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Retro Gaming With Castlevania and Friends
Jeremy Parish, over at 1up, has single-handedly taken up the banner of the classic game. Today, he talks about Castlevania and other classic vampire killers. From the article: "There was recently a rather lively debate on my personal blog about how silly the whole franchise has become, considering it started off as little more than a loving tribute to classic monster movies and has somehow mutated into a rather straight-faced effort by silver-haired pretty boys to battle vampires. It's like a horrible Ann Rice/DeviantArt mash-up, based around a not-quite-menacing villain whose job is basically to serve as a MacGuffin for exploring twisty castle corridors and has occasionally been depicted as a dude in a badly-designed tuxedo."
I got as far as "There was recently a rather lively debate on my personal blog ..." and then gave myself a swirly.
I've played a good bit of these games, or at least the ones that came out in the US....
My favorite, even more than the modern Metroidvanias, is still the first game. It's just such an elegant combination of control and reflexes. The thing about the game to realize is that your character is purposely limited (you can't control how high you jump, you can't change direction in mid-air, can't jump very high, can't walk fast and climb stairs even slower) but has a powerful main weapon. None of this two-pixel-long sword crap, your whip extends like four blocks ahead of you! And once powered up, which wasn't hard at all usually, it could take out most non-boss foes in one hit.
On the other hand, your enemies were a lot more manueverable than you, and of course it turns out that it was not Dracula who was the bane of Simon's existence but gaping pits. When a friend told me that "Dracula X" for the SNES's version of Dracula was fought over a giant hole and was made much harder as a result, I realized it: gravity is classic Castlevania's secret ultimate boss! "So, we meet again, player! I see you've met my lackey Dracula... a charming fellow, and his fangs are quite deadly, but he is as nothing next to my awesome power! Now you must fight us both at once!" (Bottomless Pit runs out and just looms underneath the fight.) "Take that!"
Hm. Bottomless Pit. Something makes me think a lot of people are going to use that as a character nickname for the new Smash Bros....