After playing through Mystical Ninja on N64 a while back, I was intrigued to finally try to play the other big (and infamous) N64 Konami game I'd never beaten before. While I have beaten Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness on the N64, I'd never tried the game it's so largely based off of. I thought this would be a fun thing to stream, and I played the Japanese version over two different streams over the course of around 6 hours playing as Reinhardt on normal mode (and even got the good ending on my first try, not even realizing there was a good ending to shoot for ^^;)~. This game has a pretty negative reputation, and I'd say my time with it largely confirmed for me that it deserves that reputation XD. While I think that streaming it definitely made the more frustrating parts more tolerable, it's still not something I think I'll ever wanna play again XP
The game takes place in 1852, and Dracula has begun to awaken after nearly 100 years since he was last defeated. The two playable protagonists (whose quests don't overlap at all, so I take it to mean that only one of them actually defeats Dracula in the end), Reinhardt Schneider and Carrie Fernandez both travel to Wallachia to go to Dracula's castle and put him to rest. They meet a series of other characters along the way, including an older vampire hunter, a beautiful young vampiric maiden, and a strange little boy, but the story isn't terribly interesting. It's very of its time as far as trying to be cinematic in its presentation, but mostly comes off as campy and silly, which fits Castlevania just fine, so I don't see it as much of a problem. It does what it needs to to bind the stages together, and it's good enough for that.
The gameplay itself is where the bad (and deserved) reputation starts coming into play. The game takes place across 10 or so stages with certain stages or versions of stages being unique to each of the two playable characters. You go around 3D environments solving puzzles, doing platforming challenges, fighting enemies, and collecting items to get to the end of the stage where a boss often awaits. This is a game with some pretty dang clunky platforming and combat that is wall-to-wall platforming and combat. It can be conquered, but it's overall a challenge that will frustrate more than it will feel like a fun level of challenge.
The combat is a combination of an upgradable main weapon (of which Carrie has the better between the two heroes), a much weaker secondary weapon, and then the ammo-dependent sub-weapons like the cross and axe that Castlevania knows so well. The weaker secondary weapon is so weak you'd basically never want to use it for anything except breaking a torch to try and get an item from it, and the sub-weapons are good for the range but often annoyingly weak for what they are. The main weapon isn't much good unless its upgraded, but those aren't the big problem.
The biggest problems with the combat are the lack of any Ocarina of Time lock-on feature (and OoT was out by now, so Konami has no excuse XD) as well as the awful camera that comes along with it. The C-buttons are used for things like your secondary weapons, looking around, and picking up items, so they don't control your camera. Only pressing R realigns the camera behind you OR, if you have an enemy nearby, focuses on the enemy, and you have no choice but to focus on that enemy even if you'd much rather look somewhere else by pressing R. The lock-on that is there is entirely automatic, leading to a lot of cases fighting several enemies where it can be difficult just to hit what's in front of you. The boss design is overall alright and often fun, but the combat controls never feel like anything you aren't fighting against just as much as the monsters and demons.
The stage design is overall not awful, but what DOES make the platforming awful isn't just the awkward camera, but it's also the fact that your edge grab is awful and your jumps feel quite floaty. The jumps are something you can get accustomed to, but the fact that your edge grab, an edge grab that much of the platforming in the game relies on, can at times simply decide not to work and drop you to your death. And some stages have little or no save points in them (shakes angry fist at Duel Tower), so dying from something that wasn't your fault at all to then redo a bunch of frustrating combat and platforming is a pretty common experience.
The stage design itself ranges from annoying to feeling alright, but the one stage whose design is MOST awful is the most infamous one: the alchemy tower where you need to safely deliver magical nitro through a bunch of danger without either getting hit or jumping, lest you eat immediate death. I managed to do that in one try, somehow, (which felt AWESOME, especially on stream X3), but I didn't so much feel satisfied having done it, so much as I was only relieved that the segment I thought would be a playthrough ender was finally over and done with XP
The presentation is alright for the time in terms of graphics. The humanoid models look VERY N64, but in a sort of charming, low-polygon retro aesthetic and not a particularly uncanny valley-type of 3D human modeling. Common for Konami of the 90's, however, even their not so good games have good music, and this is no exception. This game has a pretty good soundtrack composed of remixed of classic tracks as well as a few of its own, and although I'm not gonna rush to slap any of it on an MP3 player, there were several moments during the game I thought "gosh, this game has some pretty good music". As far as changes between the English and Japanese releases go, there are almost none save for the Japanese version having on-cart saves rather than requiring a controller pack to save with. Additionally, a curious thing that is identical between versions is the voice acting, which is in English in both versions.
Verdict: Not Recommended. For an N64 game, this is on the boarder of being hesitantly recommended, and it would be if Legacy of Darkness weren't just this game but good. This game's main problems stem from it being so unpolished because it was rushed out for a holiday release. Legacy of Darkness takes what are for the most part the same stages and polishes up the level design (no more alchemy tower~), platforming controls, and combat all to a degree where that game is actually fun and recommendable. If you're gonna play any N64 Castlevania at all, it should be Legacy of Darkness or nothing, because after having already played that game, this game just feels like an unfinished beta, and that's because it basically is.
The game takes place in 1852, and Dracula has begun to awaken after nearly 100 years since he was last defeated. The two playable protagonists (whose quests don't overlap at all, so I take it to mean that only one of them actually defeats Dracula in the end), Reinhardt Schneider and Carrie Fernandez both travel to Wallachia to go to Dracula's castle and put him to rest. They meet a series of other characters along the way, including an older vampire hunter, a beautiful young vampiric maiden, and a strange little boy, but the story isn't terribly interesting. It's very of its time as far as trying to be cinematic in its presentation, but mostly comes off as campy and silly, which fits Castlevania just fine, so I don't see it as much of a problem. It does what it needs to to bind the stages together, and it's good enough for that.
The gameplay itself is where the bad (and deserved) reputation starts coming into play. The game takes place across 10 or so stages with certain stages or versions of stages being unique to each of the two playable characters. You go around 3D environments solving puzzles, doing platforming challenges, fighting enemies, and collecting items to get to the end of the stage where a boss often awaits. This is a game with some pretty dang clunky platforming and combat that is wall-to-wall platforming and combat. It can be conquered, but it's overall a challenge that will frustrate more than it will feel like a fun level of challenge.
The combat is a combination of an upgradable main weapon (of which Carrie has the better between the two heroes), a much weaker secondary weapon, and then the ammo-dependent sub-weapons like the cross and axe that Castlevania knows so well. The weaker secondary weapon is so weak you'd basically never want to use it for anything except breaking a torch to try and get an item from it, and the sub-weapons are good for the range but often annoyingly weak for what they are. The main weapon isn't much good unless its upgraded, but those aren't the big problem.
The biggest problems with the combat are the lack of any Ocarina of Time lock-on feature (and OoT was out by now, so Konami has no excuse XD) as well as the awful camera that comes along with it. The C-buttons are used for things like your secondary weapons, looking around, and picking up items, so they don't control your camera. Only pressing R realigns the camera behind you OR, if you have an enemy nearby, focuses on the enemy, and you have no choice but to focus on that enemy even if you'd much rather look somewhere else by pressing R. The lock-on that is there is entirely automatic, leading to a lot of cases fighting several enemies where it can be difficult just to hit what's in front of you. The boss design is overall alright and often fun, but the combat controls never feel like anything you aren't fighting against just as much as the monsters and demons.
The stage design is overall not awful, but what DOES make the platforming awful isn't just the awkward camera, but it's also the fact that your edge grab is awful and your jumps feel quite floaty. The jumps are something you can get accustomed to, but the fact that your edge grab, an edge grab that much of the platforming in the game relies on, can at times simply decide not to work and drop you to your death. And some stages have little or no save points in them (shakes angry fist at Duel Tower), so dying from something that wasn't your fault at all to then redo a bunch of frustrating combat and platforming is a pretty common experience.
The stage design itself ranges from annoying to feeling alright, but the one stage whose design is MOST awful is the most infamous one: the alchemy tower where you need to safely deliver magical nitro through a bunch of danger without either getting hit or jumping, lest you eat immediate death. I managed to do that in one try, somehow, (which felt AWESOME, especially on stream X3), but I didn't so much feel satisfied having done it, so much as I was only relieved that the segment I thought would be a playthrough ender was finally over and done with XP
The presentation is alright for the time in terms of graphics. The humanoid models look VERY N64, but in a sort of charming, low-polygon retro aesthetic and not a particularly uncanny valley-type of 3D human modeling. Common for Konami of the 90's, however, even their not so good games have good music, and this is no exception. This game has a pretty good soundtrack composed of remixed of classic tracks as well as a few of its own, and although I'm not gonna rush to slap any of it on an MP3 player, there were several moments during the game I thought "gosh, this game has some pretty good music". As far as changes between the English and Japanese releases go, there are almost none save for the Japanese version having on-cart saves rather than requiring a controller pack to save with. Additionally, a curious thing that is identical between versions is the voice acting, which is in English in both versions.
Verdict: Not Recommended. For an N64 game, this is on the boarder of being hesitantly recommended, and it would be if Legacy of Darkness weren't just this game but good. This game's main problems stem from it being so unpolished because it was rushed out for a holiday release. Legacy of Darkness takes what are for the most part the same stages and polishes up the level design (no more alchemy tower~), platforming controls, and combat all to a degree where that game is actually fun and recommendable. If you're gonna play any N64 Castlevania at all, it should be Legacy of Darkness or nothing, because after having already played that game, this game just feels like an unfinished beta, and that's because it basically is.