frank frazetta. bela lugosi. lon chaney. ray harryhausen. the guy who directed the music video for DIO's holy diver.
i thank these people not just for their contributions to art but because without them we probably would not get castlevania, an almost peerless work of art that transcends time. very few platformers can stack up to it and i think it deserves a kiss and a big warm hug. the start of gaming's greatest series and one of the finest games to ever grace nintendo's own family computer.

the visuals and music have always been what sets castlevania apart from its contemporaries and, as it turns out, this has been true from the very beginning. there's a perfect level of visibility on just about everything, from the slightly pink fireballs to purple and red skeletons to simon belmont's own orange-tinted armor. backgrounds are always vibrant, from red curtains to the deep transylvanian horizon to a system of moving brass and iron cogs, making each stage feel like its own special setpiece.kinuyo yamashita crafts an impressive series of memorable tunes to accompany these setpieces, along with her cohort satoe terashima; i guarantee songs like vampire killer and wicked child will be remembered for ages to come as some of the greatest tracks in this era of videogaming. the identity of castlevania is as unmistakable and unique as it is playfully derivative; in addition to everyone i named earlier whose legacy impacts this game, there are just tons of nods to different mythologies of the world, the history of horror, and cinema in general (where else would the otherwise conan-esque simon get a WHIP from, if not Indy?).

everyone has had their own strongly-held viewpoint on the classic castlevanias' infamous "fixed jump arc" at some point. maybe you've changed your opinion over the years but i know at the least you have one. mine is that it rules and this game would be so much worse without it. every platforming challenge and enemy pattern is expertly designed around it beautifully. and speaking of challenge, it must be said that few games have a difficulty curve as balanced as CV1's. the escalation is natural, you fight enemies with basic patterns and no attacks on the first stage, onto slightly more complex patterns in the second, you're introduced to bone-throwing skeletons and wild flea-men in level 3, and so on, until by the time you're almost at dracula's door, you're fighting the former first boss as a normal enemy while hopping over bottomless pits. it's great! and while we're at it, talk about an iconic villain, huh? it's goddamn dracula. what can you even say. he turns into a fuzzy blue monster after you whip his head off, this could be the best game ever dude

wow. wowowow. what a fucking game man. nier goddamn 2010. nier gestalt. whatever you wanna call it. this is what video games are all about. i was prepared to enjoy it but i didn't realize just how "on board" i was going to be for all of this game's percieved bullshit. like early on i knew what i was getting into and i thought "man i love this jank 2010 action rpg combat and the weird tonal clash happening constantly but i am not really looking forward to getting all the weapons" and by the end i was thinking "fuck yeah i wanna do a million sidequests and fish in the desert for like an hour so i can get all the weapons". this doesn't ever happen to me normally so this was like a freak accident. but i loved this game's bizarre world and impeccable storytelling so much i just wanted to continue until i could see it all. and so i did. so i did.
final notes: i'm gonna miss my fishing records. been humming the junk heap theme all week. i think it's really funny that liam o'brien does the same voice he does in this for leviathan in skullgirls. i have zero interest in playing the remake. grumpy old nier 4 lyfe <3

thinking about the types of people who worked on this game and the types of people who okayed every decision made on this game and the types of people who this game was made for and i feel nothing for any of these people but pure contempt. fuck this game and fuck everything it stands for. it is a repulsive pile of soulless pink glittery filth. it is nothing short of nauseating to look at, to listen to, or to play. the game grumps are in this and it's not even the most upsetting/annoying part of it. i've literally never hit the "skip cutscene" button on a first playthrough before i played this game. but in the end i'm not really sure why i did, because the actual game sandwiched between these F-tier 2012 tumblr comic voiceovers sucks, too! as if it couldn't get any worse it's a fucking terrible beat-em-up! i don't even understand how they got it so wrong! the people at wayforward have obviously played a lot of old games, they should know how this stuff works, but they seem to have fucking forgotten, so you're left to trudge through a broken mess of non-functional juggles, pointless backtracking and some of the worst bosses i've ever has the displeasure of fighting in a video game. i think i'd rather play any beat em up than this. hell, give me Bad Dudes and i'd probably have a better time. anyway did you know this game's sequel which released a week ago has chris niosi in it? thought that was cool and interesting

this game sucks so bad. this is the worst 3d zelda. huge bland map filled with approximately 0 cool quests and 200 bad puzzle-rooms. great beast dungeons are almost cool but way too boring. boss fights are really bad until ganon, who's really good, until phase 2 which is a completely botched cinematic/powertrip-type fight. story is a pile of poop, none of these characters make me feel anything and zelda is the least interesting she's been since she was a fucking three-color sprite with 2 lines of text. this game gets credit for the frankly impressive level of polish covering every part of it, some half-decent combat, and its ability to keep me playing for 6 years thinking i was finally gonna find something great in it.
i have absolutely no hope for the sequel and will not be playing it
(the durability isn't bad though why is that the one thing that people always hate about this game)

my last review was fucking terrible because i made it in the middle of some kind of breakdown and im sorry for contributing to the bizarre dogpile / micro-culture war this game seems to have cultivated on here. if you liked that review while it was up for a day or two, you owe me five dollars.
anyway, real re-review:
maybe it's just that part 1 blinded me with misplaced rage the first time, but i still don't really find any of the ideas in it "challenging", just dismissive, to the point where they almost dilute how amazing and revelatory parts 2 and 3 are. it feels directed so precisely at someone like me, a "mechanics" believer, a gdc talk watcher, but i struggle to see the point of it. why hypnotize me? i'm already as feminized as can be. all of my games (released or otherwise) are for girls and they always have been!
absolutely no disrespect to princess; i liked a lot of the ideas presented in this (genuinely made me reflect on how i make games in a lot of ways) and i'd like to play more of her games.

underappreciated game from the "sf2 clone" days, not especially well-balanced as you might expect but good enough that it still has a decent scene in japan! this game has that oldschool flavor of neutral i like with some really crunchy buttons and high damage. the combos, while very tricky compared to something like SF2HF, are incredibly satisfying once you figure them out. lane system is pretty silly and ultimately vestigial, but it's still surprising how well-thought out it is. saying this both for FFS and its earlier iteration in FF2, but i feel like the roster goes underappreciated, tons of strange and interesting guys as well as beloved SNK mainstays. i personally love big bear and axel hawk a lot, and for kim and mai's first appearances it's a little crazy how they basically appeared from thin air, playstyle fully-formed.

if south town was real i would go there every summer it seems like the coolest place in america

dracula's castle as a psychedelic allegory for bipolar disorder? i think there's a lot to be explored wrt this game's story that i'm shocked nobody really has. maxim is easily one of the most interesting characters to come from this series IMO
anyway it's a mostly good game. insanely good movement, spell fusion is FUN (windfist and boltbook <3), and the enemies and bosses are quite delightful to me. music and visuals are like nothing else, and either that's your thing or it's not. (i like it!) unfortunately the map sucks and is way too big to justify there being two castles. last half took me a while to get through for this reason alone. not much else to say, pretty good overall