Castlevania

Vitals:

Year – 1986

Developer – Konami

Genre – Platformer

Starting Life – 16 Bars

Starting Lives – 3

Continues – Unlimited!!!

I only very vaguely remember Castlevania, which is one reason I want to go back and play it.  What I do remember is:  You have a whip, you beat things to death with it, there is lots of falling in holes, you want to kill Dracula because he ate the last piece of pizza.

So, I turned on the game, and without any huge storyline or anything here I am at these fancy looking gates and walking inside this big mansion.  Way to get things rolling, who needs character development before a game even starts right?  So there’s a long walk, and I’m all tensed up in case I have to run away from zombies and stuff … nothing happens.  I get to the end of the stage and there’s a doorway waiting for me – I walk in.  Man this game is easy.

So … stairs.  You walk up them right?  I’ll pretend it didn’t take me long to figure out I had to press the up button to walk up them.  Though I’m still having problems with the walking down them, sometimes I still fall in holes because I think my guy will be smart enough to take the stairs instead of jumping. 

I learned pretty quickly to beat up all the candles and such, they drop valuable things.  At first I thought the hearts were for health and was like ‘damn I’m never going to die’.  Then I had a special weapon and wanted to use it (now tell me that UP+attack is intuitive for using a special weapon).  I was pressing all kinds of combinations of stuff, then finally it works and he whips out a knife!  Great – how did I do that again?

Now ok – how is this fair?  I have a whip, I suck at jumping, and there is this bat that can fly around wherever it wants trying to kill me?  Well it sure succeeded, humiliating me while I tried to jump and beat it with my whip.  Why doesn’t it hurt the bat to touch me?  I mean that would only make sense right?

It’s kind of cool seeing the layout of the Mansion after defeating the ‘boss’ though.  At least I know that there is an end to this and I can see how much more work I have to do to get there.

I now hate giant flying heads, and moving platforms.  One or the other is hard enough to deal with, but both at the same time? Really?  Also, one hit kills squishing spike things over my head suck too.  Even one pixel maybe touching the side of one of those is a death sentence.  They must be super powered spike trap things of DOOM!

What went on in my mind at the end of this level:  “I made it to the end!  Why won’t this door open … wait, what’s that music?  OMG giant medusa head!! And I’m trapped between her and the door.  Oh, look the continue screen.  What do you know.”

I found an interesting staircase in the next level, there was no middle.  I figured it must lead somewhere extra special so I started trying to get up on it.  I did about everything I could figure to get up on the stupid thing, but since jumping didn’t land you on staircases I couldn’t see any way to get up there.  Waste of time.  It was around this time that my wife called me; I’d been safe for a while so I left forgetting to hit the start button.  I came back and I was dead … Figures I leave it for a minute and something come along and kills me.  Whatever right, it happens … then it happened to me again when I’d left it sitting for a while.  Then I noticed, hey there is this timer thing counting down … do I win most observant person in the world or what?

I had a ton of trouble with the next few bosses. Frankenstein was crazy, I spent so long mastering a strategy, and I killed him!  Then I got hit with the last flying bullet and died.  Twice.  Then I killed him!  And my game locked up.  At that point I thought the universe was trying to tell me something.  And it was – it was trying to tell me that I should get used to frustration … I spent most of a day starting stage 15 over and over and over again.  The grim reaper guy at the end was just too much for me.  On the plus side I really got to know that stage well.

The Good Stuff:

How bad can it be, you’re going to kill a vampire.  Just pretend its Edward Cullen or something – that makes it twice as much fun.

Unlimited continues, that’s the best thing ever!

The way the special weapons are handled (after I figured out how to use them) is really cool.  It puts an extra touch of strategy in the mix when you’re trying to save a holy water and a knife drops on your head.  Then you remember, ok don’t hit that candle, and move on.

The Boss fights didn’t feel scripted, they always did something different – and the move I thought was going to be the one to beat them, turned out just getting me killed.  I really had to adapt on the fly, and while that was frustrating, boy did it give me a sense of accomplishment to finally beat down Igor and Frankie. 

The levels were just long enough to be interesting without making them too simple.  It was always a challenge to have to start a level over from the start when I died.  On the flip side, doing the Stage/Room thing (EX: Past Door 3 on Stage 2) and saving intermediate progress at the doors was excellent.  It made me go back just far enough to keep me from freaking out about dying.  Sometimes I would spend time just killing myself in different ways to figure out what worked and what didn’t in a level.

The Ugly Stuff:

The jumping mechanics were awful.  Only being able to jump up OR jump sideways was killer in a lot of situations.  Right up to the end of the game I was trying to jump backwards and control momentum while in the air (like I’m used to now).  Mastering the jump-whip and jump-special combos was pretty much essential in winning the game though – so as awful as it is you better get used to it.

I ran in to a bunch of brutal ‘how did my whip miss that guy’ stuff.  Not sure if it was bad programming or I just don’t really understand how the physics are supposed to work.  Sometimes I’d hit things I didn’t think I was going to, and in the same situation in a different area would miss completely.

Flying medusa heads suck.

Overall:

I really enjoyed the game.  My wife doesn’t think so because I was complaining a lot about being stuck and not knowing what to do – but sometimes that’s part of the fun.  I’m not sure if the game was too short, or my expectations have just changed over time.  It seems like a pretty good mix – the enemies are varied enough in different levels to keep it interesting without have too many to remember.

Aside from a few problems during gameplay it was quite engrossing.  And hey if you’re looking for replay value?  The End Game screen pops up for a few seconds, then you’re right back at the start, but starting 2x difficulty.  I think the game just figured that it couldn’t kill me enough the first time and wanted another crack at it.  “Oh, you made it!  Congratulations – Now try again, I’ll throw in more bad guys and make you twice as fragile!”

Breakdown:

Fun – 9/10

Yeah lots of fun.

Gameplay – 8/10

Some minor problems.

Story – 2/10

Must kill Dracula!  That was about it for storyline.

Audio – 2/10

Damn you death bleeps!  Stop mocking me!

Visual – 7/10

Sprites were pretty seamless.  Some nice backgrounds.  Nothing eye popping.

Arbitrary Coolness – 50/?

Three thumbs up!

Overall Score – 13/10