where in the world did you go

That was horrible and now I'm going to wipe it from my memory.

Nope.

I have heard of Agricola before - in fact, I knew people in college who used to play it. While I would normally be intrigued by the Harvest Moon-like aspects, I also don't have much of an attention span when it comes to board/card games anymore, so they have to be fairly short for me to play them.

Awesome theme!

I am not a dog person. Especially if they're small, yappy dogs. Cats all the way!

You appear to have been foiled by our inability to keep an up-to-date schedule on the stream page.

So, MAGFest 9. I went to it. I hung out with Backloggers. Ash, Kasumi, and Lyn. It was awesome. If you want to read about it, check it out here: [Link]

I see that you have TWEWY. What better place to leave your DS on Mingle Mode for a long time than at a con, right?

Yeah, I found the same thing with the thrusting. Though it's damn hard to aim with the pointer while jerking the controller backwards.

The funny thing about OoE is, when PoR was released, I thought to myself, "They could do this same crap over and over again and I'd never get tired of it." Then comes OoE, one of the most popular in years, and I found myself tired of it. I really did like the equipment system in the game (quite a lot, actually), and the challenge was good, but the world structure bothered me, making me see how comparatively uninterested I was in the combat action in Castleroids, sans the more serious platforming in the earlier games of the series. The second half of the game didn't quite make up for that.

Of course, I realize how hypocritical it sounds to praise PoR (which had its own individual levels) while complaining about OoE. The difference with PoR, to me, at least, was that the castle was there throughout the game, and I saw the portraits and brief changes in scenery, a nice deviation from the overall quest.

At any rate, I do worry that I may have reached some degree of burnout with the post-Symphony Castlevanias. Even though I originally played Curse of Darkness before that happened, your defense of the game certainly makes a lot of sense when thinking strictly in terms of, "This is the same thing, but in 3D." I guess what I ultimately need in Castlevania is either A.) A unified world to map out and explore in Castleroids, or B.) Good platforming in more linear Castlevanias. It seems that, lacking A or B, my interest in the games may not be as unwavering as I had thought, back before I played CoD and OoE.

I don't think I complained specifically about backtracking... in many games, I love it in fact. It's a common game design complaint, but when it's used in unifying a single large game world (Metroid, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, etc.), I love it. However, games like Curse of Darkness (and Order of Ecclesia for that matter) have their own separate levels, thus taking away the one part I like about backtracking

Also, it's worth noting that OoE was something of a Castlevania eye-opener to me. Honestly, I'm a bit worried about going back and replaying the other Castleroids, because I did see how everything is just... it's just straightforward areas where you encounter enemies and fight them. By dividing the world into its individual areas (aside from the latter part of the game), OoE took the exploration and game world unification and threw it out the window. This made it significantly lesser of a CV to me than most of the other Castleroids, and I worry that this realization will make me enjoy the other Castleroids less (despite their exploration factor). Or maybe it's just Castleroid burnout?

Point is, I guess you're right in saying that Curse of Darkness is fundamentally similar in many ways to 2D Castleroids (most comparable to OoE at any rate, due to its separated level structure). Those games aren't about platforming, they're about fighting and exploration (except not so much OoE). Ultimately, there may be somewhat less I like about the "new" Castlevania formula than I had at point one thought. And Curse of Darkness, as you pointed out, seems to adhere to most of the IGA CVs' defining features. Doesn't change the fact that it fails to compel me.

As I said on stream, there's nothing particularly offensive about the game. i can see how many people would enjoy it. I just don't see things that I like in Curse of Darkness. I'm not saying the forging system is weak, I just don't care for those sorts of things. You can say that its combat system is similar to God of War, but I'm just not a huge fan of that anyway. God of War has other elements that keep me coming back. Curse of Darkness seems to have avoided basically everything that I would like to see in a Castlevania (aside from Michiru Yamane).

So, summary: not bad, and it manages to pull off the aspects of Castlevania that are least interesting to me.

*remembers his main character getting charmed and promptly casting a full heal on the boss*

Yes, yes that would be a good idea.

Persona 3's boss puts up a fight, make no mistake. But your level is sufficient.

Haha, glad you enjoyed it.

Sure, gimme the info on the machine gun and other endings. I'm pretty much done with avoiding spoilers after I a game. (Might want to put it in spoiler tags for other people though.) I assume the bad ending is leaving the island with Kazuma. Other than that, I have no idea what else could have been different.