The Castlevania Dungeon

I must admit though, the NES era Castlevania logo is so much better than this one.

I love finding something on the internet that still exists after decades, and one such site is Kurt Kalata’s The Castlevania Dungeon (“This site uses HTML and CSS”) which, surprisingly, updated again last year, nine years after its previous update. Although, it was mostly a catch-up post just to let the world know it probably wouldn’t be updating again.

Kurt has moved on to Hardcore Gaming 101 since then, which build an amazing repository of classic gaming information, tore it all down, and built it up again. Meanwhile the Dungeon continues carrying all kinds of useful information on 35 years’ worth of games.

It’s what the Web was meant to be: obsessive fandom over a single game series, presented in straight HTML markup.

I’ve said before that I am heartsick for the era of the internet where the web was rife with sites like the Castlevania Dungeon. Yet, like that one video store here in my town that somehow survives even now, it persists, and that lifts my spirits. I know it’s too much to expect it to last forever, but I hope it does.

The Forum gives a Bad Gateway error, it is true, and of the main sites on the Links page only five of the 16 still work -one of the broken ones is the site for Konami of Japan. The internal pages other than the forum seem to work though. They lists all the games, has pages for artwork and music, and tries to untangle the storyline. It has a collection of fan fiction. It even hosts a few shrines to individual games, with an entertainingly lo-fi shrine to Aria of Sorrow.

Aria of Sorrow Citadel creator xenx2 still lists MSN and AIM as contact points. Hopefully they still watch their HoTMaiL address! What you can’t see here is the animation on the dripping blood at the top.

This is what the web was about, in the early days, and, I think, it’s still among what it’s best at.

Metal Slug M.I.A.

\An awesome fansite about this history of classic hardcore NeoGeo run-n-gun series Metal Slug, there’s lots of information and screenshots scavenged from Japanese gaming magazines about its development!

Early screenshot of a development version of Metal Slug, scavenged from Gamest.
All images in this post from Metal Slug M.I.A., which has many more of them!
Early in development, you spent the entire game in the Metal Slug tank.
You could rescue soldiers who would then help you in battle, such as the one in the white uniform in this image riding on the Slug.
Beta screenshot of the final boss fight with General Morden.

Metal Slug M.I.A.