I’m done with my first playthrough of Castlevania III and got the Alucard ending. I still have three more endings to see, but I don’t want to tire of the game that quickly so I’ll save my succeeding playthroughs for sone other time.
It didn’t take me a long time to do this because of the Restore Point function of Virtual Console games, which reminds me a lot of the save state feature of old emulators. To be honest, I used and abused the hell out of save states back when I was still heavily playing 8-bit and 16-bit games. For some titles, using save states was the only way I would be able to beat the game and see the ending.
My first playthrough of Castlevania III feels a little cheap. I didn’t beat it because of my skill; I beat it because I kept saving before difficult spots and loading whenever I died (or even took a hit). But I don’t think I can invest the time needed to master a game like Castlevania III. I guess I’ll just have to do a couple of “no restore point” playthroughs and see how far my skills in the game can take me.
I typically do save points per start of the stage so i can still feel the achievement of beating the game. Hehe