Why does Contra Force on the NES slow down so often? It seems to me that Konami developed this game for a superior mapper chip like the VRC6, planned to release it as “Arc Hound” in Japan in 1991, missed their intended release date, decided to shift most development to the Super Famicom, and basically […]
Have you noticed that the sound effects in the PSP version of Castlevania Symphony of the Night seem a little… off? I’m not talking about the voice acting or the music, here. The sound effects are supposed to have that echo… that flanger effect to them, and the PSP version of SotN doesn’t quite sound […]
In December of 2019 after many years of runs, the speedrunning record for Castlevania on the NES was close to 11 minutes 24 seconds. In Summer of 2020, speedrunners took a new discovery for the implementation of scrolling for the game and used it to skip several screens at a time in various places throughout […]
If you manage to land a hit on an enemy in Castlevania on the same frame that Simon gets hit, the whip does considerably more damage than normal. But WHY? Let’s dive into the logic flow of the game to figure out the perfect storm of values in RAM that allow this to occur. Timing […]
The long lost Castlevania: Resurrection E3 Demo once used by Konami for a potential release and showcase on the SEGA Dreamcast. Has been made available for download via website The Dreamcast Junkyard. This build of the game had been recently found and had made news headlines earlier this month. With a bit of additional controversy […]
Due to the poor decisions of both the Japanese and American branches of Sega, western gamers missed out on a ton of amazing Japanese games. Luckily, over the last few years, fans have taken matters into their own hands by translating, fixing, and even improving Sega Saturn games via patches. For example, the original Grandia […]
YZB first brought us a 4MB optimized Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and now they have patched Saturn’s King of Fighters ’95 to bypass its proprietary ROM cart, utilizing common aftermarket 4MB RAM carts instead, just as they did for Ultraman recently. Like Ultraman, KOF95’s custom ROM cart worked flawlessly as a physical copy protection […]
Chinese ROMhacker YZB has coded a high-level hack of the Sega Saturn Castlevania: Symphony of the Night [Akumajou Dracula X-Gekka no Yasoukyoku] which implements a number of quality of life improvements by using the 4MB RAM cart and other modifications: Disk-reading slowdown is improved by preloading data to a 4MB RAM cart, the CD file […]
My Life In Gaming just posted an absolutely excellent overview of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood, how the originals compare to each officially released version and how all compare to the new re-release of both as “Castlevania Requiem” on the PS4. Unfortunately, while some of the 3D graphics looked amazing rendered in […]
Sony just announced that both Castlevania SotN and RoB will be bundled together and released via digital download on October 26th. They’ll be emulated using the PS4’s PS1 emulator and will offer scaling up to 4K with “smoothing” support. Pre-orders will offer a $3 discount at $17, instead of $20. Added features include multiple high […]
