15. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence/Curse of Darkness (2003/2005)While I absolutely love the 2D Castlevanias, and usually would go for a more traditional 2D game over a 3D one, these two games are hands-down the best Castlevanias I’ve ever played. I group them together because they play very similarly to each other and I played both of them back-to-back so they kinda flow together in my mind. I will say that the storylines are completely different. Lament is kind of an origin story, taking place well before any of the others in the canon, and has the creation of the famous Vampire Killer whip. Curse is a continuation of my favorite NES CV: Dracula’s Curse, which is just fantastic as you run into Trevor multiple times throughout the game. When played in order, you will see that in Lament, you are confined to the one castle, but it’s split into five areas. You play each area in order as if they were levels, but you get to go back to any of the other ones at any time in case you missed an item or something. At the end, you can also unlock a bonus boss fight, which is pretty gruesome. Lament also has a bit of replayability as it gives you codes to play in different modes once you beat the game (like hard mode, or as a different character).
Curse of Darkness, on the other hand, drops you in a huge world where you can go pretty much anywhere you want. It’s kind of like a journey to get to the castle, as opposed to already being there. I remember being pretty overwhelmed with how much land there was to cover in this game. Also, the main side-quest in this game is a massive 50-floor tower that you have to fight through to get to the top. Each floor is harder and harder, so hopefully you’re pretty stacked before tackling it. There’s a pretty gnarly secret at the top, too, which made me chuckle and groan at the same time when I figured out what it was. In any event, both of these games are worth checking out. I can best describe them both as Symphony of the Night in 3D. Both for PS2, and Lament is now on PSN.
14. Blaster Master (1988)Another one of my all-time favorite games. This is the one game on my list that breaks my self-imposed “must be able to beat without cheating” rule. This game is deceptively hard. If you don’t know where exactly you need to go, you could spend hours on the first level alone. In this game, you’re a character named Jason, who drives a badass car with a gun on it. You control the car along platforming levels, eventually finding small doors where you need to get out of the car and infiltrate with Jason. The game then turns into a top down shooter. The levers are all really big, and have many different ways of going and many different doors. All but one door lead to dead-end (usually with power-ups, some with nothing). The one you’re looking for is the boss room. Once you defeat a boss, you get a new ability for your car (better gun, walk on walls or ceilings, ability to hover…) that will help you make it to the next level. It’s kind of like a Metroidvania before that was even a thing. While I have been able to beat this with the Game Genie, I haven’t tried without it in YEARS. I could get pretty far though, I remember getting to the last level once before I got a game over. This one is definitely worth checking out, for NES and Virtual Console. Also, as a quick honorable mention to the sequel that came out for WiiWare in 2010, Blaster Master: Overdrive, is pretty much the same thing with better graphics and sound (same soundtrack!), and new gameplay features, and also totally worth checking out.
THE PICTURES AREN'T WORKING FOR ME AT WORK. I'll fix it when I get home if needed. Okay, well I tried at home. I'm not understanding why they aren't working. Too tired to figure it out.