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M.U.S.H.A. (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Until this appeared on the Switch Online Mega Drive collection thing, I’d never realised that “MUSHA”, “Aleste”, and “Musha Aleste” are the same game. I’d never played any of them before, either.

It’s a vertically scrolling shooter with big robots and great music and impressive graphics. And it’s hard. And I completed it, eventually.

The bosses were, mostly, much easier than some bits of the actually levels, it turned out. Aside from the “final” 1 one with the almost unavoidable things that stick out of the wall, with the walls already having become really narrow!

Notes:

  1. Spoiler: it’s not final. ↩

Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Just in case I didn’t have enough games to play already, and I have a copy of this already on my Switch in the Sega Mega Drive Collection thing, I decided to play the one in the new Sega Nintendo Online collection. No, I don’t know either.

I’ve played it before. And completed it before. But not for a while.

Mean Bean Machine is just a reskin of Puyo Puyo, and I have to say, I prefer Puyo Puyo. This Sonic themed version is full of the stupid badniks from (presumably) Sonic the Comic and/or one of the cartoon series and I don’t like them. That makes no difference to to the gameplay of course, but still.

The game was really easy until the final three opponents, where the speed is just too fast. Robotnik himself, especially, seemed to fill my well (careful now) before I had a chance to even drop a few beans, so it was only by blind luck I managed to nail him in the end, I’m sure.

Castlevania: Vampire’s Kiss (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Vampire’s Kiss is A Bad Game. I’ve no idea why Konami decided to dump this poor Super Castlevania IV followup on the Castlevania Advance Collection because it’s neither a GBA game nor is it a “metroidvania” style game. And it’s rubbish.

I’m trying not to represent it badly because it isn’t the same genre as the other three games on the collection, and it’s several years older, but no – it’s just no fun to play. It’s short, it has about three near impossible sections but the rest is pretty easy, and it plays really, really slowly. It does, however, look incredible, especially early on in the game, and the fact it’s a Super NES game makes that all the more impressive. It’s just a shame it’s way too clunky to go with it.

I mentioned Super Castlevania IV partly because that game is so much better than this, although it doesn’t look as good. It’s also linear, and also slow, but it’s much more fun to play. Vampire’s Kiss is just bobbins,

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Switch): COMPLETED!

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And that’s it. The Unholy Trinity of Game Boy Advance Castlevania Games, all completed.

Once again, I found this easier than I remembered. Something else I had obviously remembered wrongly was that I’d thought this was the best of the three games, but in fact, this time around I think I enjoyed Harmony of Dissonance more. A combination of the dash moves, the double castle and the lack of the silly “broken up map” of Aria of Sorrow, perhaps.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this, though, as I did. Very much. It’s still better than 99% of other games and even better than most other Castlevania games. It’s so slick, so well put together, and just so playable it can’t be anything but – but – but, I liked Harmony more. Tch, eh? Yes, this one has even better graphics and Soma doesn’t have Juste’s Ready Brek glow, but still.

Nudity? On a Nintendo platform? Won’t someone think of the children?

100%ed this one too. But now I’m sad that there’s very little chance the three Nintendo DS Castlevania games aren’t likely to appear on the Switch (unless they edit all the second screen stuff out somehow), and of course the series has been dead for years. Boo.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Switch): COMPLETED!

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No sooner had I completed Circle of the Moon I made a start on Harmony of Dissonance. Two things are immediately apparent: 1) the background and enemy graphics are much, much more impressive than the previous game, and 2) your main character, Juste Belmont, looks incredibly garish with a clashing outline. The reason for the latter is probably because Circle of the Moon got a lot of stick for being too dark to see on the original GBA. Back then, handheld consoles didn’t have lit screens and relied on you sitting in the sun (but not too much sun as that made it worse) or under a reading light in order to actually see what was going on, so making Juste stick out like a clown at a funeral was the solution.

Anyway. The DSS card system is gone, but Juste has become much nippier with forward- and back-dashes and actually, I didn’t miss the cards at all. Certainly not grinding for them, anyway.

The game also has some pretty impressive bosses, but I discovered it was much easier than I recall from my last playthrough. I had the same thing with Circle of the Moon too, and it’s not really a problem, just in my mind these games were hard as nails and it seems I’ve been remembering wrong all these years,

I liked the dual castle system, where the map was the same but the items, graphics and enemies differed between the two. I even hunted round everywhere to get the 200% complete stat, and also saw all three endings. Well, actually four but two are almost identical so probably don’t count?

Aria of Sorrow next!