• 13Jan 08

  Idiot Impulse #1: Maria's Doves

  Several months after licking the bones clean off of the two Castlevania games on the DS, my insatiable hunger for a game integrating bats, pot roast and a rap album's worth of swearing into one nifty addictive package began to grow back. So seeing the Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP was essentially a no-brainer. It had the Rondo of Blood remake (RoB hereafter),
  the original RoB and my ever-favorite Symphony of the Night (SOTN) which years ago brought joy to my then Belmont-free life (despite Richter only being a secondary character in that game) - passing it up would be as smart as the prospect of setting my own pants on fire.
  
  So I bought it, plugged it in my old PSP, turned the handheld on and the rest was a happy history of me forgetting my dinner because I simply had to finish alternate stage 5. End of story.

  All in all, I really had no qualms about this episode of a long-running (not to mention beloved) series... save for one tiny, yet activist-invoking detail. This one invovled Maria - the character I used (and pretty much a big majority of the people playing this, I assume) in pretty much all the levels of RoB so I could beat it. She was much faster and her double jump was a good compensation for the joke that is Richter's backflip. Purists can rant about me not being hardcore enough for using the character "intended" to whip the hell out of an ever-returning archnemesis but I leave it at that.

  So what was wrong with her? I chose a stage (the first one) and started playing. So there she was, and there I moved. Run, hmmm, pretty fast. Double jump, cool move. Oh dear, a skeleton on the horizon. I jam the attack button.
  
  BAM, a pair of what I assume to be doves flew out and quickly smoked my opponent.

  In a moment of exaggeration, I blurted "WTF?!" and sat there stunned contemplating about using animals for your arsenal. Of course, sitting there stunned only meant staring for half a second because anything beyond that is utter pwnage.

  Of course, the novelty of everything wore off after a few minutes and I proceeded in what I think is pecking of enemies to death and finishing the game (that including what I call her "tantrum slide" and the Mortal-Kombat-Friendship-ish way of saying "Game Over"). Still the whole idea comes back to me every now and then, making me wonder whatever were those characters designers on when they conceptualized Maria Renard. Hence me dedicating a whole column nitpicking this single thought.
  
  So yeah, what is up with that? I mean, I could understand Maria's sub-weapons, which stood for the four mythical beings in Chinese lore except that Biyakko (sp?) was reduced to a domestic cat in flight when it was once a fearsome tiger (and oh yeah, Genbuu covering Maria like a drum is also hilarious). But birds for arms? I remember showing this to my best friend and consequentially laughing, considering the doves as the "worst weapon in gaming history". Hmmmm, probably not the worst but it does sure make it to the list of the weirdest ones. For comparison, I created a small (and of course, incomplete) list:
  
  - Maria Renard's doves (Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles/Rondo of Blood - PSP)
  - Cloud Strife's mop... I forgot what it was called (Final Fantasy VII - PS)
  - Charlotte's books... especially the blank one (Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - DS)
  - A fish as a substitute for the knife... probably mod (Counterstrike - PC)
  - Kung Lao's hat (Mortal Kombat - I forgot the platform(s) and the MK installments he was in)
  - Yoshi's eggs (Yoshi's Island - DS... heck all games that had a Yoshi that laid eggs)
  - Joachim's tuna (Shadow Hearts: Covenant - PS2)
  - All one-time weapons Travis Grady can grab including: Drip stands, Typewriters, Portable TV's, Crates, Alcohol Bottles, Filing Cabinets (Silent Hill Origins - PSP)
  - Special mention to beat-em-ups where you could use items in the environment that you can pick up and use to whack baddies (for some reason, I don't consider this weird but what the heck)
  - Quina's utensils (Final Fantasy IX - PS)
  - Dan Hibiki's autograph (several Street Fighter installments)
  - Stuff you pick up using telekinesis (Bioshock - XBox 360 and probably some other games)
  - Skeleton Waiter's Curry (several Castlevania games)
  
  And the list goes on and on. I'm sure I've missed a lot.
  
  Anyway, going back, I wonder at the whole rationale behind Maria's inconsiderate use of animals for... well... the interests of the whole of mankind. Those doves would most probably symbolize peace, BUT HOW CAN IT DECIMATE THE UNDEAD? I mean, it managed to be as powerful as the Belmonts' (and Morris'?) Vampire Killer whip, a weapon passed on for generations.Looking back, I think that Maria's appearance on RoB was well... a farce. Aside from her arsenal, she had a script presumably extracted from the Barney series, a game over screen that probably intended to comfort you with a euphemistic way (and yet essentially telling you that you screwed up, you idiot) and a slide akin to a prepubescent with raging hormones.

  And so, I'll keep on playing Castlevania until I'm probably old enough to join Dracula's ranks. Oh well, it's all about winning, isn't it?
  
  Credits to:

  - totalgamerzone for some of the ideas.

  • Posted Jan 13, 2008 3:03 am PT
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• 27Dec 07

  Idiot Impulse #0: I have an idiot impulse

  I have an idiot impulse.

  It's one of those times where, instead of talking about the correlation between violence and video games or the console wars, you ramble about something very inane. Like the art of quarter-circle forwarding, or that grainy effect on Silent Hills games (that you've come to love/hate, cinematography auteur or otherwise).

  I certainly don't know why here and now - probably because in my 20 (and counting) years of existence, I decided to go after the "other" things in life for... well, for the heck of it.

  There is certainly no assurance of simplicity or light-heartedness here. For all I know, I could be ranting about how the trees look weird in Final Fantasy Tactics (probably attributed to the existing 3D meshes of that time) and the astute reader would lose three days of sleep. But, certainly, I would post anything I feel like (but, of course). Posts may range for one-liners to dissertations, incredibly thorough to shallower than an ashtray turned soup bowl.

  There's not much in the way of video game laws here, or Sony gains/losses, or graphics versus gameplay...

  ...just some weird posts about why it's the L shoulder button that's wonky on my DS lite when it's the R shoulder button that I abuse like hell when I put on Mario Kart.

  Yeah, so I guess that's my introduction.

  • Posted Dec 27, 2007 4:52 pm PT
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