Castlevania 2: Simons Quest (1987) Review

October 14, 2019October 11, 2019 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

What a horrible night to have a curse.

Before reading this review please check out my review of the first Castlevania game

https://ragglefragglereviews.com/2018/07/06/castlevania-nes-review/

Castlevania 2 Simons Quest is a 1987 NES action plat-former created by Konami, it takes place many years after the first game. During the final boss battle of the first Castlevania Dracula’s body parts are spread across the land and Simon is cursed, this curse does not affect Simon for a very long time and its during the events of Castlevania 2 that Simon Belmont must find the various body parts of Dracula and burn them in an attempt to remove the curse.

The game is very different to its predecessor, while it is an adventure plat-former it executes this completely differently, this game is much slower due to players having to grind enemies to earn heart currency, a lot of very cryptic puzzle solving and back tracking is also required for players to progress through the game. The puzzles in this game are really unfair and too cryptic for players to figure out without using a guide, a prime example is having to kneel down next to a lake, after a few seconds stairs and a platform appear that allow you to walk into the lake that would normally kill you instantly, another really frustrating part of the game are fake blocks that appear everywhere and most of the time they kill you, you can see through these by throwing holy water but this becomes very boring when you are throwing holy water every step in the castles to avoid a fall to your death.

There are many objects you can acquire in the game by either killing bosses or buying them from NPC’s, for me the most useful item was the holy water as it helped to destroy fake blocks and made killing enemies that were below me very easy. The sacred flame is another very useful item that makes a wall of fire that can do serious damage to enemies however it costs currency to use it. You can find use in some of Dracula’s body parts for example you can use his rib as a shield to deflect fire balls and his heart can be shown to the ferryman to find a path to one of the castles.

There are not many bosses in the game and all of them are really easy including the final boss, the two other bosses you encounter can just be ignored unless you want to fight them for new weapons.

What many people dislike about this game is the day to night cycle and vice versa, it happens on a time loop and really has no point to it other than the illusion of days passing, it really sucks because you cant use towns during night time and you may need to heal or buy a new whip or sub-weapon and a lot of the time you will find your self just waiting around for time to pass.

The soundtrack is great I prefer this to the music in the original game because I feel its a lot more immersive and each track has a great beat to it, my favourite song in the game is bloody tears, this is the song that I associate with the Castlevania series, its a fun and adventurous track that suits the game-play style perfectly.

Castlevania 2: Simons Quest is one of the most hated games in the series for a lot of the reasons I covered in this review, however while it may seem that I have complained a lot about the game, I really do not think that its as bad as its made out to be, yeah its slow and cryptic and the day to night cycle will make you want to tear your hair out but it is a much more immersive game as you will be talking to a lot of town folk and finding religious churches to recover health, the majority of it takes place outside of Dracula’s castle and provides a lot of really memorable areas and enemies, its has a very creepy feeling to it which is perfect for this series and the platforming while at times frustrating for the most part works quite well. I wouldn’t say it a good game but I wouldn’t say its a bad game either.

5/10

I hope you enjoyed this review of Castlevania 2: Simons Quest (1987)

Happy Halloween 2019

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Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994) Review

September 30, 2019September 20, 2019 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is the follow up to the highly successful Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins. It has Wario as the main playable character which was a first for the Mario Universe.

After being booted out of Mario’s castle in Mario Land 2, Wario travels to kitchen Island hoping to steal a golden statue of Princess Peach from the notorious Sugar Pirates, he will then sell the statue back to Mario for the cost of a new castle.

In a similar fashion to Mario Land 1 and 2 Wario Land is a 2D platformer but this game is not as simple as getting from point A to point B because it has a new style of gameplay that helps it to stand out compared to its predecessors.

Your main goal in Wario Land is to collect coins, you can find many coins in the 40 levels of the game and you can also use keys to open doors to hidden treasures that will add value to your final money count.

Wario can also collect hearts and once enough are collected he will earn a new life.

In the game Wario can also find items to help him traverse the stages. these items come in the form of hats allowing him to ram, fly and and breathe fire onto his enemies and certain terrain.

The boss fights in this game are the best in the Super Mario Land series, there is boss for every world and they are all very unique and they cannot all be defeated in the same manner, some can be jumped on but others need to be attacked with certain items or by having items thrown at them.

After every level Wario can play one of two minigames, one allows him to throw items at enemies to earn more heart points and the other is a gambling game where he can earn more coins, I really struggled with the heart game so I stuck with the coin game throughout my playthrough.

The best part of collecting money in the game is that how much you collect will determine your final reward, I was lucky enough to get my own planet which is the highest reward, I recommend finding all of the treasures because it is a lot of fun and they are quite easy to find once you get the hang of the game.

The soundtrack is ok for the game but its really not anything special, I had the same issue with the Super Mario Land 2 soundtrack so hopefully the music is better in the later Wario Land games.

A lot of the levels look very similar in design which is fine but I would of preferred the developers to take more inspiration from the different worlds of the game and maybe tried to theme the levels to suit the foods they are based on.

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is the best game in the Super Mario Land trilogy, it is a lot of fun and gave the series a new spin in its gameplay and platforming, I love the idea of getting different rewards based on how well you did in the game as it added a lot of replay value. The game is very easy but is a lot of fun, my only complaints are the similar stage designs and the medicore soundtrack but putting these two things aside this is possibly one of the best games for the original Gameboy and was a great debut for Wario as a playable character.

9/10

hope you enjoyed this review of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for the Nintendo Game Boy.

Thank You for all of your support.

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas (2002) Review

December 10, 2015December 10, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

It’s Christmas Eve and an evil business woman is going to legally own the Muppet Theater if Kermit and his friends cant raise enough money to pay off the Theater’s loan.

This movie is brilliant and not in the sense that its a perfect movie but more to do with the films premise, for those who are unaware this film is a Muppet’s version of It’s a Wonderful life.

Of course its not as dark and depressing but it does have a lot of charm and originality for what is essentially a remake of an already existing property, the Muppet’s are great as usual and they provide a lot of very funny jokes including some that are purely for the adults.

Whoopi Goldberg plays an amazing God, its so funny to see such a chilled out lord of the universe and who wouldn’t love a God who is a massive fan of Spongebob? (from the movie haha not sure if Whoopi really loves Spongebob)

There are so many references in this film from Steve Irwin to Star Wars, the only reference I didn’t like was the Grinch and that was because instead of choosing to reference the original they chose that terrible Jim Carrey Movie.

I don’t know how they do it,but somehow almost every Muppet movie has a sad song that makes me cry in this case its about Kermit wanting his life back, trust me guys this rivals the goodbye song from Muppet’s Take Manhatten.

It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas is a surprisingly very good film, its not perfect but its nice and that all you really need for a decent family flick, all of the actors, actresses and Muppet’s do a fantastic job and the film is genuinely quite charming.

Do yourself a favor and pick this one up this year.

Thanks for reading my Review of It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas

The next Christmas movie I will review is

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Is there a true meaning to Christmas?

November 29, 2015 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Whats the meaning of Christmas?

Some would say its too celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ

Others would explain that its about spending time with family and appreciating those around you

and these days most children would say that its about getting presents from Santa Claus

but is there a real answer?

In order to try and figure out an answer to such a controversial question I think that we should at first talk about what Christmas used to be about.

Christianity is probably the most famous and popular religion in the world and of course December 25th is a very important day in regards to the Christian faith as this is indeed the birth date of Jesus Christ.

Christians traditionally celebrate Christmas by acting out the birth of Christ through Nativity plays, opening advent calendars which are used to count the days before Christmas, Singing songs about the good Lord and by exchanging gifts between friends and family members to help remind each other of the gift of God.

Whats that?

Christmas cant be a Christian tradition because your child plays Mary in the Nativity every year at her non catholic school, you and your family knock on doors singing Christmas songs to your neighbors, your children open a door on their advent calendars every morning in December and on Christmas day they have lots of presents to open.

You say you do all of this without fail every Christmas but you and your family are not in any way religious?

Well I would be lying if I said that you didn’t make a good argument, so how did we change Christmas from a religious holiday to a holiday that is celebrated world wide?

The answer to this is quite simple, all we actually did is we just made a few slight and sneaky changes first of all the Nativity hasn’t changed much if not at all and I think this is important because it helps remind us of the holidays origins.

Advent calendars are known to provide between 24 and 25 chocolates as a little treat for children to enjoy every day leading up to Christmas but originally they included small wooden religious figures such as baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Angel but most of them were just used to help children count the days leading up to the birth of Christ, the days leading to Christmas are known as Advent according to the Christian Faith.

Christmas Carols have always been a thing but the songs have changed immensely from what used to be sung, for example most Christians would sing O Little Town of Bethlehem or Hark the Herald Angels Sing but most non religious Christmas lovers may sing Rudolph the red nose Reindeer or Jingle Bells which of course have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus or the religion that follows him.

Earlier I mentioned that Christians would give gifts to friends and family members in order to help remind them of the gift of god, the biggest difference here is that traditionally you would give one small gift to a friend of family member and most of the time this would be hand made, these days children tend to get loads of presents which will usually include an I-Pad an XBOX or a computer and of course these gifts are usually brought by Santa who I may talk about in a Christmas blog next year.

So whats the meaning of Christmas?

I hope this article has left you pondering an answer to this question, personally I like to celebrate Christmas like most people of the 21st century but I have always considered Christmas a celebration of the birth of Christ and I don’t think that will ever change.

I suppose the true meaning of Christmas is what ever you make of it but in reality these days the meaning is more to do with corporate companies making a lot of money on advertising than it is too do with religion or appreciating family and to me that’s a very sad and unfortunate reality which will probably never change.

Why else do you think we see Christmas stuff in October

I hope you enjoyed this festive article

Any references to Christian celebrations are in reference to old Christian traditions

I know this is slightly early for a Christmas blog but there is a good reason behind this.

Every two days from the 2nd of December on-wards I will be using a special system which will select a random Christmas movie for me to review (even if it’s not animated) and I may also be doing some collaboration blogs with another blogger which will involve some fun Christmas antics.

The First of the Twelve films I am going to review is