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The funny thing is, because the only games in the genre I'd played until recently were the Metroid games I always thought the genre would have it built in a way where every powerup is required to eventually get to the next area. But having played the likes of Hollow Knight and Symphony of the Night I realise most Metroidvanias actually have a relatively small number of powerups that you need to acquire in order to progress. The amount is a lot lower in every Metroidvania that isn't Metroid. Samus is entirely dependant on the powerups she obtains in order to get stronger and progress further... but the Knight only has a few powerups that actually allow him to progress and the Charms system governs the actual strength of everything. Similarly, Alucard has RPG levelling and equipment in his game. So one of the pillars of the Metroidvania genre in SOTN actually has action RPG elements so you just get stronger by fighting lots of enemies and finding better equipment. Often if you go into dead ends you find more powerful equipment which isn't really required to beat the game but that is what inevitably makes you stronger. For example in the Alchemy Hall if you go down a certain route you can pick up a shield. However this shield is very missable and you can go into the first major boss battle as Alucard without ever having picked up that shield, the boss can even be beaten without said shield. But the shield makes it easier as you can defend against the bombard of projectiles and not get damaged in the process. You can even explore a large part of Dracula's Castle before you can even find the powerup you need to access the next area in the game and even then you don't just find it, you need to buy it off the Master Librarian. Even then you open up two different possible routes from that powerup that both lead to full on explorable areas. So I guess "Metroid" is really a Metroidvania which is very powerup dependent. A lot of others have other systems in place and I believe the level up system was also used in the GBA Castlevania games.

Does that make Castlevania just Castlevania and not Metroidvania too? Granted, there are only about 6 Castlevania games or so that fall under that category and they for some reason moved away from that style after a while (probably due to the failed attempts to try and bring the series into 3D). I'm playing through Symphony of the Night but still some way from finishing it so that will have reserved judgement. What about Dark Souls? It has an explorable interconnected map and you require certain items to get to certain areas. Its commonly considered the progenitor of its own genre, the "Soulsborne" but it has a lot of Metroidvania like elements to it.

2018: Gets Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 2018: Winds up playing Simon and Richter 2018: Is impressed by the sheer range of Castlevania music in the game 2019: Becomes interested in wanting to play Castlevania games with a desire to get Symphony of the Night 2020: Still hasn't got Symphony of the Night 2020: Plays the Castlevania Anniversary Collection 2021: FINALLY buys Symphony of the Night but doesn't start it as I'm still playing Dark Souls 2021: Finish Dark Souls, Ratchet & Clank 2016 and finally beat the original Castlevania So yeah, the original Castlevania is finally over. I ended up using a lot of save states after every hit to help me beat Dracula but I think that makes it the first NES game I've actually beaten! I'm not even joking about that. I wasted no time jumping on the PS3 to finally get into an all time classic that has eluded me for over 20 years of gaming. I can't believe I haven't played any Castelvania games until the last few months... ...especially considering Symphony of the Night is amazing. Really enjoying it so far. I've got as far as being able to open blue doors and I eventually found myself in the Underground Caverns, taking on what turned out to be optional bosses. Something I am surprised about however is how comparitively fewer upgrades Alucard has compared to Samus in Metroid games. As a counterpoint to that however I forgot to take into account this game is actually more of an action RPG. I will now compare Dark Souls more to Castlevania than Metroid in terms of map design inspiration especially given that both SOTN and Dark Souls have level up systems and currency along with merchants. SOTN definitely showing its the older game as its more traditional with its approach. I should probably mention that I went Underground because I hit a dead end in the Royal area... or so I thought. I didn't realise that some of the sprites there were actually platforms I could climb on. Makes sense then because I thought the powerups I needed to progress were in Underground Caverns but I was relatively surprised to find out that SOTN has entire areas of the game that have no purpose other than to flesh out the castle and have optional upgrades and bosses. Wow! Also how has most of this soundtrack gone unheard by myself? Thought I would have heard more than this by now but until I played the game Dracula's Castle and Master Librarian were the only tunes I was familiar. Now, Festival of Servants, Marble Gallery and Crystal Teardrops are also among my favourite tunes. I've taken a bit of a break from the game due to Youtube but will dive back in at some point... ... One of the reasons I've been taking a break is that this Youtube video took a really long time and its because of the song I put at the beginning of this video....

Meant to post this on the day Crash Bandicoot 4 came out on Switch, but while I'm not completely 100% with Crash 4's soundtrack it has some really good tunes! David Wise is that you? ^ Favourite track in the game

Bit poor of race control to tell the drivers that driving one way would be allowed and then change their mind in the middle of the race. That effectively had a major impact on the final result because of the specific corner where Max finally got to overtake Lewis. Lewis got rather lucky there in the end. Great race overall, feel sorry for Checo having his car fail on the formation lap in his Red Bull debut but he did tremendously well to get it back into the points. Hopefully he can qualify better in future races.

Went back to Castlevania Anniversary Collection with the intention to try and finish Castlevania, thought it would be good to do before starting Symphony of the Night. Castlevania however is an NES game and I've now hit the part where it gets really hard. I'm on the level with the boss battle agaisnt Death. Death is proving to be extremely tricky right now to defeat... will try again at some point though! Also made progress with doing more Classic Mode campaigns in Smash Bros. Ultimate. In the process, I downloaded a few stages while I have Nintendo Switch Online (it has now run out as I was only on free trial) Finally, can post the last episode of the Soulcalibur VI Custom Character Tournament as I was technically "playing" the game. Got some Indie Game characters featuring this time around, half the roster is Indie!

Slight bit of progress made in Ratchet & Clank 2016 where I went through Kalebo III. It looks like I'm getting towards the end of the game now as this next act looks like its going to be the end. I also came across this unfortunate quip... Most of my gaming this week has however been done doing the Soulcalibur VI DLC storylines. I have finished Hilde's and Setsuka's storylines and they were decent enough, the latter also spiralled into a side-story for Mitsurugi's campaign who got extra missions to do: I must admit I did feel like Setsuka's storyline was awkwardly localised though I can understand given that she as a character is half Japanese so it probably flows a lot better in the original Japanese script rather than having some of these really long phrases awkwardly inserted into the English script. I'm at last tackling the DLC Spirits in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as well as trying to clear Classic Mode with every character. Finally I'm still at the grind on Magic Arena because I guess I have at least one Live Service game that I want to play. I'm mainly doing it for Youtube content now although I'm only releasing one video a week. Here is the latest video, a CatDog deck.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I got a 7 day free trial for Nintendo Switch Online. This was to be able to play Smash Bros. online. I've been playing it to get a bit of practise in as I found myself up against some people who are way better than me at the game (not that that's saying much). Been having a great time so far and I feel like I've gotten a bit better at the game, though at the same time I think I tailed off someone as people started to be able to predict my strategies a bit more... Still, managed to clear more Classic mode campaigns on Smash Bros. Ultimate so that's good. While I was on SCVI earlier this week I also recorded this:

I wonder how much the abscence of Smash Bros. will harm EVO in the long run? Then again, I think Nintendo would rather Smash isn't played competitively and only for fun, competitive gaming kind of gets in the way of Nintendo's family friendly image. I think realistically we're looking at no Smash at EVO, which would be a major downgrade considering it was the highlight of EVO during the last few years.

Mainly been playing Ratchet & Clank (2016) this week. Made significant progress in the game and made it all the way from Gaspar to Kalebo III... which takes way fewer levels than the original. After Gaspar it was over to Batallia which is now an ice level? What? It wasn't ice in the original but then again they did cut the Ice level. Then it was over to Pokitaru where I got the Rocket Pack, my favourite pack in the game. Then already over to Quartu which got a significant redesign to align more with the events of the film and that was pretty fun, complete with an all new boss fight against Mrs. Zurkon. Then it was over to the Deplanetizer, a brand new level for the game where you play as Ratchet and Clank seperately, I guess that creates something similar to the seemingly cut Oltanis level. I have to say though, the Clank section took me forever. Trying to use those Gadgebots in the right configurations to get them all over to the power nodes took absolutely forever, on multiple differnt puzzles, I was using Bridgebots over and over again trying to route them into a place where I could get them all on the same ledge and it was only by trial and error that I eventually got anywhere! Then I did the whole Ratchet only section, then Novalis got destroyed. RIP any chances of getting the extra goodies on that level though I did to the optional mission not knowing they were going to blow it up in this remake. Anyway, got a few tweet highlights from the game, including one VERY notable reference. Also been on Soulcalibur VI making more Custom characters, and redesigning others: Finally, MTG Arena and I have a new video for that...

Made some more progress on Ratchet & Clank (2016) though it was mainly just getting through Planet Gaspar. Acquired the Grind Boots and the Jetpack as well as getting the Infobots for Battalia and Pokitaru. The latter came from doing the grind rail mission on Battalia. That's how far I've got so far. Cool how they turned Gaspar into the bolt grinding planet in some ways like the desert planet from Ratchet 2. Also been doing more stuff for Youtube with Soulcalibur VI. The custom character tournament continues...

Further to my last update I have now finally finished Dark Souls. The final area was really cool imo, definitely going to be one of the more memorable final areas in a video game for a long time for me I reckon. The final boss took me a fair few tries but eventually came up with a solid strategy (no, I didn't parry) just by constantly backing away, poking in with my Balder Side Sword +15 with the strong attack and healing whenever I'm behind a rock so that I don't lose health whenever Gwyn attacks. What really sealed it was that after poking with my strong attack I would always roll backwards straight afterwards, this turned out to be the key to winning. As for which ending I chose? In spite of everything my character did I felt that perhaps Gwyn's withered state was a sign that replacing him wasn't going to be the solution, so I just turned around and left the room. This game had one of the shortest ending cutscenes I'd ever seen and I looked on Youtube to see what the other one was like and it was even shorter. At least in the ending I got there was dialogue... that being said I do wonder whether thematically I chose the opposite ending to what my character was heading down due to both the main game and the DLC. At any rate I'm happy to be done with the game. Going to focus on finishing Ratchet & Clank 2016 next and then its finally time to start Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Finally went back to Dark Souls today.. I wasn't really stuck, just suffering from some anxiety and didn't feel like a game where you repeatedly die over and over again was a good idea to be playing while already feeling down. I tried going after Kalameet but got constantly frustrated so I changed targets and went for Manus instead. I'd heard he was harder than Ornstein and Smough but honestly, though I died so many times I felt like I knew what I was doing against him and Manus was a really good fight. A few problematic attacks but nothing really too out there especially after you've already beaten Artorias. Finding the Silver Pendant certainly helped against the raining Dark Magic attacks. I have also been continuing Ratchet and Clank 2016. Just got done with the Blarg Station which was one of the levels I really didn't like in the original game as it was too easy to die in the original, but the new health and strafing made it more bearable to navigate. I also acquired the Groovitron which made enemies dance but I thought, "there's no way that this thing is going to work on vehicle enemies like tanks... Imagine my surprise... Also still playing Arena here and there, pretty much committed to an Arena video a week on my Youtube channel so here's the deck I've been playing recently.

Started Ratchet and Clank 2016 (PS4) after it was made available for free through Play at Home. Game feels pretty solid so far... not sure about the cutscenes though. There are clear instances of how movie cutscenes have been stapled together. However, it was really cool to see Planet Novalis in HD with a lot more detail in the level environments. Being able to strafe in Novalis was also good though I notice the strafing is slightly different from how it was when I played Ratchet 2 and 3 and they also added the option to use R2 as a Fire button... which makes sense I guess. Circle is also an option for classic controls too. Going to get round to playing more of it at some point. Most of my time has been spent on Soulcalibur VI though and I can now reveal the fruits of those labours, here is the first episode of the new Soulcalibur VI Custom Character tournament.

So with the Ratchet and Clank remake currently free to download on PS4. I decided though I've heard the game has a few issues on the story and cutscene side of things and its not as good as the original PS2 games its still a very good game and getting it for free you can't really complain. So... I guess along with Castlevania that's another game for the backlog once I finish Dark Souls! Which may be a bit later because I found myself playing Pokken Tournament DX instead. Got done with the Blue League and made my way onto the Red League. Part of my reluctance to actually do the single player for this game is that I already beat it back on Wii U and knew it wasn't that great, so somewhat reluctant to do it again on Switch but I will try and push through. Still can't beat the Shadow Mewtwo fights at the end of every league though. I also decided to get the second Season Pass for Soulcalibur VI. The main reason was that the extra character creation parts will help with making some characters more accurate but also opens up options for creating new characters like Hat Kid for instance, now there's a fighting style which makes sense to make Hat Kid for! Also gives extra story campaigns to play through for all the new characters. I don't regret buying it unless they drop the price later on down the road! Still, Hwang feels great to play so far!

Personally I really enjoyed Undertale but I think that was moreso due to its humour being rather similar to stuff I find funny or like. I was wary about admitting to liking it at one point due to the fact that many people at the time were particularly annoyed by its fanbase but I honestly think its a good game and I liked the characters a lot. I think thats what it comes down to really, whether or not you like the characters. If you don't like the characters then a lot of Undertale's appeal is rather lost. I also thought it was particularly clever in how it tracks your decisions and changes the dialogue if you restart the game, certain flashpoints like the Toriel fight were made very difficult to save so most players will kill Toriel on accident (that was the moment I knew I was invested in the game as I felt REALLY bad for killing Toriel) so I then proceeded through the rest of the game tying to save as much as possible. Ultimately got a neutral ending because of my earlier actions though I admittedly haven't tried going back and saving everyone on a repeat playthrough yet. Anyway, recently got done with the Artorias fight on Dark Souls. Took me so long to get him down, it was a very difficult fight because he is so relentless in attacks. You literally have to use his recovery frame animations as opportunities to heal. Then there's the fact he can go super saiyan and power himself up to the point where he can one shot you while you're trying to heal and this fight took me a long time. In the end, the 93 Throwing Knives I unintentionally farmed in Anor Londo back when I was grinding for Ornstein and Smough came in use. Throwing the knives at Artorias whiel he's charging up staggers him and prevents the powerup. This makes the fight more manageable. From there it was just a case of learning Artorias' attacks and how to dodge them all as well as hitting him when I got the chance. For that reason I brought the Silver Knight Spear out of retirement which was a good idea as it allowed me to poke at Artorias every time I dodged a lunge or a jumping attack (getting the timing down on dodging those took some practise) and eventually he went down and was defeated. I then proceeded through the Ooicile Town and arrived at the Abyss... an area that looks like a much harder version of Tomb of the Giants.... and then I decided I needed to take a break from the game for a bit!

OK, Pokemon Legends Arceus legit looks amazing! Looking forward to it much more than the D&P Remakes tbh.

Live image of scalpers selling PS5s and copies of Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart

Sony after seeing all the Nintendo Direct hype last week... LET'S JUMP ON THE TRAIN WHILE IT'S HOT!

More progress to report in Dark Souls... I now have defeated all four Lords! Demon Ruins felt like a Boss Rush. Not only because there were three boss battles in such a short space of time but also because a lot of the regular enemies are former bosses like Taurus Demons and Capra Demons. Ceaseless Discharge took me a few goes, Demon Firesage was surprisingly the hardest of the three given that he's effectively a reskin. The Centipede Demon was kind of tough but eventually managed to beat it after it wandered out onto solid platform. So then I went in to Lost Izalith but not before checking up on... SOLAIRE! PRAISE THE SUN! Ahem... anyway after that I went to Lost Izalith and burned alive in the lava because I didn't realise I now had a ring that allowed me to survive the lava. Equipped that instead and ran into the lava, finding yet another bonifre (seriously, these two locations have five bonfires between them though none of them are warpable). After trying and failing to farm the Titanite Demon there I decided to do the Bed of Chaos next... and I'm not even sure if I can say I beat it properly because I died about 5 times, yet on multiple occasions the objective changed because the fight is checkpointed so you don't have to destroy the sides multiple tines. So the "successful attempt" was just running and jumping onto the branch that lead to the weak point... which dies in one hit? OK. The boss might have been a bit more manageable if its sweeping hand attacks didn't knock you into bottomless pits and causing instant death... This however is not quite the complete end stretch of the game. I decided to upgrade my Demon Spear to Level 5 so went back to Anor Londo to get some Demon Titanite that I missed. Ended up getting enough to get the +5 Demon Spear. I also have a +15 Balder Side Sword so completely switched up my equipment for the late game. I think these two are pretty powerful weapons and the Demon Spear has now replaced my Silver Knight Spear +5 that I was using for about half the game. So long old friend... I did get the "Prepare to Die Edition" so the DLC was preloaded onto the disc (I'm playing on PS3). I looked up how to get into the DLC and... I'm now in the Sanctuary Garden. This is where I currently am in the game and next time around I will be trying to do the DLC. I expect it might be harder than the final boss but I suppose this is as good a time as any to do this in game.

I like to think of it as motivation. By saving the worst area until last, it can act as encouragement to push through it to finish the game because I know I'm close.

I have a significant progress update for Dark Souls as I have defeated not one, but TWO lords. Over the past few days I've been making good headway in the game. I managed to open a shortcut in Duke's Archives which would allow me to access the bit behind the rotating staircases much quicker. Went through and was really impressed by the backyard for some reason, how there was this nice tranquil area just outside the Archives... well, apart from the giant crystal enemies that is! Proceeded further and entered the Crystal Caves. I already knew from Youtube summary videos that this place has invisible platforms so naturally I just lunged on straight forward towards the end of the crystal platform... and fell straight into the pit! Whoops. Fortunately I did notice that there was a side platform coming out of said crystal so followed that instead... then it became immediately obvious where the invisible platforms were and how to tell where they are, look at the tear drops. But here's where the lack of a Lens of Truth becomes problematic, for more complex platforms how to you see where you're going? I then died to a crystal guardian after my HDMI cable lost signal during the middle of a fight and subsequently fell off the platform because I couldn't see where my character was walking. It caused me to put the game down for a bit but after changing HDMI cables I was able to make further progress and wondered across what I thought was the second bridge. I was then however very confused as I reached the end of that second crystal and there were no further fbridges from there to get onto further areas and the only one I could see thanks to a message was right above me. So, is there a seperate path in the invisible walkway that leads up there or another walkway? Turns out I'd taken an optional path and if you proceed to the end of the first crystal after the first required invisible walkway and roll to avoid sliding off the edge you can stand on the platform at the end and THAT's how you're supposed to get onto that invisible walkway. So I eventually made it across to the other side but I tell you, walking straight on in a very specific direction on invisible platforms is hard. I had no idea if I was walking straight on in some case and ended up dying after walking straight off the side of the platform. It took additional online messages to help me ensure I was walking straight so thanks to whoever left those messages. Onto Seath the Scaleless next and this fight took me SO many attempts. Ironically enough I almost beat it first time but died to Curse. Eventually the clams outside stopped dropping Purging Stones and I ran out of the stones so I was faced with a situation where I couldn't reverse Curse status unless I got another Purging Stone. I couldn't afford to get cursed again. This ironically was what eventually saw me win the fight as I was motivated to learn where the crystals would spawn and as a result I wound up standing next to the left leg and hacking away at Seath until he died. Managed to avoid curse and finally won the fight. Next up I travelled back to Darkroot Garden in search of the Crest of Artorias, thinking there was a merchant in there that sold it... it's been nearly three years so I'd forgotten that Andre the Blacksmith is who sells the Crest of Artorias. So I nabbed the Crest and opened up a new area of the Darkroot Garden. After wondering past a few locations and embarassingly dying to the mushrooms I reached Artorias' grave and fought the most infamous boss in this game... Zacian! OK, it's obviously Sif but it's a dog with a sword in its mouth. That's just inherently cool. I fought Sif and defeated him on my first time... turns out he's supposed to be not very hard because he's not actually evil. He's just protecting his masters grave and doesn't really want to have to fight you, you are provoking him. The problem is you can't leave the arena once the fight starts and something I completely missed when I fought him because I was so focused on doing that last point of damage is that he limps when he's low on health... I suddenly feel like a heartless monster! I'm sorry Sif, you deserved better and if the game didn't have such an important item that I needed to finish the game I wouldn't have killed you I've been dreading New Londo Ruins all game. The ghosts have always proved problematic during my visits there so I never really ventured very far. I did get the Fire Keeper Soul before Ornstein and Smough so that was a nice bonus. The problem was I only had two Transient Curses and I assumed they would run out really quickly... turns out they last quite a while. I did backtrack to Sen's Fortress as I missed the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring from earlier and quadrupled my supply of curses as it turns out the curses last a really long time before you need to apply another. So that meade the whole area much more manageable because that was the main thing I was worried about. Having no bonfires in the area wasn't nice but fortunately I unintentionally found a shortcut thinking it was the way you were supposed to go. I still wondered down the wrong way a few times and ended up at the other entrance from Valley of Drakes. Obviously I had found the healer and drained the water by this point. Kindling Firelink Shrine to 20 meant I had quite a lot of health and recovery and that proved vital as it turns out The Four Kings wasn't quite the overwhelming fight that I thought it might be a la Bell Gargoyles and Ornstein and Smough. In fact, you can be full on agressive on this fight and kill the kings relatively quickly. It still took me three attempts to do the fight though and I lost a whole bunch of souls in the process because I managed to die to the Darkwraith/Ghost combo on one of my trips back... whoops! But yeah, Four Kings defeated and only one Lord Soul left to get. Unforunately I missed the bonfire in Queelag's Domain so I have to travel all the way back to Blighttown again! *shudder*. I will be taking the Valley of Drakes route to go back I think but I also might go to Darkroot Garden to farm Blooming Purple Moss Clumps to be able to counter the toxin I face on the way back. That being said I can't believe I'm getting towards the end of this game now! On a related note I had a new Youtube video go up this evening and its Dark Souls themed, its from Soulcalibur VI and its a custom fight between Ornstein and Smough.

Both characters have been toned down from their original game appearances by the looks of it. Don't forget "Smash is a game for good boys and girls"

Kind of ambivilent towards this Direct if I'm honest. Nice that Skyward Sword is getting another chance as it has some of the best dungeon design in the entire series imo, even if that's just for the Ancient Cistern and the Sky Keep. Splatoon 3 is cool, but I guess at this point I'm not really feeling hyped for the series anymore for whatever reason... don't know why really. That being said if it's got a more extensive single player I might be in for it. Never really motivated to play the multiplayer long term especially after it was paywalled. Then again I guess I'm at the point where there's like 3 games on Switch I particularly want and those are Hollow Knight Silkesong, Breath of the Wild 2 and Metroid Prime 4 so... yeah...

Well, these presentations are all about delivering the new "Directly" to you...