Castlevania Rebirth!

I'm 90% sure that Nakazato had involvement with this one (correct me if I'm wrong), which makes it even more bizarre why it has some parodical content. Somewhat ironically, one of the parody bits is actually one of the most badass parts of the game. When you're jumping from robo-llama (I'm pretty sure they're robo-llamas, because when you're about to get to the part with a lot of them, a little llama warning sign pops up) to robo-llama while they crash into the car you just jumped off of that's high-tailing it towards you is seriously pretty awesome and incredibly hectic.

Anybody caught dissing Neo Contra's sense of humour is going to have a very smacked bottom.

Anyway, I've been playing this over the past few days. It's quite splendid. Basically, it's a really good representation of what the pre-SotN Castlevania games do well, but done on the cheap. It's shorter than most of them, being only five levels long (six including the Dracula battle), but I've found at least two alternate routes in most of the levels, so far. They're all nice and long, but acing them doesn't require all that much practice; I've been playing since Thursday and managed a single-credit run last night (though my current route skips level 4's miniboss, so I've still got that to learn and possibly some other routes to explore). It features two control systems, as well - 'normal' and 'classic'. 'Normal' allows you to control your jumps in mid-air, kind of like in SMB, whereas 'classic' forces you to commit to them, and basically gives you Richter's movements from Rondo of Blood, minus the backflipping.

My only gripe with it is that most of its graphics come from SotN and the GBA/DS games. There are quite a lot of original enemy sprites, but the actual stage graphics, both in the immediate foreground and the background, are mostly cobbled together Frankenstein-style from older stuff and can often look a bit stretched and jagged. It could have looked quite a lot more polished, even on its small budget.

My favourite thing about it is the music, none of which is actually from The Adventure. As with the previous Rebirth games, the soundtrack is mostly comprised of remixes of the lesser-known pieces from throughout the series (stage 2's theme is the ranking screen music from Haunted Castle, and 4's is the loading screen music from X68k) done in the style of Konami's early 90s arcade games. It sounds almost exactly like Gradius III AC, Sunset Riders and Turtles in Time, etc, and uses Haunted Castle's drumkit and Super Contra's guitar samples.

I think everybody here will have a lot of fun with it.

You won't see me doing it :) You know I love that one.

I couldn't resist taking some looks (though not fully attentive) to the stages of the game. Based on what I've seen, I overall approve. Though, my initial reaction is that while the graphics are technically good, the actual look of the levels are a bit lacking in the flair department. There's nothing wrong with a relatively simple back-to-basics look, but as I'm thinking about them in retrospect, the stage designs sort of run together in my mind. They're a tad bland and not quite as individualized as they could be, BUT this is only my initial reaction. I'm sure that once I get to play the game, I'll be able to tell the stages apart from each other and recognize how they differ.

I must say that the boss fights look damn good. There are two per level, and there are some revivals alongside some original concepts. The boss at the end of stage two is especially unique and I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but I like it! This game is a must-get for me. I'm thinking I'll get a 2000 Wii points card soon, get Contra ReBirth with the first 1000 and wait until Castlevania ReBirth's American release (which I'm 98% sure will happen at this point) to spend the other half!

If I remember correctly, a Salamander Rebirth got announced some time ago, I wonder how that is coming along. I also wonder what the next will be, after that... It probably won't be a shmup, considering it would be strange to have 2 in a row and that would make the shmup to not shmup ratio of the Rebirth series three to two.

I've got my fingers crossed for a Jackal Rebirth, though, in all honesty, it will probably be a more popular franchise. What are some other popular Konami franchises? That aren't shmups and haven't had a Rebirth game made, I mean. At this point, I'd be guessing Sparkster, but he's already got his bases covered for a new game.

Aye, can't wait for Salamander. That was rated ages ago, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's almost finished. If they've been using the Gradius Rebirth engine, we could see more levels in this one, or at least more carefully designed ones.

The next game could be a remake of the original MSX Metal Gear, or something like that. I doubt they'd do anything they'd actually have to write a new story for...

Oh, shit, that's right, there could be a Metal Gear Rebirth. Hmm... that could be pretty cool.

Tokimeki Memorial Revival.

...

Oh dear god. That concept alone would be fubar enough to cause a sinkhole in space.