Review: Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles (PSP)

Game: Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles
Platform: Sony PSP
Initial Release Date: October 23, 2007
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Directors: Akahiro Minakata, Koji Igarashi
Designer: Ayami Kojima
Original Version Name: Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
Original Version Platform: PC Engine CD ROM
Original Version Release Date: October 29, 1993










I just (sorta) beat my the first game that I bought for my PSP. This is going to be shorter than my typical posts, I think, but I thought I'd go ahead and share my thoughts on it. 

What is Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles?
Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles (Akumajo Dracula X Chronicle in Japan, literally "Demon Castle Dracula X Chronicle") is a remake of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, a Japan-only release for the PC Engine CD ROM system (that's the Japanese name; PC Engine was called Turbografix 16 in the US). Dracula X is a 2.5D remake of Rondo, meaning that it's a 2D side-scroller like most Castlevania games, but the characters are rounded out and there are some techniques such as parallax scrolling to make the game appear more 3D. 

Rondo of Blood was a novel introduction to the series. Released in 1993, it was the 10th Castlevania game. It was the first to get rid of the upgradeable whip system and also introduced a few new ideas to the series, such as the Item Crash ability, in which the player can do a special item attack while using up a large portion of hearts. The game also included some things from some of the earlier games such as branching, alternate paths and unlockable playable characters. It was also the first game in the series to come on CD and made use of the Redbook Audio format, which allowed you to listen to music from the soundtrack by placing the CD into a regular CD player. Using a CD allowed the addition of animated cut-scenes, voice-acting, and higher quality music. 

The naming of these games can be confusing. First of all, in Japan, Konami could never decide what naming convention to use, resulting in several different games called Akumajo Dracula then some using Castlevania and others not. But in America, we got a game for the Super Nintendo (and I think the Sega Genesis) called Dracula X. It's a watered-down version of Rondo of Blood that mostly plays the same, but with some major differences, such as taking out the playable characters. Then, when Konami released their remake of Rondo of Blood for the PSP, they named it Dracula X Chronicles in all regions, even though it's a true remake of Rondo, not Dracula X.

"Akumajo Dracula X: Chi no Rondo," or "Demon Castle Dracula X: Rondo of Blood" 

So, how is it?
Okay, so now that we've gotten all of that confusion out of the way, how is the game itself? I've actually written about it a little before in my "Retro Gaming with the PSP" article. My only experience with Castlevania prior to this was the original and the N64 game. I got the original Castlevania for the NES back around 1990. My dad came home from work one day with an NES and a handful of games that he had bought from someone at work (I already had had an NES at my mom's house for a year or two). I assume that some poor teenager had gotten busted for something or other and his punishment was that his dad sold his NES. I think my dad gleefully told me that he had only paid $60 for it, too. I can't remember the other games for sure - I think Commando and Ice Hockey. Anyway, I loved the original Castlevania and played it for hours and hours, but even in my teen years going back and playing it again, I was never able to get past the 3rd stage and only even made it that far once or twice. 

Likewise, I found Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles to be very difficult. It felt exactly like playing the original Castlevania in just about every way. Richter Belmont jumps and falls with that famous Castlevania gravity just like Simon did. Swinging the whip has exactly the same little delay that makes it so hard to hit swooping enemies like Medusa heads and ravens. Getting hit still makes you fly backward in a very frustrating manner, often into more death. Speaking of which, there is this one boss that you fight while inexplicably standing atop the crossspar at the top of a very high mast. If you get knocked back or just make a bad jump and jump off, you fall all the way to the bottom of the level and die. Fun times. And of course, you have a very limited number of lives. When you lose them all, it's all the way back to the beginning of the level.

All of that aside, I really enjoyed the game anyway. I found it very hard, but in a way that pushed just the right nostalgia buttons. The addition of saves really helps. I probably replayed the third level 30-40 times before I finally beat it. Beating the game was very satisfying, though I think I got the worst ending possible, having failed to rescue any of the four missing women. I know that if you rescue them you can play as at least one of them, if not all of them. I don't really feel a burning desire to go back and do so, though.

In other words: "You beat the game, but you really sucked at it."

Final Thoughts

The best thing about Dracula X Chronicles is that it includes a port of Symphony of the Night. There is a thing you have to do in the second level (I won't spoil it here). I had heard about it on the Retronauts podcast, but I actually did it completely by accident. Once you do this series of tasks, you find a little floating CD. Hitting it unlocks Symphony of the Night, playable from the main menu. As of writing this, I'm about 20 hours into Symphony. If you have never played this game and don't believe the hype around it can possibly be justified, let me tell you: you are wrong. I think it might be one of the very best games I've ever played. You should play it now. If you have a PS1 or a PS2, go buy it. If you don't and you have a PSP, then buy Dracula X Chronicles and unlock it. Either way, you owe it to yourself to play it.

Speaking of unlockable little CDs, let me save you some time. You can unlock music files from the soundtrack by collecting these little floating CDs, but most of them are sitting in plain sight behind a little red pillar thing. When you hit the pillar, it goes down, but then it pops back up before you can pass. I spent a lot of time trying to get past these things, using items, the backflip, and even wasting my precious hearts on item crashes. I finally looked it up: you have to play through the game as Maria, the first maiden you can rescue, in order to get these. There you go; I just saved you an hour of futility.

So, should you play Dracula X Chronicles? I think that depends. If you really love the original Castlevania, Castlevania III, and/or Super Castlevania IV and you've never played Rondo of Blood or Dracula X, then yeah, totally. If you love Symphony of the Night but find the older Castlevania games kind of tedious, then it's fine to pass up. I think once I finish Symphony of the Night, I'm going to try Super Castlevania IV (I just bought an SNES Mini - stay tuned!). Then I might see about coming back and playing Dracula X Chronicles again for the unlockables, maybe with a strategy guide. No shame in that, my friend; anything to lay Dracula to rest.

Review: Metroid: Samus Returns (3ds)

Game: Metroid: Samus Returns
Platform: Nintendo 3ds
Initial Release Date: September 15, 2017
Publisher: Nintendo
Developers: Nintendo, Mercury Steam, Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development
Directors: Jose Luis Márquez; Takehiko Hosokawa

Just a disclaimer right up front. I am a huge, unapologetic Nintendo fanboy, but the one big gap in my fandom is Metroid. As a kid, my only exposure to Metroid was playing Super Metroid at a kiosk at Target for about 15 minutes when I was 11 and having the magnet below, which is still on my fridge today.

SPOILERS!

Then in college, when the Gamecube came out, I originally bought two games for it: Super Smash Bros. Melee and Metroid Prime. I'm of course a big fan of the entire Smash Bros. series, but I also really loved Metroid Prime. I played it a lot, but I never got very far. I think my furthest save in the game was probably only about 40% through. Over the years, I've played an even smaller amount of Metroid 1, Super Metroid, and the accursed Other M. 

The point of this rambling history of my Metroid experience - or lack thereof - is that I went into Samus Returns without any nostalgia for the Metroid series. I know a lot about it, because I'm the kind of nerd who listens to retro video game podcasts (shout-out to Retronauts) and read articles on blogs and in magazines. But, ultimately, I went into this game knowing what to expect but judging it purely on its own merits and instead of as the newest installment of a treasured series. And my verdict? I LOVED it.

What is Metroid: Samus Returns?
Allow yourself to journey back to the distant era known as the 1980s. Tony Danza was somehow considered funny, Heaven was a place on Earth, and the home video game market had recently crashed and burned only to be resurrected almost single-handedly by Nintendo. At the time, Nintendo's in-house development was divided between two rival teams: Shigeru Miyamoto's EAD and Gunpei Yokoi's R&D 1. Miyamoto and EAD created such iconic games as Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., and the Legend of Zelda. Gunpei Yokoi was the designer of such marvels as Game & Watch, the D-Pad, and the Gameboy, and his R&D 1 team created Kid Icarus and, most important to our conversation, Metroid. Two years into the Gameboy's life-cycle, R&D 1 produced Metroid II: the Return of Samus in 1991, five years after the initial release of Metroid for the Famicom Disk System. It traded the zoomed out view of Metroid for a more zoomed in view that would make better use of the Gameboy's small screen and varied environmental textures to make up for the lack of color. It was also a little more linear, with players progressing from killing one Metroid mini-boss after another. Exploration still existed, but to a lesser extent. Three years later, the team would put out Super Metroid for the SNES, a game that is widely regarded today as one of the best video games ever made. 

I 100%ed it! My first Metroid game that I've beaten and one of the first games I've ever 100%ed, too!

Fast forward to September 2017, when Nintendo released Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3ds. This game is a modern remake of Metroid II, produced by a different team of course (Gunpei Yokoi was tragically killed in a car vs. pedestrian accident in 1997). The game essentially recycles the plot and map of Metroid II, but uses mechanics from Super Metroid as well as Metroid Fusion for the GBA. It also adds in some new things, such as the ability to add pins to your map (essential if you want to 100% the game as I did) and the ability to rotate your arm cannon 360° by holding down the L button. They also added a fun melee counter attack that stuns enemies and powers up your next immediate attack, allowing you to kill most stunned enemies in one shot. And to make up for the changes in resolution, they spread the map out more and added a lot more enemies. But, more or less, it's what Metroid II would be if it had been developed after Super Metroid and with modern technology.

My Thoughts
So, I really loved this game. I've heard it criticized a lot, mostly for not being Super Metroid. I think the fact that it's really my first true, 2D Metroid helped me to judge it on what it is instead of what it isn't. The difficulty isn't too hard on Normal mode, but there were still some bosses that it took me several tries to beat. There is one boss late in the game, in particular, that I think I might have attempted something like 20 times. So, there is definitely some difficulty there. The difficulty is ameliorated very well by the addition of soft autosaves; certain actions, such as using an elevator or teleporter or entering a boss's room, will cause the game to autosave, but this save isn't permanent. I found this out the hard way when I turned my 3ds off after using a teleporter, only to find that I had lost about an hour of progress by not actually saving first. Still, these soft autosaves are great for making you not want to break your 3ds in half after being killed by a boss. 

There isn't much else in this game that will kill you unless you're just being foolish. Few of the enemies do very much damage and pretty much anything you kill will give you health. In fact, because enemies respawn when you reenter a room, it's very easy to fill up health, ammunition, and your Aeon tank anytime they happen to be low. And unless you're just going around spamming super missiles, your ammo probably won't ever be low, either. 

There are a few things that it would be nice if the game told you. A big one is that Metroids are vulnerable to ice. Everyone who grew up playing the series knows this, but there is nothing in the game to indicate it to newcomers. I only knew about it from the Retronauts podcast (second shoutout!). Freezing the Metroids with a charged ice blast pretty much always makes those fights completely trivial.

Speaking of Metroids, the repetitive nature of killing Metroids as minibosses is probably the only really negative thing I can say about the game. They did vary it a bit - this Metroid shoots electricity at you, this one shoots fire, this one is in a room full of lava, this one runs away and goes to nearby rooms. But ultimately they are all the same easy fight. The real curveballs in boss fights are the non-Metroid bosses, all of which were very hard for me and all the more rewarding once beaten. The final boss fight is really great and I won't spoil it for you. It's broken up into stages with really neat cutscenes in between. I don't normally play 3ds games in 3D, but these cutscenes had me pushing up the slider, and I didn't start skipping them until I had already died probably 6 times. 

Final Verdict
If you have a 3ds, Metroid: Samus Returns is an absolute must-buy. I think any fan of the series who is willing to judge it on its own will really enjoy it and be left wishing for a Super Metroid remake with some of Samus Returns' quality-of-life improvements. Anyone new to the Metroid series will probably enjoy it even more. I went from this to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The latter is better, but this one is still an excellent example of the Metroidvania genre. Pick it up and get to playing.

See you next mission!

PS: Sorry about the long gap between articles. I got the super flu and then had an avalanche of responsibility fall on me at work. I've found a tiny little niche of free time and will use that to get several of these in the can, so to speak. 

Retro Gaming with the PSP

My inner 11 year-old just did a happy dance.

As part of my ongoing quest to spend probably too much money playing old games, I recently purchased a PSP. My reasoning for this went something like this:

• I want to be able to play retro games on a mobile device with dedicated buttons rather than virtual, touchscreen buttons that don't work for crap.
• I don't want to rebuy games that I already own (I won't pirate anything I don't legitimately own, but I have zero problem pirating something that I do for the sake of convenience).
• I can't emulate games on my 3DS without some risk of bricking it.
• If I were to brick something, I'd want it to be something cheap and easily replaced.

So, I went on eBay and found a Japanese PSP 1000 launch model for just $52 including the cost of shipping. Twenty-two days later, it finally arrived.

The package says "no battery," but luckily that was just a ruse to fool customs. Very crafty, Japanese used video game store.

Ultimately, I ended up spending a bit more, as I needed to buy a power cable for it, but thankfully it came with the original Sony branded battery, the 1800 mAh rather than the 1200, and it actually holds a charge for nearly 6 hours.

Of course, now I have to learn to read Japanese.
No, I'm kidding. This was easily fixed, thanks to the Internet.

How To Do It

The process for soft-modding your PSP is very, very simple. Check out this simple guide to adding the necessary custom firmware (CFW). You'll need this to be able to install emulators as well as to play ripped Playstation 1 games (the PSP comes with a PS1 emulator but only to play games purchased from the PSN store, which you can't even do anymore). Warning: the guide ends with the option to permanently flash the custom firmware to your PSP. Do not do this. This is the only part of any of this that carries any risk of bricking your PSP. Once you've got the firmware on there, you'll want to start adding emulators. This comprehensive list of emulators has everything you could ever want from Colecovision to Commodore 64 to the Atari Lynx. I just went with systems that I actually have games for and that I know the 1000 can handle (the 1000 only has 32mb of RAM compared to the 64 of the other models, so emulating the Nintendo 64 or anything beyond that is probably out of the question) or that would be feasible on something this size (no Nintendo DS for now, anyway - besides, any game I legitimately own on there I can just play on my 3DS). As for where to get ROMs for all these emulators, I'm not going to link to that. All I'll say is that the best, safest site I've found rhymes with Fimm's Fair. Happy hunting.

The Review

So far, it's pretty great. The PSP buttom configuration is perfect for emulating the SNES or the PS1 in particular and works just fine for the NES. The emulators that I'm using (NESter for NES, SNES9x for SNES, MasterBoy for Gameboy/GameboyColor/SegaMasterSystem/Gamegear, and Daedalus for N64) all have deep customization options, allowing you to do all sorts of things, from setting custom controls to changing framerate. One thing I found really neat is that, at least with the SNES9x, saving in the game actually creates a save file. So, you can do legitimate, no quick-save runs of classic games, if that's your thing. I discovered this on accident while playing Super Metroid. My quick-save broke and I thought I'd have to start the game over. I decided to do so since I was only about 30 minutes in. When I loaded up the ROM and got to the New Game screen, my save from a save point was there. I've never seen that in any other emulated game, including on SNES9x for the PC. So, that's pretty awesome. My big disappointment with saves, though, was that copying my saves from the PC didn't work. So, I can't pick up my Final Fantasy V game at hour 30 as I was hoping. I'll have to continue playing on the PC.

One really cool thing the PSP has over the DS/3DS - no region-locking.

The system is a little too small, though. Playing for more than 30 minutes at a time causes my right hand to hurt in the same way that the original DS and 3DS did, whereas I can play on my 3DS XL for hours without any hand pain. It's not bad, though, and definitely worth it. The screen is big and beautiful, too. PSP games have some "ghosting," which is where there is a soft afterimage at some points. I've been playing through Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles, the 2007 PSP remake of the Japanese-only PC Engine release of Rondo of Blood. If you've ever heard of Symphony of the Night, widely considered to be one of the best games ever made, that was a sequel to Rondo of Blood. You can actually unlock the original, uncut Japanese release (but localized in English) version of Symphony of the Night in Dracula X Chronicles (which I actually did already) as well as the American SNES version of Rondo of Blood (which I haven't). Anyway, it's the only game I have on UMD, though I'm expecting Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, soon. It plays very well, though the ghosting happens a lot with it, but it's not bad at all. If you're worried about it, the PSP 3000 supposedly has zero ghosting.

Final Thoughts

Piracy is bad, but if you already own the games, why not play them in a super-convenient and enjoyable way? At a cost of $50-60, a PSP is a great choice for anyone wanting to relive the glory days of 80s and 90s gaming.