#like rondo of blood i had fun but i could not come up with a level that i loved or hated sorry

[beevean]

Top 5 best and/or worst Castlevania levels

A bit hard to judge "levels" in Metroidvanias, but I can't be bothered to separate the different styles :P

Best:

5) Cordova Town (Curse of Darkness): it's a gloomy zombie town, with the lore implying that it was affected by the titular Curse. The music sounds straight out of ShTH. You finally get the chance to punch Isaac. It hosts the mythical Chair Room. All in all, a highly atmospheric zone. If only it had colors other than grey…

4) Atlantis Shrine (Bloodlines): gorgeous graphics, early Michiru Yamane was already slaying, and interesting platforming. Great Classicvania right there :)

3) Underground Caverns (Symphony of the Night): look, it's just. it's just beautiful. I really love the entire stretch from here to the Catacombs.

2) Stage 2 (Adventure ReBirth): I played this game ages ago, but I remember loving it and finding its gimmicks memorable :) for some reason the watermills here impressed me.

13th Street (Portrait of Ruin): you stop an incoming train with the Superpower of Teamwork, to the notes of Iron Blue Intention. How isn't that the sickest shit ever? Also I just like the 1940s London setting, that it shares with City of Haze :)

Honorary mention to Dracula's Castle in Order of Ecclesia: too big to be considered a whole level, but it was such a welcome surprise after the main game <3

Worst:

5) Dracula's Castle (Curse of Darkness): 7 whole floors of nothing but the most annoying enemies in the game. How do you spell "rushed development"?

4) Argilla Swamp (Order of Ecclesia): I think these levels that are nothing but straight lines were made for those that want a challenge in Hard mode. I did not, and as I was expecting a more Metroidvania game, I found these levels very disappointing ngl. This one is even more annoying because of the titular swamps that slow you down.

3) Ghostly Theatre (Lament of Innocence): absolutely beautiful place, but some of the most annoying gimmicks in the game reside here. This is the point where I really, really, really lost my patience with the controls. Hello, dark room.

2) Block 9 (Castlevania 3): while I did like the game, I am not going to forget the sheer evil of this part. Especially at the streams. yeah yeah git gud, I know, but hey.

Level 3 (Castlevania: The Adventure): just... watch this, and try to understand my utter misery at this garbage piece of code.

[onestepbackwards]

Hello! I'm normally a ghost reader but I really have to tell you the following; I love your writing! Wholeheartedly! It really makes my day, even my whole week when I read your oneshots/short stories! I'm currently in love with "What's all the buzz about?" and "Our Angel" - the submas twins are sitting rn rentfree in my mind and reading your awesome stories really makes me happy! Also, I really, really love "Love that bites" - I never played Castlevania and never watched it but still; your writing pulled me right in! Now I'm even considering buying one xD (do you have a recommendation?) Anyway! Just wanted to tell you that and wondered when a next part might come - if you don't know/have no idea or don't feel so good bc of health problems, that's fine! Don't pressure yourself and take your time! :) Kind regards crimson anon

Hello Crimson Anon! (o´∀`o)/

Thank you so much for the kind words!! I’m really touched you like my writing 🥰 When I started this blog, I never really thought people would like it this much, so its nice to see messages like this 🥹

I’m glad you enjoying all my stories, and even gave my Castlevania fic a shot!

If you do want to try the games out, there are a few good ones out there to start with!

I first recommend Symphony of the Night. It’s a classic, and redefined the series, and even created the Metroidvania genre with the help of Metroid games!

It was specifically designed to be a Castlevamia game anyone could play. It starts out a little tough if you aren’t sure what to do, but it still considered a gem, and I enjoy playing it. I’d even do daily randomizer runs of it when I still had a computer! This game was a lot if people’s first Castlevania game too!

(Word if advice, if you play it, explore every cranny you can, look at every item description, and there are technically 2 clocktowers. One in the middle if the castle, and one that is an actual tower. The first is a kinda a mistranslation, but if you want the full experience, it’s easier to figure out some things if you know that. The game is deceptively longer than you might think.)

You can get SotN on playstation 4, and on a few other consoles I believe! You can even get it with Rondo of Blood, one of the best Castlevania games before Symphony came out. If you want a more original Castlevania experience, Rondo is the way to go. Symphony is actually a direct sequel to Rondo, but you don’t have to beat Rondo to know what’s going on.

Though if you do get the Rondo + Symphony bundle, Symphony is technically a remaster, with new text and voice acting. A lot if the iconic lines were changed or redone. Its still done nicely, but if you get this version, make sure to look up the original cutscenes on youtube. Dracula’s lines may be memed a bit, but he put his whole non existent soul into those lines, along with Richter. Evil Richter my beloved~

Rondo has some of the best sprite work, level design, and enemies before Symphony, while still being a classic! It technically took a long time for it to get an english release too, and i had a lot if fun with it!

You don’t have to know the overarching story to play Rondo either. Most of the games don’t really require knowledge from previous games.

But if you want to start somewhere based on the story, I recommend Lament of Innocence. Its the first game in the timeline, though you would probably have to emulate it since this was only released in the ps2 i believe.

It’s an amazing game, and plays similar to Devil may cry 1. It has its issues, but i genuinely love it, and it IS first in the timeline.

If you can’t find it, or emulate it, i know some lets plays are on youtube, and one of my favorite streamers has played it as well.

For a beginner, those are the ones I recommend! But honestly, Symphony is probably your best bet. Its casual and fun, and has a good story that a little of the anime was based off of (though the rest was based off of Castlevania 3, but they took lore from symphony too)

If you like symphony, it more or less set the standard of modern castlevania games after that before the reboot. So playing it will help out a bit if you wanna try any others that came out afterwards, most of them on gameboy and ds are pretty good too.

As for my writing, i’m about 2500 words into Love That Bites, and about a 1000 for the next Our Angel! I’ve been working on both instead of one at a time so i can focus on Beemas, and a genshin fic i’ve been planning, and maybe another castlevania fic 👉👈

I try to get all my chapters around 3000 words before i post them. Just a personal goal of mine. If i write more, then great! But i try to write about that much first.

so thats one reason its taking a bit longer than usual, added with the migraines i’ve been fighting for the past few weeks. I’ll try to have those out soon though! Hopefully within a few days!

Thank you so much for reading and enjoying my stuff 🥰💕

[miloscat]

[Review] Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls (iOS)

It was inevitable; they turned Castlevania into a free to play mobile game. But it’s not bad actually!

I was interested in this game since it was announced years ago. After a soft launch exclusive to Canada in 2019, it was soon discontinued, seemingly cancelled. In reality Konami must have done a deal with Apple to rework the game for the Apple Arcade service, and it resurfaced a month ago! It feels like some other F2P conversions to the platform; gacha system and various currencies intact, but clearly a stamina/energy system and the ability to pay real money were once there and have been ripped out. Also removed from the soft launch version was the multiplayer mode and with it larger, Harmony of Despair-type maps.

The game as it currently exists is a level-based experience like the Classicvanias of old, but with a core loop revolving around loot and upgrading your stats. There’s five characters to play as, fun choices all: Alucard (Symphony of the Night), Simon (Castlevania 1), young Maria (Rondo of Blood), Charlotte (Portrait of Ruin), and Shanoa (Order of Ecclesia). It’s a good mix from different eras who play differently; I favoured Maria as I did in Rondo itself for her small stature and nimble, bird-based attack pattern, but it was also fun playing as Shanoa again and using her magnet launch to zip around and get out-of-the-way treasures.

Being a crossover with seemingly low stakes seemed an uninteresting angle to me. I preferred how the similar Chinese-developed—and sadly cancelled—Moonlight Rhapsody had a robust cast of new characters to expand the series. But GoS does try harder than HoD at least with its framing story, set nebulously post-Dawn of Sorrow, and I came to appreciate the character-building conversations, especially the ones rewarded for completing optional levels.

In terms of content it’s a lot of rehashing, given the plot involves records of past events stored in magical tomes being tampered with (sort of like Dragonball’s Time Patrol). But again it’s a fair variety of different environments, even if the enemy types feel like an extension of the Rondo->Symphony->DS games->HD recycling. Everything is redone in cel-shaded 3D models, so they really could have broadened things out in this department. At time of writing there are four worlds each with fifteen levels and a boss; difficulty (ie. stat numbers) ramps up with each but the game provides you with enough resources to keep up pretty comfortably. There’s also side modes with different kinds of challenges to keep things fresh. I feared the game would be dumped as it was and left as such, but during my playtime it received an update with UI improvements and a themed event, which gives hope that new levels and the implicitly promised Soma roster expansion will come.

Since this is an Apple Arcade game, it supports play on all Apple devices. I swapped around a lot, from my phone for casual play at any time—navigating the many menus is much better with touch—to the Apple TV with a Dualshock 4—more precise in-game controls for serious gameplay—to a hybrid approach with an iPad on my lap, allowing for touch menus and gamepad for levels. They all worked pretty well!

I can see myself returning to this when it’s updated but as it is it’s a decent little package. I’m just glad it was finally widely released in some form or other. Not that I’m getting my hopes up for what this means for the series, but Konami was invested enough in this to get Ayami Kojima back for portraits and Michiru Yamane for music, two big names from the franchise’s history, which is encouraging. Either way we still have the Bloodstained games for “proper” game experiences as well... but this is pretty good too!

[possessedartist]

Okay Castlevania Season 3 Thoughts

I’ve been watching it on/off for the past four days since I got busy at points but I just finished it about a hour ago.

(seems like everyone is either shitting on it or liked it lol)

Okay so, it was a fun season as someone who’s played (about half??? ish?????) of the series’ games. There’s a ton of easter eggs and nods, particularly the biggest ones being The Infinite Corridor (of Curse of Darkness fame) and Legion (I’ve only battled them in two games, one being SOTN). I didn’t realize it was Legion until they all started flying up in the air though lol. I’m very much glad that they weren’t all naked though dodndodn. Also the monsters!!! Very good!!!! I loved the Cthulhu one and they even included some of his in game attacks AND THE ANGELS UGHHHHH THEY WERE SO COOL AND THEY HAD THE GAME MUSIC PLAYING TOO

anyways I digress

Okay so plot line wise! I think Issac and Trevor/Sypha’s plotlines were the strongest imo. Just mostly because they both had the most screentime out of the four plotlines.

I don’t think either Alucard’s or Hector’s plotlines were particularly weak (or as weak as people are making them out to be). I think the problem is that since this is a twenty minute episode show, most of the build up shown in their plotlines won’t really pay off until the next season.

Hector is most likely going to go through his Curse of Darkness arc next season, likely whenever Issac launches his assault on the castle- and him being manipulated is the beginning of his arc. He basically realizes at the end of s3 that “Hey, I’m being way too trusting because every single time I place my trust in someone- I get used in the end so I should stop.” And so I think Issac might end up helping Hector unknowingly or unwillingly whenever he reachs Carmilla’s castle but that remains to be seen.

Alucard wise- yeah that sucked but it was needed (though I won’t necessarily agree it should’ve been in that way). I think it’s the beginning of his arc toward the SOTN and later games. The only humans he’s ever known was his mother and Sypha and Trevor and it’s here I’d like to draw a interesting parallel to Sypha and Alucard this season. Both by the end have their expectations betrayed because both unrealistically believe that monsters are bad and humans can never stoop down so low- and are proven very much otherwise by the end of their arcs. Between Castlevania III and SOTN, Alucard is said to have been sleeping the entire time. By SOTN, the only reason he wakes is because something happened in Dracula’s castle. If these are the events that lead up to him putting himself to rest for over a hundred years, I don’t blame the dude.

I’d like to also point to a post I saw earlier drawing parallels between Jesus and Alucard. There’s way too many parallels between them to not say there’s no connection, and that whole post is a good read for anyone interested in it (here’s the link). Anyways, the post points out as of right now, we’re at the point where Jesus is betrayed by his own disciple, Judas gives him the kiss of betrayal, and then Jesus is crucified. Likewise, we have Alucard being betrayed by his own students/disciples, he’s given a kiss of betrayal, and then crucified in literally the same position Jesus was. What happens next in the Bible is Jesus being placed in a tomb (assumed to be dead) and he ‘rests’ for three days and then rises and washes humanity of their sins (very much a brief bad retelling of the Bible but anyways). What’d make the most logical sense is that in Season 4, Alucard lays down to rest only to wake up at the events of Rondo of Blood/SOTN, and then ‘save humanity’ or in this case, Richter- the descendant of the one and only Trevor Belmont- thereby finishing the ‘Jesus Arc.’ While I don’t agree too much on how Ellis went about it, I can see how and why he set up Alucard’s storyline like he did- and it’d be unfair to say that I didn’t see it coming. There’s some really off lines they say at the beginning of the season which already made suspicious of those two, so it’s not exactly like it came out of nowhere- especially given their backstory (though they took it to a extreme I wouldn’t have thought they would).

Other characters wise, god I should’ve seen it coming but I’m sad about the judge character (anyone who follows me knows how into AA I am currently). He seemed so nice, but I realized that was over as soon as he told the monk dude to go to the apple tree because I was like “there’s no way there isn’t a trap for him there.” And then when they showed him falling into the pit, I was like WHELP THAT KID FROM EARLIER IS DEAD. Ugh I hate he’s a serial killer (and may have done more? Don’t want to think about it) and he collects their shoes uGHHH COOL BUT I WISH I KNEW EARLIER I WAS LEGIT GOING TO DRAW THE DUDE BUT IM NOT SURE NOW.

St. Germain was so cool! I loved seeing him (and even more nods to curse of darkness ughhh) and while he wasn’t a time traveller (at least not yet), he was such a treat to watch on screen. I’m very interested to see how he’ll act if he pops up later into the shows timeline, overall he was just a joy to watch on screen interacting with the other characters and I loved watching him talking about snorting mysterious drugs and waking up weeks later not knowing wth happening and of course, the toilet paper.

(Also the lesbian vampires DO own my heart thank you very much)

Anyways!! I didn’t think the season was bad! Still much better than any other plotlines I’ve seen most tv series try to do, so I refuse to say it’s bad writing (at least all of it). I couldn’t tell in Season 2 how this was going to link to any of the later games but I think with the end of Season 3, I’m starting to see how it’s linking together- at least in the way I’m thinking it’ll be. It’s very interesting watching this unfold as someone who’s been playing the games and watching other people losing it especially if they’re unaware of the events of rondo/sotn/ and the games with reincarnated dracula and alucard except now he’s decided to be a secret agent (which I haven’t gotten very far in). I won’t say people are being unfair in saying this was bad, because there are points where I was definitely un-invested, particularly during Alucard’s segments- which I think definitely needed more length and more time dedicated into making the story a lot better than it was- but I do believe despite some of the cons of this season- there was some pros as well.

EDIT: I’d like to also add I don’t think this is the end of St. Germain! If they decide to keep his timetraveling, although Issac and Hector’s roles are basically reversed as of rn, he comes in Curse of Darkness to stop the two from killing eachother so that could also potentially happen in a season 4. Just my thoughts and theories though lol

[cerastes]

With all these Belmonts, is there a concise family tree?

Concise, yeah, though not all the details are filled, and some stuff has been left open-ended or simply not enough information was given. The traditional timeline’s canon Belmonts, and their tree, is as follows:

The short answer is Leon -> Trevor -> Christopher -> Soleiyu -> Simon -> Juste -> Richter -> Julius.

The long answer is

Leon Belmont (Lament of Innocence): The earliest known Belmont who went into a vampire fortress alone and unarmed to beat the absolute crap out of whoever it is that kidnapped his wife in the year 1094. A baron who was widely believed to be the strongest knight in Europe, he started the Belmont Clan’s tradition of killing vampires and respecting women. Quotes of his include “I’ll kill you and the night!” and “Mark my words, from today on, I and all my descendants will not give you peace! The Belmont Clan will hunt the night!” which proves that people named ‘Leon’ in PS2 era games are just treasure troves of quotes, and not small time. Actually didn’t fight Dracula! He did best Death, though. He was engaged with Sara Tantroul, but during the Mess that happened during Leon’s adventure, as she was dying, she infused her soul with the Whip of Alchemy, turning it into the Vampire Killer. This means that every Belmont is practically swinging their great great great grandmother at Vampires to beat the utter piss out of them and she couldn’t be happier. Leon later married an unknown woman, which I hope wasn’t too awkward for his now Whip Wife.

Trevor Belmont (Castlevania III and Curse of Darkness): Almost 400 years pass, and in 1476, Trevor becomes the first Belmont to defeat Dracula, alongside future wife Sypha Belnades (a powerful spellcaster from the magic-focused Belnades Clan) and close friends Alucard (that Alucard, Dracula’s son) and Grant Danasty (a noble thief from Wallachia), and then assists a Devil Forgemaster that defected from Dracula’s service named Hector (a very strong and good boy) kill Dracula after Bad Vlad resurrected prematurely. Although an incredible warrior proud of his skills, he is also cautious, and kind of a rude jackass but he has a heart of gold. Has a REALLY good boss theme for when you have to fight him. He also starts in the Castlevania Pachislot game, which has a soundtrack too good for a fucking pachislot game, what the hell.

Christopher Belmont (The Adventure and Belmont’s Revenge): Around a hundred years later, in 1591, Dracula resurrected tougher than ever. Luckily, Christopher Belmont, great-grandson of Trevor, was lifting pretty much every day, so he went and clowned on Dracula. He was very happy about this, and he also very happy that 15 years after this fight, Soleiyu Belmont, his son, was coming of age as a Vampire Hunter. He was going to give him the Vampire Slayer, as per tradition, to make him the main Belmont, BUT THEN, Dracula, the tricky willy, HADN’T ACTUALLY DIED from the fight with Christopher, and had just been left very very weak, but due to this, he couldn’t do anything, so he possessed Soleiyu to recover his power, which Christopher DIDN’T LIKE, so he went at him again. After defeating his son Soleiyu in a duel and freeing him from Bad Vlad’s influence, he went and beat Dracula SO HARD that he did die this time, and for a while at it.

SIMON FUCKING BELMONT (Castlevania, Simon’s Quest, Super Castlevania IV, Harmony of Dissonance, and Chronicles): THE LEGEND HIMSELF. Simon Belmont, the hero of the very first game, and thus, the “first” Belmont in that way. Simon grew up hearing stories and legends of his lineage’s finest feats: His ancestor Trevor, his great-grandfather Christopher, even his grandfather Soleiyu, and always felt anxious of whether or not he was worthy of the name Belmont, worthy enough to be in such a kickass family, always wondered if he would be able to stand up to the expectation. A chance to find the answer to that question would come in 1691, when Dracula revived AGAIN, and Simon, age 22, who had spent his whole life training and becoming a monster truck gijinka, went and absolutely fucking eradicated Dracula, just gave him those kind of punches that send you to another side of the map, blew him across his own throne room as if he was on 200% damage in Smash Bros, just pulverized him. Dracula, however, managed to inflict a wound on his back, and he cursed it with his dying breath. The wound never healed, and Simon just kinda accepted that.  7 years pass and Simon’s all bummed out ‘cause he’s gonna die from this one little fuckin’ nick on his back, when a Mysterious Woman tells him “hey, find Dracula’s body parts and burn them to heal your curse” and he was like “sounds good to me”, so he did, assembled the parts, and ended up reviving Dracula, who immediately looked at Simon and went “Oh bother” before Simon unleashed the mother of all beat downs on him, tore him apart AGAIN, and now burned dismantled Bela Lugosi-looking mother fucker for good measure. This undid the curse, because exorcisms and blessings are weak and inferior to some good ol’ ultraviolence. The Belmont Clan was kinda ostracized before this because people were afraid of their superhuman power, but Simon’s feat of kicking Dracula’s ass, and then reviving him so he could kick his ass even harder was so awe inspiring that the people were like “that’s pretty cool dude!” and now they loved the Belmonts, and Simon became a legend, and a village formed around the Belmont Clan household out of respect for them.

Juste Belmont (Harmony of Dissonance): ...And in this village is where Simon’s grandson, Juste, grew up! Even among Belmonts, Juste was particularly powerful due to his immense aptitude for magic in addition to his factory setting Belmont Strength, owing to the Belnades blood in his lineage. In 1748, his best friend, Maxim Kischine, wanted to prove he was stronger than Juste, so he emulated Simon’s feat from 50 years ago and collected all of Dracula’s body parts (which should have burned but Dracula is tenacious HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TEACH YOU THIS LESSON, OLD MAN), EXCEPT despite being a formidable lad, Maxim was nowhere near Simon levels of strong, physically or spiritually, so he got possessed by Dracula’s influence, lol. Not Dracula himself, though, he was still VERY dead after Simon got done with him, but his influence lingered in his body parts. Juste is also a very successful IKEA employee and loves interior design, skills he puts at good use in a room in Castlevania for some reason unknown to everyone but him. Despite his kitsch tastes, Juste, as said before, is VERY STRONG, and so he beat the influence right out of Maxim and then killed it AGAIN outside of Juste, all while traversing a physical Castlevania and a spiritual Castlevania brought to quasi-existence by Maxim’s psyche, all the while rescuing their mutual friend Lydie Erlanger. Fun Fact! What Juste kills is Dracula’s influence, not Dracula himself. The final boss, Dracula Wraith, is just the manifestation of his influence after draining power from Maxim (as formidable as the real Dracula, but not actually Dracula), making him and Leon the only two people in this list that didn’t actually kill Dracula. He then likely marries Lydie and they have a no doubt very beautiful home hand-decorated by Juste himself.

Richter Belmont (Rondo of Blood, Symphony of the Night, Nocturne of Recollection, Portrait of Ruin): Richter is either Juste’s son or grandson, we don’t know, but what we do know for sure is that he’s made of something harder than the strongest metal known to man. He is VERY strong, and said to be The Strongest Belmont, period (at least until Julius). Dracula revived again SIGH and ordered a bunch of women to be kidnapped to be sacrificed to him, which included Annette, Richter’s girlfriend. Richter kinda doesn’t like this, so much like Leon, he goes absolutely ballistic on 1792 and embarks on his quest to kick vampire ass. Unlike Leon, however, he does bring weaponry. On his path of asskicking, Richter rescues fellow Vampire Hunter and distant relative of the Belmont Clan, Maria Renard, and if you’ve been following this post, you’ll know that just one Vampire Hunter is VERY strong, WELL IMAGINE TWO OF THEM NOW. Holy SHIT, they just fucking suplexed the entire castle like Sabin on steroids, satellite lasers have less firepower than this duo. So Dracula obviously loses like the jobber he is, and everything’s ok. Unfortunately, Dracula has a hyper competent sidekick. No, not Death, that guy jobs, too, I mean a Dark Priest named Shaft, who, unlike what his idiot name might suggest, is actually really good at his job. He’s the one that revive Dracula this time, and boy howdy he was going to try again, EXCEPT this time he brainwashed Richter into helping them, and that’s when Alucard, ally of Trevor, bursts out of his sarcophagus and decides to lend a hand in this whole Dracula ass kicking, but that’s another story for another day.

Julius Belmont (Aria of Sorrow/Dawn of Sorrow): The last known Belmont and the strongest. Julius fucks. In 1999, he obliterated Dracula, we don’t know how, we never were told how it went down, but all that is known is that he absolutely did that. He then lends a helpful hand to Aria/Dawn’s protagonist, Soma Cruz, but that’s also another story for another time.

[smashingatsonicspeed]

AUGUST SMASH DIRECT THOUGHTS

Boy! That last Smash Direct certainly added more hype then there already was for Ultimate. Just like with the E3 Direct I’m going to go through the major things covered in the order they were announced

SIMON & RICHTER BELMONT

Simon was technically leaked twice. He was among a seemingly credible leak that mentioned Ridley, Snake, Ice Climbers, and no cuts. And then Simon apparently was accidentally leaked through some goof up by Nintendo. (Though I dodged it since I know it was only one night before the reveal so I still didn’t know for sure if Simon was in until the reveal). But either way this ia amazing, Castlevania is certainly a worthy inclusion in Smash on the likes of all the other NES franchises represented. But what wasn’t leaked was Richter as an echo. Richter was the protagonist of Rondo of Blood. Which wasn’t exactly on a Nintendo console unless you count Dracula X in the 90s. Richter was also in Symphony of the Night which has never been on a Nintendo console. But he’s famous even in the meme-wise cause he’s the one who’s there for when Dracula yells “WHAT IS A MAN?!” in the hammy voice acting that was normal for this era of gaming. He was also an unlockable character on a DS game but otherwise Richter isn’t too Nintendo famous. But he is the most popular Belmont in Japan. They just needed to still feature the most iconic Belmont as the main inclusion still. I’m fine with Richter though. Though when I play as either of them, I’m playing Simon more for sure.

P.S. The trailer was great, not just for the super cool footage of Simon. But it was hilarious seeing Luigi running scared. Luigi getting killed by Death has quickly even become the latest Smash Bros. meme

DRACULA’S CASTLE STAGE & BOSS

The stage itself looks fittingly creepy and will have some pretty amazing music I imagine too. And Dracula being a boss is great as well. I kinda wish they’d have him yell “WHAT IS A MAN?!” when he came in. But I imagine that would be a bit much and ruin the moment. But it’d be hilarious to me.

NEW ECHO FIGHTERS: CHROM AND DARK SAMUS

When Chrom showed up I actually smiled. Now I’m no Fire Emblem fan. And yes it’s another sword user, and a fourth Marth-like character. But given how humiliated Chrom was in Smash 4. Not just in the Robin/Lucina trailer but the memes it caused in the Smash fandom that made a once proud and potential newcomer into a butt monkey on nearly the same level as Ridley with the TOO BIG memes. Even for characters I don’t necessarily want to see I would not want that fate to happen to their fans. It’s just brutal. Though at the very least Chrom seems to borrow a few moves from Ike as well. I even thought at first he was an echo of Ike before I checked later that it was actually for Roy. So I’m pretty happy Chrom actually got to have his chance. I am also certainly using Chrom more then I ever will for Roy.

It’s no doubt though that Dark Samus stole the show for echoes. She’s already my favorite echo so far and she has some slick-looking animations that may make her more worth playing then regular power-suit Samus. Metroid fans can be happy that they’ve doubled up the reps. And both of them are well-deserved additions.

ECHOES CAN EITHER BE STACKED OR SEPARATED ON THE CSS

This also may lessen the disgust that people had with Dark Pit’s inclusion back in Smash 4. Just put the echoes in the corner of the character they’re echoing. I’m certainly going to keep them stacked myself. I think the CSS will also look cleaner that way

ALL CHARACTERS WILL BE REVEALED BEFORE LAUNCH

In other words, Sakurai has had it with those final roster leaks only weeks/days before release. Base Game speculation’s days are numbered until the final Smash Direct before release (Which would be likely in October or November). DLC speculation will immediately start after it. But we’re going to have our explosion of reactions to the final base roster done soon enough. Going to be some tense times until then

RETURNING STAGES

There’s so many returning stages! I’ll just say that Brinstar Depths, Magicant, and Fountain of Dreams are particularly ones I’m excited are back. Yoshi 64, Venom, Fourside, New Pork City, and Windy Hill are also nice to see.

CAPTAIN TOAD ON NEW DONK CITY

Welp, Captain Toad is looking very unlikely now. He could be DLC potentially since he isn’t a major stage hazard nor an Assist Trophy. But with a focus on longtime fan favorites and bringing every veteran back. Captain Toad just fell to the way side. It’s a shame, if the newcomers have been chosen in the same fashion Smash 4’s was. I think Captain Toad would of been a near certainty. This also unfortunately means that the last chance for a playable Toad has left us. Smash can’t include everyone, even with some characters like Ridley finally getting their chance, there are still some characters that would certainly count for Nintendo All-Stars that just couldn’t quite make it. This is probably one of the few disappointments I had with the direct. But I’ve dealt without a playable Toad for 4 games already, I can deal with another.

103 STAGES

Man that’s a lot of stages. Not to mention we won’t have to unlock any, they’ll be there from the start. Though Sakurai mentioning this does have me suspicious that this means there’s no more base game stages to add unless they are really trying to hide any newcomers that may come with stages. But it seems odd to point this out exactly if there were even just a few more stages in reality

STAGE HAZARD SWITCH

If you’re a competitive player or even just dislike stages where you’re fighting the stage more then your opponent then you absolutely should love this option. More viable stages and everything

STAGE MORPH

Now this is cool. And could definitely add to the Chaos of a match especially if you randomize both stages. Imagine you get a nice stage that would be competitively legal but then BAM you get something like Great Cave Offensive or Big Blue as the stage morph stage. Plenty of opportunity for hilarity there. Should be fun.

800+ TRACKS + 20 SONIC SONGS + STILL ONLY 2 FINAL FANTASY SONGS

Man this game’s soundtrack is going to be crazy! I am interested in what they have new for Sonic. There’s apparently only 20. If every Sonic song returned that was in either of the last two games. There’d be room for only 2. But if none of the Brawl ones return that leaves room for 6. And that’s not counting the possibility they cut some songs. Though perhaps another bummer from this is apparently Final Fantasy is still only getting 2 songs. So now we know it wasn’t just DLC budget getting in the way. Square is still being stingy.

STAMINA NOW A STANDARD MODE THAT CAN HAVE STOCKS

I’ve always kind of liked Stamina mode as something to be a change of pace of the regular gameplay. So it having it able to have stocks is quite cool

FINAL SMASH METER

Now this is really cool and may even open the possibility of some tournaments allowing Final Smashes in tourneys. I doubt it will be in really serious tournaments anyway, but could certainly allow for some hype in tourneys that do allow it.

SQUAD STRIKE

It’s a little vague at the moment. But Squad Strike might be the closest to something like the match in Smash Tour with a different character per stock? Though it could also just be a 1v1 match for each character. Also opens up for battles between teams.

OFFLINE TOURNEY RETURNS

You can have offline tournaments again like in Brawl and Melee! I sometimes just did CPU only tournaments with those which was kinda fun to watch. Just overall neat to have that back

SMASHDOWN

A cool option to have people not just use the same main they’re great with and also encourages people to diversify the characters they use.

TRAINING MODE UPGRADES

Training now has essentially a ruler to know your character’s launching power! Very cool and Competitive players will love it since it’s much easier to measure things.

CLASSIC MODE BACK TO MORE STANDARD

This is definitely a return to form for Classic mode. It’s kinda like SSB64’s but it’s a different set for each character that’s predetermined. No matter how many times you go through with one particular character it will be the same. While that may arguably sound like a step backward from the complete randomness of Melee’s classic mode. I actually love this a lot, the team can choose a particular set of opponents that make sense for that character to fight. Or even if it makes absolutely no sense, then it’s up to the fanbase to think of a reason for why they fight. Also what seems to be a thing is each character has a name for their run. Kirby had Gourmet Clash and Roy had A Journey of Swords. Bringing the same kind of intrigue that the Punch-Out Stage titles bring. I am excited to go through with every character like I always do.

NEW POKEMON

Alolan Exeggutor is hilarious, Abra will certainly provide some salt on some people, Mimikyu was a character often seen as possible to be the Gen 7 rep so might of been the first major reconfirmation not counting the Captain Toad one found later. Vulpix is a cute addition to the pokeball lineup. And Ditto is amazing. I almost kinda want the enemy team of this game to now be Ditto fighters.

NEW ASSISTS

Only 2 possibly major reconfirmations in the form of Zero and Shovel Knight. Zero was often seen as a possible 2nd Mega Man rep and Shovel Knight was considered the most likely if an Indie were to ever make it. It’s a miracle Shovel Knight even got this far though. Yacht Club games should be proud. Other then those though, Klaptrap looks annoying to deal with, Kapp’n seems funny just for the characters in the bus’ faces, Chef Kawasaki is the return of Kirby’s old Brawl final smash repurposed, Nikki’s a cute character to include, and the Majora’s Mask Moon is amazing as an assist trophy idea. It doesn’t even discriminate, even KOing the one it summoned. There was also the Rathalos assist trophy that turns out to also be a boss

ASHLEY DECONFIRMED

At the tail end of the Assist Trophy section was the sudden appearance of Ashley and not even with the name tag. Though they made her eyes red again. Ashley was considered one of the possible likely newcomers revealed this direct mainly because last week WarioWare Gold released. So it would be great timing.But it wasn’t to be. Sorry Ashley fans

MAIN MENU AND A MYSTERIOUS SPIRITS MODE

The menu looks more refined then Smash 4’s though I didn’t mind the Smash 4 menu as much as most people did. However most of the buzz is of course around the mode Sakurai had blurred out. Through some deblurring people found the mode will be called “Spirits” but that’s still too vague to know what it’ll be exactly. Based on any hints though from the bosses, it seems it will be some kind of Adventure mode. My guess is something in between Melee’s Adventure Mode and Subspace. Not as extensive as Subspace but more content then Melee’s adventure mode for sure. Perhaps you find the spirits of the characters to unlock them. But anything else is definitely all speculation at this point. It’ll be interesting to find out what this mode will be all about when we get to it.

KING K. ROOL

You know they just had to leave us with one more thing. And it certainly was a big one. K. Rool was only 2nd to Ridley in being one of the most wanted characters in Smash. And was often seen on the top of the list on the ballot. Also gotta say the trailer is amazing to show all those heroes and the villain and then it cutting to Donkey Kong, cause that’s when exactly you know who’s coming. The Dedede fakeout was also hilarious, though I doubt it really fooled anyone. K. Rool was in Smash and Donkey Kong finally gets a much needed increase of representation. Perhaps we’ll see Dixie soon come up as a Diddy echo. But until then K. Rool is what Donkey Kong fans as well as a good majority of Smash fans wanted. And he’s here cementing this Smash as certainly even more fan service focused then previous games.

Overall, an amazing direct. and can’t wait to see what else is in store for this game. We still have more characters and of course the Spirits mode to see. The road to Smash Ultimate is getting smaller each day and we’re surely in for a few more spots of interest along the way. Cannot wait to see what’s revealed next!

[daleisgreat]

PSP 15th Anniversary & Neo-Geo 30th Anniversary - Flashback Specials!

A couple months ago in March, the PSP hit its milestone 15th anniversary of its North American launch, just a few months after its end of 2004 debut launch in Japan. It came and went without much hubbub in the gaming media however due to that hitting around the same time the COVID-19 outbreak started to make waves in America and that pandemic rightfully getting the bulk of the press attention. Writing about game platform anniversaries over the past several weeks has been helping me get through these wild times we are now in by reflecting on my memories of these platforms, so with that said, please join me in looking back at Sony’s debut handheld….and later on in this very same flashback special I will have a bonus addendum with my memories of the Neo-Geo since it recently celebrated its 30th anniversary.

I remember when the PSP was surprisingly announced at Sony’s 2003 E3 press conference. I was there in Los Angeles covering my first E3 that year! The website I wrote for at the time, the long defunct vgpub.com, was a smaller gaming press outlet and only had one invite to the Sony press conference so our website founder, John attended the Sony conference while I and another staff writer slept in! I will never forget when John got back shortly after it ended and my colleague and I asked him if there were any big surprises (still a year or two away at this point with conferences being live streamed and with MySpace being the only major social media in 2003, there was a lack of live minute-by-minute news reporting and you would have to wait at least a couple hours until after the conferences ended to check gaming websites for news updates). John replied with an ‘oh yeah’ and proceed to hand us a little PR packet with a press release announcing the Playstation Portable (PSP) and how it would have near identical tech to the PS2 and be able to play movies with its UMD-discs. By mid-2003 the PS2 was a juggernaut around the globe and took up a little over half the market share in the home console gaming market against the Xbox and GameCube. With the PSP offering a big upgrade to the then-current GameBoy Advance out on the market and having near PS2 quality graphic capabilities, and with DVD movies being a huge factor into PS2 sales, it only seemed logical the PSP would be a sure-winner in the handheld gaming market. All three of us were buzzing about the news and how the PSP would be huge for handheld gaming and how Sony likely would take over. That did not quite happen however due to the surprise success of the Nintendo DS, but that did not stop the PSP to go on and be a viable gaming handheld alternative and have a fair amount of global success. I recall being incredibly stoked for the PSP launch, with a lot of hype going into its 20-plus launch game lineup.

I particularly remember being excited for Lumines, a new puzzler from Bandai that put a new twist on Tetris-style dropbox puzzle gameplay. It achieved this by making combo-clearing squares, instead of lines, and having a mesmerizing evolving soundtrack and graphic scheme whenever certain score targets were hit. Amazingly, the gameplay ranked right up there as top-in-class puzzler gameplay with Tetris. Combine that with its dazzling visuals and phenomenal soundtrack and it resulted in Lumines being the surprise killer-app of the PSP launch. Earlier this week I popped in Lumines Remastered on the PS4, and the gameplay is still as addicting as ever, and my anticipated quick five minute round for a refresher resulted in nearly playing an hour nonstop! From the other launch games I remember getting Untold Legends, Twisted Metal: Head-On and Tony Hawk’s Underground 2: Remix. Head-On was an all-new Twisted Metal game that was a good handheld version that also offered up online play, which was among one of the first of all handheld games to do so. I was a big fan of the hack ‘n slash action-RPGs on consoles during that era like Dark Alliance and Champions, and Untold Legends was a fun portable take on that which also offered up local wireless multiplayer. My friend, podcast co-host and also fellow VGpub staff writer Chris, along with my brother Joe, met up for a few memorable multiplayer sessions of Untold Legends.

All three of us played a whole heck of a lot of PSP in its initial weeks. At this time in early 2005, downloadable audio shows were kind of catching on but it was still a few months before Apple officially dubbed them as ‘podcasts’ on iTunes. I brought up the idea to Joe and Chris to get together to record an audio show for VGpub all about the PSP launch and our initial thoughts on the games available. We had no idea how to set it up on the technical side, so we winged it and Chris brought over one of those old-school stationary, coffee table tape recorders that are kind of stereotypical in psychiatrist or detective interview scenes in movies. We hooked an auxiliary cable from it to my PC and somehow produced a digital tin-can-and-string version of what would be the pilot of VGpub’s podcast. We sent the pilot to the VGpub editors to see what they thought, but we were dismayed when hearing back they thought it was too long at around 50 minutes in length. Bummed with that reception, we wound up not posting the PSP pilot show, but eventually gave podcasting another go when that scene took off several months later after it caught on with iTunes. We had a fun seven year run on the podcast, and when VGpub sunsetted a couple years after we started, we continued with the podcast on its own site for a few more years and as part of the launch posted the long lost pilot episode. And now in honor of the PSP’s 15th anniversary, I dug out that amazingly awful audio quality pilot from my hard drive archives and uploaded it to YouTube so now you all could relive our initial highs over the PSP’s launch. You can check it out by click or pressing here, or by checking out the embed below!

Behold our low-tech, amateur endeavor of the very first podcast I participated in that focused on the launch of the PSP. THUG 2: Remix was a nice port of the console version of that Tony Hawk game I played a lot of. It was shortly after playing this is when I realized I did not want to play PS2 ports on the PSP. While a lot of them packed in a lot of the same content as their PS2 counterparts, they suffered noticeably due to the PSP having one analog ‘nub,’ only one pair of shoulder buttons and having to dial back the graphics and/or features in order to get it running on the comparably lower-powered PSP. I realized this moreso over the next year picking up and trying out PSP versions of BurnOut, Virtua Tennis and Gun. Once again, nothing against the PSP versions since a lot of them played and looked fine on the PSP, and if I primarily was on the road or travelling I would have been thrilled with these versions. It was over this next year I realized I would rather play these PSP ports on the PS2 instead of dealing with those compromises.

Unfortunately in the early years of the PSP, it was dominated by PS2 ports and five star original titles like Lumines were few and far between. This culminated with barely getting any play out of the system and selling off my PSP a little over a year later in mid-2006. Things were looking dire for a little while for the PSP, but Sony and strong third party support from companies like Square-Enix, EA and Capcom continued to pump out games and eventually the PSP established a strong portfolio of original releases. Some of the original efforts from Sony were so strong that games like Twisted Metal: Head On, Syphon Filter and Motorstorm: Arctic Edge got remastered ports on the PS2 to keep up first party releases for the PS2 in its twilight years. I want to make sure to give a shoutout to other strong original PSP titles such as the Patapon series, WTF: Work Time Fun, both Phantasy Star Portable entries, all four SOCOM titles, Resistance: Retribution, both Pursuit Force games, Killzone: Liberation, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Final Fantasy: Crisis Core, both God of War titles, Mega Man: Powered Up and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. In 2012, I acquire PSP’s successor from Sony, the Vita. It featured digital backwards compatibility with a fair amount of the PSP’s library. I wound up acquiring about a dozen of the PSP games I always wanted to try this way that I missed out on after selling it. The Vita was also compatible with most of the PSone classics that were available on the PS3. This lead to me playing a lot of Final Fantasy VII a couple years ago in anticipation for the recently released and long coming FFVII Remake. This past week a fired up a few of them for a refresher on some of the PSP titles in preparation for this article. I had a lot of fun with the original Pursuit Force….at least the first couple missions anyways since that game had compatibility issues and frequently froze on the Vita.

I dusted off my Castlevania skills in my attempts at playing the remake of Rondo of Blood that is part of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. It has a challenging but fair degree of difficulty in the few levels I progressed through. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops I dug a lot for its first couple bite sized missions that focused on the origins of Snake meeting Campbell. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker I consider to be the true, fully featured fifth installment of the series since it essentially has a full length story and slate of missions available. I did not play it on the PSP, but instead on the HD remaster collection that released a year later on the PS3 and loved grinding through its wide variety of missions that set the stage for The Phantom Pain. While it is not compatible with the PSP’s physical discs, the Vita is a good alternative to experience most of the PSP’s library through digital download for those still curious about the PSP’s games. On the UMD movie side of things, launch PSPs came bundled with a copy of Spider-Man 2 which I eventually watched on a plane trip. The quality of the UMD movies were undeniably good. Later on, I got sent a UMD to review of the fun underdog sports film, Dodgeball and those wound up being the only two UMDs I owned. For the first year or two of the PSP lifespan I remember game stores being flooded with physical UMDs, but a lot of them cost nearly as much as their DVD versions at the time and I am speculating that people anticipated they would only cost half or a third as much as DVDs kind of relative to how the portable-to-console game pricing goes, and when that proved not to be the case it lead to a quick exit for UMD movies on the PSP. I look back at the PSP and will fondly remember those awesome early months I had with it, and how it later redeemed itself by having a fleshed out lineup of original games. I want to also give the PSP props for becoming the only platform that easily surpassed portable efforts from other companies that tried to compete against Nintendo in the handheld gaming market like Atari, Tiger, Sega and SNK. I adhere caution when tracking down used PSPs due to reports of some PSPs being susceptible of having bulging battery packs over time. Sony released a few different revisions of the PSP, so I do not know if that is related to only the launch version, or for all versions of the PSP. This is why I recommend tracking down a Vita instead to get your PSP fix for those interested.

In the bonus addendum to this PSP anniversary flashback, I will touch on my brief memories with SNK’s Neo-Geo to commemorate its recent 30th anniversary of the original launch of the Japan arcade hardware. The arcade side of the Neo-Geo was dubbed the Multi-Video System (MVS) and it debuted in Japan in April of 1990, and following in American arcades a few months later in August. For those not in the know, the 24-bit arcade hardware had a home console version called the Neo-Geo Advanced Entertainment System (AES) that launched in Japan later on in 1990 and in 1991 in America. The unique thing about the Neo-Geo is both the MVS and AES used the exact same technology so it was possible to have 100% faithful home ports. SNK wanted the home experience to as close as possible to the arcade that it bundled the system with two mammoth arcade sticks. I first remember seeing Neo-Geo games in MVS format at various arcades in the early to mid-90s. The MVS cabinet was unmistakable with it having the eye-grabbing Target-red color and the two-to-four mini-game marquees listed at the top of it. The big draw to arcade operators at time of the Neo-Geo MVS was that the games came on friendlier priced cartridges that could easily be swapped out like games in a console instead of ordering whole new arcade machines to replace them. I have seen the four-slot MVS plenty of times, but I mostly remember seeing the two-slot version more frequently in arcades over the years, and for the most part it was the same two games featured on them: Puzzle Bobble (AKA Bust-a-Move) and Metal Slug. These were the two game I primarily encountered on the MVS in my childhood arcade experiences. I was not all that great at Puzzle Bubble with its unique spin on puzzle games by shooting bubbles onto the playfield from the bottom of the screen. I did however love Metal Slug and its sequel that I also recall seeing originally on the MVS. Metal Slug was arcade bliss at the time, with charming cartoony soldiers oozing with detail and twee animations as they run ‘n gunned with an arsenal of over-the-top weaponry, villains and larger than life boss battles. Metal Slug is one of the few games where slowdown is a good thing in my opinion because it primarily happened when encountering daunting bosses and explosions that filled up the screen and it felt like the machine was doing all it could to keep the action moving.

Jason and John from the MetalJesus crew do a fine job here giving a 101 lesson on the Neo Geo hardware and have lots of footage here of some of the best games to hit Neo-Geo.

A few weeks ago I did a quick playthrough of Metal Slug X on Xbox One since it was on Game Pass, and everything that I fondly associated with those run ‘n gunners was still there, even the slowdown! Thankfully the AES and MVS games did not remain trapped on their original expensive hardware. By the mid-2000s, SNK regularly started to output various collections of games both digitally and physically. I highly recommend Metal Slug Anthology that hit PS2 and Wii, and later got digitally ported onto the PS4. A majority of the individual Neo-Geo games got ported over individually in recent years on PS4, Xbox One and Switch. Since all these marketplaces frequently run sales on their back catalog, you can now find a lot of these games well under their default price of $7.99 each. Over the last few years I checked out plenty of original Neo-Geo games this way. I tried out too many fighting games to count by doing this, but also finally got a chance to play SNK’s arcade sports offerings that got overlooked by their many fighting games. Three Count Bout is a graphically impressive wrestling title, but its button-mashing leniency takes a toll on thumbs. I loved Dunk Dream/Street Hoop, which is SNK’s take on NBA Jam, but with a hip-hop makeover and catchy rap-filled soundtrack. Neo-Geo Turf Masters is a fast-paced, fun golf title and until recently I had no idea that the Super Volleyball game I loved so much on Genesis had a beefed up version and a sequel featuring amped up robots and robotic attacks on the Neo-Geo. The Neo-Geo is renowned for its acclaimed catalog of fighting games with several entries each in hit series like Samurai Shodown, Fatal Fury, World Heroes, Art of Fighting and its flagship fighter, The King of Fighters which saw annual entries on the platform for 10 years from 1994-2003. Of all these, the ones I frequented the most of were various re-releases were King of Fighters ‘97 and ’98. Its team based fighting style made it standout from the other fighting games, and it was only in recent years with some longer sessions with KoF ’98 that I finally started to come around on it. One of these days I want to give an honest effort at getting into Samurai Shodown. I remember the gaming mags were hyping up its debut entry at the time as a major breakthrough to fighting games with its gruesome swordplay it brought to the table. I eventually picked up its anthology disc on PS2 and dabbled with a couple entries, but never too seriously and need to correct that sooner than later. A random memory is attempting to play Samurai Shodown II at Arcade Infinity in Koreatown one evening in the afterhours of covering E3 in 2003. Shortly after starting it up, someone sat down and challenged me and proceeded to properly dominate me. Looking back, that may have something to do with why I never gave it that much of a shot.

I never had a chance to play the AES home system until well after its lifespan in the early 2010s at regional retro game conventions. That was because I did not see one in the wild until then. Unfortunately in 1990, the home console market was dominated by the NES while the Genesis was only a year old and just starting to break in, so while the MVS was a bargain for arcade operators, the AES arcade perfect tech was way ahead of the times and cost exponentially more compared to the NES and Genesis at the time. Reading copies of Game Players and Electronic Gaming Monthly back then I associated Neo-Geo AES games as being the games that literally cost $200-300 individually in the back of the magazine ads for mail service game catalogs. Occasionally there would be SNES/Genesis ports of the popular games like the original Fatal Fury and Samurai Shodown, but obviously there quality was dialed back to run on the weaker machines and that was realistically all of what was available to a majority of the home console market until those anthology collections started to get released in the mid-2000s. I never owned an AES, but I was stunned by its lasting power with official games being released for it all the way until 2004. I only a saw a Neo-Geo AES for sale once at my local retro game shop all these years back around 2008 and I want to say it was going for about $200, and part of me wanted to get it for the standout collector’s item it would be, but another side of me knew the games went for insane amounts by that point and the games were already by then starting to get re-released on other consoles in more wallet-friendly anthology discs. If you have yet to dip into the Neo-Geo catalog, I would highly recommend either grabbing the digital copy of Metal Slug Anthology on PS4 for some awesome two player run ‘n gun couch co-op with a friend as the perfect way to start off. Otherwise, type in ‘ACA’ in the Xbox One/PS4/Switch digital marketplaces to see most of the Neo-Geo games released digitally under the ACA banner. While it was damn near impossible to afford to play the AES games at home during their initial release, I will close by giving major props to SNK for keeping their back catalog of Neo-Geo titles alive for current generations to discover on current platforms at consumer friendly prices! Thanks again for sticking with me in reliving my memories of the PSP and Neo-Geo with this two-for-one flashback anniversary special! Want more retro-game goodness? Then take a peek at my other flashback specials below!

My Other Gaming Flashbacks Dreamcast 20th Anniversary GameBoy 30th Anniversary Genesis 30th Anniversary PSone 25th Anniversary Saturn and Virtual Boy 25th Anniversaries TurboGrafX-16 30th Anniversary and 32-X 25th Anniversary

[roleplayersoul]

👼 - babysitting🍛 - cooking💃 - dancing🎭 - acting/performing arts For death!

(Prompt!)

Fun fact, because Death is basically a Creature born out of the evil in the human heart (Chaos), he often has knowledge of many, many topics as there are many, many humans. 

Still, since he is not only basically a demon born out of negativity, he often has little true experience with things, so his performance in regular human acts-varies, to stay the least.

And he would never, ever let anything interfere with his duties, of course

More below the cut.

Oh, and since I just sort of realized after I typed this all out this was “Ask the muse”, in-character stuff will be at the bottom.

👼 - He babysits Dracula perfectly.  He gets the job done.

Now, I know the whole debacle on how much Lament of Innocence is canon to some, but if we take it into account, the creatures of the night did serve Dracula during his life with Lisa. 

I’d like to think that with Dracula’s clearly ungodly power and vampiric lifestyle, he was no ordinary monster, and thus was already the Dark Lord or became one soon after Lisa died, or, again, Lament of Innocence.

Besides that, Death addresses Alucard with-surprising grace despite him already being a traitor far before the events of Symphony of the Night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGoNjcodfls

 Even just saying, letting alone the way he says “Still befriending mortals…” or “What is your business here?” is more casual then saying “You’re a traitor, get out or I’ll kill you.” He rarely talks to his enemies, after all, and Alucard has helped slain his father, Death’s Master, Dracula. He steals Alucard’s heirlooms, sure, but that’s simply a slap on the wrist.

What I’m trying to get to is that Death knew Alucard as a child.

There’s no way of telling exactly how much Alucard had in contact with Dracula’s vampiric and monstrous side while he lived his life with Lisa, but just the thought of the big bad Grim Reaper shooing away or trying to keep a toddler Alucard complacent and not cry whenever he wandered deep into the castle… Come on. That’s cute.

I don’t think Death is good at babysitting in normal terms. He’s had little to no reason to care for anyone except Dracula and the ones he cares about, and Dracula is a fully grown man, certainly not someone who needs babysitting. 

Not to mention he doesn’t seem to care when close monster associates, especially his servants Slogra and Gaibon, fall in battle. I don’t think he has a caring heart.

But I DO think he’s cared for Alucard before, however loose the term, and perhaps more on his lord’s request. He would do things very specifically, and probably be a little moody while doing it. Change diaper? Fine. Feed him food? Fine. He might not like it, but at the very least he can follow instructions, he does that on a daily basis anyways.

I think he has no problem protecting the young who he wants to protect, and make sure they stay safe, too. I can imagine him doing other things under request too (you might see a pattern here on him following orders vs. taking initiative here), but I think if a child was bored, he’d read to them first, I think.

TL,DR: So while the kids might be bored out of their mind, they’d be safe from Death’s watchful eye. They might get some entertainment in mocking the silly skeleton man, however, who would probably grumble a lot and throw some threats out.

I do want to see Dad Death though. God that’d be lovely.

Have this picture of Death on a bumper car:

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

🍛 - Don’t have Death cook for you unless you want to get sick. In monster ways, he could be worse, though.

Death, normally, has little to no reason to eat or drink, especially nothing physical. Feeding the Creatures of the castle may be tedious, but his lord Dracula knows how to sate them, which may or may not be just letting them loose to kill humans. 

Plus, again, Chaos Creature. So he has no experience in this category.

Death follows directions and commands with Dracula’s dominance. He is naturally drawn to orders and instructions because of this, which is a bit ironic considering his status of a chaotic being, but whatever. 

He would cook with directions. This may lead to a plain, uninteresting dish, and I can imagine him-improvising incorrectly if they were not to have the correct ingredients. If he were to cook something bad, he’d probably start over instead of serving it, too.

He’s not sanitary, being a demon.

You can see maggots dripping from his lungs in his Symphony of the Night artwork, for starters. His bones don’t exactly seem to shine clean, either-his wrist seems to be a bit brown, doesn’t it?

So a human eating anything he would serve would be disastrous, and I imagine Dracula would prefer a naive maiden’s blood for the main course.

Now, I do have a modern human AU for Death too, where he’s sorta Dracula’s back-up buddy. There, while I imagine Dracula liking his meat, to name an example, more rare, Death would prefer his more done, and I imagine Death as much more sanitary and more neat with his cooking, though he’ll generally just do small portions. I know that’s more food preference and less cooking but whatever.

💃 - He dances better with a partner, and he does have a desire to dance.

To preface anything, Death can alter his form to have legs, though he generally floats in most of his incarnations.

If you look closely at second phase Rondo Of Blood’s Death, the green one, you’ll notice he’s wearing a shoe or the like-not to mention the huge indents in his cloak while he moves that show legs are indeed there and not him trying to “act” like  they’re there or some weird ripples. 

In my headcanon, he can only alter his form so much, as his default look varies depending on human emotion, though he’ll always adopt his “grim reaper” form if possible, and possibly because that’s what Dracula desires him to be? Honestly, writing all this is getting me a bit tired, and off track, woops.

Now, to answer the question, because he normally floats, his movement is surprisingly limited alone. Not in a literal sense, he can float wherever, but he can spin and move his arms in the directions he wants, but it doesn’t feel any-different from just moving to him.

With legs, however, I do indeed imagine Death trying to-groove. He’s no showoff or anything spectacular, mind. His knowledge and Dracula’s dances with Lisa, as well as several couple monsters and ghosts, is about all he has. But even some castle monsters seem to have a groove and dance at times. It may be beyond him, but to say he wasn’t intrigued would be a lie.

I like to think of a cute scenario where the Ghost Dancers, possibly Fred and Paula, help Death Dance. 

Remember how I mentioned how his “floating form’s” movement was limited alone, in terms of dancing capability? This isn’t true with a partner-mind, he doesn’t have one, and he’d be damned before he would dance with the likes of Carmilla or such, and he would never let such a petty, small desire inconvenience Lord Dracula.

But the possibility of Death twirling and spinning, floating back and forth, a pirouette and a catch with a dance partner… That’s something all of his forms could do with practice. Because of the amount of control and trust in a partner dance anyways, it’s certainly something he would desire and manage-it would be new, exciting, and just a hint of chaos for him to seep. 

A dance with Death, anyone?

🎭 - Not half bad! He just can’t play some characters due to him not getting-that excited about most things.

Anyone’s who played the games where Death has lines know that he isn’t some stereotypical “silent badass” guy, or at least not all the time, though “silent” and “badass” are acceptable descriptors.

Acting is something Death has had to flat out do before in Castlevania lore. He’s had experience. 

I don’t personally believe he is one to hide his identity unless it is necessary, however: in many games where you meet Death before you know Dracula’s around, he pretty much never disguises himself: he makes himself and his intentions-somewhat clear.  It depends, really.

He’s manipulated people to reach all the ends that he can,  and then drops the act once he achieves what he must. To say he’s always an actor is a lie.

Back to the question, plays and theatre are-performances of delight. Which can either make him annoyed or he could find pleasure in it. This is sort of pure HC territory, but I do think Death would enjoy theatre as a small pastime, but not as much as the dancing we brought up earlier. 

However, I do think Death is better at acting then dancing. Again, this is basically due to him having more experience.

Well, no, it’s pure headcanon territory, really. I just think Death would be a good actor for quiet characters, having enough inflection to get the job done, enough resolve to sound serious. Darker plays are what he would prefer. Probably not a musicale where he has to sing, as I don’t imagine him having a good range. 

He would not do well with more passionate or emotion-driven characters as he himself is neither of these things most of the time, at least outwardly.

Here’s another funny picture of Death just cause.

In character responses:

“…Must we continue this dull questionnaire? This rubbish is better saved for gossip. I will not stand for this for much longer.” 

👼 - “I will take care of whoever I must, for and including my lord. If one happens to be a child, so be it. I will be up to the task.”

🍛  - “I do not eat. I do not cook. To rate one’s self on what they don’t know nor need is ludicrous.”

💃 - “….I haven’t done any sort of movement in years and have no need. Next.”

🎭 - “I perform well enough, and will strive better for the next time I must “act” in this game of life.”

[chaldeluxe]

Elizabeth talks. So much. Draconidol is just my bad attempt at translating アイドラ which is like a pun on “idol” with the “dora” from dragon in it.

Eliza’s Rebirth エリザ・新生 __________________

Mashu: Sorry to intrude. It seems a rather old-timey letter addressed to you has arrived.

[CHOICE] 

I wonder who it’s from? Let’s take a look.

A letter… was delivered here?

Mashu: You want me to read it for you? In that case… sigh. It seems to be a notice about an upcoming live tour.

[CHOICE]

A live… whose?

Oh… yeah, I’ve had enough of those.

Dr. Roman: What was that!? Who? Who’s coming!? Magi☆Mari!? Could it be Magi☆Mari!? Man, does this mean my faith in my 2D net idols is finally going to let them gracefully descend upon us in the real world!?

Fou: Fou…

Mashu: Uhm, the idol making their debut is… the Super Rookie Dragon Daughter Draconidol☆Eliza-chan … it says.

Dr. Roman: Alright, I’m out. Thanks for everything, guys -

Mashu: Eh!?

Dr. Roman: Who cares anymore about real-life idols, honestly, who cares about scandals or whatever…. they’d just poke fun at a guy with a boyish heart like me. At least my virtual network idols won’t betray me.

Elizabeth: So this is where you were, puppy! Did you perhaps read my notice? You did, didn't you!? Of course you did!! That was a quick reaction!! Your face is absolutely glowing, perfect! Let’s hit the road then!! Draconidol☆Eliza-chan’s Live Tour 2015! I hear the special site for my tour already has people camping it from the night before so we’ve got to hurry ♪ Let’s go, chief assistant director and sponsor!!  Eli-chan Festival IN Some Time Period, let’s raise the curtain on this Rondo of Blood!!

Mashu: Ah, senpai.. !! What does she mean by sponsor!?

Fou: Fou!!

SCENE CHANGE

Mashu: …..

Fou: … fou.

Elizabeth: No way… this is absolutely unbelievable! The event hall is bustling about with slaves pushing and pulling at each other, but – it’s supposed to be a special live event featuring glow sticks dancing wildly in bright red!! With tragedy!! A massacre!! Right!?

[CHOICE]

Uhm, about that…

It was my lack of funds!!

Fou: Fou!?

Elizabeth: Eh!? Then perhaps my fans just mistook the time for when the curtains were to rise? Or could it be that they knew today was my birthday and they planned a surprise for me!? Could that be it!? Well, it’s not like today’s really my birthday or anything, but I’d be perfectly fine with making this a sort of anniversary birthday! Let’s see, from now on, today will be remembered for the great success of my live tour’s opening day… (memo memo) That’ll do. Now, my puppy!! Eli-chan Live Tour 2015! Let’s raise the curtains on this magnificent performance!

[CHOICE]

Uhm, about that

Eli-chan, you’re the real deal…

Mashu: … senpai, this is actually.. !!

Dr. Roman: It’s an enemy raid, no matter how you look at it. Seriously guys, thank you.

Elizabeth: Seems that way! That hate of theirs is absolutely on-point! But of course I'd already realized that a little myself, stuuuupid!

BATTLE START / END

Mashu: They just keep on coming, Master!! A whole field of enemy reinforcements!! It’s as if they’re just trying to deter Eliza-san’s live from happening… In order to protect their wives and children, they’re all trying to shatter the live with such violent opposition… 

That tragic determination they’re filled with, even I can feel it… !

Dr. Roman: Only ‘cause if Elizabeth were to have her live so close to town, it’d probably leave all the townspeople numb for day. Man, it’s so charged up and lively over there! In a way you could say the whole thing’s been a sell-out success!

Fou: Fou!!

Elizabeth: I refuse to accept this as a reason to get all lively!! For starters, if my singing’s good enough to stun people then shouldn’t this be considered a victory!?

Mashu: It’s that positive thinking of yours that’s the source of all this Elizabeth-san! You just can’t go making a ton of people faint with song.

BATTLE START / END

Dr. Roman: Seems like only people were the ones to get mixed up in this… All the forest creatures and other living things could probably sense the danger..

Elizabeth: … we won. We won, but… I won the battle, but lost at the live…

Ahh, if I can’t be an idol then I suppose I’ve got no choice but to go back to being a plain’ ol Dragon’s Daughter, won’t I….

[CHOICE]

Uhm, about that…

 Dragon’s Daughter is a new one.

Elizabeth: I’m just a house arrest idol in a dark cell who craves for attention since no one ever looks back at them, a girl who can do nothing but live on by rotting away in the shadows…  Ahh… who did this to this time period, anyway?

Dr. Roman: Leff Lynor, I guess.

Fou: Fou!

Mashu: Uh, uhm, Elizabeth-san, please try not to be so discouraged…

Elizabeth: There’s no need to comfort the likes of me… rather, what I’m starting to realize now is…. – you’re on the right track, you know?

Mashu: What? The right.. track?

Elizabeth: That plain and puppy-like character of yours that isn’t putting on airs… it just might be a big hit!

Mashu: Plain… that’s not….

Elizabeth: Hey, are you at all interested in being an idol? You are, aren’t you? Of course you are! And you’ll be one!! Yes, that’s it!! An idol duo!! One for me and all for me!! Hmm, what should the unit name be… hey, puppy!! Don’t you have any good ideas!?

[CHOICE]

Eh, how about Eli☆Mashu or…

How about the “Blood Splattered Dragon & Shield Girls!!”

[ANSWER]

Dr. Roman: That’s just stealing from Magi☆Mari.

Fou: Fou….

Elizabeth: It feels like something is missing… hmm… a lance and a shield, then… Contradiction!! That’s it! We give off a contradicting feel! “Contradiction☆Drastic!!”

Fou: Fou, fou.

[CHOICE]

W, weird…

You know some pretty complex vocabulary.

Elizabeth: Let’s get started on our lessons then, shall we!! Let’s go, Mashu! We’ll shine together in the night sky!! We’re aiming for that “Idol☆Servant” star!!

Mashu: Se, senpai, please do something about this…

[CHOICE]

Ah, yeah, good luck…

 I’ll give my all to support you!!

Mashu: !!??

[clementherz0380-blog]

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