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Message: [QUOTE="Bakuma1997, post: 359504, member: 7324"] [ATTACH type="full" size="350x347"]124125[/ATTACH] Gargoyle’s quest… Reviewed already Castlevania on GBA… Reviewed already too Yume Nikki… Also Man, I ran out of good material for the review section’s Halloween Special and is the great day already, man, if only I got a clue of what to upload... *Sees a Jack Skellington-disguised kid trick or treating in his window, after that he sees another one disguised as Artorias*… I got an idea… [COLOR=rgb(85, 57, 130)]*A Jack-o-lantern sits in a desk next to a candy bowl, grey smoke and purple light comes out of it, suddenly the pumpkin breaks revealing Bakuma dressed as a gargoyle who takes the bowl and rains its contents, revealing it to have enough for every user despite its size* WELCOME TO THIS YEAR’S SPOOKY MONTH SPECIAL YOU HAVE SEEN MANY SCARY REVIEWS ALREADY, YOU MAY THINK I WAS LAGGING, BUT PATIENCE SEASONS ANY WORK, SO LET’S BRAVE THE HORRORS OF THE CORPSES WALKING EARTH WHEN WE ARE PART OF SAID ABOMINABLE TROUPE, ¿YOU WILL BRAVE THE TERROR, OR HO HOME TREMBLING WHILE STUFFED ON CHOCOLATES AND COOKIES? READER BEWARE, WHAT YOU WILL SEE IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY, BUT IF YOU CAN GO THROUGH THIS HAUNTED HOUSE RIDE, YOUR PATIENCE WILL BE REWARDED *Bakuma snaps his inexistent fingers to open a mausoleum shaped façade to a haunted house attraction, he leaves with a crackling laugh leaving behind the same smoke and lights that emanated of the carved pumpkin*[/COLOR] Hypothetical question, ¿What would Dark Souls would look and play like if A) it came in the PSX B) were SLIGHTLY easier and C) was made and designed by Tim Burton? The question is would be solved in 1998 by the hands of SCE Cambridge, the game is an action Platformer akin to some sort of 3D Zelda, A whole year after the actual 3D Zelda came to be mind you, this game is far more relaxed than any horror fare, while the plot and art style was praised, nowadays most people has grips with the controls and the difficulty, but now that the time of the ghosts and the monsters is rearing its twilight, let’s see if the journey of our dork knight Dan Fortesque is an horrible but fun game… or just horrible [COLOR=rgb(251, 160, 38)]*A gargoyle in a wall recites some words before opening the door he keeps* History: The great tale of a fallen knight… this is not[/COLOR] [ATTACH type="full" width="296px" alt="Firefox_Screenshot_2025-11-01T03-01-07.614Z.png"]124103[/ATTACH] [SIZE=1][COLOR=rgb(243, 121, 52)]Pictured: you... yeah your journey didn't start in a good way[/COLOR][/SIZE] A century ago, the brave Head of the Royal Guard of the peaceful kingdom of Gallowmere the Court Magician Zarok betrayed the kingdom and decided to invade opening the gates of evil forces, Sir Daniel Fortesque, the Leader of the Royal Guard, set to defeat the evil forces, leading his army he defeated the legions of demons, then single handedly beat in a joust Zarok’s own knight and lastly managed to take to the Realm of the Dead with him the evil Zarok, before himself finally croaked to his injuries, for the next century, the take of Sir Daniel Fortesque was shared until both he and Zarok became mere footnotes in the Royal Scrolls of Gallowmere *Fake crying* Ah, yes, how many stories has the plot device of a brave warrior defeating an ancient evil and his tale living in songs when it isn’t forgotten?... maybe one day I will review a game with that plot What really happened is that Dan is merely a tale teller, conquering entire fortress initiated by literally nobody and slaying dragons of air and imagination, the King of Gallowmere loved stories though and if he was naïve enough to trust someone as Zarok to be his personal Wizard then he could believe the tall tales of Dan, so Dan received a title as hot air as his own stories: Royal Knight of Gallowmere, a title that barely meant anything in a kingdom that has never seen a war… sometime later, war The royal wizard Zarok did betray its Kingdom and did was banished by Gallowmere’s troops… but sadly Dan was not only one of the first casualties, but he was the very first one to feed bugs, such a shame, then again, his sword skills wasn’t even enough to cut a wet scroll, so after he died before touching the ground due to a simple arrow in the knee… I mean eye, the rest of his army had to do his job, to save face the King made up the tale and hid his body and let bygones be bygones before himself dying some time later due to a simple Brussels Sprout *Breaking character under his breath* yuck, those thing taste awful, you need to douse them in butter and seasoning for them to begin to tase to something *back to being a horror host* unfortunately or perhaps fortunately Zarok has decided to come back ready for round 2, he gathered enough power to bring back the dead from their eternal beds, bringing back an army of the undead, curses to terrorize Gallowmere, Demons that follow his bidding… and Sir Dan Dan comes back from the dead out of an oversight, being put to speed by a snarky gargoyle and receiving help and more snark from the Hall of Heroes that unlike Dan DID earn herodom, now Dan has a great second chance to actually live to the tale he was build above out of pity and save Gallowmere, if not the whole world for real this time Despite the macabre setting and plot, the game couldn’t be less serious than it is, the intro blurb must be our fist tale, Zarok looks more like the guy that sits in a naughty kid’s shoulder to incite him to steal a pie instead of a threat to the mortal realm, Dan for a decayed corpse looks less like a revenant and more like a preschool Halloween decoration and the game has parts of black comedy B A R E L Y enough to graze the T rating, it still has actual scares, but nothing too bad [COLOR=rgb(243, 121, 52)]*A Graveyard gate opens rustly, is hard to tell if the ghost moans apart from the rusty joints, a Skeleton in a noose laughs and stares* GAMEPLAY: Hope your weapons aren’t as rusty as your organs or skin[/COLOR] [ATTACH type="full" width="434px" alt="Firefox_Screenshot_2025-11-01T03-05-09.482Z.png"]124105[/ATTACH] [SIZE=1][COLOR=rgb(243, 121, 52)]Give'em heck Dan, you can't get killeder anyway[/COLOR][/SIZE] Enough talk about the Lore, now let’s talk about the gameplay The game has a basic attack and a Charge command to make use of your weapons, you can also defend yourself with shields that sadly has durability, so don’t get used to simply rising it and waiting to not get another arrow to the eye *Laughs, a prop of Si Dan himself glares at Bakuma basically telling him without words to zip it* Okay, that was too far… wait a minute that is just a prop! Anyway, movement is stiff and jumping being triangle means movement in the few but still present platforming sections will get a while to get used, your weapon repertoire consists of all the nooks and crannies of a Medieval setting you expect, from swords to bows to crossbow to a sick hammer to a chicken drumstick that turns enemies into chicken for you to eat Castlevania style... *Checks script* ¿What?... you can either get them with the chalices or simply buy them from the gargoyles that won’t taunt your fast demise or from sidequests, hehehe Speaking of the Chalices themselves you need two requirements to get them and the tasty spoils your tracking will do, first you need to find the chalice itself and second you need to kill EVERY SINGLE ENEMY (Actually not all, but most of them) in the level to get it full enough to reach 100%, after that you will get a small talk with another skeleton with a sparking eye... i mean to the Hall of Heroes, where the past heroes of Gallowmere will give either encouragement or more humiliation and then they will hand a goodie weapon to you, showing with every cup more encouragement and faith you may join them some day Progression in each level is pretty simple, go from A to B solving some puzzle, the most common one being finding a Rune and placing it in its respective Skeletified hand to progress, but sometimes you have to use the brain sadly Dan can’t use since some moles has borrowed it for a quick fest and solve puzzles, some actually intuitive, some… not [COLOR=rgb(184, 49, 47)]*As the third door of the attraction opens, a group of bats flood the justly open door, they hiss: * DIFFICULTY: Such a shame you weren’t trained to even lift a bow[/COLOR] [ATTACH type="full" width="288px" alt="Firefox_Screenshot_2025-11-01T03-06-56.137Z.png"]124106[/ATTACH] [COLOR=rgb(85, 57, 130)][SIZE=1]Whoops... nevermind[/SIZE][/COLOR] I’ll be real with you reader, easy our task won’t be, first of all enemies hit relatively hard, they barely last a hit but so you don’t mercifully you aren’t stuck with a single life bar, as the game progresses you will find a total of eight bottles that count as life bar extensions, you can also find cracks that emanate miasma that heals you, they aren’t infinite but they respawn as soon as you restart the level, saving is done after finishing a level in the menu be either saving with the prompt or by pressing square, but progress in the level itself is not saved, so beware, and if you lose you have to restart the level again ¿What’s that, you lose a inch away from winning? SUCKS TO BE YOU, BACK TO THE MENU *Laugh and thunders* The levels poses threats to you that will force you to think every move, worry not for aiming though, a small sprite will pose itself on the hordes of foes and help distant combat, and your weapons has a good range, the problem is the platforming, the controls of the jump… aren’t very precise, and unless you has the funds of gold and the luck of your birth Constellation House to get a DualShock and even if you do, the game is a unfortunate infected of earlythreedimensiongamecameraitis, meaning you will struggle with getting it right as much as with your actual enemies, the fact that some levels, specially the last ones has tricky platforming means you will have to be in your toes a lot, the game has honest difficulty yes, but that’s a bout of fake difficulty of its age that sadly haven’t aged pretty well Fortunately, as any game this one has bosses, but these ones are comparatively easy, assuming you stockpiled on resources, none of them will deter the determination of the formerly cowardly Sir Dan, most of them are just battles with stronger enemies, and the rest will ask you to lay down the sword and unsheathe the brain figuring out its solution [COLOR=rgb(243, 121, 52)]*The next to last door opens to a web of spiders, the web spells…* MUSIC: Fear enters your ears…[/COLOR] The soundtrack is something you expect from a medieval adventure filled with macabre stuff, some of it sounds like something out of Final Fantasy, while some of it won’t be out of place in Jack Skellington’s radio, for some of them [MEDIA=youtube]S0T6JFv0s1s, list: PL53CA569B3CC4B3E1[/MEDIA] [MEDIA=youtube]CpWF1tic5NA, list: PL53CA569B3CC4B3E1[/MEDIA] [MEDIA=youtube]Ci5MAAvlUfI, list: PL53CA569B3CC4B3E1[/MEDIA] [MEDIA=youtube]yyMxqOu0C_A, list: PL53CA569B3CC4B3E1[/MEDIA] [MEDIA=youtube]06pdPdqoPTM[/MEDIA] [URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgzkxhoUhqM[/URL] [COLOR=rgb(243, 121, 52)]*The last scare before the final door opens shows up, a giant werewolf peers open the door, howling before running, a sign written in marmalade (Ran out of budget for red paint) says…* GRAPHICS: and your eyes too![/COLOR] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Firefox_Screenshot_2025-11-01T03-11-57.044Z.png"]124109[/ATTACH] Granted, the game falls in having stock “Medieval game” worlds, but the few ones that are unique leave an impression, one is an anthill after being shrunk, another one being a hedge maze with surrealist puzzles no different from Alice’s Misadventure in Neverland and the second to last one is a bunch of machinery set into a clockwork aesthetic that made a great impression, the level itself was hell, but a beautiful looking hell The enemies… aren’t that great, at least at first, it isn’t until halfway that the enemies start to showcase creative ideas in the enemies, but for that aside, you will see Halloween store spooks often, the bosses neither has lots of variety, the best boss before the final boss’ three forms I can think of having a creative design is the Stained Glass Demon… AND IT IS THE FIRST BOSS Fortunatelly as soon as the game drops the gloves you see real creepy monsters: Shadow beings, clockwork humanoids, literalasylum inmates, floating eyes,,, all rendered in the uncanny valley of the blocky PSX NPCs, rare as they are also has some neat designs and neat movements, special mention goes to the gargoyles, both the info dumpers and both the vendors, they barely has animation, but they convey the idea a rock is talking yto you, or the spirits of the Hall of Heroes that are well rendered both in statues as in (Pun REALLY INTENDED) spirit Lastly, sometimes between missions you will see a nice prerendered CGI cutscene that captures the game’s artsyle pretty neatly, the intro and the ending, especially the “All Chalices” one will feel like ways to make you feel you achieved something [COLOR=rgb(85, 57, 130)]*The last door opens, a giant ghost raises from the last room that leads to the exit, the ghost pounces to you, but the bravery you collected make you reflectively pull the ghost out, revealing it was just a bedsheet, the thingy in the bedsheet reveals itself a small talking flame made out of Bakuma’s power, they giggle and recite before leaving…* CONCLUSION: YOUR ODYSSEY ENDS FINE BRAVE WARRIOR[/COLOR] The game… didn’t made the cut in some aspect as I fear to comment, controls are way too rough even by the limits of ludo narrative resonance, the camera will be your enemy at mist times and some puzzles could be less challenging since they get TOO hard, but in the end the game was not harmed by those factors, the game still boasts some polish and you can setup the controllers to a less confusing configuration Just like Sir Dan when all the Chalices are collected, the game fortunately attained a Cult Status, being in most “Underrated PSX games” and receiving a Remake on PSP, kind of short but with still lots of content to make it its own game, and a PS4 Remake that sadly I hadn’t got the luck to play, I heard is more like a remaster instead of Resurrection’s Remake, also he appeared in PlayStation All-star Battle Royale… joy Regarding the Resurrection Remake, I have lots of fond memories of it, it axes some levels, like the Pumpkin Patch, which sucks since it was in fact my favorite level, it adds new content such as a small arc on the pirate’s level and some extra minigames, having refined controls did earned my favor as well as the QOL of being able to repair shields without they depleting fully, I got it as a gift for my birthday, in mid-October, I loved it in my teens, especially since I was in my “Edginess loving” phase and I still love it today since is… a pretty good game in general, not as memorable as the PSX original, but still has a charm Sir Dan, not only you earned your true hero rank inside your own videogame, but also outside the screen, people still deem your game as a classic… while admitting its flaws like here, but today I give a toast and wish for Sir Dam to enjoy his earned stay in another Hall of Heroes, and with all those words, Happy Halloween Retrogang, and see you next review [ATTACH type="full" width="396px" alt="1761967031016.jpeg"]124119[/ATTACH] Oh wait, I promised you something if you managed to reach the end, here is something for you *A candy bucket is handed to you, its Jack-O-Lantern Shaped, the carving is from RGT Tan herself, you take your prideful trophy home and turn back to say farewell to Bakuma… only to find the haunted house gone, paying no heed knowing Bakuma pulls those tricks you head home with all the scares you could get on that night* [COLOR=rgb(184, 49, 47)]B U T[/COLOR] [RIGHT][SIZE=1][COLOR=rgb(85, 57, 130)][IMG align="left"]https://retrogametalk.com/attachments/firefox_screenshot_2025-11-01t02-53-21-505z-png.124121/?hash=bef3a245299694a41aedf93b1715b820[/IMG][/COLOR][/SIZE] [COLOR=rgb(85, 57, 130)][SIZE=1]Bakuma out[/SIZE][/COLOR][/RIGHT] [/QUOTE]

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