mZuzek said:
Japanese Castlevania 3 is passable, but the American version is downright offensive. The way they cheapened the game so much just on an attempt to make it stupidly hard is honestly inexcusable, especially when even the Japanese version was quite hard. I'll admit I never used the HELP ME thing, because I didn't know about it, but it doesn't make the game any more fun. The thing that made Castlevania really awesome despite its difficulty was that it rarely felt cheap - you had a certain amount of health, and if you screwed up a certain number of times, you were dead. There was always a sense of strategy about how you navigate the levels and how you approach, or defend yourself enemies, and there weren't many bottomless pits in the game. Castlevania 3, though? It's a shitshow of bottomless pit after bottomless pit, with the added bats or medusas flying by just to make things better. Besides, what's not to love about a 3-phase final boss, with a bottomless pit, that throws back halfway across the stage on each death?
Maybe "shitty" was a strong word, Zelda 2 isn't that bad, but it's certainly not good either. I'd rate it a 5/10 if I was feeling generous. It's just, as many games of that era, frustratingly difficult and frustratingly obscure about mostly everything. It needs a lot of improving if it was to be truly good. |
We're definitely on opposite ends of the spectrum. I play games for a challenge. And Zelda 2 / Castlevania 3 both bring it. In the right way.
