Ryan evaluates the new rule of games including single player vs battle royale modes. Justin steps in to save Konami’s franchises from their ruler. JB finally pays attention to esports. Plus, give Mick Gordon all of the money.

• Horrible Night on SoundCloud
• RSS Feed
• iTunes Feed
• Google Play
• Stitcher Feed

Show Features

Cast: Justin Lacey, Ryan Billingsley, JB Buckner

• Kinda Games: Marvel Marathon, Gaming Headphones, Portable Consoles
• Headliner: You can haves single player or battle royale, but you can't have both - Call of Duty, Anthem, Battlefield
• Follow-ups
• Supporting Act
  • Detroit Become Human - Quantic Dream takes legal action against French media for negative press, Detroit: Become Human Demo Releasing Tomorrow
  • Disgaea Remake Heading West on Switch and PS4 as Disgaea 1 Complete
  • Exploring the rise and eventual fall of Xbox's early teenage hackers
  • Agony Avoids Adults Only Rating By Shifting Content To Optional Patch (on PC)
  • Valve acquires Firewatch creator Campo Santo
  • Hearthstone game director Ben Brode is leaving Blizzard
  • Video Game Jamz - DOOM, God of War, Shovel Knight
  • Mobile Numbers - Fortnite mobile nabbed $25M in revenue during its first month, U.S. iPhone users spent an average of $58 on apps and IAPs in 2017
• Headliner: Someone Stop Konami - New Castlevania is a multiplayer mobile game
• New Releases
• Games of the Week
  • Stardew Valley
  • Celeste
  • Deep Town: Mining Factory

Respect and adoration can come from just a fleeting first impression, but having the best intentions to play through an entire game is never a guarantee that you will see one through to completion. The regrets may be strong for some, others have found peace in their path, but our brief time with these games still stand out in our memory.

What is your favorite game that you have played the least amount of?

• Rob Shaw - There may be something I liked better that eventually pops into my head, but the first good answer that comes to mind is a more recent game... Metal Gear Solid V. It'a s fun game, plays great, looks amazing... has the weird and interesting Kojima story going for it. I did spend a fair amount of time with it and had a great time, but am nowhere near finishing. I got distracted with other things and failed to return... I want to go back to it... someday... we'll see...

• JB Buckner - DOOM, The first one ... and the reboot. OG DOOM stressed me out and I couldn't play a lot. I started having nightmares about the monsters, which wasn't completely out of the ordinary for me. I used to dream strategize how to beat Warcraft levels because I played that so much. DOOM Reboot stressed me out and I couldn't play a lot. I got through 6 hours of gameplay on hour long sessions and had other games I could sit down and play longer. Oh all the Zeldas. Everyone talks about their favorite Zelda game and I'm sitting here going, "I played Ocarina of Time." I never owned The Legend of, and I got lost in Ocarina. I still wonder where I was supposed to go in that game. It was like all of a sudden the game had no more content for me to play. Stupid fairy wouldn't even tell me what I missed. Metroid, yes, I missed this one, too. What was I doing during these years? It's hard to say but it sure wasn't Metroid. Castlevania, look ... we all get that this is a damning list, and some are wondering what the hell I'm even doing contributing to this article. I say shut up. Perhaps I just didn't know what I was missing. Perhaps I needed better friends, or I should have asked for the SNES instead of the Sega, or maybe I should have mowed some lawns to buy one myself. Anyway, I keep hoping the NES Classic becomes available at some point so I can play some of these classics. I look forward to sitting down with my kids and watching them get frustrated because these games are too hard and rage quitting and going back to Minecraft.

• Aaron McNeal - Lemme tell ya something: I finish games. Most games. Eventually. The first series that comes to mind are the recent XCOM games. I can start these a dozen times, but I eventually stop before the earth is saved from the alien menace. I lose one of my favorite soldiers. Shelved. A country drops from the global effort? I'm out. Everything's going great and there are no problems whatsoever! That's a lie, and I'm gonna play something else. I love talking about XCOM, customizing my squads, researching tech, and especially the do-or-die nature that pulls no punches. Maybe one day, my name will be on the golden wall of brave commanders. One day.

• Cole Monroe - This is an interesting question. My initial thought was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. But I have played a ton of it over the years, just never finished it completely (a definite shame of mine). My next thought was Dishonored. From everything I've played, read, and heard about this series I love it but I've barely scratched the surface on where that game goes. I always get to a certain point and then stop playing. Not for any fault of its own, I just keep getting distracted by other games. Not sure I'll ever get back to it.

• Ryan Billingsley - For me it would have to be either Link to the Past, Secret of Mana, or Chrono Trigger. All amazing games that I absolutely love, but just never made the commitment to get through it. I am pretty sure I put the most time into Mana. I have played each more than a dozen times, always starting over, but never getting very far. Someday, someday...

• Justin Lacey - As a part of my never having owned a PlayStation, I think I played the intro to Silent Hill about 6 times, but I never got more than a half hour into it. It's a game I know I'd love and a series I have reverence for. I think if I revisited it in 2017 it may actually do the game a disservice with how much the horror genre has evolved since its release. 12 hours is a lot of time, but I barely scratched the surface of Final Fantasy XV. I loved every second of it, but things came to a hard stop at the end of last year. I hope to pick it back up on PC later this year, but 2017 is so jam packed with large and awesome games that it may not happen. I've restarted Dying Light 3 different times, and I never had a good reason to stop. I came back last year for the expansion and expected that to push me through to play the entire game. Something keeps coming up no matter how much I enjoy this one. I'll keep apologizing to the zombies the next time I kick them off a roof.

• Andrew Cooper - Metal Gear Solid V is the game that comes to mind first. I was never invested in this series, so when V came out I didn't really know what to expect. I heard good things about it, so I gave it a try. The entire intro of that game blew me away. I thought it was just going to be your traditional tactical shooter, but there was a lot more going on there. It was some of the most intense and exciting gameplay that I had experienced in a while and I loved every minute of it. However, I didn't stick with it. I can't even remember what game I decided to play instead, but the fact is that I moved on and never went back. I still have it installed because I truly want to see what the rest of the game has to offer, but to this day I still haven't touched it.

• Justin Gifford - The game that embarrasses me that I've never completed, despite loving the crap out of it when I first played it as a kid is The Legend of Zelda. Yes, that's right. I've never beat the original. What do you think I'm going to play on my Nintendo Classic when it mysteriously comes in stock at Christmastime?

It was the marathon fight that he expected, but Justin and Richter finally took down Dracula in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. Your turn, Alucard.

• Castlevania: Rondo of Blood - Gamethrough Complete Playlist
• Initial thoughts from First Episode

What stood out about the Gamethrough?

• The boss fights almost broke me, but never felt unfair. Solving them felt as good as it ever has in Castlevania.
• I hate Shaft so much. He is my ultimate nemesis in this series, moreso than Dracula.
• The multiple paths to finish each level was subtle and unexpected addition. It makes the game feel much larger than say, Dracula's Curse, which had multiple paths but threw the map in front of you so often that the game felt a bit small.
• I hope to never have to cross a collapsing bridge while being chased by two-hit bats ever again.
• Bringing back the original bosses from the first Castlevania was both awesome and broke up the brutal final levels in a way that made me excited to finish the game.
• The Cross is the only sub-weapon you ever need.
• I wish I had known about the backflip from Stage 1. I would have finished the game in half the time.
• I hated them, but loved my marathon fights with Shaft (twice) and Dracula.

Final Thoughts

Playing through this version of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood after all of this time is one of the best gaming decisions I've made. I think I would have given up on it due to the difficulty of a few of the bosses had I not been focused on recording the entire playthrough. That helped me push through and it felt like an big accomplishment in the end. Because of that, I feel very confident in saying that Rondo of Blood is the best classic Castlevania and it trumps even my nostalgic favorite, Dracula's Curse. It won't be for everyone as the experience can be punishing and doesn't have the adventure that later Castlevania games adopted with Symphony of the Night. For me though, this is as good as Castlevania gets and Castlevania is an all-time series for me, so you can do the rest of the math.

Will I Play More?

It has crossed my mind that I want to go back and 100% this game or at least see all of the bosses. I feel a bit beat up now, but I may return this fall when I'm ready to whip some ass again.

Horrible Night Videos

• Subscribe on YouTube - Highlights, Montages, and Game Coverage
• Follow on Twitch - Livestreaming and Events

Justin finds a way to play the Japanese version of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood so he can finally experience the prequel to Symphony of the Night.

Why am I playing Castlevania: Rondo of Blood?

• I listened to a Retronauts podcast on the history of Dracula X/Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night.
• We've been talking about Symphony of the Night on our podcasts recently.
• I've wanted to do some retro playthroughs of games I haven't played before and Castlevania seemed like the perfect place to start.
• I've wanted to do some playthroughs of Castlevania games in general.
• I bought Rondo of Blood years ago on Wii Virtual Console and never saw it through.

Previous Castlevania: Rondo of Blood Experience

• Played through 2-3 stages about 5 years ago.
• Played Dracula X on the SNES and was severely disappointed/bored by it.

Game Start

Gah, I never realized how much of a pain in the ass it was to play Wii Virtual Console games on the Wii U. However, I'm still thankful that Nintendo and Konami finally gave us an affordable way to play this Japanese release because it really is the missing link to the most important Castlevania game of all-time - Symphony of the Night.

Once I was in, I felt at home. Rondo of Blood is as much Castlevania IV (sorry Super Castlevania) as it is Symphony of the Night Zero. Aesthetically, you can totally see how this game's pixel art evolved into Symphony of the Night, but the call backs to the classic Castlevania trilogy really hit my nostalgia buttons.

This is not an RPG though. This is a tough as nails Castlevania action platformer. At the start it feels as linear as Castlevania I, and I kept expecting a map to pop up to show me if I was about to branch off into a different path à la Castlevania III. I stumbled into a secret passage and found a boss almost immediately. I knew something was up though, because this snake-like dragon seemed much tougher than a first boss should be (even for a Castlevania game). After a few failed attempts, I restarted and went a different direction and found a different (much easier) dragon defending a very familiar front gate. After defeating the dragon, Stage 2 started and I realized I would have been playing a different Stage 2 had I defeated the snake-like dragon. My brain exploded and I started to realize why Rondo of Blood had the reputation it had.

From that point on I was completely enamored with the experience. The branching paths combined with the gameplay that I grew up may be the perfect combination of my favorite Castlevania games. Now, I just need to know if Rondo of Blood is going to be my favorite Castlevania or not.

Will I Finish?

Assuming Dracula isn't straight up impossible, the end is in sight for Rondo of Blood. At the time of this writing, I am through Stage 4 and I definitely plan on finishing this playthrough and I may even go back to get as close to 100% as possible. At the very least I want to explore the different paths at the beginning of the game to see if it continue to sink more hooks into me.

In the mean time, I will be posting weekly episodes of my gamethrough on our YouTube channel (below). Once I finish Rondo of Blood I will post some final thoughts.

• Castlevania: Rondo of Blood - Gamethrough Playlist - with weekly episodes.

Horrible Night Videos

• Subscribe on YouTube - Highlights, Montages, and Game Coverage
• Follow on Twitch - Livestreaming and Events

Whether it is just conveying a sense of speed or taking on the complexities of time travel, manipulating time has made and broken a lot of games over the years.

Simple Question

What games have handled the manipulation of time in a memorable way?

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Nowadays, games are embraced for their ruthlessness and challenge. The original Prince of Persia was a brutal action platformer, and instead of pushing the level of difficulty to the point of punishing players - The Sands of Time integrated a truly awesome rewind feature to give the player a chance to correct some dumb decisions. The fact that the time manipulation was an integral part to the story made it even more memorable. The magic of The Sands of Time still stands as a unique experience that sequels and homages haven’t been able to replicate. - Justin Lacey

Singularity

Singularity is a highly underrated game on many fronts. I think someone wrote a terrible review for it on our site years ago, but it was wrong. They aren't very creative with the name of their time manipulation device, as it is actually called the TMD, but it's a solid survival horror shooter. Not only do you travel back and forth through time which works well with the story, but they added a cool mechanic where you could move specific objects through time. You would use this to fix collapsed bridges, and doorways to help you get to certain areas of the map. - Coop

SUPERHOT

SUPERHOT somehow turned fast-paced shoot-outs into a methodical puzzle game without losing any of the adrenaline from its action. Your ability to move through the environment in a frame by frame manner somehow out matrixes The Matrix. Time only moves when you move, which allows you to pull of some ridiculous slow motion dodging, melee maneuvers, and headshots. Then, SUPERHOT plays back your awesomeness in real-time so that you can see the action hero you were meant to be at full speed. - Justin Lacey

• Justin G - I'm trying to remember Enter the Matrix. I know I played it, but i think I got hung up on the hacking that you could apparently do? And then returned it, because it was a rental.
• Justin L - I remember that that game should have been awesome and sucked but sold a ton anyway.
• Justin G - 5 million fucking copies.
• Ryan - I just remember that Monica Bellucci and Carrie-Anne Moss kiss in it.
• Anonymous - Uh, excuse me. I'm going to uh, go use the restroom.
• Justin G - "In more than 20 years of playing games, I have never seen a console game as obviously unfinished and rushed to market as Enter the Matrix. [...] This game is a complete mess, and that's the only thing complete about it.

Requiem: Avenging Angel

Requiem was the first game I can remember playing that you could slow time down. It wasn’t front and center as the main mechanic but it sat along side other powers like turning people into pillars of salt. I still remember it to this day. The ability to dodge in and out of bullets flying past your head while raining head shots on enemies unable to move fast enough to avoid them was pure joy. - Ryan Billingsley


Castlevania

The 'clock' weapon in Castlevania, as well as I think a lot of other games, was always pretty epic. Maybe not the awesome slow-mo dive and John Woo shoot from Max Payne, but triggering a time freeze and just wailing on your enemy is pretty badass. I think that weapon/ability is common enough to be a trope and it's a big one. - Justin Gifford

Knights of the Old Republic II

I played through this in just a couple of massive play sessions, but I sure remember and loved using the Jedi power Burst of Speed to double my movement speed and whup some bad-guy ass with my dual light sabers. There's just something cool about moving so fast the bad guys can barely see you (and have their defense rating reduced significantly). - Justin Gifford

• Ryan - I have been thinking about going back to KOTOR II, I have played 1 probably 5 or 6 times, but only played 2 once.
• Justin G - I really should play it again. and maybe I as well, since I never played it. I have no idea where I got KOTOR II, though.
• Ryan - You never played 1? Wow, that's the good one.
• Justin G - That's what I've heard. Let's see...
• Ryan - It takes a while to get going, but the story is complete.
• Justin G - Looks like it's got to be a PC purchase - not available in the Xbox store. Although my brother in law may still have the original Xbox disc for it. For $100, you can get basically every Star Wars game out there. Man, I loved Jedi Knight II.

Animal Crossing - Mr. Resetti

I didn't understand what Nintendo originally meant by Animal Crossing being in real-time. Basically, whatever day and time your game console says it is, that's what time it is in the game. So if you don't play for days/weeks and come back, the townsfolk think you've been gone for that many days/weeks. It helps you feel an attachment to the game and to the different seasons that naturally progress as you play through each month. Of course, you can cheat and just manually set the system clock ahead or behind to mess with the game. If you get caught doing this and your saves appear out of sync to the game, this will summon Mr. Resetti to appear next to your house. He punishes you by issuing you a long lecture about saving correctly and has your answer questions for repeat offenses. It's either the most effective or least effective punishment ever issued by a video game. - Justin Lacey

Braid

How has no one brought up Braid yet? The ability to rewind the game to fix a mistake you made, or even forcing you to rewind in combination with other mechanics like cloning completely blew my mind when I first played it. It was a truly unique way to solve a puzzle and worked extremely well. That game was genius. - Coop

• Justin G - It's been forever, but my recollection (and the reason I didn't think of it) is because I really disliked it. You're right about the mechanics, though.
• Justin L - You would dislike Braid, fucking heathen.
• Justin G - Shrug
• Justin L - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSXofLK5hFQ
• Justin G - I just watched that little youtube video with the video game scholar. I think I'm dumber than two minutes and twenty two seconds ago.
• Aaron - Yoooooop

MLB The Show 16 - Show Time

Runners on first and second, one out, bottom of the ninth, up by one run. Your heart is pounding out of your chest. The pitch! A ground ball scorched to your right. You make a leaping dive at the last possible moment, snag the ball off the bounce and fling it to the shortstop from your belly. He flips it to first and thats the ballgame. This is all made possible with Show Time, a feature in Road to the Show, which lets you slow down the action to the level where us mere mortals who can react as fast as our heroes who dazzle us during those warm summer evenings. It doesn’t just work for defense though, you can also slow down an at-bat and make that clutch knock that drives in the go-ahead run, sending the game to extras or spot that cut fastball perfectly in the corner to get out of that jam. - Ryan Billingsley

Super Time Force

No game exemplifies the magic of time manipulation more than Super Time Force, a game in which all three words of the time perfectly describe the premise. Plus Ultra if you waited for that version, cause that's an important word, too. After an inventor creates time travel, which results in his future self immediately appearing with said Super Time Force to correct the past, glorious chaos ensues. The kind of chaos that takes place in prehistoric times and a skateboarding dinosaur battles robots. The sort of madness where the screen is filled with multiple versions of the same characters performing different acts of heroism simultaneously. The delicious zaniness of spending 5 to 10 minutes to kill a boss in a single minute. 10 minutes per minute! That’s pure time math science! - Aaron McNeal

Burnout 3: Takedown - Aftertouch Takedowns

Burnout gets its name from the amazing sense of speed you get from maximizing your cars boost. It’s still exhilarating to this day and why I pay attention any time a Criterion alumni game pops-up somewhere. However, it was crashes and takedowns that really put Burnout on the map. Burnout 3 added aftertouch to its takedowns - which were the high speed crashes that the game encouraged you to pull off in order to earn more boost/speed. Aftertouch allowed you to crash into other cars and for a moment redirect those cars so that they could crash into other cars. Essentially, time would freeze and you could use opposing cars as missiles to shoot at other cars to cause even more ridiculous wrecks. So much awesome can happen in such a short amount of time, and yet, you never feel like you’ve lost control over your car that’s going 200 mph. - Justin Lacey

• Justin L - gawd, how much do you miss a classic burnout game
• Aaron - I can really notice how few car games I buy now without new Burnout releases
• Justin L - cuz why play something other than burnout
• Anonymous - I miss a classic Burnout game like crazy ex girlfriend sex. I LIKE THIS QUESTION.

Time Pilot

For some reason, my grandfather had Time Pilot on his Commodore 64, so when my parents shipped us off to Pennsylvania so they could have a kids-free vacation, I played a lot of it. A top-down shooter, you controlled a...fighter space ship that traveled through time, I guess? Anyway, you got to shoot down WWI biplanes and WWII prop planes, modern fighter jets and then finally futuristic ships. There's no depth here, but if you ever wanted to know what would happen if the Red Baron tried to take on Maverick... it's not pretty. - Justin Gifford

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Your opinion of the weirdest Zelda game is entirely dependent on whether or not you embraced its time travel mechanic. The entire game takes place over the course of 3 days, and if you don't save the town by the end of Day 3, it's game over. Of course, you can play a song to travel back to Day 1 to try to continue saving the world. It's basically Groundhog Day the video game except Link is Bill Murray. - Justin Lacey

Max Payne

Man, the first Max Payne was incredible. Was it necessary to constantly do a dive roll, firing from akimbo pistols, absolutely every time? Nope, and that's why it was amazing. Even grabbing an assault rifle and slowing time down and taking out five guys in a room was really fun. Not as fun as diving sideways, shooting akimbo uzis into a hallway, but fun. This game set the bar for “bullet time” in a video game. - Ryan Billingsley

• Coop - ...reminded me of the slow mo action in Stranglehold. Now that was a good time.
• Aaron - Stranglehold was the shit.
• Justin L - Stranglehold was as fun as max payne wished it was
• Coop - Seriously. Max Payne gets props for doing it first, Stranglehold did it right.
• Justin G - I never played that, but...of course the best John Woo Slow Motion Double Pistol Shooting game is presented by John Motherfucking Slow Motion Double Pistol Shooting Woo.
• Aaron - "Nicely dressed asian mario shooting at dudes in slow motion, there's no point or anything... WHOOOOOP"

Image Credits

• Cover Image - VincentBisschop
• Mr. Resetti - Animal Crossing Wikia
• Castlevania Clock Subweapon - Castlevania Wikia
• Prince of Persia, Super Time Force - Steam