March 26, 2012 by

Hello people.

I wanted to sit for a few minutes and make a little post concerning a couple of games I'd just LOVE to see in HD for the current generation. These are very special to me. Some got highly overlooked or were simply forgotten pretty fast, so I seriously doubt they'll hit HD. But still, these are some of my favorite games of the past generation and they're games I'd be willing to pay for yet again. It will be spoiler heavy, but these are games released almost 10 years ago, so don't complain.


Castlevania: Lament of Innocence

Did you really think Castlevania copied God of War in their latest installment?

This game is the origin story to the previous Castlevania universe (if they choose to continue with the new take on the games with Lords of Shadows, which likely). This game featured a system of light-fast and heavy-slow attacks that you could combine to make combos with the whip (Sound Familiar?), which God of War later refined and perfected. The hero, Baron Leon Belmont, one of the most powerful men at the time, is forced to give up his title, powers and weapon in order to go rescue his fiancée, who has been kidnapped by the vampire Walter. On his way to Walter's castle, he is trapped inside the spell of eternal night surrounding the castle. Rinaldo Gandolfi, an alchemist he meets upon approaching the castle, tells him he will not be able to leave unless he kills Walter. Rinaldo gives Leon the Alchemy Whip; a weapon said to be able to destroy the creatures of darkness that lurked the castle.

Leon has to go through the 5 stages of the castle in order to slay the monsters keeping the magical orbs needed to open the gates to Walter's chambers. When he finds Walter, though, his betrothed Sarah is returned to him. Leon then tries to harm walter, but is repelled by a mysterious energy protecting the vampire. Upon talking to Rinaldo, Leon is told that the whip is incomplete. That it will take the sacrifice of a tainted soul who wishes to give up their life to fight the curse. Rinaldo also tells Leon that his fiancée has been tainted by Walter and the only way to remove the curse is by killing him. Leon, being in an impossible dilemma, wishes to stop fighting, but Sarah tells him she feels the hunger arise and is afraid of what she will become, so she begs for Leon to take her life so no one else will suffer the same fate as her.

A heartbroken Leon then charges towards the castle one last time to vanquish Walter with the  now complete legendary whip, The Vampire Killer. After killing Walter, he is met by Mathias Cronqvist, Leon's best friend and brilliant strategist and alchemist, who says everything that happened was planned by him, to lure Leon to the darkness. Mathias has become a vampire out of hate to God, for claiming the life of his beloved wife, Elisabetha Cronqvist. He claims if death is God's law, he shall defy it by becoming immortal. He asks Leon to join him, after asking him if he's not enraged by the loss of Sara. Leon then calls on Mathias's madness and explains the best he can honor Sarah's memory is living in the light and fighting the curse. Leon then promises his clan will forever hunt the night. Many yeas later, Mathias claims the title of the Prince of Darkness for himself and changes his name to Dracula.

This game had an extremely interesting and emotional story. The gameplay was flawless and while a tad short, the whole experience was amazing.


Next game is also part of the Castlevania franchise.


Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

Despite being released later than the previous game, this wasn't much of a successor. The story was pretty forgettable, the graphics actually weren't as good as in Lament of Innocence and the main character, Hector, was one of the most un-interesting protagonists EVER in the history of gaming.

The story is set 3 years after Trevor Belmont defeated Dracula yet again. Supposedly, the reason Dracula was defeated, is because one of his two trusted generals, a Devil Forgemaster who happens to be the protagonist of the story, deflected when Trevor Belmont attacked the castle. This caused that the castle didn't have enough power to defend itself and thus, Dracula was defeated. So, three years later, our hero, Hector (surname unknown) returns to where Dracula's castle was, searching for a man named Isaac, who was the other Devil Forgemaster. Isaac managed to convince the village where Hector lived happily, that Hector's wife was a witch, thus resulting in her murder. Hector looks for Isaac to claim revenge for her wife.

Isaac leads Hector into a cursed land where he taints our hero to regain the powers he renounced long ago. In order to beat Isaac, Hector starts gathering the power to forge and control Innocent Devils to do his bidding. In the end, Isaac wants to use Hector's body to resurrect Dracula, since a Devil Forgemaster's soul is needed to bring the Prince of Darkness back. However, being unable to acquire Hector's soul, Death, who is still in the service of Dracula, uses Isaac's soul instead, thus achieving the revival of the Prince of Darkness.

In the end, Hector must defeat his once before master, in order to rid the world of his evil ways. Hector finds Trevor Belmont in several parts of the game. Trevor feels the aura of Dracula, and returns to Castlevania to investigate. However, is ambushed by Isaac, who needs Trevor's blood for the revival ritual. Trevor is unable to fight Dracula, due to the wounds inflicted by Isaac. On his journey, Hector meets Julia, a witch who resembles his late wife incredibly. Afterwards, she becomes Hector's love intrest.

The gameplay was fairly similar to Lament of Innocence, with a few differences. Instead of using a whip, you gather materials and forge different weapons from swords, greatswords, staves, knuckles, axes, etc. You can also forge Innocent Devils, which are little devils that you can control and will help you with the skills they develop. This is when this game gets REALLY interesting. As you kill enemies with different weapons, the enemie's soul is trapped in crystals, which are food for the Innocent Devils. Depending on the type of crystal you give them, they evolve differently. There are 5 types of Innocent Devils you can forge, plus one extra, if you care to find it. These are Fairy Type, Battle Type, Bird Type, Mage Type, Devil Type, and finally, Pumpkin Type. They seem like they're not many, but you can actually evolve each of them into  4 different final evolutions. Also, once in a while, they lay eggs, which you can use to forge new Innocent Devils of it's type. That way you can build every combination and gain every one of the Devil's special abilities. Add that to the fact that the game is a pretty big semi-open world with tons of secrets to unlock, and you've got yourself a few dozen hours to 100% this bastard. Hell, I played for over 40 hours and I was still around level 75 (I think level cap is 100) and still not 100%. Now, while this is good, it gets old and repetitive eventually, so you might get bored before you get to that point.


I won't show the trailer, because it kinda sucks. But look it up if you're interested. Isaac's voice acting is one of the best I've seen in a game. At least from what I remember.


And Finally:


Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

Best Ever. No contest


This game is definitely the best Tony Hawk's Pro Skater game in the whole series. No fricking contest. I used to play this game for hours and hours and hours and never did I get bored of it. Seriously. From that point on, Tony Hawk's games haven't been as good. Underground was decent, but not nearly as good and addictive as this was. They really need to bring the series back from the dead. Seriously, this game deserves it. Anyway... not really much I can say about this game. It's a skating game after all. If you have any doubts, try and see if you can get it to play it. It's worth it. Says a guy who doesn't like sports games at all.


Anyhow... I wanted to make this really short, but being as I am, I got excited and my lust for games took the best of me. Just speaking my mind.



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