Topic: Western Animation Discussion (Cartoons)

In terms of Classicvania difficulty:

Dracula's Curse > Simon's Quest > Castlevania: The Adventure > Castlevania > Bloodlines > Dracula X Chronicles > Super Castlevania IV > Rondo of Blood

Rondo is the easiest of the older titles when playing as Richter. When playing as Maria, IMO, it's one of the easiest games in the entire franchise. But she's a lot of fun to play as, I'm not always looking to get my teeth kicked in, and the ending to her playthrough is funny in a stupid way, so she's the usually my choice when I replay the game.

@Ralizah I dunno, I’d say the original Castlevania and IV were easier than Rondo of Blood. IV especially due to the 8 direction whip. The original is perhaps just easier to learn due to the simplicity. Rondo just has a lot more truly irritating sections like the sewers. I found the bosses a lot harder too.

@Ralizah I consider IV way easier than Rondo personally

Simon actually having fluid control and all the things he can do with the whip just makes so many of those frustrating things I had to put up with in the preceding games and Rondo a lot more tolerable like attacking medusa heads or those damn frogs that jump everywhere

@TheFrenchiestFry I found a lot of the whip platforming in general didn't agree with me, and led to a number of deaths. There are also a few stages where I found the environment killed me a lot, which wasn't true in Rondo. With that said, I could see the argument for SCIV being easier than Rondo if you're playing the latter as Richter (even if that's not my own personal experience). Rondo is just flat out easier in every way if you're playing as Maria, though, between the sheer range of her attack and how much movement range she has.

@nessisonett OG Castlevania is unnecessarily brutal during the final stages. Particularly that damn hallway leading up to the Death boss battle.

A few things clinch Rondo being easier for me:

• Level designed to minimize insta-kill BS, which was a major factor in the difficulty of the NES games.
• Item crashes
• Backflipping
• Easiest version of Dracula (although SCIV's Dracula fight is pretty easy as well)

@LieutenantFatman Are you familiar with Stressed Eric and did you watch it back in the day, old chap?

@TheBrandedSwordsman
I missed out on that one, I was probably watching stuff like Dexter's lab at that point. Before moving onto Spiderman and Xmen.

@LieutenantFatman It's an adult cartoon, I'm sure you can find it on Youtube.

@LieutenantFatman I always thought that Xmen was quite dark for a children's cartoon, no?

@TheBrandedSwordsman
It could be a little. But they were pretty strict about things like violence. It was very noticeable that Wolverine couldn't use his claws on most enemies, just robots.

@LieutenantFatman Those robots had it coming.

@LieutenantFatman The episode that stayed with me, for being the darkest, though, was the one where The Brood (reptilian-looking alien race) show up, dousing Rogue and her ex-bf with their spores so they can touch etc.and allowing them to be together, Rogue is all for it until she discovers the aliens her ex-bf is in cahoots with, Rogue escapes the fate of transforming fully into a reptilian monster but her ex isn't so lucky and the episode ends tragically with him becoming one of the beasts as she flees the scene. Do you remember that one? If not, think it sounds dark enough?

@TheBrandedSwordsman
I only saw that episode once but it certainly is one that sticks in the memory. It's a fair comment to say that's quite creepy for a children's cartoon but I've seen worse.

Can't say I felt sorry for the bloke, he deserved his fate. But the whole genestealer cult type thing where aliens can permanently transform you into their species against your will is always quite unsettling.

Let Batman eat p***y

@nessisonett

@JohnnyShoulder https://www.avclub.com/harley-quinn-creators-say-dc-wont-let-...

@nessisonett Furry muff!

@JohnnyShoulder Maybe he’d get a hairball.

@nessisonett Don't say that, I'll never be able to look at my parents again without laughing when they ask me to give the cats their hairball! 🤣

@LieutenantFatman @TheBrandedSwordsman I watched the whole of the old X-Men series again about 6-10 years ago. I think what surprised me about it was how modern it felt. If I remember correctly it was completely serialised instead of episodic and had like full season story arcs. Reminded me much more of things like Lost.

Spiderman had multi episode arcs but seemed more episodic overall. Even though I preferred that show as a kid, having watched both again as an adult, I now much prefer X-Men. I highly rate Spiderman Unlimited as well despite its brevity and cliffhanger ending

@ralphdibny I've seen clips of X-Men and remember scrunching my nose at the score. Was quite gnarly! 😆

@LieutenantFatman Used to watch the original He-Man when I was a kid. That and Transformers were my favourite and had loads of the toys for both.

Seth Rogen is trying to reboot TNMT and be more like the original cartoons. Saw a bit of the more recent Nickelodeon series and that looked bloody awful!