A Horrible Night For A Curse

In case you people don't know, I play the occasional video game and indulge in a vampire movie once in a while. So, naturally, Castlevania is a game that is very dear to me. As far back as I can remember, I've been a fan of the franchise, and still am. They've put out some really great games over the last ten years, and while their newer games are a blast, nothing beats the pre-Symphony of the Night titles. On top of being great games, they are worth playing for the music alone. Its definitely my favorite game soundtrack. Watch this and tell me I'm wrong: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zRyEb_FDUNE

That being said, this past Friday, while sitting at work with no plans for the night, I decided to stage a little experiment. With the roommates out the house for a little while, I planned on planting myself on the couch and playing as much Castlevania as my psyche could handle. I want make it throughor up at least up to SOTN for PS1. That means parts 1-3 for the NES, part 4 and Dracula X for the SNES, and Bloodlines for Genesis. Six games in twelve hours, I can do this. I drew up a little plan, bought some supplies, turned on the goods and went to town.

GAME START- 8:45 PM

Obviously, the first to be played was the original. This is one of my favorite games of all time. It was once a game that I could steam roll through, usually taking around 20-30 minutes to finish, making it a good game to warm up with. Its been a while since I played the game, but I get through the first two levels with ease and I'm feeling pretty confident. Then the rust settles. Took a little longer than normal to finish the next two levels, which is okay as I'm making okay time. I'm doing okay until I make it to the boss of the next level, Death, and realize that this might take a bit longer than I thought it would. After what seems like an eternity, I finish off Death and move on to the final level and Dracula, who wasn't as much as a push over as I had remembered. But after a long, grueling two and a half hours, I come out on top and put this game behind me.

GAME FINISH-11:15 PM

GAME START-11:30 PM

This game was a push over, which got my hopes back up. The only problem being that it takes at least an hour and a half to finish the game, meaning that I didn't finish until 1:00 AM. I kinda just sat down and powered through it with no problems, except that I didn't get the best ending. Fuck you Dracula.
GAME FINISH-1:00AM

GAME START-1:15

This was the wild card in my quest. I hadn't played it in at least ten years, maybe more. I remember playing through the whole game in a reasonable time. There's a couple different paths you can take to complete it, some easy, some hard, some down right impossible. My problem came up when I realized that I didn't know what way to travel, and luck being on my side, I took the longest and hardest way to get there. Two hours into it, I was lucky to be half way there. Throw in Brendan coming home three sheets to the wind and ramblin about god knows what, this game quit the test of my patience. Brendan goes to bed around 3:30, and I try to concentrate on a certain level that I have been on for about 2 hours now. I get through and start making some progress and reach the big Drac himself around 4 am. I hear some stiring upstairs and someone coming down to use the bathroom. I'm used to a drunk Brendan wandering around in a towel or a bathrobe at this time of night, but this is the first time I saw the full monty. He goes in and out, I continue to fight Dracula. Two hours. Two fucking hours it takes me to beat this fucking guy! At that point I could have gone on, but I could feel myself getting delirious after looking at thes games for so long, so I packed it in.

Fuck this guy

FINISH TIME-6:00 AM

Epilogue

While I did finish the first three games, I did not accomplish my goal of six. I was extremely dissapointed, and I blame part three. That really took the wind out of my sails. Six fucking hours to beat a Nintendo game? Get the fuck outof here. So, in the end, I deem this a

FAILURE.