Category Archives: Streaming

Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles (PSP) Review

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Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles is a 2.5 remake of Castlevania Rondo of Blood for the PSP, released by Konami in 2007. This game stars Richter Belmont on a quest to save his beloved Annette from Dracula, who had been revived by the dark priest Shaft. Along the way Richter will meet Maria, a young girl with special powers who becomes a playable character. You’ll go through a number of the traditional Castlevania stages as Richter or Maria, and trying to find the well-hidden other 2 maidens along the way along with Annette. Saving the maidens will give you the ability to break red skeleton walls and crystal walls to find more secret items. Along the way you can unlock ports of the original pc-engine Rondo of Blood, along with Symphony of the Night. Other secrets include finding different tracks among the three games and a boss rush mode. Stages 2 through 5 have varying paths to explore, resulting in fighting a different boss and opening up an alternate of the following stage. Auto-saving after levels is a godsend with a game like this. Extra goodies with this include the aforementioned ports, sound tests, watching videos of the boss battles (you pay with the money you earn in stages), and a different types of boss rush modes. Rondo of Blood essentially is the missing link between the old school Castlevania platforming titles, and the later popular Metroidvania style games starting with SOTN. This review will mostly cover the Rondo remake, with mentions of the original Rondo of Blood port and SOTN.

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Retrorevisited: Ninja Gaiden Trilogy (NES)

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Retrorevisited is a stream series where I revisit a game or a game series I haven’t played in over 10 or 20+ years. I’ll go through to try see what I remember until a game over or I run out of continues. In some cases muscle memory may slowly return, in others probably not. This is a chance for me to revisit games of my youth that I still have or had at one point, playing them with and without nostalgia goggles, and do with mini-reviews of them too. If I decide to play any fully later and do a full review, parts of the mini-review would be incorporated into it. Depending on the playstyle or system, games reviewed will either be mini-reviews or one about all games in this session.

I love the Ninja Gaiden trilogy, from the action, the bosses, and the story itself! I have a long history with NG1 it being one my first NES games which i still own. 2 and 3 I rented a lot as a kid and a teen. NG1 I could normally on a good run make it somewhere to Stage 5, and never had much luck fighting my way through Stage 6. NG2 I had gotten to the final 3 bosses a few times but never finished the game after spending a lot of time with it one Summer, with help from the awesome Nintendo Power guide. NG3 not so much due to its difficulty, hard to find, and limited continues compared to its Japanese counterpart. So this is gonna be a fun time seeing how much i can remember with these! The mini-review will be of all 3 games combined, if I play and decide to review one of these on its own, parts of the mini-review will be incorporated into the full review.

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Mega Man Derusting: Mega Man 2 (NES)

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So I have a long history with the Mega Man games growing up. I came up with the Mega Man Derusting series to do such a task. The goal is to play and finish the Mega Man classic series along with most of the X series and some other Mega Man titles. I still have some of my Mega Man and X carts and discs and hadn’t really played them in years but I wanted to share my adventures on stream of relearning my way through the classic titles, and in some cases finish the later games to completion! 

THE REVIEW: Mega Man 2 is actually the best selling Mega Man game of the series by Capcom. Released in 1988 in Japan and then in 1989 in North America, MM2 takes place a year after the events of the first game. Dr Wily is on a mission to take over the world and get revenge on Mega Man and this time built his own 8 Robot masters for his plans. Like the first game and many more after it, each lair of the Robot master is a reflection of their powers and each one will tax your gameplaying to the limit as you learn new tricks to avoid enemies and obstacles. Defeating a Robot master gains his special weapon which you can use on other bosses and to get you through stages. Defeating certain Robot Masters will gain you special items for flying across places and for getting to higher ledges. Defeating the 8 will open up Wily’s Castle where you’ll fight through many stages and fight incredible bosses before a rematch with the mad doctor himself twice. new additions to MM2 in this game became staples to the series in later editions such as new graphics for weapon energy and your own energy, energy tanks and a password system to resume where you left off later.

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Retrorevisited: Super Star Wars Trilogy (SNES)

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Retrorevisited is a stream series where I revisit a game or a game series I haven’t played in over 10 or 20+ years. I’ll go through to try see what I remember until a game over or I run out of continues. In some cases muscle memory may slowly return, in others probably not. This is a chance for me to revisit games of my youth that I still have or had at one point, playing them with and without nostalgia goggles, and do with mini-reviews of them too. If I decide to play any fully later and do a full review, parts of the mini-review would be incorporated into it. Depending on the playstyle or system, games reviewed will either be mini-reviews or one about all games in this session.

So since May 4th was Star Wars Day I decided to devote some streaming to Star Wars content.  For a recent Retrorevisited I decided to do the SNES Super Star Wars trilogy (which happened late thanks to a series of events). For this Retrorevisited, I ran through each game till I hit a game over/continue, and sometimes kept going for a little longer, and used passwords to jump around a few levels in Empire and Jedi. I don’t have much history playing these as a teen, mostly renting or playing them with friends. Never owned this trilogy of SNES games until recently when I’ve been on a Star Wars kick as of late. XD And i know it’s August when I finally did this and posted this, I know I’m late. 😛

 

(Review is gonna be for all 3 games together seeing they’re all about the same.)
GRAPHICS AND SOUND: The graphics in all three games are beautiful and high quality! Your heroes look like who they’re supposed to be as do the various aliens and villians of the Star Wars galaxy. Explosions are very large and colorful. Many of the backgrounds on the planets and places you travel to are quite detailed and beautiful. Jabba’s palace in particular in Jedi has a lot going on in the background and foreground between where you are. Same with Hoth in Empire. Cinema scenes of important events are great for 16bit! All the music is straight from the movies so you can experience the John Williams orchestra in full 16-bit glory from the Imperial march to others.

PLAY CONTROL: The controls are quite tight and you can shoot your blasters in 8 directions. Spears and lightsabers can only go in 4 directions unless you’re spin jumping. You can lose your control for a few seconds due to enemy pushback when you get hit by them or a projectile, or if you lose control when you’re trying to spin jump. Controls can be a little slippy when you’re trying to navigate small platforms or jumps in all 3 games.

CHALLENGE: Oh boy, all three of these games are hard and require a lot of practice and hoping you hit enemies perfectly and making jumps correctly. Pushback from enemies and projectiles can ruin your day and find you losing more health than you want or push you into a pit. Enemies do drop hearts to replenish life, and sometimes drop point bonus and a health sword to make your life bar longer. Some stages are side-scrolling and following the plots of the movies depends on who you play as, sometimes being able to choose. The vehicle stages will require practice since you can get janked around a lot. It’s also ridiculous Jedi starts out with a driving level on a speeder with no weapons to avoid the rocks, and the last level escaping the 2nd Death Star makes no sense. Boss fights can be frustrating as well. You only have 3 lives and 4 continues total in all 3 games. Super Star Wars has no passwords, but Empire and Jedi do have passwords for each level and difficulty setting.

I GIVE THESE GAMES 4 OUT OF 5 LIGHTSABERS!

and the gameplay video:

If you enjoy reading any of my content and hearing of my nerdy adventures, feel free to share my posts on social media or leave me a comment. I would be forever grateful if you supported me via my Cash App or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. All donations are very welcomed and appreciated. I earn no income from this blog and this will help me continue in providing content and fulfilling my dreams. Thanks!

Hack Showcase: Mega Man X in Sonic 2 (Sega Genesis)

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Hack Showcases and RPG Hack Showcases are a series where I show off various game and rpg hacks. I try to stick with hacks that improve gameplay or add quality of life features, completely or partially change the plot and characters, along with additional content, dialogue, graphical and sound improvements. Non-rpgs I try to give a full run to, or at least enough for a solid review. Rpgs I will stick with titles that have enough changes in the beginning to show off, and when I can, show parts later in the games where more differences appear. There may be spoilers in the reviews and videos. Some of these I may stream fully in the future or play on my own. Reviews are open to later revisions due to bug and content updates or me playing them and finding anything new I wish to bring up.

Mega Man X in Sonic 2 is a Sonic 2 hack which allows you to play as X in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 stages that was made by Pacca at SHC 2018 (Sonic Hacking Contest 2018). I discovered this by accident a few nights ago on YouTube and I love it! This began as a simple swap of Sonic for Mega man X and evolved into its own full-fledged game. X has a stage select of all the Sonic 2 stages, and the game also has all of X’s upgrades hidden in 4 stages, and 8 different heart tanks to increase your life bar. The upgrades do the same as they would in the X series: armor decreases your damage, boots for dashing, X-Buster upgrade for stronger shots. Not sure about the helmet in this hack. You’ll fight through the stages as X shooting enemies to free the animals and fighting Robotnik. Defeating Robotnik gains you a new weapon like in the X series! You can return to stages after finishing them and game over doesn’t mean starting over again from the beginning! No bonus stages though. The power-ups from Sonic 2 were replaced with X’s energy and weapon energy power-ups in the tv monitors, but the speed shoes and shield remain. And look for cameos by Zero too!

So how is it? This hack is a lot of fun and merges Mega Man X with Sonic 2 in such a fun way! X replaces Sonic in all the levels, but everything else about Sonic 2 remains the same: enemies, rings, Robotnik too. Rings really only count for points since hitting checkpoints don’t trigger bonus stages and there’s no Chaos Emeralds in play here. Having X as a ranged fighter against enemies and the boss fights makes this hack easier than Sonic 2 itself since you don’t have to spin close to ko anything. Wall sliding and climbing in this lets you find any of the secrets or hidden heart tanks and X’s upgrades. 4 of the levels has X’s upgrades, and all the stages have a heart tank, usually in Act 2. Boss fights play out the same but after completion you gain a new special weapon like in a Mega Man classic series title. The weapons have their uses places but you still may find yourself using the X-Buster regardless, moreso with some forms of Robotnik.

Like I mentioned before, the stage select screen is based on the first X title and you can enter the 8 stages of Sonic 2 in any order. Game over doesn’t mean a complete restart like in Sonic 2, you keep any upgrades and gear and can go back to a stage to try again. You can re-enter finished stages to pick up any upgrades you missed, and earning continues are the same as in Sonic 2 by scoring enough points when you finish an act (symbol for continues is classic Mega Man). Using a continue doesn’t refill your special weapon energy completely though, so if you get stuck on a boss and need that special weapon you may have to just game over to reset all your energy. Monitors for weapon and energy refills do respawn after losing a life or restarting with a continue though.

I can’t really say much bad about this…this is how you do a hack where you put in a different character than normal. X really changes the game in your play style and how you fight enemies and Robotnik. It’s part Sonic, part MMX! Kinda sad the title screen wasn’t changed much, but keep an eye out for Zero too! Really only downside is some jank when you get stuck in a hidden cave sometimes where the graphics kinda break up, and some the animations of X don’t match what’s going on screen when you have to interact with an object (like grabbing a vine).

I GIVE THIS 5 OUT OF 5 RINGS!!

GAMEPLAY VIDEO:

Links:
https://mike64.itch.io/mmx-in-sonic-2 – Download it here
https://sonichacking.org/vault/ – Sonic Hacking Contest Vault

 

If you enjoy reading any of my content and hearing of my nerdy adventures, feel free to share my posts on social media or leave me a comment. I would be forever grateful if you supported me via my Cash App or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. All donations are very welcomed and appreciated. I earn no income from this blog and this will help me continue in providing content and fulfilling my dreams. Thanks!

RPG Hack Showcase: Final Fantasy C2 (SNES)

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Hack Showcases and RPG Hack Showcases are a series where I show off various game and rpg hacks. I try to stick with hacks that improve gameplay or add quality of life features, completely or partially change the plot and characters, along with additional content, dialogue, graphical and sound improvements. Non-rpgs I try to give a full run to, or at least enough for a solid review. Rpgs I will stick with titles that have enough changes in the beginning to show off, and when I can, show parts later in the games where more differences appear. There may be spoilers in the reviews and videos. Some of these I may stream fully in the future or play on my own. Reviews are open to later revisions due to bug and content updates or me playing them and finding anything new I wish to bring up.

Final Fantasy C2 was originally released in 2016 by Naka no Hito. This hack is special as it takes the Super Famicom Final Fantasy 4 and transforms it beautifully into an updated version of Final Fantasy 2, the black sheep of the FF games originally released on the NES, and later ported to PSX, GBA, and PSP. The Professional Japanese-to-English localizer Clyde “Tomato” Mandelin, who is known for making the fan English patch for the GBA Mother 3 who runs the Legends of Localization website, dropped an English patch for Final Fantasy C2 recently in 2 different flavors!

There is a version A and version B of this patch. Version A uses the original hack’s FF4’s graphics. Version B changes the enemies FF4 enemies into that of enemies in FF2 with upgraded graphics. Tomato even recommends most people to play version B (version B is the one I played for this review.) A readme file included shows how to patch the hack if you’re not familiar with using ips files, along with a number of other changes including: quality of life improvements, a 5 member party with party swapping late in the game, new spells and gear, a treasure tracker just for fun, and more! Links to a news article about this hack and the website to download this included at the end of this page. So I was excited to play this spur of the moment! I love FF4 after playing Free Enterprise and the Ultima hack for the past month and wanted to see what this brought to the table. Plus I have little experience with FF2 so this would give me a chance to play without dealing with the wacky leveling system.

With most romhacks, strongly suggested to check out the readme files for advice on the changes to hacks and any gameplay tips, especially with rpgs. Readme files for rpg hacks can contain additional gameplay advice, etc, and it’s worth subscribing to hacks you like on RHDN to keep up with updates for bug fixes, additional content, etc.

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Hack Showcase: Metroid mOTHER (NES)

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Hack Showcases and RPG Hack Showcases are a series where I show off various game and rpg hacks. I try to stick with hacks that improve gameplay or add quality of life features, completely or partially change the plot and characters, along with additional content, dialogue, graphical and sound improvements. Non-rpgs I try to give a full run to, or at least enough for a solid review. Rpgs I will stick with titles that have enough changes in the beginning to show off, and when I can, show parts later in the games where more differences appear. There may be spoilers in the reviews and videos. Some of these I may stream fully in the future or play on my own. Reviews are open to later revisions due to bug and content updates or me playing them and finding anything new I wish to bring up.

Metroid was released for the NES in the US in 1987. The game followed the adventures of Samus Aran as she traveled through Zebes to eliminate the threat of Metroids and Mother Brain. The game featured a very large map and item collection where you cannot get to some areas without another item. The game had a password which saved your progress and item collection, and saved you at the starting spot where you last died in the different areas of the planet. I had this as a kid, but the yellow cart re-release. i loved it even though I had little clue what I was doing aside from random tidbits i could find from Nintendo Power issues. Metroid: Zero Mission is the same game, but with a more fleshed out backstory, and features added in later Metroid titles.

As of this writing this hack is at version 1.0 released April 23, 2014. This hack was released by dACE in 2014 which is a combination of a few other hacks which add numerous quality of life features to this old title:

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RPG Hack Showcase: Phantasy Star Retranslation (Sega Master System)

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Hack Showcases and RPG Hack Showcases are a series where I show off various game and rpg hacks. I try to stick with hacks that improve gameplay or add quality of life features, completely or partially change the plot and characters, along with additional content, dialogue, graphical and sound improvements. Non-rpgs I try to give a full run to, or at least enough for a solid review. Rpgs I will stick with titles that have enough changes in the beginning to show off, and when I can, show parts later in the games where more differences appear. There may be spoilers in the reviews and videos. Some of these I may stream fully in the future or play on my own. Reviews are open to later revisions due to bug and content updates or me playing them and finding anything new I wish to bring up.

Phantasy Star was the first in the series of Phantasy Star rpgs which had a wonderful blend of sci-fi and fantasy involved in the plot and gameplay. Released in 1987 for the Sega Master System in Japan, and in 1988 in the West, the Phantasy Star games were known for their mix of fantasy and sci-fi, along with magic and high end sci-fi ideas. The journey takes you across three planets of the Algol System on a quest of revenge for Alis Landale, one the few female protagonists at the time. One the concerts introduced in this series was evil being a sentient being, called Dark Force. You could of course save your game to return to it later via battery. Your party in this game consists of Alis, a talking cat named Myau, a warrior named Odin, and a wizard named Lutz. One big difference between this and Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior/Quest was the fact that the dungeons and towers consisted of 3d first person mazes, meaning you didn’t have the top-down view from outside, meaning you needed to map your way to find your way to finding treasures and traps. PS was later ported to other systems in the US and Japan, and later the Sega Ages collections for Playstation 2 in Japan, which improved the graphics and sound, quality of life features, and a mapping feature. As of this review, version 2.00 of this hack was released on May 25 2020.

Aside from this, I don’t have much experience with Phantasy Star. I fell in love with the series starting with 4, and dabbled around with 2 and 3 over the years. Currently is/was playing PS1 on the GBA Phantasy Star Collection port, currently (as of this writing) at the tower which I think(?) will lead me to the Air Castle for the endgame with Lassic.

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RPG Hacks Showcase: Phantasy Star Generation: 4 – A Relocalization Hack (Sega Genesis)

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Hack Showcases and RPG hack Showcases are a series where I show off various game and rpg hacks. I try to stick with hacks that improve gameplay or add quality of life features, completely or partially change the plot and characters, along with dialogue, graphical and sound improvements. I try to stick with games that have enough changes in the beginning to show off, and when I can, try to show parts later in titles. Some of these i may stream or play on my own.

This hack is by romhacking.net user GhaleonUnlimited. The goal of this hack was to bring the names, spells, etc closer to their Japanese counterparts, and what would have been used in a long canceled SEGA AGES release. There’s 2 different versions of this retranslation (as per romhacking.net):

  • Restore every mistranslated connection to the other PS games
  • Incorporate The Cutting Room Floor’s retranslation notes to best express Japanese creators’ meaning & intent in all dialog, esp. story dialog
  • A more colloquial, fun, and emotional script (from NPCs to main story)
  • Add PS lore gathered from PS team interviews and official SEGA resources
  • Add depth to character personalities and relationships
  • Explain the few plot holes and character choices that had been given no in-game reasoning (see project site for details – spoilers)
  • Proper grammar and capitalization
  • Restore censored content (A couple monsters readded)
  • Item descriptions for those that had none
  • Minor endgame character / item rebalancing
  • More accurate translation of proper nouns/items/monsters/etc.
  • Made some vague PS-series lore connections more obvious
  • Translated “comedic” character’s mis- and untranslated jokes
  • Include lory1990 bugfixes

If you’re a fan of Working Designs-style RPG writing (specifically Lunar and Lunar: EB on SEGA CD), you might best enjoy this. Or, if you’ve played PSIV before and would like an expanded look at the universe, try this.

2. Generation 4 – “Purist”

  • Removed most editorialization added to NPCs from WD script
  • Removed a few added dialog exchanges
  • Removed some dialog that fits the characters but isn’t in the Japanese script.

If you prefer a more straight-laced localization, this version removes most of the added color, leaving the naturalized English dialog, fixed PS references, more accurate story translation, and added PS background and story. This is closest to the literal, original Japanese script. The screenshots below are from the “Working Designs” patch, as is the review below. I did play “Purist” for awhile on my own to get a full view of the work done on this.

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Hack Showcase: Castlevania 2 English Re-translation + Map (NES)

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Hack Showcases and RPG Hack Showcases are a series where I show off various game and rpg hacks. I try to stick with hacks that improve gameplay or add quality of life features, completely or partially change the plot and characters, along with additional content, dialogue, graphical and sound improvements. Non-rpgs I try to give a full run to, or at least enough for a solid review. Rpgs I will stick with titles that have enough changes in the beginning to show off, and when I can, show parts later in the games where more differences appear. There may be spoilers in the reviews and videos. Some of these I may stream fully in the future or play on my own. Reviews are open to later revisions due to bug and content updates or me playing them and finding anything new I wish to bring up.

Castlevania 2, the black sheep of the original NES trilogy. Not a pure platformer like 1 and 3, but more of an adventure game with rpg elements like Zelda 2. Also made famous by the bad translation of clues and townspeople gossip which made figuring out progressing through the game harder then it should have been unless you had friends who knew what they were doing. Or Nintendo Power. And that infamous Nintendo Power cover that gave kids nightmares. I don’t have many memories of playing this as a kid except off and on renting or with friends. That said, never finished it either. I discovered another improvement to Redacted by romhacking.net user Bisqwit. He took what was done in Redacted and improved it even more! Other features include:

  • NTSC version (there is also a PAL option)
  • MMC4 chipset (there are also MMC3, MMC1, MMC5, UNROM and VRC6 options, see the vending machine)
  • Reintroduced some features that the English releases removed from the Japanese version — Includes the extended ending text, as well as Konami-style Start text on the power-on screen.
  • Map function — An in-game map is included. It helps understand the layout of the game world, and to know the name of whichever place the player currently is in. It compensates for the lack of actual game manual, which in the Japanese releases included a map. Press the select button to view the map in the game.
  • SRAM save function — Game can be saved at any time into internal battery-backed memory and loaded later.
  • Cinematic prologue
  • Seamless fading between night and day times
  • Quality-of-life improvements to game controls: Jump down stairs with down+A, hit stun on stairs, Simon blinks when hurt
  • Extra dialog in select locations — Small changes that improve the game experience without changing the nature of the game.
  • Language — English.

When I played this I added 3 other hacks to it: the Annoyance Fixes by tkempkes, False Floor & Breakable Block Replacer by Greyfield, and the Game Over Penalty Reduction by NaOH hacks (links provided at the end of this post). The Game Over one reduces the amount of hearts lost at a game over to half instead of all of them. Annoyance Fixes includes patches for a faster day and night transition, getting double hearts, empty space replacing false floors. False Floor & breakable Block Replacer changes the false blocks around the game to a different shade so you don’t have to always throw holy water around. I’ve played this hack with and without these additional patches, patches are compatible with this hack.

This review updated after a new video playthrough on 9/26 with version 2.12.0.1 of the Bisquit hack, and latest versions of the Game Over Penalty, Double Hearts and False Block Replacer hacks available. Review will reflect with and without the additional hacks.

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