May 1, 2002: Well, YOU KNOW THE DRILL by now! It's called College. But just because that's been my main priority, that doesn't mean I hadn't been adding things, bit by bit, to the great DCTP over the course of the past few months, as you are about to learn...

<--- New DCTP postage stamps! Collect them all!

ALT tags RULE.

In Cast, check out the excellent new background I made in January, the 'restored' Enemies and Ultimate Evils (meaning that the mediocre descriptions that were removed in 2000 in hope of replacement by better writing have been put back up), and within the latter, check out this special section on beating Dracula! Good luck on finding that extant hidden link, by the way... ^_^
A few changes have been made to Sound Mode, along with the MIDI links once again working...I have no idea why I didn't notice that....
Hey, we finally have a review for Nintendo Ultra Project Reality 64's CastleVania! Grace to my great ally, Darkmoon Firelyte, whom by the way is The Omnipotent. Read up on 'Vania six-four in Review!
You guys just don't give up, do you? Not that I mind. Keep sending in your ideas to add to the evergrowing list of Wanted requests, just like J.C.'s latest. And hey, while you weren't looking, I added a newsbyte to the Gallery, too. No new pictures yet, just a little blurb.

New Humor Me for that azz...
In the main BASE of ALL YOUR LAUGH, check out a lethal pun, another ThunderForce CV screensnap, my totally belated (xmas) Holiday Greeting, and to accompany Molly, another SUPER BONUS PICTURE that has LITTLE to do with DCTP!!!
Hey, don't forget to check out the newest Ying Girl comics!
New for Humoritten, a new entry for What would you do for a KastleVania Bar?, the latest Ohbyatchuary, an amusing, rearranged DCTMB thread named Beyond Help, and a text file called CastleVana Chroncle: Newbie; otherwise known as a newbee's guide to Symphony of the Night. And speaking of Symphony of the Night, check out the Random Thoughts while playing Symphony, originally written for The Castle Bathroom which is now BACK, by the way!!!
Part two of Slogra's First Date finally works again! Thanks to fellow DCTP reader, The Epyon, for raising the red HTML flag on it.

In the Miscmix, check out Battles Barely Perfect for some new, fairly contemporary Battles courtesy me and Jason (of BC), and A GAMELOAD of zipped CastleVania Adventure battle MP3s courtesy fellow battler, 'Colonel' Bahumot! I really get a kick out of hearing players beat the game for the first time. So far we've got two, Josh "FunkDOC" Ballard and now Bahumot. But I'll not spoil all of it for you... Victories like these were truly an essense of gaming back in the day...BATTLE ON!!!
II001: The Year in Groovy-Typeness, as of current the largest part of Groovy-Type Stuff, has been finally completed, much to my absolute delight, and groundwork for the new issue, II00II: Omoshiroi, has already been lain down for your approval! You can check it out by either passing through on the 2001 Groovy-Type Stuff section, or by its new Miscmix slot beneath Groovy-Type Stuff, OMOSHIROI. Check it out!
New Potent Quotables, as always...
Also, let's not forgo the fact that I CVNY has been pulled from the previously mentioned 2001 chapter and coralled into its own Miscmix section by the same name.
All of the files in Contra INSANELY DIFFICULT CORPs work now. Not that, ehhh...more than 3 people have ever cared about it. The broken links are apparently a problem that has always raised its ugly head during DCTP's history, just like the Slogra's First Date glitch.
Check out the new picture and MP3s I've added to Download Deeze, which includes a quaint little CV collage by ROX, who ROX for writing me.
Read up on melee, the new Videogame Misc. section featuring some investigative reporting on what looks (to me) to be the greatest fighting game since the Samurai Spirits/Shodown and Marvel vs Capcom series; Super Smash Brothers Melee!!!
Oh, and by the way, new stuff on More than misc. the eye, featuring a really trippy Super NES/Genesis-style commercial done in 1992! You've been warned.

I've gone into GBOOK's book itself and have finally changed its layout. Now it really does look more like an Epitaph screen.
Hey, about that hidden link I mentioned earlier, two more souls have successfully discovered it, and their names have been etched for all time into the walls of the Awards hall.
Y'know, a while ago, I was thinking about making a DCTP award of some sort to grant to cool CV sites, as many as there are...
Grant? Ugh...terrible, terrible pun. -_-
Hey, be sure to scope out the eerieness of Links' new background (also made in January, along with its completed DCTP-MA explanation up top!

The next step for Links? Breaking up that huge compendium into its individual sections... CastleVania Links, KyassuruBuania Saito (that's how you say CastleVania Site in Japanese), NES Links, Videogames! (which is by the way the final resting place for the meager ALL YOUR BASE collection), Monster in my Pocket Links, Assorted Links, Search to Destroy, Puerto Rico!, and finally, the anime and Japanese sites group, "The Rising Sun of Japan!"

Next up? Well, offline, Epitaph is being further wittled down, expanded, and updated, so look for that in the furture.

Ey, by the way, DCTP's counter has surpassed the 85000 mark! That essentially means that the Title Screen has been loaded and reloaded over 85000 times during the past 5 years! I'd like to send love to Dee and Maria from Nokialand for the wonderful Slogra shirt they artsy'd and sent my way. Love you guys. I've taken several good pictures of it with my digital camera, and once I'm photogenic again, I'll wear it with pride, snap myself a few times (ow) and post 'em to Miscmix's Hit Me archive!

There is a lot of CastleVania news, but since I wanted to upload this today, it's been cut from here and will appear next update.

Other News:
"Battle on".........where did I last hear that? Oh yeah, Xena. Isnt' that show over with? ^_^ When was that, like, 99?
Before steam on this one really picked up, I took a little unannounced vacation from The CastleVania WorldWide (at least, I really tried to,...) and turned to my art side of things. On February 15, 2002, when I bough Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country, I met a group of young ladies who noticed my scribbles. They said that I should post them at a site called Side 7. "Side 7...? Didn't I once link that site in DCTP's Links? The Gaogaigar/robots page?" So I visited Side 7 and quickly learned it was a completely different Side. So I signed up for the place and uploaded several of my pictures to my archive. The drive to do this was very strong during the first week or two...as it always is with such things as new sites or message boards...then the coals soon became cold...
One day, I'll go back and add more to my archive, but for now, why not give my collection a whirl? Pass along your thoughts, as you wish.

January 15, 2002: I remember how Scott Helfrich of CVInteractive once celebrated the news of a DCTP update on his Belmont's Revenge site. Unfortunately, I have NO idea of his whereabouts on the other half of America. Scott, if you're reading this, please gimme a holler!

The greatness of DCTP continues, thanks to you guys.
Have you ever wondered what the manual to the original Japanese version of CastleVania III, Akumajo Densetsu, looks like? Dream no longer! Thanks to the great one known as Protogem, just click this link, and away you go to an open directory listing containing his scans! (This folder also contains content for the JAPANESE section. AD manual pages are denoted by an "inst" prefix.)
Just what I always Wanted... check out several fresh new plans by The Fans, from The Fans, and for The Fans. And Konami, if they're listening.
A laudable Humor Me upgrade! Along with 2 new additions for 2002, including a large project by Lisker, Fleaman VS Medusa DEATH MATCH, in Ying Girl's section, her most recent submissions have been explained, including for her 2 brand new comics; a good sign of her possible return to The CastleVania WorldWide. Lastly, in Humoritten, read the latest amusing Ohbyatchuary!
From the Miscmix, I've got more Potent Quotables for such a mind.
Finally for that tail, new Links abound, featuring the finest of the Japanese CastleVania sites. I've only scratched the surface of my current collection of new bookmarks, so expect great linkage up next!
Next up, a bit of news from JC, one of this week's Wanted contributors...

CV in the News...
"Im creating a CV Fighting game using M.U.G.E.N. Custom made characters from the old games begining with SotN, including bad guys such as Dracula. Of course you may NOT play as Dracula; I'd like to keep him as an endgame character. There will also be characters not seen in the CV games, but very few. All characters have Super and Hyper moves. IF all goes well, I'm gonna see if Konami likes the idea. Its name will be...Dracula Battle! Yes, Im using the name and Im giving Eric Roman credit. But I had the idea since M.U.G.E.N. and CV first came out. Even still, I give credit to Eric Roman once more for giving the idea to the CV fans. If needed to contact me about this, contact me on AIM with the name JCDaedalus." --JC
Good to hear we've another ambitious M.U.G.E.N. project underway, but the bonus here is I've got a hand in it as well. Stay 2n'd.
In other CV news, Eric Roman is Ready For War...see that lone sprite on the left? No, the one beneath the grinning Skull Knight... That's me, based off of Trevor Belmont and destined to be part of the excellent CastleVania Online project! That's right, kinfolk! As Anapanman sees it, I'm going to be a boss character (and as I'm planning it, one particularly nasty boss character)! That's rather interesting; it's because of The CastleVania WorldWide that we have the CVO project to look forward to, and what better than to have the top players in the CVWW game in this online CV game?! Expect also to duel with Kurt Kalata, as well, he he he... But against me, lemmey steal the line I remember seeing on Nintendo Power's CV3 map..."PREPARE FOR THE FIGHT OF YOUR LIFE!" Mix a slew of unseen Belmont moves and attack methods with a definite reference to Samurai Shodown's Ukyo Tachibana, and Eric Roman is what you get. I'll give you a hint now, though: Use the Dagger.

He he he he. Thanks for stopping by again. As I said it in the 80's, "...peace, bees, beezettes and waspspsps!"

January 4, 2002 (10:04PM): I've polished, shoeshined, dry-cleaned, and sexied-up Intabyu Desu big time, so check the interview trio out! I'm sure you'll approve of the new colors and graphic arrangements. I've even added loads of pictures to Mike Erickson's interview. Enjoy! Hey Mike! Holler at me! We've got Mariko business to discuss!

Oh yeah! Check out this great CastleVania Dracula X-themed page with some great CV variety! Watch those Medusae...

January 4, 2002: I originally had some trouble moving into the new DCTP base, so this is the real first newsbyte since the move to The Nintendo Old Skool.

New Humor includes DCTP Ate My Balls Part 3!
Check out Potent Quotables for many revisions and some new knowledge, courtesy the CVInteractive fam.
You'll also find some revisions, reformattings, and other fixes to a few of my Written entires.

I never got any word back about the Eternal CastleVania burnout situation, but I have to be honest; I'm glad to have made my return in such an environment.
Being at The Old Skool really reminds me of the kind of site Dracula's Curse was in the Summer of 1997, before Slogra corrupted it for all time; DCTP was more of a NES site, as opposed to a CastleVania site.
While this certainly is a CV site, from time to time, I need to be reminded of its original NESness, and remember that the Skull Knight and Bone Dragon King were originally THE MAN.

I love the NES.

January 2, 2002: The headlines for this one are rather crammed. First of all, Happy New Year! This is DCTP Project Two Thousand Two in your face! Akemashite omedetougozaimasu! Kore wa DCTP PUROJIEKUTO NI SEN NI NEN desu! Hello to Kiyoka-san!

A few days ago, the Eternal CastleVania server's hard disk fried out, but as I was beginning to return DCTP to Fortunecity, I received an IM from Phifey, of the quite awesome, quite classic Nintendo Old Skool, and just like that, he offered to host DCTP, which is quite excellant of him. Many thanks, Phife-didogg!

Now for some newses as we continue on this REALLY messed up newsbite setup...

The Castle Bathroom shall return for The Nisenninen! (Nisenninen is Japanse for year 2002, if you don't know.) Prepare to relish in TCB's glorious comeback with its all new look, lots of new and entertaining content, and a bit of help from yours truly, of course.

For Humor Me, I've activated the rough versions of Humoritten and Ying Girl Humor Me, and I've added the final entries to round out Humor Me's finest year, thanks to Anapan and Charlotte. Enjoy, DCTP kinfolk!
Catch you on the MBs. Peace. And if anyone's seen this DCTP-MA explanation on top of Links, please disregard the incomplete spiel...

December 2, 2001: It was announced on DCTMB that I had added this in late October (though it was never officially updated), but have you read about Dracula's Curse THE GLITCH yet?
Also, I finally added The Warp Zone to Links. The nifty new Alucard GIF on top was made by a pixel-talented guy named Akone! Very good work merging the CV3 Al with the SotN one, dude!
By the way, on the left side of this listing, you'll see your first official preview of CastleVania III Dracula's Curse THE WALLPAPER!!! G'day, CV mates.