CVIII's much more of a mixed bag than the first game. Certain routes and partner combinations can produce difficulty well beyond CV1, others a more or less comparable challenge. If you really know what you're doing, there's plenty of scope for breaking big chunks of stage via Grant/Sypha/Alucard. However approached, it's also a considerably longer game, with a couple of big, tricky stages in the final three.Sengoku Strider wrote:Two first class belt notches. Castlevania I actually somehow beat in a weekend rental back in the day. But Ninja Gaiden I & II were borrowed off friends and I could never beat either, despite countless after school hours spent on them. Including the first time I ever literally threw my controller at the TV...after stewing with the choice for a while, ultimately deciding it was the right call, and went for the yeet. I was then immediately terror-struck that I had chipped the glass (I hadn't).BEAMLORD wrote:I became a man today and sent the Jaquio packing for the first time. The final stage of the boss rush ain't too bad, that was my first time dealing with it. It was not a 1cc, but I can see the way - I no-missed until stage 5, and am slowly but surely ironing out the kinks in my stage 6 approach.
Edit: Shit, I almost forgot, ditto for Castlevania NES too, cleared that yesterday for the first time. An ignominious clear, it took about an hour and a half to get the best of Dracula. My arse cheeks are still burning with shame.
One day I'll get a Famicom and go for it again. I vow that my titanium gravestone will be laser-etched with the words "Beat the original Ninja Gaiden Trilogy legit. And 1CCed the arcade game too." So that future generations crawling across the blasted black-glass surface of the post-apocalyptic Earth will know that once, there was a golden age in which men could become legends, and once again find hope.
Anyway, if you beat CV, go for Castlevania III next (I mean, sure, play II first but it's dead easy if you know how to get past the Angry Video Game Nerd parts). CV III I thought was an order of magnitude harder than the original, mainly because of how tough the Dracula battle is - and its troll-ass restart checkpoint in the Western version. Also because my friends and I were convinced that Alucard was the best partner because of his spreadshot, jump-skipping bat powers and general badassery. Little did I know he was secret hard mode.
Unfortunately it's also a mixed bag in quality terms, and so I leave my usual caveat to first-timers: take [up] routes at every junction past the clock tower (you only need to go up there if you want Grant and his Rockman jumps). The overland route is topographically and aesthetically far more varied than the underground, and most importantly of all, it doesn't have those godawful melty/stacky block segments. Standing around waiting on blocks is about as far from CV1's classic twitch/method action as it gets, but then, CVIII is the indulgent double album to the first game's disciplined debut. Nobody fires up the White Album raring for Wild Honey Pie or whatever other garbage they padded it out with!
The lower routes actually do have use, as a deliberately punishing second run, but for a first-timer coming in hot off CV1's bullseye pace, the long, brown, brick-obsessed run of swamp/crypt/catacomb/dungeon/gaol can be a drubbing.
Best asset of CVIII - not the far milder FC rev Akumajou Densetsu - is probably its wickedly hard second loop, one of the classic oldschool Dracula challenges. As always, the variable partner/route combo leaves quite a bit of scope to sidestep its worst, but those wanting Trad CV hell will find it in spades.
As we'd discussed previously, 
Yooo, imagine a Ken/Rei/Toki/Jagi/Raoh lineup. 
All-rounder/aerial/technical/berserker/juggernaut, that's what I'm sayin. 
