Castlevania Anniversary Collection
I purchased this title when it was on a discount and I believe that’s how everyone should go about getting this collection.
It’s clear that not a lot of time was spent on making this package. It’s very basic, there’s only one available save slot for every game, the default 4:3 resolution is too small and the other options won’t give you anything close to what is possible on a normal emulator. That said, it’s not a terrible collection either. It’s just meh. So why the recommendation? Well, as I said, I got the game during a price drop for €4.99. This makes recommending the game a lot easier, less so for its standard pricing.
– Real player with 69.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Great Soundtrack Games.
I forgot how frustrating some of these Castlevania games can be…. but that’s all part of the fun right? 😁
Konami also included Kid Dracula, a game I’ve never heard of before playing this collection but was actually kinda fun.
The only thing I can nitpick about this collection (as well as the Contra one) is the fact that you have to use ALT+Enter to fullscreen and ALT+F4 to exit.
– Real player with 28.0 hrs in game
SULVER’S JOURNEY
Sulver’s Journey is a fantasy adventure series that follows the warrior Sulver as he searches planet Maroth to collect 6 Divine Stones and 6 Galactic Crystals and keep them out of the clutches of the space conqueror Genesis. However, Genesis has acquired one of these 6 Galactic Crystals, which is known as the Planetary Crystal.
Genesis has shattered the Planetary Crystal into 8 shards and scattered them across planet Maroth. Genesis gives Sulver a chance to join him and his cause to try and use the crystals and stones to usher in a Genesis envisioned utopian era with Genesis as the ruler. Collect all 8 shards, open the Lost Dimension and stop Genesis from using a duplicate Planetary Crystal to transform planet Maroth into the Lost Dimension.
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Upgrade Sulver with a wide array of enhancements, bought through Rutho’s Shop.
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Collect 8 special weapons, all with 3 levels of upgrades!
Central City: Sulver’s home base and location for Rutho’s and Dot’s shops and Doctor Birtton’s Labboratory
Razor’s Field: The field that provides access to Mount Oro, The Wizardly Woods, Mount Oro, Poseidon’s Bay and the Ancient Ruins. The Hawk watches over the field. Watch out for Hunter Razer patrolling the field as well and try to find the aura boots. They will help you dash through Razer’s Field.
The Wizardly Woods: A mysterious and dark wooded area inhabited by the Elders and a group of sorcerers, as well as other spirits. The Dark Wizard Cloak haunts these woods and must be stopped by locating Sapphire’s Wand.
Mount Oro: The ice ninja Borge awaits at the top of the mountain for a much anticipated battle with Sulver. Try not to get blown off the mountain or get buried under any forced avalanches. Find the ice gauntlet to help you scale Mount Oro.
Poseidon’s Bay: Sharkoid has taken charge of Poseidon’s Palace. The Divine Hammer will help fight off Sharkoids army but make sure you have your special breathing item from Rutho’s shop before taking the plunge into the bay.
Pharaoh’s Desert: The ancient long thought dead king of the pharaoh’s, Rahma Dao, is still alive and rules with an iron fist. No one is allowed to enter the deepest part of the desert. Find the Eternal Blade and battle Rahma Dao.
Future City: Ledges, traps, surprise enemies, a space shuttle and the maniacal Doctor Iron await Sulver in the Future City. The Galactic Energy Beam will help Sulver navigate past some of the more dangerous enemies. But Sulver has to find it first.
Blazing Canyon: Make sure you have purchased your heat resistant armor and found your damage reducing armor before entering the Blazing Canyon. Waves of fire, intense heat, fiery enemies and the ancient dragon warrior known as Blaze, all plan on stopping Sulver’s journey once and for all. The Raging Ax will aid in Sulver’s mission to subdue Blaze.
Ancient Ruins: The homeland of the ancient warriors that possessed the power of Sulver. The dark souls and dark energy of all living beings hover over the Ancient Ruins which energies enemies and creates craters and constantly shifting platforms. The Ring of Destiny will help Sulver maintain balance and hep him do battle with his evil counterpart.
The Lost Dimension: Genesis’s domain. Fight your way through Genesis’s Village, Genesis’s Dungeon and Genesis' Fortress. Take down the Dark Hunter, stop Trivoid and finally foil Genesis’s plan to use the planetary crystal to transform the Planet of Maroth into a land filled with the dark and unstable energy of the Lost Dimension.
Includes BONUS levels and mini-games!
Bonus Areas consist of: Sorcerer’s Summit, Savage Falls, Stone Village, Sapphire’s Castle and the Future City Race area.
If you are a fan of the Mega Man X series you will love Sulver’s Journey. Sulver will feature a series of fun weapons and classic upgrades throughout the game.
Eight stages must be cleared before you can enter Genesis' Netherworld which is known as the Lost Dimension. Exciting challenges and a plethora of heroes and villains makes Sulver’s Journey an enjoyable game for players both young and old.
Read More: Best Classic Early Access Games.
Cave Story+
I had played the original Cave Story back in 2010, when I read an article about it on ‘Hak5’. I liked it 10 minutes into the game, and loved it by the end; when I had had experienced two different endings. “Multiple endings! Wow!”, I thought; and when I read more about it, I found out that there was one another “best” ending, and some more hidden secrets that I was yet to discover. So I went back to the game, and I did. That was awesome, discovering something new about something that you are already in awe of.
– Real player with 72.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Great Soundtrack Games.
I have no hesitation in saying Cave Story is my favourite video game of all time.
The gameplay is basically rather simple platforming/run’n’gun stuff with some weapons that feel very nice, and get stronger as you gather XP for them from enemies, levelling them up a total of three levels maximum(Though a couple of the secret weapons break this setup in some rather interesting ways), however this can be somewhat fleeting, as you lose XP from your current weapon whenever you take damage.
The story, world, music, art, and characterisation are all very charming. The interesting thing about the story of this game is that you kind of walk into the middle of it in the game, and figure out what’s going on as it’s already well underway. Without spoiling anything, essentially an evil scientist is kidnapping people from a village of peaceful Mimigas(Cute little bunny people) with the help of an evil witch Mimiga, and a large box man, presumably for the purposes of some evil scheme.
– Real player with 62.1 hrs in game
Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection
This collection is a series of straight ports (And not emulation, as was often speculated before release) of the entirety of the Mega Man Zero and ZX game series. The four Zero games were originally released on the Game Boy Advance, and later ported to the DS with a number of enhancements and new features in the Mega Man Zero Legacy Collection. The enhanced DS versions seem to be the versions ported in this collection. The final two games in the collection are the DS games ZX and ZX Advent, a combined total of six games.
– Real player with 299.9 hrs in game
This collection is godsent since it contains a handful of best games out there. There is no doubt that every Mega Man fan loves Zero more than X or any other character in the franchise; therefore, it was a very clever move from Capcom’s side to collab with Inti Creates to make the best Mega Man games out there, and give our Red Hero what he deserves. I’ve been expecting a Zero Legacy Collection but Capcom really caught me off guard by adding ZX games as well.
The collection is very good and I can’t praise it enough. It has a gallery which you can view several artworks from different titles, a music player, options to cycle between remixes and remastered voice lines, several filters and wallpapers, save assist and casual scenario mode for newcomers, brand new Z Chaser mode, it even lets you connect Zero 3 and Zero 4 to ZX! To sum up, it has everything you can ask for a proper collection! I’ll review each game for those who never played any of these masterpieces…
– Real player with 117.1 hrs in game
STRIDER™ / ストライダー飛竜®
Strider stands as a reboot to an old Arcade series by the same name. The game stars Hiryu, the last remaining Strider to be sent on a suicide mission that involves taking down Grandmaster Meio, the iron fisted ruler of Kazakh City and the Earth and avenging the fallen Striders.
The game’s mechanics are pretty simple, like an old school title should. It’s structured very similarly to some older games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Super Metroid and the such as it has a lot of backtracking as well as you gain new powers to unlock new doors and the such - which may lead to new powers, health upgrades, energy upgrades, kunai upgrades, etc. There’s lots to find in the game.
– Real player with 18.3 hrs in game
As a Strider fan, this game was a disappointment.
Compared to other “metroidvania” games, this game is a disappointment.
New and improved review with impressions I wrote up when asked for specifics about why I disliked the game so much.
For the record, I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 9-10 hours with Strider. It was just enough to get 100% and then delete it from my hard drive immediately.
I can honestly say I will NEVER play that game again. EVER. And here’s a list of reasons why:
(1) There is no variety, in anything. There’s two main types of levels – futuristic cityscape and sewer. Maybe you could count the temple area… maybe… but it reminds me a lot of a blend between the sewer and the city. This makes it feel like you’re never going anywhere.
– Real player with 15.3 hrs in game
Castlevania Advance Collection
pretty good collection all 3 of castlevania gba games and Dracula X super nintendo game rewinding and save stating your game.
– Real player with 58.9 hrs in game
Simple collection with all Castlevania GBA games. It’s the same games you know and love from that era, perfectly emulated. If you want to revisit them, this is the best way to do it.
– Real player with 37.1 hrs in game
Dawnthorn
Dawnthorn is a topdown, pixel-art ARPG with a character and experience firmly rooted in the 8bit era. It features action-adventure style gameplay. Players will experience hectic, item-driven real-time combat, and solve puzzles and challenges spanning one single room, or the entire game-world! The experience features over 9 unique dungeons, and a sprawling overworld linking everything together, filled to the brim with rich characters, subquests, mini-games, and dozens of secrets.
Players take on the role of a headstrong young archetypal hero who, though from a prosperous time of bounty, has dedicated himself to righting a great wrong committed centuries ago. He comes armed only with fierce will and the promise of youth. Will these alone be enough?
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
(Ignore my time on record as I’ve spent most of my playtime offline)
Easily one of my most favorite games of all time! I remember playing this on the original Playstation like it was only yesterday. In my mind this game set the bar very high for what video games were capable of. Wonderfully written script and rich dialogue, Extremely clever puzzles that make you consider all possibilities. A unique and large open world game that managed to pull off one of the first concepts of streaming data directly from the disk, cutting out loading screens from area to area. Crystal Dynamics had outdone themselves when making this game, and it’s a shame that we don’t get games like this more often.
– Real player with 33.2 hrs in game
Soul Reaver
“Tumbling, burning with white-hot fire, I plunged into the depths of the abyss. Unspeakable pain… relentless agony… time ceased to exist… only this torture… and a deepening hatred of the hypocrisy that damned me to this hell. An eternity passed, and my torment receded, bringing me back from the precipice of madness. The descent had destroyed me… and yet I lived.” ~Raziel
This game, to me, was the start of the Legacy of Kain series. Although, technically, that was actually Blood Omen. As a matter of fact, the first Blood Omen unknowingly set the stage and essentially serves as the backdrop for all of the Legacy of Kain games. In Soul Reaver however, you do not actually play as Kain. Instead, you play as one of his vampiric lieutenants, Raziel. But almost immediately, things immediately go bad as when Raziel approaches Kain and shows that he has evolved by gaining a set of wings (the first evolution of all of Kain’s vampiric brood), Kain considers this a transgression against him. In an act of rage, he rips your wings from you, and then has you thrown into the Lake of the Dead. Burning, trapped in the abyss, Raziel reaches the bottom but he is lifeless, his body practically destroyed.
– Real player with 20.4 hrs in game
The Witch & The 66 Mushrooms
This is a cute short metroidvania with a lot of fairy tale influence in the story and bosses. The world is pretty small, but it’s dense with upgrades and collectibles, so it feels a bit larger than it otherwise would.
You start with a double jump, and a healing ability (check your pause menu for more information). The metroidvania locks are various weapons which can destroy certain crystals and unlock passages, a few items that open up more of the map, a cat form that lets you go into narrow passages, and gems/orbs late game that open the way into the final area.
– Real player with 10.8 hrs in game
As the first game i ever played developed on this Pixel Game Maker MV software, i got to say, it’s pretty ambitious to develop a small sized metroidvania title, but even then it has its shortcomings, particularly small things than end up mattering on the whole gameplay experience, for starters, while the controllers seem decent enough, there’s some minor decisions like running while holding the attack button as if this was a game developed for a game system with very few buttons, when in reality you could easily fix this by making just tapping the same direction twice like Castlevania Circle of The Moon, furthermore, the difference in movement and speed between walking and dashing could be a bit more notorious.
– Real player with 8.6 hrs in game
You Have to Win the Game
What really defines a “retro game?”
Sure, there are quite a few two-dimensional one-afternoon’s-scope games out there with chunky, obvious pixels and “chiptune” soundtracks – how I hate that appellation, much as I dig the genre itself – and surely you’ve encountered buckets of ‘em in your travels. They’re clearly trying to appeal to a certain nostalgic market, but I find that many of these so-called “retro” games don’t really understand what it is to which they’re alleging to pay homage.
You Have To Win The Game has no such difficulty. It understands its audience quite intimately.
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game
FANTASTIC LITTLE FREE GAME
“You Have to Win the Game” is a simple, well done old-school hardcore platformer offered for the low, low price of FREE. I’ve gotten about 8+ hours of enjoyment out of this game so far, so it’s emphatically been an incredible value. If you like games like Super Meat Boy, hell even if you don’t, download this game. It’s free, so what have you got to lose?!
[GOOD]
- Plenty of presentation options. Play in the old school looking default settings, or if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, set it up the way you want with the multitude of display options available. 8-bit color, 16-bit color, fullscreen, monitor border, there’s a lot there.
– Real player with 15.8 hrs in game