And doesn't it look awesome? Yeah, it's a remake of the first GB title, and some elements of it can be seen there with things like the whip that shoots fireballs and the eyeball enemies, but it's obviously also mixed with a lot of NES/SNES/Genesis Castlevania elements as well, like the stairs, subweapons, multiple paths through the levels, with hidden alternate routes you need to find keys to play through, and more.
... Oh yeah, and evidently the music in that level there is a remix of some music from Castlevania: Bloodlines on the Genesis.
Anyway though, looks very awesome. It's a bit longer than the previous ReBirth titles too evidently, both of them were only five levels I believe...
It does look totally different from the original GB game in most ways, though, which makes it kind of odd that it's a remake and not just a new game. I mean, aside from those few things like the timer, the fireball-shooting whip and some enemies, there's nothing of the original game in this remake, it seems... of course the original game is considered one of the least good Castlevania games, so they wouldn't want to copy it too closely, and what's there looks pretty good. I mean, couldn't they at least have, like, kept the ropes and stuff? I know that the Wii has a much wider screen than the GB, but still...
Of course, Super Castlevania IV and Castlevania Chronicles (Castlevania X68000) are both Castlevania 1 "remakes" absolutely nothing like the original, to an even greater degree than this one, so there's plenty of history of this kind of thing in the series. It's just a little odd, that's all. :)
Here's a complete (tool-assisted) video of the original game, to see what I mean. They didn't even keep the music, it's different stuff in the 'remake' despite some of the original stuff being pretty good for early GB music.
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Overall though, the remake looks like a great game. Great music, good enough graphics, some great classic Castlevania gameplay... awesome stuff. :)
So, evidently, newer NVidia drivers are incompatible with these two games in an important way. The main map works okay, but when you try to click on units in battle you can't select anything. Awesome. The problem isn't Vista, it's NVidia drivers, evidently. Going back to very old drivers can help, but that might hurt performance in other games... for Shogun software mode does work, but looks absolutely awful, isn't fullscreen (there are black borders), and you can't move around the map by pushing the mouse to the edge of the screen, you have to use the keyboard. Ick. Medieval has no software mode, so no help there.
Looking around, there don't seem to be any real fixes for this besides trying different old driver versions. Thanks, Creative Assembly... I wanted to play these games again (the only two Total War games I have, and both great games), but I guess not. :(
...Oh, evidently with ATI there are a lot less problems. But of course I have NVidia.
"The latest issue of Nintendo Power teased a reveal that would pop up in this week's Nintendo Week feature on the Nintendo Channel. It looks like Nintendo has let loose with their secret, and it sounds like it was worth the wait! Nintendo Week has confirmed that 'Excitebike' is coming to WiiWare this time around! Nice to see the classic series making a return."
...haha. No screens yet, so no word if it's 2-D OR 3-D, I haven't checked the Nintendo Channel either. Will post screens as I find em!
For anyone who hadn't heard of it, it's an actual GAME from the Rayman team, not just another minigame collection! Amazing, I know, Ubisoft actually allowed them to make a "normal game"...
Well, here's footage of the first level. Looks decent, though those controls look like they take some getting used to, whoever's playing isn't very good at controlling it yet... still, from this team I'm sure the game will be at least good.
If developers weren't focused 99% on consoles instead of computers and actually cared about pushing PC hardware instead of just making games up to the spec of the PS3 and the 360, which are now well behind what PCs can do (not that you'd tell, looking at most PC games from the past few years)...
That is, a DirectX 11 benchmark was released. And wow, does it look absolutely stunning... I wish games looked like this, or things like this were actually coming soon! Awesome stuff...
Why does this forum take so damn long to load? I'd probably come here more if I could get to threads without having to sit through a minute of loading every page.
3D Dot Heroes is a Zelda clone with a really, really awesome graphical style... watch the video and see for yourself. So cool... :) It's not out yet and has been announced for Japan only for now, but hopefully there'll be a US release, it's quite possible.
Awesome stuff, really. :) Oh, there is a character editor, so you can draw whatever main character you want, evidently, out of those 3d 'dots'... nice feature.
Looking at the video it's a blatant classic Zelda clone, but hey, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Zelda hasn't been cloned enough, really. :) And the game clearly has some new stuff in it as well...
![[Image: 3D_Dot_Game_Heroes_JPNBox.jpg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/3D_Dot_Game_Heroes_JPNBox.jpg)