[Koji]

FKW flew by fast, and is now gone. Many posted threads specially dedicated to their own way of celebrating the Week, such as game journals, impressions and random favorites discussing. Maybe not all of us made new threads or even spent that much time posting about the cult developer, but that doesn't mean that we forgot about it. This is a space for the quieter folk to tell the story of their Week and the way they consummated their appreciation for Konami.
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I was away, lacking a connection to the Internet for two weeks, so I had forgotten about this special time of the year. I got back by friday, the FKW already ending, so there was no time to do anything special. As I reflected on the past few days, I realized that, in celebration, I had already beaten a few Castlevania: Circle of the Moon bosses; I was replaying the game in magician mode, basically chasing after bosses without bothering with levelling or finding secrets.

I had a rather good time with the Necromancer, a floating cloak with some kind of large staff, if I remember correctly, that he would apparently use to summon ghouls and balls of energy that would circle around him before shooting away into an arc that would attempt to cross the path of my avatar. As he'd be summoning the enemies I'd whip him a couple of times, and then I'd drop from the single platform in the room and start sweeping the enemies that would now populate the floor, quickly, before his balls attack had any chance to interrupt me. In his second form he'd summon bone-throwing skeletons, which would still succumb to Nathan's foot as he made them trip. But the Necromancer, instead of shooting anything at me, would now turn into a big green ball that'd bounce around in the screen for a while; contact with the sphere would take away half a bar of hit points from the vampire hunter. I eventually managed to beat him, but it took several tries without using any card and being rather underleveled (I did equip a few basic, start-of-the-game items.)

This was before I remembered about the Week. But when I did, I felt that the occasion called for a new experience. I had a copy of Gradius Galaxies, unopened, saved for a special moment such as this one. I methodically removed the cartridge from its box and placed it inside my Game Boy Micro. I even wore earphones, if only to submerge myself deeper into the core-shooting, option-leading action I was about to enjoy. Now, I must say that this is the first Gradius game that I've ever bought, as I'm not the biggest shmup coin-feeder there is, so the experience was fairly new to me. I selected mostly default settings for my Vic Viper and went off into a space journey with old-school Game Boy sound chip music and colorful sprite work. I believe that in my first try I got to or near the first boss, so I can't really call this a punishing game, but just perfect for a newbie such as myself, though there's the hard difficulty setting for the others, too.

From glass domino-like structures to fire lions and erupting inverted volcanoes that fall off, I can't complain about variety and eccentricity in the stage design, but this is already a series staple. I enjoy portable games maybe more than I enjoy home-bound ones, so I'm happy that I got to sink my teeth into, after years of only sampling, a quality title such as this one to get me started in the Gradius universe. Oh, and, by the way, I can only get just halfway through the fourth stage (out of eight) on a single continue right now, but I'm working on improving my bullet-dodging skills to explore the machiavellian hazards that this game still holds beyond my reach, like any true Konaminaut would.

[DarkTetsuya]

Unfortunately, ever since the IC forums died, I forgot you guys moved here... so I also forgot you celebrated FKW. (Cause you know I was around for the last two, right)

But at least I got in a mention of their lineup at AOU this year.

DT

[parkbench]

So yeah, I just figured out this whole "FKW" business a few hours ago. So I missed out boatloads! You're not alone.