I was determined to kick Dracula’s ass… and after a few hours of bitching out the screen in constant failure I succeeded! The worst part was Dracula spawning on top of me, but eventually I psyched him out until I got him to show his final form. The second part was actually pretty easy to do compared to Dracula’s teleportation bullshit at the start of the boss battle. But now I can finally say that I BEAT CASTLEVANIA!!!… and I have the achievement to prove it! Sooooo glad I could use save states.
Cerberus is set ablaze by Nathan’s endless whipping.
We had a lovely summer like day today – too nice to waste at my desk, so it only made sense for me to take my Steam Deck from its case and venture into the Castlevania Advance Collection!
It’s kinda funny to reflect on, when I was a kid I didn’t really think much of Metroidvanias. As a child my Gameboy Advance mainly received Mario platformers, and one Mario Kart game. Apart from my GBA I didn’t grow up with any Nintendo, the closest I ever got to Nintendo consoles was through visits to friends and families houses who were lucky enough to have acquired them. Even then, they never had any Castlevania or Metroidvania games. It was always Mario Games, Final Fantasy and Mortal Kombat.
It also didn’t help that back then Metroidvanias weren’t really as common on PC, which had plenty of other genres going on, but very little in the way of Castlevania/Metroid likes. It would be several years later when I really begin get into the Metroidvania genre. Better late than never I guess?
Learning to double jump.
Thanks to Metroidvanias like Dust: An Elysian Tail, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and of course, the Shantae Series; I’ve started to appreciate the genre and have come to understand it enough to brave the old school. In platformers you’re used to getting from Point A to Point B, whereas in a Metroidvania there is a lot of backtracking after you acquire different abilities and equipment. Tonight in Circle of the Moon (Castlevania Advance Collection) I learned to double jump, possibly one of the most satisfying abilities to learn in a good few of the Metroidvanias I’ve played thus far. There’s just something awesome about double jumping to areas that seemed unobtainable before, and in Circle of the Moon it felt like I was able to get this ability faster than the other Metroidvanias I played where it took me a good while.
Which one is Mummy Dearest?
Another thing that took me a good while to get was the control scheme. Tapping the D-Pad allows you to dash (if you have the dash boots), and holding down the action button lets you twirl your whip around like a fan of destruction. Until I figured that out some of the monsters felt cumbersome, but now that I’ve learned how to properly navigate the game even the poison worms are easy to avoid. The bones from the bone throwing skeletons on the other hand…
I had just scratched the surface of the castle before calling it a night. But I’m glad to have made a nice dent in the game. I’ve made Nathan stronger with extra hearts and jugs, uncovered a good few secret walls and even bested Cerberus himself. Overall I’d say a jorb well done! I’ll have to see about playing more of these during Spooktober! 😀
Gave my Steam Deck some much needed love tonight after I got home. I haven’t been taking it to work much, and even when I have I haven’t really been playing it. I either don’t have time during lunch to play, or have been so interested in reading on my tablet that all gaming activities can just wait until I get home. It just felt nice plopping down on the bed and playing a bit of Outland. The last time I played was back at the start of the year, my how time flies…
I gained a couple new abilities, and even thwarted a boss battle. I only died a couple times, then continued to die multiple times more during my adventures. Tonight I finally unlocked the launchpad ability! I’m looking forward to visiting past areas to see what I’ve missed. Might find more hearts and orbs to make me stronger, who knows?
According to Steam; Tomb Raider Underworld is not supported on Steam Deck, even though that’s where I took this screenshot! It felt weird playing it in my hands, especially since I remember having to upgrade my hardware just to get it to run back in the day… and I STILL never finished it. I’m hoping to make good on that, given that I’ve already finished a couple other games. Sadly, Tomb Raider Underworld doesn’t offer cloud saving, so if I decide to play this on desktop I’ll have to either have a separate save, or manually transfer the save in between PC’s.
I’m not very far in, only finished the underwater portion thus far. Next time I play I’ll have to infiltrate a boat full of assholes. I know I’ve played this portion before, but it’s been so long that what’s old feels new again!
Finishing Shantae and the Seven Sirens wasn’t what I planned to do to kick off my weekend… but here we are! I still need to go back to 100% the game, but somewhere between my Desktop and Steam Deck I finally beat the game. When I left off months ago I didn’t realize how close to the end I was!
I still need to go back and 100% the game (only got 80% on my first playthrough), but much like Half Genie Hero I had a great time playing. My only complaint is the 60 FPS lock, but on Steam Deck it doesn’t really matter, and to me anything above 60 for a Metroidvania is cherry. Since I’ll have to replay it to get the remaining achievements and missing items I may consider streaming this one, when I can finally be bothered to stream! 😛
The last time I visited The Bastion it was back in January. It caught my eye on Steam Deck today, and I had plenty of time to kill during lunch. I collected a couple of shards before heading back to work, and completed a few of the proving grounds when I got home.
I think I completed three or four different proving grounds.., it feels like four, my thumb was endlessly spamming the B button on my controller until I was rewarded with prizes. Only three more proving grounds to clear, and a handful of vigils. Made note of that for my future self to finish it, as I’ll probably veer off in a different direction tomorrow.
Ah, The Wonderful 101. I remember trying to play it a couple years ago but ended up raging when I couldn’t quite hit the sweet spot on my Steam Controller. I played it on my Steam Deck and it went a lot better.
The Wonderful 101 is definitely one of the more, different hack n slash/brawler types. You mainly play as Wonder Red, and you can round up/rescue citizens to temporarily become Wonderfuls that fight along side you. The more people in your army, the more powerful you are. Now that I have a better idea of what I’m doing I’ll have to see if I can tweak the Steam Controller to respond more like an analog stick… either that or switch to one of my other controllers, assuming they even work. 😛
My desktop has been rendering the last chunk of animation for the Skyrim video, so I’ve been making some more progress in Ori and the Blind Forest on Steam Deck. It’s actually kinda funny to think that last night I was playing a Playstation game, and now I’ve shifted over to an XBox game, and I don’t even need to own both consoles! 😛 I mostly ventured through Black Root Burrows., and doing what you would typically do in a metroidvania and circle back to older areas after learning new abilities. Mostly finding life and ability cells, and opening up sealed off areas. Fun stuff.
Was actually having a conversation about this at work the other day with another co-worker bud. One of her fave genres is metroidvania, we actually talk about Bloodstained Ritual of the Night on a few occasions, and I’ve also shared other ones with her like the Shantae series and recently Dust. She plays on Playstation, though we do like to dish out on games in general, among other subjects. It’s nice having a few work friends to help the day feel less hellish.
Another warm summer like day means another day on my Steam Deck! Something about playing Hades in the hot heat seems immersive enough. Still haven’t been able to get past the Champions of Elysium, but I am getting stronger and making the place look a little lived in, even gave Cerberus the best bed a good boi could deserve. I’ve been seeing more people play this, probably to prepare for Hades 2. It’s been tempting to buy, but my current collection makes me slap myself on the wrist at the thought of doing so. I at least need to finish the first one first! 😛
Besides… it’ll give the game some time to mature in Early Access while I go about climbing Mt. Backlog.
This weekend feels like it left before it truly started. I mostly spent it feeling tired and unwell, but at least there was plenty of Steam Deck to help while waiting for the pain to go away. I decided to continue my replay of Blade Kitten on Steam Deck while I rendered something on Desktop.One of these days I’ll get back to Act 2 and actually finish the game.
Sadly my desktop didn’t get much love for gaming, oh well… Maybe tomorrow night after another animation sesh. 🙂
