On retro gaming and save scumming.
I had never played a Castlevania game before, so naturally I wanted to start at the beginning.
I’m not like this with most series. Unless there’s a continuing story, a la Metal Gear Solid that I need to play all of the games to fully understand (“understand”), I usually don’t have trouble jumping later into a franchise’s life to get to some of the more interesting entries. Certainly the entries with the most quality of life improvements.
Thus it was with great surprise even to myself that I had this strange urge to start playing Castlevania from the very beginning. I can’t really articulate why. The series has grown to almost thirty games and counting. Surely one of the later entries, or at a minimum Symphony of the Night, would have done me just fine.