Castlevania Series Run: Castlevania

What's that? Is that come Castlevania?! HOLY SHIT ITS SOME CASTLEVANIA!  Basically, since before I came to Japan me and a buddy have been slowly working out way through the Castlevania games.  Most of these playthroughs are replays for me as I've already played the ever loving shit but the series is always a ton of fun and I can't get enough.

So the story so far is that I've beaten Casltevania 1,2 and 3 along with Super 4, Dracula X and Bloodlines.  Once I finally finish slogging through R-Type tactics I plan to move onto the Rondo of Blood remake on PSP and then Symphony, Aria of Sorrow and all the games after that.

So what I thought I'd do, was retell my experience replaying this series.  It's been mostly rage, but that's OK, it would be boring if every post read "beat it in like 3 hours, game's well easy" so at least my lack of skill makes things interesting.

Well, the best place to start I figured would be at the beginning of the series, so about 3 weeks ago I fired up Castlevania for the NES!

Now before I continue, reviewing old media has been kind of played out and it's not something I want to spend a great deal of time doing.  Granted, I've been playing video games since the age of 4, so old games have been a big part of my life, and using this blog to reflect on them would be fun, but it's not something I want to get bogged down in.

Anyway moving on...HOLY SHIT THIS GAME IS SO DAMN GOOD!  One thing I really love is a hard game, and Castlevania is one hard goddamn game.  Most of the time the challenge isn't too bad, but other times it's just complete bullshit, but that's fine, when you do beat this beast of a game it feels satisfying as all hell, like you really earned that win.

Anyway, the story is simple NES stuff, you play as Simon Belmont, professional vampire killer and you have to storm Dracula's castle and go wreck his shit.  On the way you'll fight all sorts of shit like bats, mummy's, gorgons, Frankensteins monster and all sorts of shit.

Now with NES games being limited in space it's not exactly a long game, so of course its hard as all damn hell.  Like I said before, mostly the challenge is fair except for one thing that really makes me want to go and smash my face against the closest flat surface, and that, is the damage jump.  What I mean by this is when you take damage, you fly backwards, and when you fly backwards, you usually end up in a bit or some spikes or whatever, and you die.  The level design is actually really good for this game but it's so hard to appreciate it properly when you die for the god knows how many time because of that damage jump.

That said, I think I've gotten a lot better at this game since I last played it because this time round I got through the game with little to no problem.  There is one corridor, that's famous for being the ultimate in 8-bit dogshit, where there is these resilient axe throwing enemies, and their backed up by flying gorgon heads and getting through that corridor is a real trail in patience and skill, however, CHECK THIS SHIT OUT!

This is a screen shot I took to show my buddy of me getting through that godawful corridor without taking a damn hit, pretty proud of that crap right there.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how proud you might be of pulling that off because the boss right after that is Death, which is something that always confused me a bit.  Death himself, takes orders from goddamn Dracula, how does that even work?  I mean, Dracula's pretty strong in this series, but why is the deity of death itself taking orders from one goddamn vampire, surely Death is stronger than Dracula?! but whatever, Death makes a good boss, albeit an annoying as shit one in the older games

So you kill Death, go through some more annoying as shit stages and then you fight Dracula.  Dracula has 2 forms, one where you gotta hit him in the face, and then some big monster form...that you have to hit in the face.  In all the older castlevania games you ALWAYS have to hit Dracula in the goddamn face.  You think after being killed and coming back so many damn times he'd have one of his minions make him some kind of metal face mask or something, but no, I guess he's not that smart.

So you kill Dracula and his castle crumbles, you watch the credits and then you can walk away safe in the knowledge that the world is safe from evil Vampire bastards.  Castlevania 1 is a brilliant little game and it's a shame that a lot of the fans of Lords of Shadow or the newer metroidvanias, the younger fans that is, probably haven't played this. 

So go buy it or emulate it or whatever, just play it, its really goddamn fun.

Next time I'll be recanting my tale of Casltevania 2.....oh dear