#KONAMI PIXEL PUZZLE HINTS WINDOWS#

Super Castlevania IV is something of a technical showcase but less fun than its 8-bit predecessors. It doesn’t get any better than the weirdo harpsichord and organ-drenched Clocktower theme. Dracula’s Curse features some of the series’ best tunes, too.

#KONAMI PIXEL PUZZLE HINTS WINDOWS#

The graphics pushed the NES hardware with the same crazy detail of the first game: a clocktower with spinning gears, stained glass windows in a dark chapel, and a weird, dayglo forest are some of the best Castlevania locales, ever. There are a few branching paths to consider, but Dracula’s Curse is still mostly linear. But it does add three more playable characters, including Grant, who can climb walls (the controls aren’t great) and Alucard, who can turn into a bat and just skip tough platforming sections. Score: Okay Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curseĭracula’s Curse abandons most of the failed experimental exploration stuff of Simon’s Quest and returns to basics. With a guide, Simon’s Quest still has challenging combat - and is a lot more fun. And as someone who lived through the pre-internet era and bought this game new, putting together those clues wasn’t even attempted: We used guides. Equipping a crystal and kneeling at a cliff may be hinted at by a villager, somewhere, in poorly translated text, but putting together the clues just isn’t fun. It’s an open world to explore with the exact same jumping and whipping of its predecessor how good does that sound? The problem is that jumping and whipping aren’t the only tools you need to explore the world, as its extremely obscure puzzle solutions just can’t realistically be solved without a walkthrough. Like Zelda II, Simon’s Quest is a failed but fascinating attempt at making an RPG platformer before technology and localization practices were ready for it. Score: Masterpiece Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest It doesn’t get any better: Play Castlevania before you die.

The feel is just right: Whipping, jumping, freezing time, discovering secrets… This is a desert island game for me. The music rips: The baroque Bach organ jams that inspired 1980s heavy metal shredding guitars in turn inspired Castlevania’s composers to make some of the best electronic music ever committed to a chip. Giant boss sprites pop off the screen with lively animations that you are *just* fast enough to outmaneuver. It demonstrates total mastery of NES hardware and game design: Backgrounds and settings don’t repeat but instead hint at the larger world, with late-game bridges and towers looming in the distance, painted in vivid blacklight poster colors. The original Castlevania is the best game in this collection. Here are mini-reviews for each of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection games: Finally, there’s Kid Dracula, a fascinating spinoff that never came to the US… until now. At the other end of the spectrum are two poorly programmed Game Boy games that just don’t work. The 16-bit games are also great Super Castlevania IV and Castlevania Bloodlines show off now-outdated but once-impressive graphical effects that are fun to revisit.

Konami pixel puzzle hints