Castlevania Legends – Cane and Rinse No.691

... Maybe it's the one that has YouTube videos that are called things like, "Is this actually the worst Castlevania game or is it OK?" And then they usually come to the conclusion that maybe it's not completely horrific, but it has a lot of shortcomings. ...

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I really like the setup. It's a cool prequel. Sonja kicks ass. It's a shame. I think it's a shame this has been removed from canon personally. She does come back in Vampire Survivor. She's an unlockable character in the Castlevania DLC. She was going to start in her own game, her own console game on the Dreamcast, but that game was canned and never released due to the failure of the Dreamcast. But yeah, how does everyone else feel? As I say, we know this is not canon, but I quite like the idea of going back to…

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... And the other thing of note, which is the same for also the predecessors of the Castlevania series on Game Boy, is that there's no staircase transitions, which is a kind of signature of the console games and the arcade games in the series. You slide between rooms on ropes, but you can speed your descent, if not your ascent by holding down the button, which is quite pleasing, I thought. It's nice for a couple of those transitions too, like especially if you want to go get, like there are a couple of side paths in…

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Correct. Yep, yep, so there's a lack of logic in some of these video games, I don't know if you've noticed, Sonia Belmont, according to Nintendo Life's recent ish review, makes a positive first impression. She's capable of changing direction mid jump and can even crawl while crouching, something that was only previously possible in Super Castlevania four. I agree with the Nintendo Life here. Overall, their review is pretty negative. But this makes such a big difference to me, the fact that Sonia can change…

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an executioner in the dungeon of silence, which is the mystery level. Very briefly on Alucard. I, I was genuinely delighted when I saw him because I, I didn't, I didn't, I wanted this game completely cold. So like the idea that the protect, you know what I mean? That this character that I knew, and, and again, I'm not big on the Castlevania story. So I'm not like saying like, like, oh, it was so cool because it, it factors into these three things in the cannon. It wasn't much about that. It was just like a, oh…

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... I'm interested, Ryan. So this is, um, you, you haven't completed loads of these at all. You haven't played that many Castlevania games. I mean, so you haven't got maybe the same sort of broad field of reference, uh, as the rest of us, um, what, how did you actually find the kind of the Castlevania fundamentals, the basics enjoyable in this, in this far-flung year of 2025 or not? Uh, it's, it's, I I've played less playable Castlevania games before this one. I didn't find it. Uh, I didn't find myself getting…

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... Let's see how this goes. Yes, exactly. Ryan, sum up your feelings of this little old Game Boy Castlevania game, if you will. Yeah, one of the one of the disciplines that I tried to keep is whenever I play a game, I try to think about whether or not I liked it. What is one thing that it's done that I've never seen before? What is one new idea that has kind of like introduced into the lexicon? And this of all the games that I've played this year is probably the most that I've struggled to come up with an answer to…

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other games where you would have had to read the instruction manual, and they include a little dialogue here. And like I said, that that scene with Alucard made me smile. So so because of that, that gives it just the slightest leg up on the three. But, but really, these are these are Castlevania games made for the Game Boy. And I think they did a lot of what they could with them, I think they're punishing in a way that is not familiar anymore in modern game, unless you're playing a game that's designed, you…

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No, they're in bed with Big Pachinko, the standard joke. But as I say, there are little flickers of light. And of course, we should mention at this point that the Dead Cells Castlevania DLC was probably the single best reviewed Konami adjacent thing for the last decade or something like that off the top of my head. That did really well, I think. ...

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that I am disappointed that it was shelved for whatever reason that people want to argue about online. Robin Enrico from our Patreon says, if you ever wanted evidence that the Game Boy isn't just a handheld version of the NES, the Castlevania games on the console are blunt examples. So why then does this bottom of the barrel Castlevania entry stick in people's minds? ...

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you take damage again and you can lose a whole bar of health down there. You can kind of like do that little kneel crawl into the underneath the one platform and get to some safety. But it's it's a frustrating experience down that that pit of despair. Yeah, I didn't think those that was additive in any way to my Castlevania experience. ...

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some characters that are reminiscent of this, I will say. And there's some like wiggly kind of wacky ghosts and some funky looking. I don't know what they all are and some fairly kind of bog standard nights and they have the things. There's not a great number of enemy types. I wouldn't have said it's not a Castlevania if there isn't a black lagoon type creature that jumps out of a pit at you, so that's in there for sure. Yeah, those are pretty nice. ...

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you do need to do a bit of going off the beaten path or at least I mean, there aren't multiple like it's not these are not sprawling Metroidvania type levels. This is not the handheld version of Symphony of the Night. And it's not even as you know, as as much of an arcade adventure as the Game Boy Advance games that would would come and that we'll cover in the future. But there are normally a couple of main paths. There's a couple of issues with this. I have no problem with the concept and I had no problem with…

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