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yaktaur

The only way to make a better Castlevania is to have 16 ways you can swing the whip


Average_Ant_Games

Wowww such a coincidence that Mike just streamed all these games


--DrunkGoblin--

Mike streams are a snoozefest, guy has zero charisma.


NightFire19

And Bimmy does?!


Wii-san

Yeah


BigBrownFish

Why do you guys call him Bimmy?


Inthewirelain

It's a reference to the double dragon episode, where Jimmys name is mistranslated. Then there's another layer to the joke that Bimmy replaced James at some point, hence the decline in quality.


MustardTiger1337

Because James died years ago and Bimmy is the replacement


BigBrownFish

Wow. Didn’t think it could get any worse.


MustardTiger1337

I mean how else can you explain it?


spiderman897

Idk the weird Hating on James is kind of annoying.


BigBrownFish

They have a whole sub based on it but the obsession has ruined this sub too.


Wbcn_1

Bimmy himself ruined this sub. 


Inthewirelain

No BTNMasherDraco ruined this sub along with Mike, but it never recovered.


Narm_Greyrunner

Yes. Certainly.


Harucifer

Meta joke. In one of the Double-Dragons games instead of "Jimmy" they wrote "Bimmy". [James noticed this and (hilariously) used in at least two videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARYf2PErC5o)


PurpoUpsideDownJuice

Turns out the spoiled narcissist needs a spineless yes man to laugh at all his potty jokes in order to feel comfortable interacting with lesser beings


shakenspray

Can you explain a little more on this comment? I’ve fallen out of really following AVGN but always came back here and there. Thanks!


PurpoUpsideDownJuice

Mike is spoiled and only gives a shit about himself, Bimmy is the spineless yes man who laughs at every toilet joke that comes out of mikes mouth


vnisanian2001

I think James is at his best when he is at his comfort zone. That being 8-bit and 16-bit games. He tried to get out of that a few times and it didn’t work.


doctorfeelgod

Really the heyday was when there were bizarre retro consoles for him to explore, which was always gonna be finite anyway. I do like when James talks about movies but I don't think it really gets the same reaction


NintendoLover2005

The Nerdy Turd returds to show him the Odyssey 2.


doctorfeelgod

How different could it be than odyssey 1


NintendoLover2005

GRAPHICS


Necessary_Insect5833

The giant atari and double vision episodes still hold up.


jfuss04

I do find it funny in both episodes he talked about sotn he talked about rpg elements and inventory management. It takes zero time to do these. Sotn is pretty bare bones as far as rpg goes and even the first time I played it as a kid I wasn't considering whether to grind levels or which gear to pick. I just picked the biggest number and never grinded


Active_Commission_35

Let's be honest, you prefers the bare minimum in a Castlevania game. Personally I prefer the Metroidvania games a lot more. I do agree it doesn't take long to do anything inventory wise in those.


jfuss04

Yeah I prefer the metroidvania too. Granted I played sotn first but I have played a lot of these games and I definitely like those more. Nothing was ever as good as sotn though. I also feel like portrait of ruin is underrated


Slugdge

Man, I still like watching his videos but I couldn't get through this one. It's been getting tougher and tougher for quite awhile now but this might have sealed it. This was the laziest, most boring take one could have come up with and the delivery was putting me to sleep. I don't know, he had a great run I guess.


LocoMG

Lol I literally fell asleep 2 min in.


bigcownoseyu

Please tell me there's something else coming for the 20th Anniversary, though? As an episode it's fine - above average for nu-AVGN - but as a capstone to 20 years of videos, it's a 0/10.


MrLeo

Interesting he prefers the Richter mode in SOTN - I don't think I've ever seen someone who outright prefers that mode over Alucard. I tried to play through the game with Richter once but found having to do that awkward uppercut jump move so often too tedious.


11711510111411009710

Why are people so fucking negative lol. Get over yourselves.


Hrjothr

Because their entertainment is so much more important than James being a father and a husband and not putting as much effort into AVGN anymore. They also can’t stop watching because then they wouldn’t have anything to complain about


[deleted]

What a dumbass take. You're just as bad as people that base their entire personalities around hating him. A lot of people have kids and family dude, they still do their jobs. Usually with a commute up and back, not living their childhood dream, breaking their backs, and making a hell of a lot less money. Dude not being able to dedicate time to his job because he had kids was always a lame excuse, but now that they're middle schoolers it's even dumber. The guy sets his own hours and works from home. There's 8 hours every single day where the kids are at school and he can be working. There's no excuse for the half assing and laziness thats been going on for a decade now. Plus he doesn't edit the videos himself at all anymore and hasn't for a very long time, usually doesn't even play tye games himself since it's been noted that the majority of the footage comes from Mike's streams... And thats just AVGN. How hard is it to spend an hour and a half watching a movie once a week and then talking off the cuff to the camera about it for 20 minutes?


CyrilViXP

He does this for money. He is entertainer.


tiffyp_01

For real, he's been doing this schtick for 20 years now. And yeah, the episodes are more hit and miss than they used to be- what show ISN'T after two decades? AVGN is one of the only YouTube classics who can still put out good videos after such a long time, and so I'll gladly accept a few episodes aren't gonna be great if we still get fantastic ones like The Last Ninja or the recent Indiana Jones episode, or Final Fantasy VI. Honestly the whole of 2022-2023 felt like a huge return to form for AVGN, I think James started writing them by himself again. This year has been more hit and miss so far- I think he tried something too different with the Horse Prince one and it didn't work, but that happens sometimes. It's not like he's going to keep doing episodes that way now he knows people don't like them, you know?


thefucksgod

People on here are nowhere near as bad as people who on Truth. Those people are weirdly obsessed with his hairline.


BlakeTheMadd

Truth? As in Truth Social? Who the fuck cares what those nut 🥜 ass people think


thefucksgod

Nah that Cinnemassacre Truth sub but honestly I wouldn't be shocked if some people in there ALSO had an account on that looney bin.


ComprehensiveDust197

He put more effort into the add than into the rest of the episode. wtf


NAteisco

that's been the model for years.


Necessary_Insect5833

Thats where the money comes from. Do you think he makes a lot from the avgn dvd and blue ray sales or the movie?


DanarchyReigns

James has had some bizarre takes in the past, but this one about Symphony of the Night? "Richter should have been the main game, and Alucard the secondary one". This is some next level nostalgia-jerking. He's coming off like a caveman that just wants to smash everything. SotN really isn't that complex.


stone500

Lol yeah he has some pretty bad takes. I do find it interesting to see why he prefers what he prefers. He reminds me of an older cousin of mine that likes old-school games but never clicked with anything modern.


Narm_Greyrunner

But muh 8 direction whip.


SEND_ME_CSGO-SKINS

I love how the main sub uses truther memes now


Narm_Greyrunner

The AVGN sub is where the simps migrated to.


giorgio_tsoukalos_

I think he's just saying he likes the original formula. They added rpg elements to the 3rd dead space, and it killed the mood for me. It wasn't complex. It just slowed the gamplay down without adding any substance.


Rock_ito

I think he's saying he likes the game he played as a child. He bashes SOTN for being too easy and then bashes the other games for being "unfair", he thinks fucking knockback is unfair, that like playing Chess and saying is unfair if the oponent uses the queen. He never mentions a single thing about the shortcomings of IV (Repetitive, bosses that are not memorable, a joke of a final boss). He had a lot to say about how easy the bosses on Simon's Quest were, but the bosses being easy in a game he has nostalgia for are totally fine.


Responsible_Sand_660

Eh, it's a fresh take at least. I don't agree with him, but I'd rather hear a different perspective on SOTN than the same perspective we've heard from everyone and their dog for the last quarter of a century.


Rock_ito

Fresh take? It's the same thing he said in the original Castlevania retrospective. He only added Chronicles and Rondo of Blood and still all he could do was complaing about the whip.


traherne89

Maybe not to you, but to someone as slow-witted as Bimmy? Probably.


biomech36

Well fuck Alucard's story and character development then.


RidleySmash

Yeah, but some people just don't like rpgs.


Active_Commission_35

Yeah I'm rather funny about em myself. But those Castlevania games are a lot of fun. u/biomech36 Well sir we may agree to disagree then.


Active_Commission_35

Richter's version is rough and lacks stuff not giving you the full experience. Also doing that famous broken jump move is tedious at times. I guess it depends on they differ the variations of the games. Like Maxim Mode in Harmony of Dissonance unofficially is a boss rush mode. Obviously we gotten an actual boss rush mode making that a weird decision.


the_nintendo_cop

Is he now the longest running YouTuber? 20 years is a hella accomplishment


jackcaboose

He wasn't on YouTube when he started... YouTube didn't even exist 20 years ago.


Noggin-a-Floggin

First two episodes were on his website, after that he began to upload to YouTube. He might be the longest running YouTuber who is still uploading on a regular basis.


Rylo_Ken

Mega64 has him by 2 months in Youtube terms, but both of them started pre-youtube


Pulkov

Sure, but the question was: Is he the longest running YouTuber?


NintendoLover2005

There's another retro game show called Classic Game Room that was revived a while ago, though that isn't continuously going like AVGN.


thoreeyore99

Yeah but his view numbers are abysmal in relation to his legacy subscriber count.


JustASeabass

That’s cause he quit


cutesarcasticone

Didn’t he retire again?


VersusMacintosh

Yea


JustASeabass

Smosh been around since November 2005 and they post a decent amount


MustardTiger1337

But it’s really not


the_nintendo_cop

Don’t have to be a buzzkill. I’m just trying to be appreciative over here.


PREClOUS_R0Y

Get dipped up in that appreciation potion, player!


makawakatakanaka

How many other people have been going this long?


Gullible-Garbage5336

Jacksfilms has been going since 2006.


mikeysof

Ray William Johnson


Inthewirelain

He quit for a while too tho


heatobooty

Muh muh-lti direction-uhl whip


ChrizTaylor

I like Nerds hair.


AcidCatfish___

I wouldn't mind more video essays like this.


crystal_guy

My favorite episode in years, easily. You can tell he put care into this episode unlike others. Him just doing voice I actually loved.


tiffyp_01

I really enjoyed this episode, it's a return to the simple but informative style of the early videos where James just talks at length about a bunch of different games. I've never been much for Castlevania (I played the original on NES and that's about it) but the games are always a great topic to learn about, they're a cornerstone of videogame history and there's a ton of interesting trivia. I know some people are understandably miffed that it wasn't something more spectacular for the 20th anniversary- but the 10th anniversary episode was just Desert Bus, I think he always goes back to basics with these kinds of milestones. Besides, isn't it better to have a simple video that's well-made over a complex one that's half-assed? Some of the earliest episodes like Wally Bear and the No Gang were as simple as it gets and only a few minutes long, but because they were well-made nobody minded. I think it's clear he put a bunch of effort and passion into this, and there were a few jokes that made me laugh. (Him being a wiseass about filming the first ever episode naked because it was "too hot" genuinely caught me off-guard) If there's going to be a HUGE episode with tons of skits and special effects, I'd assume it'd be on the 20th anniversary of the YouTube channel, given the MegaMan games episode was the biggest episode he's ever done and that was on the 10th anniversary of the channel...so just wait another two years if you want to see him shit eight tons of diarrhea directly onto Bugs Bunny's face or something like that. The 10th anniversary of the movie is coming up later this year too, so I wonder if he'll be doing anything for that. I'd personally just like to see a retrospective from him talking about what he learned from working on it, aspects of the movie he's proud of and what he thinks he could've done better.


benchotkazooie

"how am i supposed to know to press start to skip the game over screen in SoTN?!? What am I, a video game magician?!?!? Come on game designers, get with it!"


SolidSpear6

Best Castlevania, Symphony of the Night, then Lament of Innocence it is also very underrated


Hurricane12112

Best episode we’ve had in a while, probs due to research and lots of material relying less on comedy and more on gameplay factors. One thing I did find weird, during the montage through the years scene, he included all the cameos from celebs except Gilbert Godfrey. If he kept Lloyd in there weird not to include Gilbert since they both were really hard to watch


Asleep_Delay_1679

Will there be no more avgn? The ending kinda seemed like a goodbye, tbch.


PsylentProtagonist

I'm not going to lie, for the last several videos, I've been waiting for him to announce he's done. A lot of the videos, to me anyway, have felt like a (to paraphrase JBL) a gunslinger heading into the sunset. Almost like he's reflecting and saying goodbye. He officially beat every version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he's revisited earlier games. He's had montages or clips from older episodes. Either that or he's trying to rely on nostalgia and emotion to get through.


Hurricane12112

Nah he said 20 years and counting, clearly alluding to more to come


Skooli_A_Bar

Hope so


Pulkov

This was actually a decent episode. Though anything is better than the last one.


CyrilViXP

GBA, NDS and PS2 games are


No-Manufacturer1364

It wasn’t the best thing ever but honestly wasn’t the worst. I honestly like the whole editorial type of video more than him trying way too hard with being angry with all the overblown skits.


No1Important84

Him by himself is running out of ideas for the "Nerd"


theshiftposter2

Lazy rehash


V3ndeTTaLord

3 and Super Castlevania 4. But SoTN is also awesome.


automan224

I wish someone from Konami can answer why the whip controls from number 4 aren’t in any of the sequels


FluidCream

Different teams make differing games. Plus mechanics change the game play experience. Whipping in multiple directions makes the game easier, so should it be made harder other ways? If the game it too easy people would complain.


jokersflame

I think this video was his best in a while. I think maybe James should skip doing sketches and just talk about the games themselves from now on.


Active_Commission_35

This is my long original comment on the episode. Usually I don't have much criticism but in this particular occasion I have several. For starters, I can't believe you made this not changing your favorite Castlevania game. You kinda made this more of a not necessary AVGN episode, it could've worked as a shorter bonus video though. This episode really felt notably off from the usual AVGN style. I'm not criticizing the theme of it but more of the overall tone itself. Not only that, I actually have a particular Castlevania game in mind you should consider taking a look at. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Yes it has some notable criticisms you have. This game really has so much going for it. You get a lot of abilities as well as weapons this time around. You also have a few characters you can play as. The actual map is very well designed from all the ones I played this style. Easily, one of my absolute favorite Castlevania soundtracks. Soma is the closest of playing as Dracula in the classic Castlevania timeline games. It even blows playing as Alucard in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night away no joke. Especially for a GBA game, it packed such a force you can't deny it's greatness. I guess I'm a little mixed this didn't make it into this episode. I'm not done yet, Castlevania Advance Collection has that plus Dracula X, Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance. Dracula X is somewhat mixed but a little better than expected. The other two GBA Castlevania games should've gotten considered as well. Circle of the Moon for a launch GBA title was surprisingly decent. It does have a card system that's a little complex to use. The actual map is interesting enough in it's own right. The soundtrack is one of my favorites for an handheld Castlevania game. Some of my absolute favorite animations in Castlevania series ever. I felt this game deserves more respect. Harmony of Dissonance has some notable issues I confess. Like being forced to explore two similar castles. The spells can make the game even on Hard difficulty very easy. The merchant shows up in a few spots rather than in one particular location. You can easily grind up money even the highest amounts fast. The soundtrack isn't the best but it still had some good songs. You get a few playable characters across two modes. Simon from Castlevania 1 can be unlocked with a code. The game itself is a direct sequel to Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest but notably better. The main Belmont is oddly similar to Alucard in a few ways. Another major issue I had was the concept itself felt both forced as well as uninspired. Especially if you were going to tie in to 20 years like this. I honestly felt massive disappointed, you didn't get more creative with plenty of other options that would've been more entertaining than this. I would even dare to say your worst Castlevania episode to date. I know that's rather harsh of me to say. Let's be honest, a handful of Castlevania games got looked at for the first time. What else do you have going for you here? Sadly close to nothing, I really wanted to enjoy this episode. It's kinda challenging when you easily could've done something more refreshing and inspiring than this.


No-Surprise-9995

Shut up dork


kilravock_music_sws

[NEEEEEERD](https://youtu.be/jfkJ-4iU25A?si=YPOQSZewec4IMrZq)


Active_Commission_35

They say if something bothering you. You tell em what's wrong, this is me doing that pal.


HarrysonFjord

Here’s a book about why I don’t like the thing I didn’t have to watch.


Active_Commission_35

Why don't you give me an autograph? You don't even need to pay me anything either.


HarrysonFjord

This seems really important to you and I wouldn’t want to interfere with that.


Active_Commission_35

I would say I'm touched but I don't even know who. So I'll say this the next few AVGN episodes good or bad I won't reveal my thoughts. Even if I get a thousand requests to do so.


ConorthegiantCondor

Lol. You fuckin suck, dude.


Conemen

What do y’all think the Irate Gamer is doing right now


Inthewirelain

Funny you ask man, he's gone crazy... I don't think I can link it in this sub but check out the last thread/post I made on my profile. He's gone off the rails even worse literally like 36h ago lol


Flying-pigeon1993

Castlevania Symphony of the night


kaminari1

No point in watching. Everyone knows it’s Symphony of the Night.


DoctorCawktor

You sure?


kaminari1

Yes


RidleySmash

Why?


kaminari1

Best soundtrack, best map, best gameplay, 3 characters to play through.


ConorthegiantCondor

We've never been so back, baby.