VinnyVania: Castlevania - Part 03

Whatever-I-said-on-the-twenty-five-minute-version.

EDIT: Whoa, they brought the comments over!

If Vinny thinks he can make it through all of the CS games, let alone the first three on the NES, then this is going to be the longest series on GiantBomb by a LARGE margin.

@fobwashed: Yeah. The entire time I'm watching this I'm thinking that it looks super easy. But then I remember how rigid the controls and Simon's movements are and get why it's so damn hard. A simple strategy/pattern, but it seems to demand too much perfection. I don't like it when video games want me to be perfect.

Anyway, if you guys can't beat Dracula after 2 hours of trying, then you should move on to another game. Assuming that this feature is going to continue (and it should).

3 hours! Truly this is the Ben-Hur of Let's Plays.

I hope that once Vinny beats that Drac, he reveals the NES cartridge and destroys it on camera with a hammer.

Agreed! HELL YEAH!!

e-sports!

Caravella loves sloppy play.

That's... that's wonderful.

I look forward to him getting to Drac in Castlevania IV one day...if only because that fight is so much easier.

Please play something else... bored of Castlevania already and the repeating music is slowly driving me insane. Hate to say it but subscriber content is feeling a bit sparse and disappointing lately.

They must make one last try at this from a save state right before Dracula.

I think they should try it at PAX and get Tim Schafer to try it.

@thiago123: Castlevella is terrible, I think you meant CastleVinnya

For a game with such awesome music, Dracula's music here sucks so hard.

Yeah, the music for the Dracula area is completely terrible.

Also, man, the reactions you need to have if Dracula reappears where you are; you basically can't just keep walking through him and make it to the other side, so the INSTANT he reappears you have to change direction and back off.

I really like Vinny and I love this feature, but his jumping "strategy" was so painful to watch. The random nature of the teleports is the toughest part of the Dracula fight and, since you can't reverse direction while jumping, his jumping was just holding him back. This made it nearly impossible to make it through the first form without getting hit.

All that being said, Vinny is still the coolest duder around and I would gladly watch him play through every Castlevania game.

Did Jeff hint that after Castlevania, Vinny will continue through to Simon's Quest? If so I am highly intrigued.

Not sure if it's correct or useful, but Dracula seems to spawn relative to the player, not the room.

This is definitely Vinny's "Mile High Club". #TeamVinny

Damn, that was one salty end!

this seems like Dark Souls with better music...

Jeff needs to just not worry with rogue shooter and get into Paranautical Activity.

Best Dracula battle music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbRWDpruNu4 Still amazes me that the SNES could produce such a thick, rich sound. Still prefer Genesis' sound chip overall though.

3 hours? Cool, this gives me entertainmet for days!

Really, really hoping this'll move onto Simon's Quest next... or, heck, even Vinny taking on the Game Boy Castlevania titles would be amazing to see!

I love seeing people challenging old games as they were intended, though I feel that when it comes to final bosses like this, where you can spend countless hours on them and never make any more progress, it can be good to say "I've beaten 99% of the game, and I've hit my limit," then move on to the next game.

Yeah, that shit is pretty amazing.

I for one want to see Vinny conquer his nemesis and beat the game. Skipping ahead to Simon's Quest would be unsatisfying and Simon's Quest doesn't make sense if Drac's not dead.

"I WOULD LIKE SOME DECORUM, PLEASE!

NOW IF YOU THOUGHT DRACULA ONLY HAS ONE FORM......I'VE GOT SOME BAAAAAAD NEWS!"- Bad News Belmont

You guys need to play Hotline Miami Soundtrack in the background while playing this. Spice it up alittle.

I think whatever delay they have from all the equipment is hindering them. After watching this, I downloaded and played Castlevania myself. I hadn't ever played it before, though I at least had most of the basics understood from watching Vinny play.

The strategy Jeff and Brad were using having looked at the speedrun GIF is sound; and using the holy water to stun Dracula 2 while jumping and hitting the head kills him a lot faster than they probably think (he's not invincible to body hits, so the holy water is doing a little damage that adds up). They just kept on not getting the timing.

The button mapping might also have had something to do with it; I had the whip on X and jump on A, which just felt more natural (B was to the left of A on the NES controller, after all). Still, for the most part, they just didn't seem to pick up on when to jump over; they both looked like they were looking for the fireballs and jumping when they got close, when they should have been looking at the cape and jumping shortly after it opened.

It certainly took me a handful of tries before I stopped jumping too early, but it wasn't that hard, and Dracula 2 only took me one try; it's not easy, but more than two hours to not be consistently beating at least the first form is kind of ridiculous.

I'd like to see them play more Castlevania games now, but they really don't need to finish CV1 now if it's going to take them this long every time (and it probably would).

Check out this guy wrecking Drac in both forms. interesting strategy he uses with the boomerang...the strategy Vinny's trying to employ requires perfect timing and a very small margin for error.

The opening to this video is the best.

I missed this! Oh my, this is gonna be good.

Yeah. Just using the boomerang and focusing on dodging the balls seems like a better strategy with Dracula.

It definitely seems like the boomerang is the key to the fight.

Good show! I wouldn't wanna try to beat Dracula with the 360 dpad though...

They are doing it for a reason and once this is beat they go to the next thing. It's normally the point of these videos where they beat the game.

At some point I just kept fast forwarding to see Vinny still working on the first form. I think I'd prefer this as a podcast so I can listen to you guys shoot the shit and scoff at Vinny while I wash the dishes or do laundry or something.

mfw Vinny is at Dracula 45 mins into this 3 hour video

I can't believe I watched the whole thing.

Well I guess I'm about to watch 3 hours of this. It's not like I have anything important to do, well actually I do but I just... you gotta prioritize, man.

What am I doing with my life?

Too bad. Vinny had Dracula's first form down to a science in the last episode and his second form is really not that hard assuming you have the holy water and enough hearts.

Nice to see Brad and Jeff get in on the action but I am really hoping Vinny will pull through next episode, I really want to see him move on to the other games in the series.

@blackneuron: yeah, that smile could cure cancer.

Honestly, KFC wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't so goddamn greasy. Obviously, it's a fried food, it can't exist without grease. But it's not just greasy it's slimy.

"Patrick moved his stream until tomorrow so you have all the time you need."

"Don't worry, this will only take 5 minutes."

40 minutes into a 3 hour video...

That's just because it's fast food, really. There's a Southern BBQ joint about 20 mins from my house, and they do possibly the finest fried chicken I've ever had.

Never played any of the nes Castlevanias, my first game was Super Castlevania 4 when I had my snes in the early 90's, but this looks really cool :) Luved alot of the great sidescrollers on the snes, my favorite being Super Ghouls and Ghosts. That was epic and damn it was ultra hard - to get proper ending you had to finish the game twice!

I really loved Castlevania Lords of Shadow, but I heard part two is crap. What I'm playing at the moment is Castlvania Mirror of Fate. It came out just recently and is back to classic 2D sidescroller. I'm having a blast playing it and recommend it to anyone who enjoys the old 2D Castlevanias :)

Go Vinny!!!

@bacongames: I won't try to claim that the boss fights in Castlevania are "fair". But when you're skilled enough you can defeat even Death and Dracula with average or below average effort. Like all old games it has to do with how familiar you are with patterns and execution. Two things that Vinny doesn't have here. He's not experienced enough to know Draculur's patterns of attack, and he only plays the game every week so there's no way his execution is up to par.

I don't know if its been mentioned, but they did release a Konami Collectors Series, with Castlevania (1-3), Contra, and Super C for the PC. It has a different date on the title screen, but it should work just as well (if not better) as their "NES"

I'm such a dildo. Every time I see Jeff wearing his Robotron: 2084 shirt I always think "oh cool, Jeff's wearing a Giant Bomb shirt" before I notice that no, that's the original shirt I ripped off for that design. DUH.

Hell, I just want him to play through Bloodlines.