Megadanxzero's Blog

28 Days Later eh?

Far from being a (rather terrible, I thought) zombie movie, this is a blog about my life 28 days after owning a Wii.

To be honest... Wii Sports lasted WAY longer than I thought it would. Until recently I was doing the Wii Fitness Test everyday, and trying to get my skill level up in all of the sports every day. Apart from Tennis and Golf because I'm already Pro and I can't be bothered. Upon realising that there were medals to get in the training things I was given something else to do for a while too. Only got one Gold medal though, and now I can't really be bothered anymore. Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how long it lasted.

Wii Play was... Well it was just an excuse to get another controller to be honest, but it's not too bad and it's a bit of fun to play with my sister.

Excite Truck lasted a while too. I haven't managed to get an S rank on one of the challenges on normal, or get all S ranks on the 'hard' mode of the normal races, but... Again I can't really be bothered anymore... It was fun for a long time, but eventually the huge boosts and jumps kinda loose their magic, and the difficulty is... Weird... Which is annoying...

Metal Slug Anthology was pretty good too. Didn't last that long, and it looks like it took them about 10 minutes to put together judging by the menus, but it's great fun and I could probably go on playing it for years on end, especially in co-op.

For the last few days I haven't really been playing it though, choosing to try and get through Fire Emblem on the Gamecube on Hard... I've just kinda got a bit bored of all the games I have, and I don't have enough money to get more. To be fair though that's 4 weeks for 4 (Only 3 really...) games, which means that they lasted longer than most games I paly and complete within a few days.

Overall I'm more impressed with it than I thought I'd be after 4 weeks... I just wish I could actually get some of the games that are out >,<

Oh and one thing, I probably wouldn't pay full price for Metal Slug Anthology if I were you... But I got it for

DC:UK/Drinks/Sonic eh?

On turning 18 everyone needs to have the obligatory night where you go and get a bit drunk up in town (Except knighty... Faggot) and so to take advantage of this opportunity I dug out the old first issue of DC:UK to try out some drinks I'd be wanting to try for years. 8 years in September actually. Holy Shit.

Basically they're Sonic-themed to go with the release of Sonic Adventure, and I've scanned them pages in for anyone who may want to try them because they're rather nice. (Click to enlarge)


I only got to try 3 of them, the Sonic, Knuckles and E-102 ones. Formula 102 seems to taste, for some reason, a bit like cough syrup, with a nice blackcurrent-y aftertaste. The Knuckles Duster was also quite fruity, with the Jack Daniels sort of hiding in a corner then stabbing you in the neck when you walk past.

The Sonic Tonic was by far the best of the three. It just tasted of Blue. Do you know how hard/weird that is? I hate tequila too...

So yes, if the next time you're out and about at a bar or club or whatever and you're feeling a bit too cool, just order yourself one of these Sonic-themed cocktails and you'll be feeling like the forum-crawling geek you are in no time ;3

18 eh?

As it happens I'm 18 today. See knighty's actually a clone of me. They just went back in time so that he'd have a birthday slightly before mine so it'd look a bit less suspicious. Didn't work though...

Gots me a Wii and bought Wii Play (For

Ironing eh?

Don't you just love Irony? It's a wonderful thing. However, there's nothing worse than people who have no idea what the fuck Irony is. I encountered one such example today.

So I'm in my local eating establishment, happliy eating a chicken burger, when some girl walks up to the table in front of the one I'm sat at. 'Oh my God!' says she 'This is, like, the 3rd time I've seen you in town today! That's really Ironic!'.

I swear it took absolutely everything I have not to stand up and punch her in the face as hard as I could. When did it become acceptable to refer to coincidences as irony? What the hell do kids learn in English these days. I'm still doing it at A-level, but something must have gone wrong earlier down the line...

But I have a plan, and you can help! Next time you hear someone using the word Irony or Ironic incorrectly make sure you correct them, forcefully if need be, especially if they actually mean coincidence. The use of the word Irony meaning sarcasm is acceptable, but should be discouraged to ensure its proper usage.

And as a treat for all of you who don't know what Irony is:

1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply,

Castlevania eh?

So I got Portrait of Ruin a few days ago. I'm sort of mixed on my view of it so far... It's definitely good, but I'm not sure if it's just awesome or OMG AMAZING like Dawn of Sorrow was. I don't think any game Castlevania or otherwise will ever live up to my expectations after DoS though, so let's just ignore that. I'd probably say it's better than Symphony of the Night though so far, definitely WAY bigger than both games. I'm about 850% through now though which... I must say... I'm not particularly pleased about. Thought it was a tad silly, but still it's nothing major

As I've gone on a bit of a crazy Castlevania spree lately I thought I'd maybe share my findings...

Aria of Sorrow:
First Castlevania game I played, thought it was great but didn't really get into it. After completing it the second time (After playing DoS) I appreciated it far more, and it's probably the best GBA game there is...

Dawn of Sorrow:
Well, quite simply OMG AMAZING. The souls system gave it (For me) a HUGE amount of replayability (Which I don't often get from games at all). I completed it three times in pretty rapid succession which has only been rivalled by RE4, and I expect I'll keep going back to it a LOT since the amount and combination of souls give you so much to collect, as well as giving you loads of different ways to play

I then went back to some older ones to see what they were like... Super Castlevania and/or Castlevania 4 or something, was pretty terrible I must say... I even played Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance on the GBA a bit, but something about them I just hated for some reason, and I couldn't bring myself to complete either of them...

Symphony of the Night:
Brilliant game, and really the birth of 'Good' Castlevania as I love it today. It's really REALLY good, but I don't think it could come close to DoS. Alucard is awesome though, and I hate whips <_<

And then we have Portrait of Ruin:
At first I was a bit disappointed... After the immense soul system of DoS it felt a bit restricting. SotN I didn't mind because previous Castlevanias had been even MORE restricting, and the spells made it feel like there was a bit more to it, but I pressed on, and once you get to the all the enemies and bosses and bosses and enemies and room and death and dying and... Aaah... It's wonderful.

The whole portrait thing gave them an opportunity to include same slightly more diverse areas than would have been possible before, since the whole thing is supposed to be set inside a castle, and it's quite a refreshing change... In fact I haven't even seen an dark, dank, water-filled underground area yet! The layout of the main castle seems a bit odd, since everything seems to be on one side, and it ends up looking almost like a giant right-angled triangle, but it's nothing major.

The only thing I would criticise is that there seems to be far more simple, straight corridors or 'separating rooms' which are one tile wide on the map and have nothing in them than in the other games I've played. It's quite unfortunate because usually the Castlevania games have a brilliant lay out, and the fact that all the areas are separated into portraits sort of meant they didn't have to be as careful about it. It does also mean they're a bit more free to do what they wanted with the layout though, so there are some areas where it does pay off (For example two of the portraits are big and round, and have gravity going in different directions (Not for you though) depending on where you are. For some reason it's really satisfying to see a big jumble of bones falling up...). Some of the settings are re-used unfortunately, but it's not really bad at all since there are still more of them than I can remember in any other game I've played, and the game is just HUGE. (Plus it's definitely better than the inverted castle of SotN :roll

Then there's the music... I love that too... For some reason they changed the music for the first bit of the castle from the trailer that I say about a year ago... It's basically the same, but just sounds a bit re-arranged, and I actually prefer the original version. The new one has some other bits though which are good so it's pretty close.

In fact if you aren't yet in love with Castlevania music I suggest you GET in love with it now... I'll refer you to some of my favourites which I've been listening to:

Castlevania Portrait of Ruin - Victorian Fear
I've literally llistened to this about 30 times in a row today... I just left it on repeat, it's amazing. Reminds me of the Soul Reaver games as well for some reason, which is always good. Unfortunately Galbadia Hotel don't have the PoR soundtrack yet so you either have to download the whole thing here

If you do download that I'd also recommend The Gears Go Awry, which is pretty awesome.

Dracula's Tears from the Dawn of Sorrow soundtrack is another one I love as is
Vampire Killer which is, as far as I can tell, the DoS remix of THE Castlevania 'tune'
Oh and I quite like Subterranian Hell too actually...

There's only one tune from SotN which immediately springs to mind, which is the inverted castle version of that dark, dank, water-filled underground area I mentioned earlier, which appears to be... Abandoned Pit. Not really sure why I like that one actually... Seems to remind me of another game, which might be Soul Reaver again actually... Oh and it reminds me of Worms, because it uses loads of the exact same sound effects in the background...

Actually... You know what... It might have been this one I was thinking of :Crystal Teardrops. The other one is still a rather nice (and haunting ;3) bit of piano though.

I'm sure there are others, but I havent actually downloaded the whole SotN soundtrack yet, so I'm not too sure...

And that ends this stupidly long blog post.

CASTLEVANIA FTW! X3 1 2 Next