of a surprise.

It's definitely the hardest out of the original trilogy, with some annoying parts like what felt like an increase of fighting on stairs and an incredibly poorly placed checkpoint on the Dracula boss battle. If you're playing on original hardware, good luck with the second one especially.

Still, there are branching paths and multiple characters to recruit, increasing the replay value and adding depth, while still retaining that Castlevania 1 formula.
There is quite a bit of room for experimentation and coming up with different strategies on the fly is a must.
The improved graphics and soundtrack were also pretty good.

Overall, I'd say this game falls into the category of games I appreciate more than I like. It's by no means a bad game. I had fun with it in quite a few places, I get the reasoning behind most of the design decisions and how important it is to gaming history, but it's not exactly my type of game.