Posts Tagged ‘castlevania’
Konami’s Arcade Classics
This week Fred and Jam discuss the eight highlighted arcade titles in the Konami Anniversary Arcade Classics Collection that recently released on all major platforms. It’s mostly shooters with one odd action title and some glaring omissions.
Songs (in order of appearance):
- Stage Start – Gradius (Arcade)
- Cross Your Heart – Haunted Castle (Arcade)
- First Attack – Thunder Cross (Arcade)
- Poison of Snake – Salamander (Arcade)
Retro Game Night (NES Favorites): California Raisins, Robocop, Parodius, Castlevania
This week Fred focuses on NES titles:
0:00 – 19:15: California Raisins (Unreleased)
19:16 – 42:20: Robocop
42:21 – 1:11:19: Parodius Da! From Myth to Laughter
1:11:20 – 03:01:44: Castlevania (FDS version) and two ROM hacks of Castlevania (Stairs of Doom and The Holy Relics)
The sound appears to lose sync by about half a second after starting Castlevania, but it’s not that noticeable. You’d think by now I’d learn to turn off the stream when switching games, which I will do moving forward.
Podcast: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Game Club
Fred is joined by Austin and guest John Learned to discuss what most consider to be the best game in the Castlevania franchise. As usual the discussion begins with the development, then onto the main castle, the inverted castle, and final impressions. After the end of the show there are also special announcements involving RetroActive Magazine, live shows, and June on the site.
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Referenced Links:
Podcast: Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse Game Club
This week Jam and Fred do the game club thing with Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse for the NES. This title was popularized due to its technological leap, overall quality, and the fact that it’s really hard to get to work properly on third party hardware. In this episode they dissect the development, concept, and branching campaign.
Podcast: Community PS2 Top 10s and Mailbag
We asked you all for community PS2 top 10 lists and boy did you oblige. In a massive push of lists that takes nearly 2 hours to read off Fred and Jam delve deep into the many games PS2 owners love. It’s a widespread list and a great celebration of Sony’s sophomore console. As a result we’ve pushed a few of the scheduled game nights, but a friendly reminder to get started on Kingdom Hearts if you haven’t already for August’s 2-part game club.
The points totals document can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RuNTDd8ZXTQcvXQJu0wbmZMMZBYJ136qRPK2FoWzgi4/edit?usp=sharing
Podcast: Bringin’ It Back – Reboots (Part 2)
Our reboot discussion continues after a some listener mail and random discussion. This episode Jam and Fred move into the 360/PS3 era and some of the bigger named franchises that rebooted during a glut from 2007-2010.
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Although Andrew was kind enough to post the comment and Fred of course forgot to post the link, here’s the Twin Perfect Silent Hill HD link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wya4XhTPMcc
Podcast: Genre Study – Platformers (Part 2)
This week Fred and Jam wrap up the platformer genre study. They start with analysis the 16-bit era, which many consider to be the pinnacle of 2D platforming, and then move on to 3D. 3D platformers were an interesting impasse in that they marked the future of game technology and design while also making way for a strong batch of platformers that refused the third dimension.
Podcast: Genre Study of Platformers (Part 1)
This week Fred and Jam begin to tackle the evolution of genres. One of the biggest and earliest influences is definitely the Platformer. In this episode they discuss the early instances, gameplay mechanics, and eventually what comes to define the genre. In what will have to be a multi-part series, this episode covers a majority of 1978-1990.
The Countdown Obscura Horror – Day 2: Master of Darkness
DAY 2: Master of Darkness
The Sega Master System how I do love this 8 bit system. You know poor Sega never got Castlevania until the Mega Drive/Genesis so it was up developer SIMS (Soft development Innovation Multi Success) to fill that void. How this developer is still going to this day I don’t know, but I’m going to boldly state that Master of Darkenss is the best game this company developed. Other honourable mentions include the Dreamcast port of House of the Dead 2 and the best fishing game ever, Sega Bass Fishing on the Dreamcast and later the Wii.
Now before you Americans shout at me and say, “its actually called Vampire: Master of Darkness,” I will politely remind you that in Europe the “Vampire” part was removed. Maybe because of censorship, similar to how Ninja Gaiden turned into Shadow Warrior, but this is not always clear. Vampires were scary guys in the 90s (so were ninjas for that matter). In Japan this game was In the Wake of Vampire and it also came out on Game Gear.
Double Fine Has Some Awesome Game Dev Videos
I have always been meaning to watch the fantastic Double Fine Adventure! series spanning more than 20 videos at current that gives you the most in depth look behind the creative process I’ve ever seen. Always a likable team with an equally likable and charismatic leader in Tim Schafer, Double Fine nails it in this series about Kickstarted title Broken Age and all of the business and developmental setbacks along the way. I have posted the full run (playlist) below as an in-browser window for your convenience.
What you should also check out is the fantastic Devs Play series that spans 25 videos of development guys playing old games (like The Lion King and Doom) and even how to hack a ROM (they use Legend of Zelda), which I find fascinating. Probably the best episode, and a rightful finale to the first season, is a more than 2 hour video with Koji Igarashi (Iga) on the development of Symphony of the Night to kick off his new project. You can also see that below:
Gaming History 101 