"I Am the Terror that Flaps in the Night."

"I AM DARKWING DUCK!"

Last night I poped in Darkwing Duck for the NES and began playing it to see if I could beat this game like I did years ago. Ok, I beat the game on an NES emulator years ago so that's why I played it again. So after watching a couple of episodes of the series and recalling of the moments when seeing them again I felt like playing the NES game to see how well it has turned out. Capcom made quite a few great Disney games for the NES like DuckTales, Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers and, well, Tale Spin!? Anyways, in the early 90's there was an afternoon block entitled the Disney Afternoon in which I was a kid right after school I would tune in to watch shows like DuckTales, Chip N' Dale, and Tale Spin. The original lineup was a 2 hour block which had shows that were based off of Disney characters from old Disney cartoon movies and shorts. DuckTales contains characters based off of Donald Duck, his 3 nephews and Scoorge McDuck. Tale Spin has characters from the Jungle Book movie and Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers has both Chip and Dale from their short shows. But Darkwing Duck was an original series with new characters based of no movies or other origins. The series debuted right after DuckTales retired off the Disney Afternoon block around 1991 and was an instant hit when it hit the air waves. I was a huge fan of the series as much as I was a huge fan of shows like G.I. Joe or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I even had the action figures of Darkwing Duck too! I had Darkwing Duck, his sidekick Launchpad, and the Thunderquack plane. I never owned any of the other figures and never had Darkwing's Ratcatcher motor bike either. Oh well, but at least I had a piece of the series when I was young. I just wish I didn't sell those figures in a garage sell like I did with my original TMNT figures. :(

In the early 90's as a kid you knew when a show was hot and was a hit you knew a video game was probably on it's way right? Correct! Darkwing Duck arrived on the NES system for all fans like me. The game plays just like Mega Man but who cares right? It's freakin' Darkwing!!! The intro song is in the game right before you press start. You start the game and you choose where to go and who to take down just like in Mega Man. Alright, here's the enemy rundown for this game. We have, Bushroot, Megavolt, Liquidator, Quakerjack, Moliarty, and your final boss is the mastermind behind the whole mess of this game is Steelbeak. There's one character I forgot to mention and that's because he's not part of the the series, Wolfduck. According to wikipedia, this character is a made up villian for the game only. It's odd they didn't include Darkwing's evil twin Nega Duck. I thought he was more evil and powerful compared to Steelbeak.

The gameplay in this game is great but I have a few negative complaints about a few things. When Darkwing jumps to shoot his gas gun at enemies, for some reason the response doesn't respond. I get hit and quickly get killed. Another complaint is when you jump down from platforms or ledges you have to press down and jump but when you don't want to hang on the platform you have to press down again. It's really a pain since most of the bosses in this game require you to master this since most of the boss fights have platforms you have to jump and hang on platforms. Overall, everything is great. Steelbeak and Moliarty are the only bosses which gave me a pain in the ass to beat. Steelbeak was dissapointing for being the final boss fight in the game. Once you break down his wall he fights you with a steel plate. Weak!

Overall this game is still nice to play. One of Capcom's classics from Disney for the NES. It's too bad they couldn't make another game for poor Darkwing. It would have been nice. Yes I know, WTF happened to Ninja Gaiden III? As of right now I'm still having a hard time playing that game. I keep getting killed on stage 3!!! But that's for another time.

"Let's Get Dangerous!!"

The Darkness Has Fallen Yet Again!!

Hey, how about that? I beat Ninja Gaiden 2 after a week of beating Ninja Gaiden. My thoughts? Well........this game doesn't seem to be hard compared to the previous but there sure are a ton of stupid birds, bats, and hawks flying towards you in every stage. The most annoying stages in this game had to be Stage 3 and Stage 7. The only positive for this game is when you meet up with the final boss, who is Jaquio once again, you don't start back at 7-1 like in Ninja Gaiden, but the game instead starts you at Stage 7-2. Fair enough!

Like the Nerd stated a couple of weeks ago in his video, the only nagging problem with this game is Stage 2 and Stage 6 where the environment is against you. Stage 2 has the wind blowing against you when your trying to jump platforms, and Stage 6 has slippery fllors cause it's an ice stage. Once again the game offers unlimited continues and has new items to use in the game. The clones in this game is a nice item to use but sometimes it seems they don't hit anything when your trying to attack. My favorite item has to be the fire wheel shield. It's a nice touch but it's timed. Aghhh, once more the final boss, who I thought it was a new villian in Ashtar, was Jaquio and you had to fight him in 3 forms again. Geezzz. Once again I beat him once, get killed in his second form, had to start and play Stage 7-2 all over again, I beat his second form, lose to his third form, and finally beat him.

Another Ninja Gaiden in the books for me. Just one more game to go and I can finally say I have beaten all the Ninja Gaiden games. Well, there is one, the arcade game, but that's different and will have a chance to play it another day. Next up is Ninja Gaiden 3: The Ancient Ship of Doom.

"Nunchuck Fuck!"

LOL! Yeah, the AVGN last week did a video on Ninja Gaiden on NES. Boy it was harlious!!! During the video he mentioned he had never beaten Ninja Gaiden in like 2o years. Well, today I felt quite anxious and decided to give Ninja Gaiden a try. Now before I continue I like to mention that I have already played and beat Ninja Gaiden a couple of years ago but on an NES emulator with save states and etc. So was I up for the most difficult challenge in NES history!? Let's find out!!!

During the day I was playing Master Blaster for the first time and it pissed me off cause I made it as far as Area 4 and I had already used up all my continues so GAME OVER!! Aghhhh!! I put that game aside and tried out Battletoads. Well, I tried to get past level 3 but still couldn't Damn it! Then I came across Ninja Gaiden and decided to give it a shot to see how far I can go into one of the most hardest games in the NES catalog. I was doing fine up until level 5-3. It was giving me such a fit but managed to get through. Alright, here goes, level 6-1. The dredded level 6 of Ninja Gaiden!!! According to the Angry Video Game Nerd, it's such an ease to get past 6-1, but 6-2 is the pain in the ass. Well I got to the so called most "difficult part of the stage" and yes I did suffer a ton of deaths during my run. But after time, time, and time of getting killed, I was trying to find a way to get through. The Nerd states you have to trigger a glitch for the enemy to dissapear to jump across the platform. Well Nerd, your correct! You can trigger this glitch and it works just about most of the time if you time it well and see the enemy walk backwards off the screen.

So Once I got to the final three bosses, I managed to defeat the first but got my ass handed to me by the second boss. Crap!! Back to 6-1 again! This is the worst part of the entire game. When you loss during the boss battles in Stage 6 you go back to 6-1 and have to work your way back up again!! After almost 2 hours are so I managed to reach back to the boss room and your fight with the second boss begins. Only problem is your life isn't restored. So I beat the second boss after some time of dying and playing all of stage 6 time after time, I finally reached the final boss. The Nerd states he has never made it this far but I have. It's actually the second time in my life. Once again I get my ass handed to me by the final boss, made my way through stage 6 again for like 3 times and then finally I beat the final boss!!! God damn! My fuckin' thumb is red, sore, and feels like a blister is about to be formed. I'm not kidding.

And there you have it, Ninja Gaiden. One of the hardest, fuckin' fustrating games ever on NES. I feel proud of myself in the fact that I managed to beat this game far and square with no save states, cheats, and etc. AVGN, I'm sorry to say but all that training you did in that video with the ninja, well, your going to have to work and train even harder with your thumbs just as much as I did. :)

Halloween Havoc - Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

I'm a little late in this Halloween theme since it's now mid November but hey that's what I get in playing another hard ass game in Castlevania III. Right after beating Castlevania II I quickly began my run through of the third installment of the series. After playing one hard game (Castlevania), and then an easy game (Castlevania II: Simon's Quest), it's a no brainer the next Castlevania game will go back to the difficult game play and frustrating moments like the first one did. Boy I was right.

Castlevania III starts off as a prequeal before Simon Belmont ever faced off against Dracula. This time it's his great, great, great.... whatever he is family member, Trevor Belmont. Along the way in the game you get a chance to meet up with other characters who will help you throught out the game. The negative of this is you can only tag along with one. It would've been nice to carry a group like in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where you were able to use all four turtles in the game. But nooooooo! This is Castlevania! This series shows you no mercy what so ever. I managed to complete the game with both Trevor & Alucard. Alucard is Dracula's son if you didn't know. Now I did meet up with Grant DaNasty but I never ran into Sypha. This game has different paths to choose from when you progress through the game. You could either choose to go down route 5 or route 4? Whatever you decide makes the game change when your playing.

Now on to the villians in the game. Of course Castlevania III has more villians compared to Castlevania II this time around. You got Dracula of course, Death, Cyclops, Medusa, Mummies and etc. Well I only fought Dracula, Death, Mummies, Cyclops, and a clone of myself. You see it all depends which routes you take so I did not get a chance to fight the two headed dragon, Medusa, or Frankenstien. Dracula was a bitch to fight once again as it took me quite a while to figure how to defeat him since you had to beat him three times as he transforms twice during the battle. First he's the Count himself, second, he transforms into a 5 headed demon, and finally he transforms into a huge gargoyle.

This concludes the 8-bit Castlevania games on the NES. I went through all three from the middle of October and ended it in the middle of November. Of the three games, Castlevania II is the worst of the worst. There is another Castlevania game I must go through so...........

Coming up next: Super Castlevania IV

Halloween Havoc - Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

"I now process Dracula's heart." LOL! What!? Process? Isn't it posses? Typical old school NES misspelling back in the old days. I've spent the last two weeks playing this game and let me tell you I did not enjoy this game at all. While the 1st Castlevania was hard as fuck, this game way to easy to get by. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest was nothing like the 1st Castlevania game. Instead, this game is more of a action / RPG game, which most Castlevania games on PS1, GBA and DS are. At the time, this element of game play was new to old school NES gamers back in the day and most of us didn't like it one bit. Today, a game like Simon's Quest would be greeted with open arms but only if they fixed some of the flaws this game had.

So picking up where the 1st game left off, apparently Dracula was defeated but put a curse that is spreading through out the whole village and etc. So what is Simon Belmont to do? Grab his whip and collect all the remains of Dracula scattered all over several towns and bring them back to Transylvania and bring Dracula back from the dead to kill him again. Ok? Wouldn't it have been easier to just destroy the remains to finally put Dracula at rest? Reminds me of the movie Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors where the only way to defeat Freddy was to dig up his remains and pour holy water on it so that he is finally destroyed. Anyways, I'm just stating it would've been easier for Simon to do just that instead of going to Dracula's castle and bringing him back to life only to defeat him. So the game is your typical walking around talking to people in every village / town and they provide you with some clues and tips but mostly all their info are useless. You start off with the leather whip by default but the game introduces you to other weapons and upgrades. Instead of having one whip there are 5 types when you progress through the game. The five whips consists of leather, thorn, chain, morning star, and morning star / flame whip. Other weapons are 3 types of daggers, regular, sliver and gold, a cross which acts as a boomerang, of diamond which can be used to throw at your enemies, the holy water, and a ball of fire to throw.

The game is alright but after a while of playing it for hours you kind of get pissed off at the little things. For instance, there are only three bosses in total in this game. The Grim Reaper is back, a huge face / mask dropping tears of blood that turns into fireballs, and finally of course Dracula. Like the Angry Video Game Nerd stated in his review of this game not so long ago, you could just walk by the Grim Reaper and the Mask and not put up a fight at all. I did put up a fight against them cause once their defeated your rewarded with a special item. To be honest, the battle between Death and the Mask aren't even hard. This time around, Death was easier to defeat compared to the 1st Castlevania game which Death would tick me off every time he beat me. As for Dracula, LOL! Keep throwing that flame attack on him and you win. So another Castlevania game in the books but it's unfortunate this game is the black sheep of the whole Castlevania series. The game was going in the right direction but I believe it was too early for it's time to adapt to a RPG / action game back in 1988 - 1989. This is why the next game in the Castlevania series - Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse makes up for the poor game play of CastleVania II. Castlevania III takes you back to the old game play style of the 1st Castlevania which every fan preferred.

Coming up next: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Halloween Havoc - Castlevania

It's the month of Halloween and after watching another installment of the Angry Video Game Nerd run through Castlevaina on NES I decided to do the same and keep the theme of Halloween as well. Now Castlevania on NES is freakin' hard. I have read so many tips, seen so many videos, and heard too many people state the game is not hard at all. Are you kidding me? I had a hard enough time trying to defeat the mummy men, then it was Frankenstein, then for a long period of time it was Death / Grim Reaper and finally I got through and had a shot against Dracula but failed to defeat him. Well, as of this past Saturday I didn't let Dracula beat me no more. I sat down one night and popped in Castlevania and made all the way to Dracula for the 2nd time in my life and once again got my ass handed to me.

I couldn't let Dracula beat me again another day so I killed myself for 2 hours trying to figure out a pattern, strategy and timing till I finally figured it out. Once finding a solution to defeat him, it was easy as pie all along the way. FINALLY, I put Dracula to fuckin' rest. I can believe Dracula as the final boss in this game but once you beat him in his first form then he transform into a huge beast! WTF!? The Japanese sure like to make a simple boss have some kind of strong power or transformation to make your experience much harder.

Castlevania was another of those games when I was a kid didn't play it or really didn't pay any attention to. The game was not good to me at all. Maybe it's due to too much Super Mario Bros. and TMNT games that made me really shut this game out of my early childhood. I bought this game at a Flea Market for $5 and let me tell you it was well worth the price. After all the fustrating deaths and Game Over's from this game, and maybe a couple of controller smashing to the ground, I can finally say, "I BEAT FREAKIN' CASTLEVANIA ON NES!!!!"

Coming up next: Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

A Test of Island Courage!? Whatever!!!

Another one bites the dust. Star Tropics is defeated and boy what a pain in the ass game it was. With only eight chapters and several bosses the game came out to be ok but not great. This was more of a action / RPG game with no level build up or nothing. It was almost a Legend of Zelda type of game with every level or boss you beat you gain an extra heart of life. Anyway, the game is about a boy named Mike who's gone to some island to find his father who was told ended up missing so you set out all over these other islands to rescue him. Through out your adventure you'll encounter bosses, clues, and etc. before you meet up with your father in Chapter 6. The main plot is really not told yet until you meet Mike's father in which he explains about a spaceship and an evil alien who is behind the whole situation, blah, blah, blah, and now the real game begins. Chapter 7 & 8 are a pain in the ass. It doesn't matter if you have a full line of health or not the enemies in the game take up as most as 4 hearts when you get hit. As for Zoda, the main boss in the game, you have to fight him twice. In the final fight, if you get touched by him or stomped on, INSTANT DEATH!!!! You don't know how long or how many times it took me to finish him off. He takes more freakin' hits than any other boss in this game.

Oh well, forget this shit. So, what's my next NES game in line!?