VinnyVania: Dracula's Curse - Part 05

Phew, I was worried that it wasn't going to be posted until like monday.

Yay, VinnyVania!

Vinny could very well get stuck on this level for the next episode of VinnyVania. The boss is a pain in the ass.

My favourite feature.

VINNY VANIA WOOO GET HYPE

"Maybe this is why you're a skeleton because your fucking sword work sucks!"

Man, without Vinny I probably couldn't have watched this to the end. Even when I'm not the one playing it, this was really frustrating to watch. Started reaching those Dracula levels of the first VinnyVania. Fuck that level design, fuck it.

Maybe next time you could just say that you beat the game on your own time and we can move over to Super Castlevania...?

This was another really fun episode, especially watching live. (First show I could catch live in a while.) The only annoying thing was the chat just exploding with "this game is trash" chants, which will probably get reflected here in the comments too.

The game's not perfect, it's difficult to a fault and somewhat unfair too at times, but it's still a good game.

Anyways Vinny got pretty good there at the end, I have no doubt he'll beat it next episode. It just might be a very long episode, though.

Also I'm looking forward to whatever plans Austin has for future premium content.

Good movie indeed. Al Pacino as a guest star for the next one!

This is... amazingly sadistic level design. I can't recall the last game I saw that so deliberately put every infuriating sequence encountered back-to-back. Even the inclusion of the single axe knight at the top of the stairs after the bone tower & gargoyles section was inspired.

Agreed about the game still being good. Part of the game can be pretty frustrating, but when I was 12-13 years old and playing this, I didn't care; just had to get better. I think Vinny could stand to be a little more aggressive, to be honest, but it's understandable to see him hesitant. The game punishes mistakes harshly. I should try to play through the game again. It's been a few years!

This is the first time i've noticed that Alex has a tattoo on his right arm. I'd like to think that it's a portrait of a platypus wearing a captain's hat and smoking a pipe

If Vinny can do this, he can do anything.

If he can't... I'll need to find someone else to blindly follow.

Do it, Caravella!

What I'd like to know is why you can't change horizontal movement midjump. It's realistic, but it feels so clumsy. (I recall Igarashi saying they specifically changed that for Symphony of the Night because it felt bad.) Was it a deliberate design choice or a technical limitation at the time they just stuck with?

@mikelemmer: Design choice. Plenty of other platformers of the time had jumps where you could alter your trajectory.

this level is a really well tuned fucker

I played this on the 3DS not too long ago and this is right about the point where I gave up.

@d_w: But did they back when the original Castlevania was released in arcades?

Vinny will have such an easy time with Super Castlevania IV compared to this when he gets to it. I only progressed to level 4 in this game but seeing some of the later stages through this feature, I can tell I would get very frustrated with some of the BS that occurs! Oh and the multi directional whip is a godsend in IV!

Goddamnit old Castlevania games were so terrible.

This level is what happens when game makers get divorced.

Such fuckery.

Alcoves, yes. Kind of like nooks and crannies.

Level 9 is just so damn hard. Its design is so intricately tuned to be the most frustrating and demanding Castlevania level yet. The level has so many areas where it expects the player to have mastered its mechanics to the point of perfection. It's like a real evil mastermind designed it.

You know, after people complained about Castlevania 2 being easy and different, I wouldn't be surprised if the developers were like, "Simon's Quest wasn't received well, and everyone wants an old, hard Castlevania again? Ohh... We'll make a hard castlevania game, all right..."

This freaking game.

Is Barkerville in this game? Isn't it in like every game after 2? (Probably the best thing to come out of that game)

I just wanted to share just how much I adore the GBeast team.

This is old games. This is when games weren't "hand holdy" when they were "challenging" and "has depth"

And they fucking suck!

Fuck this last level. Could not beat it without save states. I hope Vinny makes it.

@soimadeanaccount: Theres not much depth in this game but yeh its a good challenge. No wonder games like this are remembered 20 years later while games like Sunset overdrive is forgotten 1month after release despite all the shining reviews.

That also has something to do with amount of games being released and how affordable they are today. When I got Castlevania 2 back in the day, it probably cost my parents 60 and was maybe 1 of the 4 games I got that year. So we had no choice but to play it for months and that makes it memorable.

Games coming out today are so frequent it's impossible to play them all, and if you want to play a lot of different games you can only spend a short amount of time with them. Given the nature of human memory, there just isn't enough room to remember them all.

I think someone should mention that you can skip the water portion of this level by using Sypha's ice spell. The first bird that appears can be frozen and jumped on to reach the second level. I saw someone use this on a speedrun.

lol

"Put it on the back of the box!"

I don't understand how Vinny has so much patience for this. I know I wouldn't be able to keep my composure for even half as long. This game seems like a whole lotta bullshit.

So I turned on my Wii (not Wii U) for the first time in months last night and bought Castlevania III. It's been a long time since I played it, but I did pretty well! My first death was on the pirate ship. My first game over screen happened when I made it to the bone dragon boss, and then I took a break. All in all, it took me a little under 45 minutes to get there. My advice to @vinny is still to be a little more confident and aggressive with enemies. I know that's easier said than done, of course. The game punishes mistakes harshly, and I'm somehow lucky to still have my Castlevania reflexes at the age of 38.

You know, I thought that "Bloody Tears" was in this game, or at least in the sound test (hold A+B on the title screen and press start), but no, it's nowhere in the game at all. "Aquarius" is reminiscent of it, but definitely not the same song. It makes a strong comeback in Castlevania IV, though.

Vinny's going to coast through Castlevania IV after this, I bet.

Vinny's "Endless" run gave me a flash to the Mega Man endless run thing... Imagine if they did that for Castlevania :O

Why would you make this.

This level is a fucking grind. Gongrats Vinny for putting up with it for so long, I would have ripped my head off dealing with that bullshit

You know, the more I think about it, the more Super Castlevania IV seems like it would be too easy for this series. With the recent Star Wars announcement, maybe there should be a switch to that other punishing action-platformer series, Super Star Wars.

Vinny's such a good sport about all the horrible things happening around him, a lesser man's soul would be crushed by that level.

Years on the site and his optimism still manages to impress me.

I recently played through Dracula's Curse to remind myself what Vinny had left to come. I got through it easily and thought "Man, Vinny won't have much trouble through this next level, it's a cinch". I only just now realise how much easier Grant makes this whole area.

While we're on the topic, which character does everyone aim for? Mine's Grant, because I love crawling around levels like that.

Vinny has gotten really good at Castlevania.

Fuck this level.

56:20. @alex makes an In Bruges reference so subtle and out of nowhere that even he seems a little taken aback by it, and it goes uncommented on.

Grant is the best.

I'm now on the last level of the game. Spent half an hour trying to beat it. Even got to Dracula's final form twice, but I just couldn't beat him for whatever reason. Maybe tomorrow!

I can foresee Vinny having issues with that last level. Especially since you get knocked back one checkpoint when you die at Dracula. Apparently that was a change from the Japanese version, which started you right at Drac when you died.

Dracula ain't no bitch.

Wee-ow? Austin rocks

If you watch the GOTY stuff last year, you can also see it. He shows up at the end of day 5 too, iirc.

Regarding the second bird from the right on the bird/merman/water screen...

I noticed that it respawns, but I'm curious as to whether or not Vinny could avoid fighting it the first time by simply not jumping. It looks as though you might be able to stay out of its activation range from the very bottom of the screen that way. I could be wrong, though.

In either case, he'll still need to fight it when crossing the top of the screen.

How do hearts work in this game?? They aren't lives but what are they?