Anyone who knows me, knows that one of my favorite series of video games is Castlevania. I may be cheating a little bit but I haven't played/beaten all of the classic Castlevania games (1-4) (blasphamy!). I actually want to talk about the ones that I have beaten and discuss rather or not it can hold up in 3D with one of the more recent games Castlevania Curse of Darkness.
The general plot behind all Castlevania games is you play as ________ Belmont (usually) and you're going into Dracula's castle to kick his ass! AWESOME! In the first one you play as Simon Belmont and the game is ungodly hard (but amazing). The second one is crap, I haven't played it but you can look at the AVGN (Angry Video Game Nerd) review on www.cinemassacre.com for Castlevania II Simon's Quest. Or you can see Egoraptor's compare and contrast of Castlevania 1 and 2 on youtube. In Castlevania III you play as Trevor Belmont who was the first Belmont to hunt down Dracula. Why is it that only Belmonts can destroy Dracula? Because they are the only ones who can wield the legendary whip, Vampire Killer. In almost every Castlevania game, you're weapon is an awkwardly awesome whip. Basically, with most Castlevania games, you're hunting down Dracula with a whip. With all that being said, lets dig into the Castlevania games that I've beaten, starting with Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
Truth be told, Castlevania Symphony of the Night is my favorite game of all time. In this game you play as Alucard (backwards for Dracula) and you're doing what else? Beating the crap out of Dracula! This is the first game to adopt a completely non-linear play-style. Non-linear means that it isn't always clear where you're going but clear enough, this usually involves backtracking to an area that was previously unreachable. Let's look real quick at what this game did right.
1: IT'S HUGE!
This is a huge game, you are effectively exploring the whole castle twice. *Spoiler* Once right side up, and once upside down when the dark wizard Shaft creates a mirror image of the castle on top of the old one *end spoiler*. There are so many rooms to explore, enemies to find, it's great!
2: Weapons! As opposed to previous games where you just had your whip, you have many many options in this one. You can use swords, axes, throwing weapons, and equip all kind of armor. You can equip the kind of sword that fits your playstyle. A weaker quick striking one for people who like to go faster, or a big heavy sword for people who prefer power over speed.
3: Sub Weapons! Sub weapons have always been part of Castlevania, the original sub weapons are holy water, knives, axe, and cross. Alucard can use all of these plus a few more, I don't remember what they are at the moment but they aren't terribly useful but sub weapons are very powerful and a great part of any Castlevania game.
4: MUSIC!!!! The music to this game is fantastic. Every Castlevania game has amazing music and this one is no exception. The most notable piece of music is "Dracula's Castle (AKA Alucard's Theme)" which plays when you're exploring the beginning areas of the game. Other music in the game is good, like the Marble Gallery area and boss battle music.
This game isn't without it's faults, there are a couple of glaring issues but none so bad that it wrecks the game.
1: Where do I freaking go?! This is an issue that I've had in both of my playthroughs of the game. 90% of the time the game is crystal clear as to where you should go (or at least you can figure it out). The one part where I get stuck is Castle A (I'll call Castle A the normal Castle and Castle B the reverse one) in which there is a bridge that you have to break. In order to break the bridge, you have to make a Skeleton Ape enemy appear and break the bridge for you. How is anyone supposed to figure that out? First of all, there isn't a Skeleton Ape in the room to begin with, you have to go to a well hidden room, and hit a switch. That's the only part of the game where I get stuck and it annoys me because the game is very enigmatic about it.
2: There's an uber weapon?! If you want to wreck the game for yourself find a weapon called the Crissaegrim (I might be spelling that wrong). It's the most powerful weapon in the game and you can find it about halfway through the game. Admittedly I've used it on both of my playthroughs and it kills the challenge. Why? It has the highest strength of almost any weapon in the game and one push of the attack button hits the enemy 3 times. Once you get it, you're attack will be doing about 80 per hit, multiply that by 3 and you do 240 in one second. Most bosses have less than 3000, in other words, any boss after that point dies in 10 seconds. It kills the challenge and it can kill Dracula in under a minute, if you want the game to remain a challenge, DON'T USE THE CRISSAEGRIM!
Now I want to look briefly (I've gone on for awhile...) at the GBA/DS era Castlevania games. I'll look at them as a whole because they generally share the same strengths and shortcomings.
The Castlevania games on the GBA are Castlevania Circle of the Moon, Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance, and Castlevania Aria of Sorrow. All three of them are good games but Aria of Sorrow is the best of the three. Long story short, Harmony of Dissonance is too easy and boring, Circle of the Moon is ungodly difficult. Aria of Sorrow is a perfect blend between easy and difficult. Let's look at what they did right. The ones on the DS are Castlevania Order of Ecclesia, Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow, and Castlevania Portrait of Ruin.
1: Nearly all the strengths of Symphony of the Night. Every Castlevania game from that point adopted a non-linear style copying what Symphony of the Night did right.
2: Bosses, Castlevania games are well known for challenging bosses. What the GBA games did (not the DS games) that was interesting is bosses you fought earlier in the game, later became regular enemies! This tells you, holy crap, I've become so strong I can plow through this used to be a boss without any problem! The bosses are also creative and creepy (Legion, ugh). Some of them are larger than life, in every game you fight Death! Yes, Dracula is so powerful that he commands Death! Wow.
3: There's multiple play modes?!??!?!?!?!? Perhaps what I like the best about the GBA/DS games is that there's multiple play modes. You usually get to play as one of the support characters (Aria of Sorrow) or your main character's rival (Harmony of Dissonance). When doing these extra play modes it's more challenging because it's a throwback to the original style of Castlevania games. For that, I love it! There's also a boss rush mode that's freaking awesome.
The GBA/DS games all face the Where do I Freaking Go? Problem and a few more that make them irritating.
1: Less RPG, more platforming. The biggest culprit of this is Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow. Sometimes you'll get to a hard boss and you're ill equipped to defeat it! What do you do? Well you backtrack to that one area to get that one item that you sell to get enough money to buy another thing to do the thing at the thing!!!! In other words, what happens if you can't defeat a boss? 4 hours of leveling up! Plow through the boss, move on to the next one, easy.
2: Gimmicks. The GBA and DS games each have their own gimmicks that make the game salable, that's all well and good but some of them are just awkward. The biggest offenders are Circle of the Moon and Order of Ecclesia. I can talk more about Circle of the Moon because I kinda sorta hacked Order of Ecclesia. In Circle of the Moon, you get cards that allow you to perform magic spells with the aid of your whip. It's in your best interest to get all the cards because otherwise the game is impossible. Dead serious, if you don't get the stupid cards, the game cannot be beaten. The game forces you to submit to its gimmick!
Finally I'm going to talk about the game I'm currently playing called Castlevania Curse of Darkness. This game is a 3D platformer instead of a 2D platformer like the rest. There have only been 4 3D Castlevania games ever. 2 were on the N64 and were absolute flops. The other 2 are on the PS2, one of which I'm playing now. I'll simply talk about what I like, and what I don't like.
What I like
1: Combat system: It has a combat system similar to Kingdom Hearts, one of my favorite games of all time, and that's cool. You can pull of lots of combos and stuff with your weapon, it's great!
2: Bosses: Boss battles have a lot of buildup and drama to them, they rely on cunning and guarding to get yourself to victory. They're also quite hard... The boss battle against one of the side-characters, Saint Germain, was a lot of fun.
3: The little summony guys! This game's gimmick, you have summons called Innocent Devils. There are several different types of them (since when did this become Pokemon?). Why do you want them? Because they are amazing in battle! They will save your ass! Also, it's not terribly difficult to get a powerful one.
What I don't like
1: The lock on? The game has a seemingly pointless lock on system. I'd only find it useful if when you're locked on, your character aims his attacks towards what he's locked on to. He doesn't, it just makes the camera your mortal enemy, the camera then points to whatever you're locked on to and you lose sight of your surroundings. The only time it's useful is when you're trying to steal something.
2: There's no mini-map. What was great about the DS games is there was a mini map on the top screen so you could tell where you're going. In this game you have to press select to access the map, not a big issue except when you get to the biggest problem the game has...
3. EVERY ROOM LOOKS THE SAME!!! I kid you not, it's true. As a result I get turned around so often it isn't funny! Why do I get turned around? Fighting enemies makes your character move around the room, once enemies are gone, there are no distinct landmarks to tell where I'm going or where I came from. That's because every room looks the same!!! As a result you have to press Select every 30 seconds to make sure you're going the right way, because the game clearly won't help you with that.
Can Castlevania work in 3D? I think it can! The things I like, I really like. The game needs more distinct colors so you don't get turned around. It needs a mini map like the Kingdom Hearts series utilizes. What it does well, it does really well. I would love to see more Castlevania games in 3D.
Well, that was an unnaturally long post...
Till Next Time...
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