Well, only seven more days until Lunar knights comes out. I think I'll do Retrospective on Boktai, in 7 installments.

Day 1: Gameplay

In the original Boktai, your main weapon throughout the game was a solar gun, Gun del Sol. You got to customize it in many ways. Frame (Type/power of shot/spread), Lens (Element of shot/spread), Battery, and Grenade. The frames were divided into categories, based on the way they affected the shot/spread. The shots were energy shot from the gun like a projectile. The spreads were a large fan or sword shaped Emission from the gun, like a lightsaber. There were a few specialized frames, such as one that homed in on enemies, one that made enemies fall asleep, and one with ricochet shots. The lens affected the element of the shot, earth, fire, water, sky, sun, lunar, star, and dark. After many enemies were killed by used of the lens, it would level up, up to twice. It's power was lowest on level at I, and highest at III. The battery stored power, as one would guess. There was single, double, triple, quad, quint, astro, dark, and a rumored infinite (I do not know if this was real). Unlike in many games where the higher size upgrades replace lower ones, in Boktai you kept all of the batteries you found. Instead of only having five bars of energy when you have the quint, you could actually have 15 (1+2+3+4+5). The astro battery used power from the solar station, which charged power as you played. There were many different grenades, bomb (normal grenade), flash (stunned enemies), scan (revealed hidden things), rising sun (increased solar gauge's reading by 4 temporarily), pineapple (infinite number, strong, but took a long time to charge), and dark (big explosion, dark element). The dark gun, Gun del Hel, was obtainable, but if you didn't have the dark frame, dark lens, and dark battery, it would not work.

Sunlight was a MAJOR factor. On the game pack was a solar sensor, to measure intensity of light. Obviously, It was easier, and faster to charge, with more sunlight. Sunlight was involved in many ways other than charging. If you covered up the sensor lured an enemy (such a a zombie) under a skylight in a dungeon, then uncovered the solar sensor, It would take massive damage from sunlight. also, there were platforms in dungeons that only appeared when there was sunlight. In some dungeons, there were strong winds depending on the intensity of light. Light sensitivity may sound gimmicky, but it was extremely fun.

Stealth was also an important part. The less you were spotted by enemies, the higher your ranking.

In Boktai 2, the main weapon was not the solar gun. Instead, there were hammers, spears, swords, and eventually the solar gun. The gameplay style was also very different. Stealth was much less of a factor. You gained experience, and leveled up your stats the way you wanted. Every level, you chose which category/categories you wanted to distribute 3 stat points to. Vitality (life), Spirit (energy), Strength, and Agility. You could only hold 16 items total at once, unlike in boktai 1, where you could hold 99 of every item. Also, there was armor, which was not present in boktai 1. Also, there were different types of magic that replaced the lenses, for the most part the same, but with new additions. The weapon creation was very cool. You would forge two weapons together, and make stronger ones. Almost all weapons a special ability that could be created if the forging was done well enough. Also, considering that you used physical weapons, you didn't always use energy. Although I liked boktai 1 more, I still liked boktai 2.