SchlockyBalboa
It’s honestly not even that fundamentally different from your standard 2D Mario but as somebody who’s only ever seen permutations on the New Super formula in his lifetime the added emphasis on creative presentation and imaginative stage gimmicks really skyrockets this into the stratosphere for me. It just feels so alive in a way New Soup never could. A really brilliantly paced little adventure too, it feels like there‘s some new wacky idea hiding around every corner til the very end. I’ve logged an embarrassing amount of time into both Mario Makers so this type gameplay should feel endlessly repetitive yet somehow it does not! Haven’t fucked around with the postgame or the multiplayer quite yet but if it’s anything like the campaign I can’t wait
Before the days of the Switch, the lines between console and handheld gaming were much more defined. Console games represented the cutting edge, they felt boundless and expansive. Handheld gaming on the other hand, was a medium defined by its restrictions. These games were small, both in terms of storage space and literal screen real size. They had to be designed to be compact, with shorter on-the-go play sessions in mind. As a kid, that didn’t really bother me. The convenience of being able to play video games in my bed trumped any interest in spectacle. But I think there’s also a real magic to handheld games, one that’s kind of been lost to time. There’s an intimacy to the experience, that tiny screen so close to your eyes, the speakers right next to your ears, the entirety of the system in your hands. It felt oddly personal, these miniature worlds you can fit in your pocket, seemingly crafted just for you.
I think about that a lot when replaying Minish Cap, a game that revels in its smallness. Its map is tiny but dense, inviting you to appreciate the nooks and crannies just as much as the larger picture. Thats where this iteration of Hyrule truly comes alive, a land that breathes in its smallest moments. The size-changing mechanic is more than just a gimmick, it’s a statement. This a game about appreciating scale, about minding the little details all around you. Behind every character, every wall, every tree stump could be a connection, a secret, an adventure, hidden in plain sight. While I’ve certainly explored bigger games, few are those I feel as close to as this one. Every pixel feels familiar, like I’ve traveled through it a million times before. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to travel through it a million times more.
I think about that a lot when replaying Minish Cap, a game that revels in its smallness. Its map is tiny but dense, inviting you to appreciate the nooks and crannies just as much as the larger picture. Thats where this iteration of Hyrule truly comes alive, a land that breathes in its smallest moments. The size-changing mechanic is more than just a gimmick, it’s a statement. This a game about appreciating scale, about minding the little details all around you. Behind every character, every wall, every tree stump could be a connection, a secret, an adventure, hidden in plain sight. While I’ve certainly explored bigger games, few are those I feel as close to as this one. Every pixel feels familiar, like I’ve traveled through it a million times before. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to travel through it a million times more.
Immediately going into rotation alongside Pikuniku and Donut County in my “sillycore games you can beat in an afternoon featuring charming low-detail graphics, simple gameplay and surprisingly leftist messaging”. It’s a niche genre but baby I’m the target demographic
2022
A fantastic game that by all accounts shouldn’t even be playable, much less this enjoyable. Signalis is an exercise in player torment. Every system is as cumbersome as possible. Movement is lethargic, aiming is clunky, ammo, health and save points are scarce and your inventory space is microscopic. It’s a game built around going in and out of doors and half of them are locked and the other half are difficult to even enter because you get caught on the surrounding geometry more often than not. It’s a mechanically hostile experience. And it’s fucking brilliant. In the absence of convenience emerges this incredible element of strategy. Every step I had to ask myself “If I get into combat will it be worth the resource cost?”, “If I try to run past enemies, am I just going to get myself hurt?”, “If I do get hurt, is it worth sparing the health pickup?” “Do I even have enough health pickups on me?”, “Was it smart to pack the flashlight or should I have risked leaving it behind?”, “Can I spare the inventory space to pick up this ammo?”, “How far is the next save room?”, and of course, “What in God’s name could be waiting for me around the corner?” Point blank: I’ve never played a game that forced me to engage with it in the way this one did. Signalis is 75% friction mechanics and 25% the coolest fucking art direction you’ve ever seen. Most people are probably going to hate it for that. Honestly, I don’t even know if I’d classify most of my playthrough as “fun” per se and there are certainly things about it I dislike (as much as I love the systemic jank, the puzzles are way too fucking obtuse for my tastes). But holy shit dude what a bold, confident and just visceral artistic statement this is. Nothing but respect.
1986
There’s a brief moment halfway through Castlevania where you’re scaling a crumbling castle wall. As you march forwards, you catch a glimpse of a tower in the background. The game doesn’t even really draw any attention to it, but any player who takes notice would immediately understand—that must be Dracula’s tower. In an instant you’re struck by how much progress you’ve made since first storming his gates, how expansive this castle truly is, and how much farther your enemy may still lie in wait. It’s this really remarkable moment of honest-to-god world building in an NES game, a testament to the unparalleled attention to detail that covers every corner of Castlevania.
And then, in all likelihood, you get hit by a fireball and fall to your death.
It’s always great when you can play a classic for the first time and discover that it still absolutely holds up. Everything about Castlevania is still just the absolute shit. This is a video game’s video game, through and through. Tight gameplay, killer presentation and a truly insane soundtrack. Seriously, there’s only like 30 minutes of music total and somehow every note is iconic. It’s a game that’s schlocky and thoughtful in equal measure—just the way I like ‘em. I really can’t believe it took me this long to finally give it a shot.
More than anything, I find myself completely obsessed with how Castlevania feels to control. Simon Belmont moves like a sack of bricks, whips like he’s shaking off carpal tunnel and jumps with all the flexibility of a steel beam. It’s stiff, incredibly stiff, but everything in the game is designed around it. You don’t have the mobility to brute force through stages like you can in comparable action platformers, and even if you could, the overbearing enemy placement would bite you in the ass. It forced me to play very deliberately, assessing each step carefully, while still being aggressive enough that I didn’t leave any openings for enemies. It’s a game that asks a lot of the player, but if you’re willing to rise to the challenge, I found it to be an incredibly rich, rewarding experience.
For what it’s worth, aside from allowing myself some practice runs on Death’s Hallway and circumventing grinding for hearts before each Dracula attempt, I beat this without the use of save states. And I’m really glad I did, as I don’t think this would have been nearly as captivating had I allowed myself to save after each tough section. The fun of Castlevania lies in the trial and error, in getting better with each attempt, figuring out the perfect route, building muscle memory, committing each stage to memory to the point it becomes second nature until finally, FINALLY you overcome a challenge that once seemed insurmountable. I can totally respect why that gameplay loop won’t connect with some, but personally, I loved it. The sheer thrill of shoving holy water so far up Dracula’s ass that it causes his entire infrastructure to crumble and finally seeing those goofy-ass credits roll is some of the most satisfied I’ve felt beating a game in my life. Man, what an adventure.
Recently, I’ve found myself in possession of a lot of free time and a brand-new Retroid Pocket 2S. I wanted a chance to test out some of the emulators, so I decided I’m gonna marathon some more classic Castlevania. But since I’m a sicko, I’m ALSO going to be marathoning some 2D Metroid. At the same time. I’ve got 14 more games to go across both franchises, so wish me luck. If this first step was any indication, I’m gonna need it.
And then, in all likelihood, you get hit by a fireball and fall to your death.
It’s always great when you can play a classic for the first time and discover that it still absolutely holds up. Everything about Castlevania is still just the absolute shit. This is a video game’s video game, through and through. Tight gameplay, killer presentation and a truly insane soundtrack. Seriously, there’s only like 30 minutes of music total and somehow every note is iconic. It’s a game that’s schlocky and thoughtful in equal measure—just the way I like ‘em. I really can’t believe it took me this long to finally give it a shot.
More than anything, I find myself completely obsessed with how Castlevania feels to control. Simon Belmont moves like a sack of bricks, whips like he’s shaking off carpal tunnel and jumps with all the flexibility of a steel beam. It’s stiff, incredibly stiff, but everything in the game is designed around it. You don’t have the mobility to brute force through stages like you can in comparable action platformers, and even if you could, the overbearing enemy placement would bite you in the ass. It forced me to play very deliberately, assessing each step carefully, while still being aggressive enough that I didn’t leave any openings for enemies. It’s a game that asks a lot of the player, but if you’re willing to rise to the challenge, I found it to be an incredibly rich, rewarding experience.
For what it’s worth, aside from allowing myself some practice runs on Death’s Hallway and circumventing grinding for hearts before each Dracula attempt, I beat this without the use of save states. And I’m really glad I did, as I don’t think this would have been nearly as captivating had I allowed myself to save after each tough section. The fun of Castlevania lies in the trial and error, in getting better with each attempt, figuring out the perfect route, building muscle memory, committing each stage to memory to the point it becomes second nature until finally, FINALLY you overcome a challenge that once seemed insurmountable. I can totally respect why that gameplay loop won’t connect with some, but personally, I loved it. The sheer thrill of shoving holy water so far up Dracula’s ass that it causes his entire infrastructure to crumble and finally seeing those goofy-ass credits roll is some of the most satisfied I’ve felt beating a game in my life. Man, what an adventure.
Recently, I’ve found myself in possession of a lot of free time and a brand-new Retroid Pocket 2S. I wanted a chance to test out some of the emulators, so I decided I’m gonna marathon some more classic Castlevania. But since I’m a sicko, I’m ALSO going to be marathoning some 2D Metroid. At the same time. I’ve got 14 more games to go across both franchises, so wish me luck. If this first step was any indication, I’m gonna need it.
1986
Ernest Hemingway once said that, “the first draft of anything is shit.” But Ernest Hemingway was a homophobe who loved big game hunting almost as much as he loved infidelity, so maybe we don’t have to take his word on everything. Also, I’m pretty sure he never played Metroid, so I’m not sure why I brought him up in the first place. Anyway, video games!
I know a lot of people say to skip over this one when getting into Metroid, but I think that’s silly. If I’m immersing myself in a franchise, I’m invested in seeing how its mechanics evolve over time. Sure it might be jank, but I want to see how that jank informs the rest of the series. And hey, I get it—I’ve played Zero Mission, that’s a great game! But I feel like you’re missing the point if you think these two games are offering interchangeable experiences.
While Zero Mission is great at making you feel like the toughest bounty hunter in the galaxy, Metroid NES excels at making you feel truly out of your depth on a hostile alien world. The first hour or so of my playthrough felt almost comically unforgiving, constantly barraged by enemies I couldn’t reach, lava pits I couldn’t avoid and long, monotonous hallways I couldn’t wait to be done with. I honestly really respect it as a tone-setter: Samus is NOT welcome here, and you as the player feel that too.
I think the plain black backgrounds also do wonders for that unforgiving atmosphere. I adore Zero Mission’s vibrant backdrops, but something about the cold void of Metroid NES makes this Zebes feel so much more unknowable, like you don’t even get to see what lurks in the distance. These environments feel truly alien, and you only get a glimpse of them.
Of course, the game REALLY begins once you start exploring and unlocking upgrades and familiarizing yourself with that environment, and by then it’s… I mean, I guess it’s alright? While that first hour is brutally compelling, and the mid-game item hunt legitimately satisfying, once you start to get the hang of Metroid it becomes clear that there’s just not a ton of depth here. Rooms are pretty basic and repetitive without a lot to distinguish one from the other, and while the upgrades are a lot of fun to use, they do seriously trivialize combat. It feels unfair to fault a game for a lack of complexity when it’s the first of its kind, but it’s hard not to dwell on as you make your way through Zebes’ seemingly endless supply of identical vertical shafts.
While the first half of my playthrough was filled with frustration and intrigue and overcoming hardship, the second was mostly a lot of meandering zigzagging as I searched for new hordes of creepy crawlies to effortlessly dispatch. Not an altogether bad way to spend a Saturday, but not a remarkably engaging one either. For what it’s worth, the challenge does ramp up by the final boss, but that fight is so atrociously designed that I’m not going to dignify it with another sentence.
The bones of a great series and a great genre are here, and that IS worth seeing for yourself. Like I said, I’m glad I didn’t skip it. But truthfully, Metroid is more interesting in its atmosphere and ambition than as a cohesive, finished whole. As it stands, Metroid is too singular an experience to be outright dismissed, but too genuinely flawed to be truly great.
(Special thanks to Phil Summers and his excellent Hand-Drawn Game Guides, which I consulted throughout my playthrough. Yeah that’s right, I used a guide! Bite me! You can check out Phil’s beautiful Metroid guide for yourself here: https://sites.google.com/view/handdrawngameguides/free-guides/metroid-presented-by-hand-drawn-game-guides?authuser=0)
I know a lot of people say to skip over this one when getting into Metroid, but I think that’s silly. If I’m immersing myself in a franchise, I’m invested in seeing how its mechanics evolve over time. Sure it might be jank, but I want to see how that jank informs the rest of the series. And hey, I get it—I’ve played Zero Mission, that’s a great game! But I feel like you’re missing the point if you think these two games are offering interchangeable experiences.
While Zero Mission is great at making you feel like the toughest bounty hunter in the galaxy, Metroid NES excels at making you feel truly out of your depth on a hostile alien world. The first hour or so of my playthrough felt almost comically unforgiving, constantly barraged by enemies I couldn’t reach, lava pits I couldn’t avoid and long, monotonous hallways I couldn’t wait to be done with. I honestly really respect it as a tone-setter: Samus is NOT welcome here, and you as the player feel that too.
I think the plain black backgrounds also do wonders for that unforgiving atmosphere. I adore Zero Mission’s vibrant backdrops, but something about the cold void of Metroid NES makes this Zebes feel so much more unknowable, like you don’t even get to see what lurks in the distance. These environments feel truly alien, and you only get a glimpse of them.
Of course, the game REALLY begins once you start exploring and unlocking upgrades and familiarizing yourself with that environment, and by then it’s… I mean, I guess it’s alright? While that first hour is brutally compelling, and the mid-game item hunt legitimately satisfying, once you start to get the hang of Metroid it becomes clear that there’s just not a ton of depth here. Rooms are pretty basic and repetitive without a lot to distinguish one from the other, and while the upgrades are a lot of fun to use, they do seriously trivialize combat. It feels unfair to fault a game for a lack of complexity when it’s the first of its kind, but it’s hard not to dwell on as you make your way through Zebes’ seemingly endless supply of identical vertical shafts.
While the first half of my playthrough was filled with frustration and intrigue and overcoming hardship, the second was mostly a lot of meandering zigzagging as I searched for new hordes of creepy crawlies to effortlessly dispatch. Not an altogether bad way to spend a Saturday, but not a remarkably engaging one either. For what it’s worth, the challenge does ramp up by the final boss, but that fight is so atrociously designed that I’m not going to dignify it with another sentence.
The bones of a great series and a great genre are here, and that IS worth seeing for yourself. Like I said, I’m glad I didn’t skip it. But truthfully, Metroid is more interesting in its atmosphere and ambition than as a cohesive, finished whole. As it stands, Metroid is too singular an experience to be outright dismissed, but too genuinely flawed to be truly great.
(Special thanks to Phil Summers and his excellent Hand-Drawn Game Guides, which I consulted throughout my playthrough. Yeah that’s right, I used a guide! Bite me! You can check out Phil’s beautiful Metroid guide for yourself here: https://sites.google.com/view/handdrawngameguides/free-guides/metroid-presented-by-hand-drawn-game-guides?authuser=0)
This review contains spoilers
What a horrible night to have a curse!
If you’ve been keeping up with these reviews so far, it should be well-documented that my tolerance for shitty gameplay is directly proportional to my ability to project thematic intent onto it. Simon’s Quest is basically the final boss of that ethos, at least as far as not-very-good-but-not-quite-bad janky old NES games go.
The story in this one is that our boy Belmont didn’t do a good enough job of killing Dracula the first time, and as a result your ass is cursed and the whole land is plagued by monsters. Now it’s your Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest to go collect all of the D-Man’s body parts so you can bring him back to life and kill him again (You know, for real this time). It’s a pretty bold move to start your sequel by totally invalidating everything your player accomplished in the previous game, but it’s one Simon’s Quest really commits to, for better or for worse.
What this setup mostly means for us is that we get to explore the land outside the titular castle for a change, and it’s… pretty fuckin’ bleak. The vibrant colors of Castlevania are gone, replaced with drab, muted tones. The whole world feels like it’s in a state of decay, even Simon’s new sprite looks feeble, totally drained of life. NES palette limitations make him out to look more like a vampire than a Belmont, his hair gone jet black and his skin a pale white. It’s a nonlinear adventure game, I guess, but set on one long horizontal map that’s a total chore to traverse. At one point near the end of my playthrough, I had to spend like a full hour backtracking and grinding for hearts just to get a whip upgrade I had missed before. I slogged my way through muddy, indistinct environments and near-identical towns, constantly harangued by swarms of monsters and an oppressive day/night cycle, only ever moving in one direction at a time yet never feeling any sense of momentum. Is this really it, Simon? Is this is the world you fought so hard to save?
Misdirection is really the main obstacle in Simon’s Quest. Enemies are a joke and death has little to no consequence, so the game’s only true challenge is in deciphering it’s bullshit. Figuring out where you are or where you’re going is a crapshoot, considering the lack of a map or any distinct landmarks. Progression is most often gated by obtuse puzzles, ones the game tends to mislead you on if it even tells you about them at all. There’s people here too, but you’re not going to get much out of them. When NPCs aren’t speaking in oblique, poorly-translated riddles, they’re usually berating Simon or just outright fucking lying to him. And why wouldn’t they? You’re not a returning hero, you’re a returning failure.
Once you do find a mansion (this game’s equivalent to dungeons) you’ll find they’re not much more intuitive than the outside. Layouts are these dense labyrinths without any clear markers, usually filled to the brim with illusory trick floors. There’s five mansions total, with only two of them ending in boss fights. Most of the time you clear a stage by walking up to an orb and putting a stake in it, collecting Dracula’s heart or eyeball or whatever, and then making the long trek all the way back to the entrance. On the rare occasion you do encounter a boss, they’re so pitifully easy that it still feels like an anticlimax. The game even lets you walk right past ‘em if you want, as if even Dracula’s closest minions have caught on to how obligatory this all feels.
Once you have all of Big D’s body parts, you can start making your way to his castle. It’s a pretty pathetic journey, a straight line through abandoned towns and the only paths in the game without any enemies. Castlevania lies in ruin, a big grey pile of rubble, unguarded and unloved. You descend into the wreckage and reanimate your sworn enemy, only to find him a weak shadow of his former self, just like his castle. Just like Simon. After another easy boss fight, the game ends. Assuming you didn’t beat the game in record time, you probably got the bad ending, in which Simon is consumed by his curse and dies. Congratulations, fuck you.
So, that’s Simon’s Quest. Not a hard game to beat, but a wholly unsatisfying one. While Castlevania was brutally challenging, its sequel is brutally tedious. Gone is the deliberate action of old, replaced with lots and lots of busywork. Everything about the experience feels like a dull formality, like Simon is just going through the motions until he can finally put Dracula—and by extension, himself—to rest. Your failure to defeat evil looms over the whole journey, this constant reminder that you aren’t the hero you thought you were. It’s not the quest Simon wanted, but maybe it’s the one he deserves. Is it a good game? I don’t know. Who gives a shit? It’s certainly a potent one, and maybe that’s all you need.
If you’ve been keeping up with these reviews so far, it should be well-documented that my tolerance for shitty gameplay is directly proportional to my ability to project thematic intent onto it. Simon’s Quest is basically the final boss of that ethos, at least as far as not-very-good-but-not-quite-bad janky old NES games go.
The story in this one is that our boy Belmont didn’t do a good enough job of killing Dracula the first time, and as a result your ass is cursed and the whole land is plagued by monsters. Now it’s your Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest to go collect all of the D-Man’s body parts so you can bring him back to life and kill him again (You know, for real this time). It’s a pretty bold move to start your sequel by totally invalidating everything your player accomplished in the previous game, but it’s one Simon’s Quest really commits to, for better or for worse.
What this setup mostly means for us is that we get to explore the land outside the titular castle for a change, and it’s… pretty fuckin’ bleak. The vibrant colors of Castlevania are gone, replaced with drab, muted tones. The whole world feels like it’s in a state of decay, even Simon’s new sprite looks feeble, totally drained of life. NES palette limitations make him out to look more like a vampire than a Belmont, his hair gone jet black and his skin a pale white. It’s a nonlinear adventure game, I guess, but set on one long horizontal map that’s a total chore to traverse. At one point near the end of my playthrough, I had to spend like a full hour backtracking and grinding for hearts just to get a whip upgrade I had missed before. I slogged my way through muddy, indistinct environments and near-identical towns, constantly harangued by swarms of monsters and an oppressive day/night cycle, only ever moving in one direction at a time yet never feeling any sense of momentum. Is this really it, Simon? Is this is the world you fought so hard to save?
Misdirection is really the main obstacle in Simon’s Quest. Enemies are a joke and death has little to no consequence, so the game’s only true challenge is in deciphering it’s bullshit. Figuring out where you are or where you’re going is a crapshoot, considering the lack of a map or any distinct landmarks. Progression is most often gated by obtuse puzzles, ones the game tends to mislead you on if it even tells you about them at all. There’s people here too, but you’re not going to get much out of them. When NPCs aren’t speaking in oblique, poorly-translated riddles, they’re usually berating Simon or just outright fucking lying to him. And why wouldn’t they? You’re not a returning hero, you’re a returning failure.
Once you do find a mansion (this game’s equivalent to dungeons) you’ll find they’re not much more intuitive than the outside. Layouts are these dense labyrinths without any clear markers, usually filled to the brim with illusory trick floors. There’s five mansions total, with only two of them ending in boss fights. Most of the time you clear a stage by walking up to an orb and putting a stake in it, collecting Dracula’s heart or eyeball or whatever, and then making the long trek all the way back to the entrance. On the rare occasion you do encounter a boss, they’re so pitifully easy that it still feels like an anticlimax. The game even lets you walk right past ‘em if you want, as if even Dracula’s closest minions have caught on to how obligatory this all feels.
Once you have all of Big D’s body parts, you can start making your way to his castle. It’s a pretty pathetic journey, a straight line through abandoned towns and the only paths in the game without any enemies. Castlevania lies in ruin, a big grey pile of rubble, unguarded and unloved. You descend into the wreckage and reanimate your sworn enemy, only to find him a weak shadow of his former self, just like his castle. Just like Simon. After another easy boss fight, the game ends. Assuming you didn’t beat the game in record time, you probably got the bad ending, in which Simon is consumed by his curse and dies. Congratulations, fuck you.
So, that’s Simon’s Quest. Not a hard game to beat, but a wholly unsatisfying one. While Castlevania was brutally challenging, its sequel is brutally tedious. Gone is the deliberate action of old, replaced with lots and lots of busywork. Everything about the experience feels like a dull formality, like Simon is just going through the motions until he can finally put Dracula—and by extension, himself—to rest. Your failure to defeat evil looms over the whole journey, this constant reminder that you aren’t the hero you thought you were. It’s not the quest Simon wanted, but maybe it’s the one he deserves. Is it a good game? I don’t know. Who gives a shit? It’s certainly a potent one, and maybe that’s all you need.
Not quite as decisive a statement as the original Castlevania nor as bold a shakeup as Simon’s Quest, but it gets by on the merits of just being a damn good one-of-these. You ever play Dracula’s Curse? It’s a damn good one-of-these! Konami went back to basics for round 3, ditching all the weird RPG bullshit of the previous entry and returning to the tough, side-scrolling action of the first game. It’s basically Castlevania I but with more levels, more options and more polish, and that ain’t a bad thing.
The big selling point this go-around is that you can take multiple different routes and multiple different characters on your way to Big Bad Vlad’s Magic Funhouse. There’s Trevor of course, our default hero and resident Belmont. There’s also Sypha Belnades, a magic user who dresses like Emperor Palpatine so kids in the 80s wouldn’t find out they’re playing as—GASP!—a girl! Alucard makes his first appearance, still a few centuries away from becoming an anime pretty boy and instead rockin’ a Spirit Halloween cloak and Wolverine hair (no notes, I love him). And last but CERTAINLY not least is Grant mothafuckin DaNasty, which is the character route I decided to go with.
Grant’s getting a whole paragraph because eat shit, it’s my Backloggd page. Grant fucking rocks, he’s like a pirate that Dracula turned into a monster for reasons that are never explained. Even after you free him of his Dracula’s Curse, he still walks like a hunched-over gremlin and clings to walls like Spider-Man, the little freak! He’s way faster and more maneuverable than Trevor and in the Famicom version (which is the one I played) he can even use throwing knives as his default attack. After 2 games of stiff Belmont controls you have NO IDEA how satisfying it was to be able to control my jump mid-air or use a projectile without worrying about heart consumption. My friends were disappointed that I didn’t pick Sypha but honestly, fuck ‘em! I know they’re probably reading this and I hope they do! I have no regrets, dudes rock!!! Grant rules and we should all be so lucky to have a DaNasty in our lives. Apparently he’s the only party member that didn’t make it into the Netflix adaptation, so I guess just add that to the already-extensive list of Warren Ellis’ crimes.
Levels are really good, for the most part. The stages are a lot more complex than Castlevania I, with more aggressive enemy placement and a greater emphasis on platforming setpieces. Crumbling bridges, swinging pendulums, vertical auto-scrolling sections, it’s cool shit. Level themes are also a lot of fun, with plenty of decaying churches and haunted pirate ships. Maybe the only thing I really didn’t like was the over-reliance on stairs as a stage hazard. They’re spaced out well enough that it never outright ruins a level, but I just can’t get used to the weird way stairs work in classicvanias. Every time I got to a section with lots of stairs, Trevor starts doing his best John Wick Chapter 4 reenactment and a-down into the abyss I go.
Stairs notwithstanding, I thought this was generally a much less difficult game than peak Castlevania I. It’s certainly not easy, but the addition of alternate characters to play as really evens the playing field, giving you lots of options for how you want to handle things. The difficulty just feels a lot more consistent, it’s a tough but very evenly-paced adventure. There is a trade-off though: that increased flexibility does come at the cost of some of that slow, deliberate gameplay that made the first game so methodically compelling. I pretty much always played as Grant once I got him, so there wasn’t a need to plan as precisely as I would with a Belmont. It’s not really a design choice I can fault, or even one I necessarily dislike, but it is one I noticed. They’re two very similar games, but I’m definitely getting very different things out of each. Ignore all of this if you played the US version, I hear your balls get ROCKED in that one lmao.
On a purely visual level, this is an unequivocal huge improvement. It honestly might be the prettiest game I’ve seen on the system?? I had to keep reminding myself that these graphics actually ran on real hardware and it isn’t like a Shovel Knight style approximation of NES/FDS aesthetics using modern tech. Each stage is so rich with color and detail, and the excitement to see what the next one might look like was a consistent motivator to keep me going. Just an absolutely stunning game.
The music on the other hand I’m…less enthusiastic about. The Famicom Disk System had an enhanced sound chip which is cool and all, but these tunes just aren’t that great imo. Aside from the returning Castlevania I tracks and maybe 1-2 others, I can’t say any of these songs stick out in my mind as particularly memorable. It’s a real shame, since the rockin’ jams have remained a key part of Castlevania’s identity as a series thus far, even in a black sheep like Simon’s Quest. I’m told this soundtrack is a fan-favorite, but I really just don’t hear it. It’s not a bad OST, but it is a really forgettable one. Kinda underwhelming, won’t lie.
Grievances aside, I did really like Dracula’s Curse. It’s admittedly not quite as exciting as its predecessors, but it’s hard to fault it for that. It could never be as elegantly simple as Castlevania nor as esoterically interesting as Simon’s Quest, and it’s not trying to be. What Dracula’s Curse does accomplish is being a very consistent, very fun, very polished game. It’s definitely the first one of these to feel like it’s playing it safe, but it’s also the first one of these to feel this great to play. It just might be the best of the NES trilogy, even if it’s also definitely the least interesting. Take from that what you will!
The big selling point this go-around is that you can take multiple different routes and multiple different characters on your way to Big Bad Vlad’s Magic Funhouse. There’s Trevor of course, our default hero and resident Belmont. There’s also Sypha Belnades, a magic user who dresses like Emperor Palpatine so kids in the 80s wouldn’t find out they’re playing as—GASP!—a girl! Alucard makes his first appearance, still a few centuries away from becoming an anime pretty boy and instead rockin’ a Spirit Halloween cloak and Wolverine hair (no notes, I love him). And last but CERTAINLY not least is Grant mothafuckin DaNasty, which is the character route I decided to go with.
Grant’s getting a whole paragraph because eat shit, it’s my Backloggd page. Grant fucking rocks, he’s like a pirate that Dracula turned into a monster for reasons that are never explained. Even after you free him of his Dracula’s Curse, he still walks like a hunched-over gremlin and clings to walls like Spider-Man, the little freak! He’s way faster and more maneuverable than Trevor and in the Famicom version (which is the one I played) he can even use throwing knives as his default attack. After 2 games of stiff Belmont controls you have NO IDEA how satisfying it was to be able to control my jump mid-air or use a projectile without worrying about heart consumption. My friends were disappointed that I didn’t pick Sypha but honestly, fuck ‘em! I know they’re probably reading this and I hope they do! I have no regrets, dudes rock!!! Grant rules and we should all be so lucky to have a DaNasty in our lives. Apparently he’s the only party member that didn’t make it into the Netflix adaptation, so I guess just add that to the already-extensive list of Warren Ellis’ crimes.
Levels are really good, for the most part. The stages are a lot more complex than Castlevania I, with more aggressive enemy placement and a greater emphasis on platforming setpieces. Crumbling bridges, swinging pendulums, vertical auto-scrolling sections, it’s cool shit. Level themes are also a lot of fun, with plenty of decaying churches and haunted pirate ships. Maybe the only thing I really didn’t like was the over-reliance on stairs as a stage hazard. They’re spaced out well enough that it never outright ruins a level, but I just can’t get used to the weird way stairs work in classicvanias. Every time I got to a section with lots of stairs, Trevor starts doing his best John Wick Chapter 4 reenactment and a-down into the abyss I go.
Stairs notwithstanding, I thought this was generally a much less difficult game than peak Castlevania I. It’s certainly not easy, but the addition of alternate characters to play as really evens the playing field, giving you lots of options for how you want to handle things. The difficulty just feels a lot more consistent, it’s a tough but very evenly-paced adventure. There is a trade-off though: that increased flexibility does come at the cost of some of that slow, deliberate gameplay that made the first game so methodically compelling. I pretty much always played as Grant once I got him, so there wasn’t a need to plan as precisely as I would with a Belmont. It’s not really a design choice I can fault, or even one I necessarily dislike, but it is one I noticed. They’re two very similar games, but I’m definitely getting very different things out of each. Ignore all of this if you played the US version, I hear your balls get ROCKED in that one lmao.
On a purely visual level, this is an unequivocal huge improvement. It honestly might be the prettiest game I’ve seen on the system?? I had to keep reminding myself that these graphics actually ran on real hardware and it isn’t like a Shovel Knight style approximation of NES/FDS aesthetics using modern tech. Each stage is so rich with color and detail, and the excitement to see what the next one might look like was a consistent motivator to keep me going. Just an absolutely stunning game.
The music on the other hand I’m…less enthusiastic about. The Famicom Disk System had an enhanced sound chip which is cool and all, but these tunes just aren’t that great imo. Aside from the returning Castlevania I tracks and maybe 1-2 others, I can’t say any of these songs stick out in my mind as particularly memorable. It’s a real shame, since the rockin’ jams have remained a key part of Castlevania’s identity as a series thus far, even in a black sheep like Simon’s Quest. I’m told this soundtrack is a fan-favorite, but I really just don’t hear it. It’s not a bad OST, but it is a really forgettable one. Kinda underwhelming, won’t lie.
Grievances aside, I did really like Dracula’s Curse. It’s admittedly not quite as exciting as its predecessors, but it’s hard to fault it for that. It could never be as elegantly simple as Castlevania nor as esoterically interesting as Simon’s Quest, and it’s not trying to be. What Dracula’s Curse does accomplish is being a very consistent, very fun, very polished game. It’s definitely the first one of these to feel like it’s playing it safe, but it’s also the first one of these to feel this great to play. It just might be the best of the NES trilogy, even if it’s also definitely the least interesting. Take from that what you will!
This review contains spoilers
If the original Metroid wanted you to feel endangered, its sequel wants you to feel uncomfortable. Samus has indeed returned, and she’s not on the defensive. While the first game was a retaliatory mission to stop a band of space pirates, Metroid II is an all-out assault. Seeing the damage that the Metroids caused on Zebes, the Galactic Federation has sent their top bounty hunter (that’s you) to the Metroid homeworld, SR388. You’re not here to save anyone, or to prevent any great catastrophe. This isn’t about justice, but extinction. You’re here to kill all Metroids, plain and simple.
What really impressed me about Metroid II is how big a piece of shit it makes you feel for playing it. The game is structured around locating and defeating 40 Metroids, each boss fight spread out across the map. You plunge deeper and deeper into their home, checking each corner in search of your prey. If the first game was a riff on Alien, so is this, but with you as the hostile alien threat. The tight Gameboy screen closes in around you, obscuring your field of vision. You could be standing right in front of a Metroid, and you wouldn’t know it until it’s too late to prepare. When you finally find one, you’re not rewarded with a skillful, choreographed boss fight but an ugly, erratic affair. You fire missiles wildly in the hope they connect and inevitably, you win your war of attrition. It’s surprising and tense, but with Samus being so much stronger in this game you’re hardly ever at any real risk. Their deaths were ensured the moment you landed, these encounters nothing more than acts of futile, animalistic retaliation. The genocide counter in the corner ticks down, and your descent into hell continues.
It’s remarkable how well the Gameboy’s limitations are used to enhance the experience. The large sprites minimize the already-small screen, creating a pervasive sense of claustrophobia. Those crunchy square waves create some truly alien sounds, much more overtly dissonant than the previous game’s music. Even playing with GBC colorization like I did, the whole experience feels dimly-lit, an atmosphere built around simple tilesets and a lack of backgrounds. To facilitate playing in on-the-go sessions, the map is structured like a series of segmented chunks moving downward, a choice that makes navigation more intuitive while at the same time codifying your misguided progression: you can’t turn back now, you’ve gone too deep. It’s a really miraculous showcase of what you could do with this technology. Fuck man, this Gameboy game has jumpscares!
The ending really blew me away. It’s everyone’s favorite part of this game, and for good reason. An entire planet lying in ashes behind you, the only thing left standing in your way is one final Metroid egg. It hatches, and starts following you, thinking you’re its mother. After all the death and destruction, Samus can’t bring herself to pull the trigger. It’s the most devastating thing a killer can do: growing a conscience when it’s already too late. You make your way to the surface, climbing your way out of hell, the baby assisting you along the way. It’s a strangely relaxing trip, more relaxing than you know you deserve. You crawl into your ship, exhausted, and end your mission in willful failure. As the credits roll you can’t help but wonder what it was all for, the blood on your hands soaking the controller.
If you couldn’t tell, I think this game is really special. To me these first two primordial Metroids are characterized by ambition above all else, reaching for a type of gameplay the tech of the time just couldn’t quite achieve yet. Metroid II is flawed to be sure: it’s repetitive and janky and I still wasn’t able to beat it without looking up a map online. But when the rest of the experience is this powerfully affecting, it’s easy to sweat the details in the final analysis. I’m extremely curious to see what this team could accomplish with 16-bit hardware, but I’m really glad I played these first. In spite of, and often because of their limitations, they produced some truly unforgettable games.
Don’t skip this one. Play it, and play it with the lights off.
What really impressed me about Metroid II is how big a piece of shit it makes you feel for playing it. The game is structured around locating and defeating 40 Metroids, each boss fight spread out across the map. You plunge deeper and deeper into their home, checking each corner in search of your prey. If the first game was a riff on Alien, so is this, but with you as the hostile alien threat. The tight Gameboy screen closes in around you, obscuring your field of vision. You could be standing right in front of a Metroid, and you wouldn’t know it until it’s too late to prepare. When you finally find one, you’re not rewarded with a skillful, choreographed boss fight but an ugly, erratic affair. You fire missiles wildly in the hope they connect and inevitably, you win your war of attrition. It’s surprising and tense, but with Samus being so much stronger in this game you’re hardly ever at any real risk. Their deaths were ensured the moment you landed, these encounters nothing more than acts of futile, animalistic retaliation. The genocide counter in the corner ticks down, and your descent into hell continues.
It’s remarkable how well the Gameboy’s limitations are used to enhance the experience. The large sprites minimize the already-small screen, creating a pervasive sense of claustrophobia. Those crunchy square waves create some truly alien sounds, much more overtly dissonant than the previous game’s music. Even playing with GBC colorization like I did, the whole experience feels dimly-lit, an atmosphere built around simple tilesets and a lack of backgrounds. To facilitate playing in on-the-go sessions, the map is structured like a series of segmented chunks moving downward, a choice that makes navigation more intuitive while at the same time codifying your misguided progression: you can’t turn back now, you’ve gone too deep. It’s a really miraculous showcase of what you could do with this technology. Fuck man, this Gameboy game has jumpscares!
The ending really blew me away. It’s everyone’s favorite part of this game, and for good reason. An entire planet lying in ashes behind you, the only thing left standing in your way is one final Metroid egg. It hatches, and starts following you, thinking you’re its mother. After all the death and destruction, Samus can’t bring herself to pull the trigger. It’s the most devastating thing a killer can do: growing a conscience when it’s already too late. You make your way to the surface, climbing your way out of hell, the baby assisting you along the way. It’s a strangely relaxing trip, more relaxing than you know you deserve. You crawl into your ship, exhausted, and end your mission in willful failure. As the credits roll you can’t help but wonder what it was all for, the blood on your hands soaking the controller.
If you couldn’t tell, I think this game is really special. To me these first two primordial Metroids are characterized by ambition above all else, reaching for a type of gameplay the tech of the time just couldn’t quite achieve yet. Metroid II is flawed to be sure: it’s repetitive and janky and I still wasn’t able to beat it without looking up a map online. But when the rest of the experience is this powerfully affecting, it’s easy to sweat the details in the final analysis. I’m extremely curious to see what this team could accomplish with 16-bit hardware, but I’m really glad I played these first. In spite of, and often because of their limitations, they produced some truly unforgettable games.
Don’t skip this one. Play it, and play it with the lights off.
Next up on the Metroid/Vania Marathon, it’s Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge for Nintendo Gameboy! This is not to be confused with Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest for the Nintendo Entertainment System, of course. There’s a case to be made that the other two Gameboy ‘Vanias deserved a spot in the marathon as well, considering that they both represent technical innovations or thematic departures from series convention. Unfortunately, there is also an argument that they look really bad and I didn’t want to play them! But this one looked good, so I did play it.
Specifically, I played the obscure GBC port of Belmont’s Revenge from Konami’s GB Collection series. Not sure how close that port is to the original release (just looking at footage online, it seems the axe sub-weapon got replaced in favor of the boomerang cross) but I’m willing to ignore the purist within when the game looks this dang pretty. Seriously, what a stunner this is! I know that’s pretty standard for Castlevania at this point, but it’s always so impressive to me just how far ahead of the competition Konami was graphically back in the day. A track record to be proud of for sure!
Truthfully, I don’t have a ton to say about Belmont’s Revenge, but I guess sometimes no news is good news. This is just a very sturdy, bite-sized Castlevania with not much working against it. It’s very much Castlevania, but for the Gameboy. You move like a Belmont should move, whip how a Belmont should whip. You have sub-weapons, but only two this time, the cross and the holy water. Levels are tough but fair, with plenty of smart enemy placement and a bit more emphasis on platforming. There are some new ideas here too—like a flame whip upgrade, or the occasional branching path, or a Megaman-style stage select—but for the most part it’s what you’ve come to expect, just condensed and repackaged for a portable audience.
There are technical concessions of course, but I found most of them only added to the game’s unique flavor. Levels are less sprawling and more screen-based, you get mid-stage respawn points to accommodate shorter on-the-go play sessions, and stairs have been entirely axed in favor of the less spatially-demanding ropes. Those ropes are honestly my favorite aspect of Belmont’s Revenge, they’re so much more seamless to use than stairs ever were on the NES and they’re integrated really well into the level design. I wouldn’t mind seeing these make a return in later entries!
If I had any gripes with Belmont’s Revenge, it would be that it doesn’t exactly stick the landing. Castlevania has always been difficult, that’s part of the appeal, but it’s never felt cheap…. until the last two fights of Belmont’s Revenge. Yeah, these final bosses are just a pain, relying more on you being able to read the game’s mind than skillful maneuvering or pattern recognition. It’s a shame too, since the game leading up to that point was a very well-balanced experience, tough but fairly brisk, perfect for the kind of pick-up-and-play sessions handheld gaming excels at. With the advent of save states it’s hardly an insurmountable flaw, but it does sour things near the finish line to be sure.
All in all though, this was a whip-crackin’, Dracula-smackin’ good time. Perhaps not a mover or a shaker as far as these games go, but a very polished, very enjoyable ride all the same. If you plan on taking a long car ride in the year 1991, I highly recommend giving it a shot!
Specifically, I played the obscure GBC port of Belmont’s Revenge from Konami’s GB Collection series. Not sure how close that port is to the original release (just looking at footage online, it seems the axe sub-weapon got replaced in favor of the boomerang cross) but I’m willing to ignore the purist within when the game looks this dang pretty. Seriously, what a stunner this is! I know that’s pretty standard for Castlevania at this point, but it’s always so impressive to me just how far ahead of the competition Konami was graphically back in the day. A track record to be proud of for sure!
Truthfully, I don’t have a ton to say about Belmont’s Revenge, but I guess sometimes no news is good news. This is just a very sturdy, bite-sized Castlevania with not much working against it. It’s very much Castlevania, but for the Gameboy. You move like a Belmont should move, whip how a Belmont should whip. You have sub-weapons, but only two this time, the cross and the holy water. Levels are tough but fair, with plenty of smart enemy placement and a bit more emphasis on platforming. There are some new ideas here too—like a flame whip upgrade, or the occasional branching path, or a Megaman-style stage select—but for the most part it’s what you’ve come to expect, just condensed and repackaged for a portable audience.
There are technical concessions of course, but I found most of them only added to the game’s unique flavor. Levels are less sprawling and more screen-based, you get mid-stage respawn points to accommodate shorter on-the-go play sessions, and stairs have been entirely axed in favor of the less spatially-demanding ropes. Those ropes are honestly my favorite aspect of Belmont’s Revenge, they’re so much more seamless to use than stairs ever were on the NES and they’re integrated really well into the level design. I wouldn’t mind seeing these make a return in later entries!
If I had any gripes with Belmont’s Revenge, it would be that it doesn’t exactly stick the landing. Castlevania has always been difficult, that’s part of the appeal, but it’s never felt cheap…. until the last two fights of Belmont’s Revenge. Yeah, these final bosses are just a pain, relying more on you being able to read the game’s mind than skillful maneuvering or pattern recognition. It’s a shame too, since the game leading up to that point was a very well-balanced experience, tough but fairly brisk, perfect for the kind of pick-up-and-play sessions handheld gaming excels at. With the advent of save states it’s hardly an insurmountable flaw, but it does sour things near the finish line to be sure.
All in all though, this was a whip-crackin’, Dracula-smackin’ good time. Perhaps not a mover or a shaker as far as these games go, but a very polished, very enjoyable ride all the same. If you plan on taking a long car ride in the year 1991, I highly recommend giving it a shot!
1994
This review contains spoilers
pretty good game imo
Absolutely no idea how to write about this one. It’s Super Metroid. It’s like trying to write a Backloggd review for oxygen, we all know it’s good and we all know why it’s good. It’s just self-evident. I could write you a bunch of paragraphs you’ve already read before about the atmosphere or the movement or the map design or whatever but it would be a waste of my time and yours because we already know this shit. The sky is blue, the earth is round, Super Metroid rocks. Duh.
What I do have to offer is my experience as somebody who had never played this until now. And yeah, the hype is more than deserved. I’ve played plenty of games with a similar structure or tone or gamefeel to this but none have felt as confident, as seamless, as utterly absorbing as Super Metroid and the world it presents. I’m kind of floored this game is already 30 years old, because you could have released this yesterday and it would still feel ahead of the curve. It’s just that good.
It’s interesting playing this with the benefit of cultural osmosis. I went in with a pretty strong idea of what the game would be, so much of its mechanics and iconography burned into the collective consciousness long before I got there. But actually discovering it all for myself was a different beast entirely. I knew what was coming, but figuring out how to get there was up to me, and I felt like I was always left surprised when I figured out the answer. I felt like I was part of this huge tradition that existed long before me and would continue to exist long after, it was really cool.
Of course, those moments I had no idea were coming were some of the most captivating. I’ll never forget hearing the new Brinstar theme for the first time (probably my favorite song in what’s easily a new top 10 OSTs), or uncovering Dragyon in the depths of Maridia, or piecing together what might have happened in the Wrecked Ship. Games like these live or die by their ability to keep you engaged with the world, and few game worlds feel as rich as this one. I explored pretty thoroughly and still only got a 64% in completion—I guess that means I’m due for a round trip.
I’m once again really grateful that I’m playing these games in order. Like a lot of Super Nintendo titles, Super Metroid is essentially a juiced-up version of its NES progenitor. It’s back to Zebes, but with deeper and more refined mechanics, higher graphical fidelity, a greater sense of spectacle and finally, FINALLY an in-game map. You can’t really appreciate how momentous all that is unless you’ve played what came before. The first 15 minutes of Super feel tailor-made for that audience, a rescue mission for the baby YOU saved, tracing your steps backwards through the Space Pirate base YOU destroyed, seeing how much more ambient and expansive that once-familiar planet has become in your absence. Tons of other moments throughout thrive off your knowledge of how this game used to go, from the first Chozo sentry to the jaw-dropping Kraid reveal to even Mother Brain’s final form. It was just rewarding to see how things evolved, and I'm really glad I had given myself that opportunity. Play games in order!
You know, I tried to play this a few years back after beating Zero Mission but dropped it almost immediately because I couldn’t stand how Samus felt to control. Which feels so silly to me now, because coming off of the NES and Gameboy games, this plays like a dream. If only past-me wasn’t such a loser idiot and could appreciate how big a deal “shooting diagonally” really is. I don’t want to make it sound like the early Metroid games are just stepping stones to this one made obsolete in retrospect because I don’t feel that way. Those are both still very interesting (and more importantly, uniquely interesting) games. But it really does feel like THIS is what the series has been reaching for the whole time, the atmosphere, the interconnectedness, the movement, everything, it’s all here and it’s absolutely perfect. It’s like the tech finally caught up to the dev teams' vision and the results are staggering. It's a revelation. 30 years later, we’re still playing catch-up.
Super Metroid, man. What a game.
Absolutely no idea how to write about this one. It’s Super Metroid. It’s like trying to write a Backloggd review for oxygen, we all know it’s good and we all know why it’s good. It’s just self-evident. I could write you a bunch of paragraphs you’ve already read before about the atmosphere or the movement or the map design or whatever but it would be a waste of my time and yours because we already know this shit. The sky is blue, the earth is round, Super Metroid rocks. Duh.
What I do have to offer is my experience as somebody who had never played this until now. And yeah, the hype is more than deserved. I’ve played plenty of games with a similar structure or tone or gamefeel to this but none have felt as confident, as seamless, as utterly absorbing as Super Metroid and the world it presents. I’m kind of floored this game is already 30 years old, because you could have released this yesterday and it would still feel ahead of the curve. It’s just that good.
It’s interesting playing this with the benefit of cultural osmosis. I went in with a pretty strong idea of what the game would be, so much of its mechanics and iconography burned into the collective consciousness long before I got there. But actually discovering it all for myself was a different beast entirely. I knew what was coming, but figuring out how to get there was up to me, and I felt like I was always left surprised when I figured out the answer. I felt like I was part of this huge tradition that existed long before me and would continue to exist long after, it was really cool.
Of course, those moments I had no idea were coming were some of the most captivating. I’ll never forget hearing the new Brinstar theme for the first time (probably my favorite song in what’s easily a new top 10 OSTs), or uncovering Dragyon in the depths of Maridia, or piecing together what might have happened in the Wrecked Ship. Games like these live or die by their ability to keep you engaged with the world, and few game worlds feel as rich as this one. I explored pretty thoroughly and still only got a 64% in completion—I guess that means I’m due for a round trip.
I’m once again really grateful that I’m playing these games in order. Like a lot of Super Nintendo titles, Super Metroid is essentially a juiced-up version of its NES progenitor. It’s back to Zebes, but with deeper and more refined mechanics, higher graphical fidelity, a greater sense of spectacle and finally, FINALLY an in-game map. You can’t really appreciate how momentous all that is unless you’ve played what came before. The first 15 minutes of Super feel tailor-made for that audience, a rescue mission for the baby YOU saved, tracing your steps backwards through the Space Pirate base YOU destroyed, seeing how much more ambient and expansive that once-familiar planet has become in your absence. Tons of other moments throughout thrive off your knowledge of how this game used to go, from the first Chozo sentry to the jaw-dropping Kraid reveal to even Mother Brain’s final form. It was just rewarding to see how things evolved, and I'm really glad I had given myself that opportunity. Play games in order!
You know, I tried to play this a few years back after beating Zero Mission but dropped it almost immediately because I couldn’t stand how Samus felt to control. Which feels so silly to me now, because coming off of the NES and Gameboy games, this plays like a dream. If only past-me wasn’t such a loser idiot and could appreciate how big a deal “shooting diagonally” really is. I don’t want to make it sound like the early Metroid games are just stepping stones to this one made obsolete in retrospect because I don’t feel that way. Those are both still very interesting (and more importantly, uniquely interesting) games. But it really does feel like THIS is what the series has been reaching for the whole time, the atmosphere, the interconnectedness, the movement, everything, it’s all here and it’s absolutely perfect. It’s like the tech finally caught up to the dev teams' vision and the results are staggering. It's a revelation. 30 years later, we’re still playing catch-up.
Super Metroid, man. What a game.
1991
Castlevania makes its big leap to 16-bits with Super Castlevania IV and the results are… I mean, yeah sure man it’s ok! From what I understand this was an early release for that newfangled Super Nintendo Machine, and it’s within that context that this game makes the most sense to me. This is a hardware showcase, which explains the emphasis on technical spectacle and the fact that it’s a sorta-retelling of Castlevania 1 but with a shiny new coat of paint and all-new all-different playstyle. And in that respect, it’s very impressive! If I played this in 1991 it would have undoubtedly rocked my socks off. This ragtag bunch of programmers did a lovely job and their mothers should all be very proud, etc. etc. etc. It’s just a shame then that playing it now, after seeing what else the series has to offer, the most I can really muster for Super Castlevania IV is tepid indifference.
I guess we’re just diving in then. Let me address the elephant in the room and tackle this game’s most controversial element first: the play control. Our main man Simon is back, and he brought some swanky new moves with him for his 16-bit debut. Belmont can now whip in 8 directions, his chain extending much farther than ever before, with the added benefit of being able to control his jumps in mid-air. This is a HUGE shakeup for a series originally built around a stiff, limiting control scheme, but it’s a shakeup I don’t necessarily mind. While I adored the classic controls precisely because of their inflexibility and strongly disagree with the idea it was anything that needed to be “fixed”, I also don’t think there’s anything inherently sacrilegious about wanting to make an entry in this series that’s focused on being more empowering and comfortable to use. Lots of characters had their movesets expanded and streamlined in the transition to the SNES, often to great success. Hell, Megaman X is basically an entire sub-franchise based on this principle and I adore those games, so fuck it, we ball. I’m fine with the Belmont clan trying something new, and excited to see what fresh opportunities that may open up for the overall game design.
But that’s kinda where my beef with Super Castlevania IV lies: its disinterest in really examining those opportunities. Aside from a few (admittedly cool) grappling sections, this is by and large the same shit, different whip, without any real thought put into how that difference dramatically changes the way Castlevania feels. Enemies and stage layouts do little to account for the incredible amount of range and maneuverability your new octo-directional god-flail provides, resulting in a game that’s less concerned with deliberate positioning or thoughtful movement as it is pressing B to steamroll and Belmont-struttin’ to the finish. I still died plenty, sure, but when I revived I was never asked to change up my strategy, since plowing forward head-first was almost always the most viable option. I wasn’t even looking at my heart counter for most of the game, because your whip is just so absurdly useful it makes bothering with subweapons entirely pointless. The call for precision does start to pick up eventually, but only in the last third or so, and mostly by means of really fiddly platforming and a lot of instant-death spikes with weird hitboxes. It’s just…sloppy, and that’s the last word I thought I’d associate with Castlevania.
Let me be clear, because I’m worried this might be misconstrued: I’m not bothered by the fact Super Castlevania IV isn’t as rigid or challenging as what came before, as much as I’m bothered that it’s simply so much less engaging to play. I got hooked on Castlevania because it was the kind of game you couldn’t just mindlessly brute-force your way through, you had to take your time and think through your actions if you wanted to improve. It was tough but always fair, always intentional, and if you were willing to meet it on its level it was an immensely satisfying experience to learn and master each stage. Super Castlevania IV is not disappointing because it’s different or easy, it’s disappointing because I’m doing the same thing I’ve been doing for 4 games straight but more brainless than ever. It’s not exactly a bad time, it feels good enough to play in the moment, but it isn’t really rewarding or memorable long-term, and the fact that it’s three times the length these usually go for really highlights its shallowness.
All this might be excusable if the presentation was better but honestly I’m not feeling that either, man. There’s a few good backgrounds here and there and the exuberance that it explores the SNES hardware with is hard not to be somewhat charmed by (Mode 7 hallways, cool as fuck dude) but most of this looks really muddy and bland to me. It lacks the goofy cartoon monster mash aesthetics of its predecessors but hasn’t quite arrived at the gothic anime look of what’s to come, so you get this weird middle child without much visual personality of its own. Music is also a real letdown, you’d think a console as well-suited to absolutely fucking shredding as the SNES would be packed full of new rockin’ Castlevania bangers but it’s mostly a very ambient, atmospheric affair. Which I could maybe get behind if it was done better but a lot of this just sounds kinda dinky and lame, returning favorites like Vampire Killer and Bloody Tears notwithstanding. Honestly this rendition of Bloody Tears is SO good on its own I’m almost willing to let everything else in this paragraph slide. Almost. Simon’s Quest truthers stay forever 🔛🔝!
I dunno. This review is a mess. I don’t like being this mean towards a game I’m this lukewarm on, but I also can’t lie and act like this was a real showstopper in any regard either. It’s far from bad, but nothing about it really compels me, which is a shame. It’s the biggest, grandest Castlevania yet, and I’ve already forgotten most of it. I can respect it, I can appreciate it, but I think this one is just a swing and a miss for me personally.
I guess we’re just diving in then. Let me address the elephant in the room and tackle this game’s most controversial element first: the play control. Our main man Simon is back, and he brought some swanky new moves with him for his 16-bit debut. Belmont can now whip in 8 directions, his chain extending much farther than ever before, with the added benefit of being able to control his jumps in mid-air. This is a HUGE shakeup for a series originally built around a stiff, limiting control scheme, but it’s a shakeup I don’t necessarily mind. While I adored the classic controls precisely because of their inflexibility and strongly disagree with the idea it was anything that needed to be “fixed”, I also don’t think there’s anything inherently sacrilegious about wanting to make an entry in this series that’s focused on being more empowering and comfortable to use. Lots of characters had their movesets expanded and streamlined in the transition to the SNES, often to great success. Hell, Megaman X is basically an entire sub-franchise based on this principle and I adore those games, so fuck it, we ball. I’m fine with the Belmont clan trying something new, and excited to see what fresh opportunities that may open up for the overall game design.
But that’s kinda where my beef with Super Castlevania IV lies: its disinterest in really examining those opportunities. Aside from a few (admittedly cool) grappling sections, this is by and large the same shit, different whip, without any real thought put into how that difference dramatically changes the way Castlevania feels. Enemies and stage layouts do little to account for the incredible amount of range and maneuverability your new octo-directional god-flail provides, resulting in a game that’s less concerned with deliberate positioning or thoughtful movement as it is pressing B to steamroll and Belmont-struttin’ to the finish. I still died plenty, sure, but when I revived I was never asked to change up my strategy, since plowing forward head-first was almost always the most viable option. I wasn’t even looking at my heart counter for most of the game, because your whip is just so absurdly useful it makes bothering with subweapons entirely pointless. The call for precision does start to pick up eventually, but only in the last third or so, and mostly by means of really fiddly platforming and a lot of instant-death spikes with weird hitboxes. It’s just…sloppy, and that’s the last word I thought I’d associate with Castlevania.
Let me be clear, because I’m worried this might be misconstrued: I’m not bothered by the fact Super Castlevania IV isn’t as rigid or challenging as what came before, as much as I’m bothered that it’s simply so much less engaging to play. I got hooked on Castlevania because it was the kind of game you couldn’t just mindlessly brute-force your way through, you had to take your time and think through your actions if you wanted to improve. It was tough but always fair, always intentional, and if you were willing to meet it on its level it was an immensely satisfying experience to learn and master each stage. Super Castlevania IV is not disappointing because it’s different or easy, it’s disappointing because I’m doing the same thing I’ve been doing for 4 games straight but more brainless than ever. It’s not exactly a bad time, it feels good enough to play in the moment, but it isn’t really rewarding or memorable long-term, and the fact that it’s three times the length these usually go for really highlights its shallowness.
All this might be excusable if the presentation was better but honestly I’m not feeling that either, man. There’s a few good backgrounds here and there and the exuberance that it explores the SNES hardware with is hard not to be somewhat charmed by (Mode 7 hallways, cool as fuck dude) but most of this looks really muddy and bland to me. It lacks the goofy cartoon monster mash aesthetics of its predecessors but hasn’t quite arrived at the gothic anime look of what’s to come, so you get this weird middle child without much visual personality of its own. Music is also a real letdown, you’d think a console as well-suited to absolutely fucking shredding as the SNES would be packed full of new rockin’ Castlevania bangers but it’s mostly a very ambient, atmospheric affair. Which I could maybe get behind if it was done better but a lot of this just sounds kinda dinky and lame, returning favorites like Vampire Killer and Bloody Tears notwithstanding. Honestly this rendition of Bloody Tears is SO good on its own I’m almost willing to let everything else in this paragraph slide. Almost. Simon’s Quest truthers stay forever 🔛🔝!
I dunno. This review is a mess. I don’t like being this mean towards a game I’m this lukewarm on, but I also can’t lie and act like this was a real showstopper in any regard either. It’s far from bad, but nothing about it really compels me, which is a shame. It’s the biggest, grandest Castlevania yet, and I’ve already forgotten most of it. I can respect it, I can appreciate it, but I think this one is just a swing and a miss for me personally.
2002
This review contains spoilers
How do you follow up a masterpiece 9 years after the fact? By corrupting everything it stood for. Metroid Fusion is, first and foremost, a story of infection. Before the game even begins, an encounter with an X Parasite leaves the series iconography shattered: Samus’s gunship is destroyed, her iconic power suit defiled, her life saved by a Metroid vaccine. Her new “fusion suit” is a powerful visual statement: an almost unrecognizable, uncomfortably organic design that evokes the Metroids Samus once slaughtered more than it resembles a legendary bounty hunter. Fitting, not just because of its origins, but because it’s in this game that Samus learns what it’s like to be hunted herself. This doesn’t feel like Super Metroid anymore. This feels alien. This feels wrong.
Samus is noticeably weaker in Fusion than any of her prior appearances. Even when fully upgraded she can’t reliably tank hits like she used to, and her new Metroid DNA gives her an extreme vulnerability to the cold. Rooms that would have given you no trouble in past games become genuine questions of survival, with boss fights becoming daunting challenges. While every Metroid game begins by stripping you of the upgrades you collected in the previous mission, their absence is most viscerally felt in Fusion. You didn’t just lose your abilities, they were taken from you. It’s a fresh wound that hurts all the more thanks to the SA-X, a parasitic mockery of Samus at her full power trapped on the same space station as you. The game tells you point blank that you stand no chance against the SA-X in your current state: If you see it, all you can do is run. A warped shadow of your lost autonomy, the SA-X’s all-too-familiar presence dominates the whole experience. No matter where you go you know that it’s out there, you know that it’s looking for you, and you know firsthand exactly what it’s capable of. The danger and horror of Metroid have never been so pronounced.
Even the Metroid formula isn’t safe from infection. While past titles were all about independently exploring vast, interconnected ecosystems, Fusion has you following linear objectives through segmented–and distinctly artificial–simulated environments. The game puts you on a tight leash, forced to take orders from an on-board AI, your destination always cleanly marked on the map. The moments you do get to freely explore are aberrations, disruptions that no longer feel safe given your newfound frailness and the constant threat of the SA-X. By the time I finished the first three Metroid games my connection to their worlds felt intimate, I knew them front to back and felt confident traversing them. By the time I finished Fusion, the BSL space station still felt like a stranger, one I was desperate to leave behind me.
That linearity seems to be a major point of contention, and it certainly threw me off at first after the expansive freedom Super Metroid provided. It felt stifling, oppressive, like I wasn’t allowed to be in control… which is precisely how Samus must be feeling. If you come to this series for the exploration first I can see how Fusion might come as a disappointment, but for me it only made things more immersive. Like Samus I was growing numb to it all, the bleak reality of my life as a government pawn setting in, my resentment towards my situation and Adam’s orders only building, every locked door another reminder of how much agency I had lost. It’s a really smart use of structure as a form of storytelling.
In a lot of ways, Fusion feels more like a successor to Metroid II than it does Super Metroid. Both are much more linear, rigidly-segmented adventures, with progression being gated by a series of boss battles, and a greater emphasis placed on making the player feel uncomfortable rather than empowered. But as much as I adore Metroid II, I vastly prefer Fusion, if only because it’s so much more fun to play. The increased agility of the fusion suit, the fast crunchiness of your weapons, the streamlined GBA button layout, this is the most enjoyable controlling Samus has ever felt. I’ve mentioned the boss fights a few times now and it’s because they’re really the highlight of the game to me, the moment where all the game’s choices come together to create these huge, frenetic encounters against truly difficult opponents where one slip-up means death. Fusion overall is a much faster, more difficult game than the Metroids we’re used to and that was something I really connected with. Big Megaman Zero 3 vibes, which a lot of this game has come to think of it.
If it wasn’t abundantly obvious, I think Metroid Fusion is fucking brilliant. I could never not respect such a ballsy shakeup of series convention, but the fact it’s also an incredibly enjoyable game to boot is just icing on the cake. A masterclass in vision, theming and atmosphere the likes of which only Metroid is capable of. I wish all sequels could be this bold.
Samus is noticeably weaker in Fusion than any of her prior appearances. Even when fully upgraded she can’t reliably tank hits like she used to, and her new Metroid DNA gives her an extreme vulnerability to the cold. Rooms that would have given you no trouble in past games become genuine questions of survival, with boss fights becoming daunting challenges. While every Metroid game begins by stripping you of the upgrades you collected in the previous mission, their absence is most viscerally felt in Fusion. You didn’t just lose your abilities, they were taken from you. It’s a fresh wound that hurts all the more thanks to the SA-X, a parasitic mockery of Samus at her full power trapped on the same space station as you. The game tells you point blank that you stand no chance against the SA-X in your current state: If you see it, all you can do is run. A warped shadow of your lost autonomy, the SA-X’s all-too-familiar presence dominates the whole experience. No matter where you go you know that it’s out there, you know that it’s looking for you, and you know firsthand exactly what it’s capable of. The danger and horror of Metroid have never been so pronounced.
Even the Metroid formula isn’t safe from infection. While past titles were all about independently exploring vast, interconnected ecosystems, Fusion has you following linear objectives through segmented–and distinctly artificial–simulated environments. The game puts you on a tight leash, forced to take orders from an on-board AI, your destination always cleanly marked on the map. The moments you do get to freely explore are aberrations, disruptions that no longer feel safe given your newfound frailness and the constant threat of the SA-X. By the time I finished the first three Metroid games my connection to their worlds felt intimate, I knew them front to back and felt confident traversing them. By the time I finished Fusion, the BSL space station still felt like a stranger, one I was desperate to leave behind me.
That linearity seems to be a major point of contention, and it certainly threw me off at first after the expansive freedom Super Metroid provided. It felt stifling, oppressive, like I wasn’t allowed to be in control… which is precisely how Samus must be feeling. If you come to this series for the exploration first I can see how Fusion might come as a disappointment, but for me it only made things more immersive. Like Samus I was growing numb to it all, the bleak reality of my life as a government pawn setting in, my resentment towards my situation and Adam’s orders only building, every locked door another reminder of how much agency I had lost. It’s a really smart use of structure as a form of storytelling.
In a lot of ways, Fusion feels more like a successor to Metroid II than it does Super Metroid. Both are much more linear, rigidly-segmented adventures, with progression being gated by a series of boss battles, and a greater emphasis placed on making the player feel uncomfortable rather than empowered. But as much as I adore Metroid II, I vastly prefer Fusion, if only because it’s so much more fun to play. The increased agility of the fusion suit, the fast crunchiness of your weapons, the streamlined GBA button layout, this is the most enjoyable controlling Samus has ever felt. I’ve mentioned the boss fights a few times now and it’s because they’re really the highlight of the game to me, the moment where all the game’s choices come together to create these huge, frenetic encounters against truly difficult opponents where one slip-up means death. Fusion overall is a much faster, more difficult game than the Metroids we’re used to and that was something I really connected with. Big Megaman Zero 3 vibes, which a lot of this game has come to think of it.
If it wasn’t abundantly obvious, I think Metroid Fusion is fucking brilliant. I could never not respect such a ballsy shakeup of series convention, but the fact it’s also an incredibly enjoyable game to boot is just icing on the cake. A masterclass in vision, theming and atmosphere the likes of which only Metroid is capable of. I wish all sequels could be this bold.
You ever play a game that just fucking rocks? A game where every little thing about it feels precisely designed to make you (yes, you!) go “oh, HELL yeah!” at the screen? The type of game where each component doesn’t just work well, but works with such bravado that it feels like you’re discovering just how cool games can be for the first time? Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is one such game, a true 90s action kickassterpiece if ever there was one.
Where to even begin, man. As soon as you press start, Rondo bowls you over with just how stylish it all is. The pixel art is so vibrant and crisp, the cutscenes have this rad 80s OVA aesthetic, there’s so many little details and flashy effects. Backgrounds are more layered than ever, enemies move with such clarity and fluidity, and Richter has just the gnarliest fucking death animation I ever done saw. And the music, my god, THE MUSIC! This has gotta be my favorite Castlevania soundtrack yet, that extra CD space gets put to work. Everything about this game’s presentation just tickles my brain in exactly the way I want it to. It reminded me a lot of how completely Megaman X4 overwhelmed me with its aesthetics, a comparison I do NOT make lightly. Coming off of how vague and unspecific Super Castlevania IV’s art direction was, this just felt like a huge shot in the arm.
And hey, not to be a hater or nothing, but the gameplay is also a marked improvement over Super IV. I could appreciate that game’s attempts at shaking things up in theory, but Rondo feels like a much truer expansion of the Castlevania formula. You have a little more mid-air control, but your jump arc is still very stiff. Richter can get more height using a new backflip move, but that requires a quick button combo and plenty of screen clearance to use effectively. Your whip has more range and no longer needs to be upgraded, but still has a slight delay and can only hit directly in front of you. This necessitates the use of subweapons, which now let you choose between the weapon you already had and the one you just got. Subweapons now each allow access to a unique screen nuke move at the cost of more hearts, adding a layer of spectacle and strategy to an old mechanic. You can jump onto staircases like in Super IV, but you can jump out of them as well, making stairs actually responsive for the first time in series history. These are thoughtful, intelligent changes that streamline the way the game plays without disrupting that strict, purposeful Castlevania feel. It feels intuitive without losing any intentionality.
It also helps that these levels just rip so much ass, dude. Most of them are new spins on familiar locales—castle interiors, ghost ships, clock towers, even the village from Simon’s Quest makes an appearance—but with the production values increased and a greater emphasis on memorable setpieces. That’s the stage with the giant candles, that’s the stage where the whole town is on fire, that’s the stage with the giant bull that chases you! The whole thing feels very cinematic, in the same way that Castlevania I and III strived for but with the hardware to take it even further. The level design itself is also pitch-perfect. Enemies are a lot more aggressive than past games with more varied attack patterns, but they all have very clear telegraphs and are always placed where you can see them. It’s tough, especially considering how brief your invincibility frames are, but it never feels brutal. Haste and hesitation are the real killers here, and you’re given plenty of room to learn how to get through each level without relying on them. It’s a game that wants you to succeed and gives you all the tools to do so. It captures that oh-so-satisfying Castlevania game loop where every stage seems insurmountable at first, but with each attempt you get better and better until it becomes second nature. It took me forever to beat Dracula the first time, but when I realized I had forgotten to save Annette and had to redo the final battle to get the good ending, I took him down in only 2 or 3 attempts. Everything just feels so well-balanced, and the sense of skill progression is so, so rewarding.
And hey, speaking of replayability, that’s another huge thing Rondo of Blood has going for it! Most levels have branching pathways, secret exits to alternate stages, hidden maidens to rescue, and all kinds of little goodies buried in the nooks and crannies. I absolutely LOVE this kind of shit, scouring stages for unlockables is like my not-so-secret kink. I really like the addition of alternate stages in particular, it allows you a lot of flexibility with how you make your way to the final areas, but only as a reward for engaging with the level design first. Dracula's Curse experimented with something similar, but I much prefer its integration here since you can backtrack and see everything all in one playthrough.
Of course you can’t talk about replayability without discussing our two playable characters. Our Belmont for this adventure is Richter, and he’s handily my favorite of his clan yet. Simon has a special place in my heart, but Richter just has so much more personality. He’s as much a hero of destiny as any of his ancestors but with a more lighthearted, even dorky demeanor I find really endearing. Also that design with the headband and the torn sleeves absolutely rocks. But if you're tired of macho Belmont action, you could also play as Maria Renard, a twelve-year old girl who fights the hordes of evil using her magical animal friends. Maria is the best, aesthetically she feels like she belongs to an entirely different game (to the point she looks superimposed in her own cutscenes and her game over screen looks like Panel de Pon) which is a gag made all the more funny by just how much stronger than the Belmonts she is. She takes more damage than Richter but moves much faster, has a bird-boomerang attack that shreds through enemies, gets a double jump that makes platforming a breeze, and her animal buddy item crashes are totally busted. Her inclusion is likely intended as an “easy mode” of sorts, but it’s so fleshed out it hardly feels demeaning. You can see the entire game with Maria and she plays so differently that even if you prefer Richter’s challenge, it’s worth retrying stages to see how she fares. I tended to go through stages as Richter first, switching to Maria when I was backtracking for secret exits or to get through particularly tough platforming gauntlets. I really like how she’s implemented here, you have to find her hidden away in stage 2 to unlock her first. It’s a nice way to incentivize exploration, and happens early enough that you gain a feel for how Richter controls first while still having the option to use Maria for the much harder levels to come. Rondo of Blood is really dedicated to letting you play how you want to, and that’s something I really appreciate.
If I try to write anymore it’ll just devolve into unintelligible gushing but yeah, Rondo of Blood is a sweet ass game. Cool as fuck, super fun, and with a great amount of player freedom. It’s the Castlevania I’ve come to know and love but with so much more style and depth to really keep me coming back. Without a doubt my favorite Castlevania so far–this is the new gold standard.
Where to even begin, man. As soon as you press start, Rondo bowls you over with just how stylish it all is. The pixel art is so vibrant and crisp, the cutscenes have this rad 80s OVA aesthetic, there’s so many little details and flashy effects. Backgrounds are more layered than ever, enemies move with such clarity and fluidity, and Richter has just the gnarliest fucking death animation I ever done saw. And the music, my god, THE MUSIC! This has gotta be my favorite Castlevania soundtrack yet, that extra CD space gets put to work. Everything about this game’s presentation just tickles my brain in exactly the way I want it to. It reminded me a lot of how completely Megaman X4 overwhelmed me with its aesthetics, a comparison I do NOT make lightly. Coming off of how vague and unspecific Super Castlevania IV’s art direction was, this just felt like a huge shot in the arm.
And hey, not to be a hater or nothing, but the gameplay is also a marked improvement over Super IV. I could appreciate that game’s attempts at shaking things up in theory, but Rondo feels like a much truer expansion of the Castlevania formula. You have a little more mid-air control, but your jump arc is still very stiff. Richter can get more height using a new backflip move, but that requires a quick button combo and plenty of screen clearance to use effectively. Your whip has more range and no longer needs to be upgraded, but still has a slight delay and can only hit directly in front of you. This necessitates the use of subweapons, which now let you choose between the weapon you already had and the one you just got. Subweapons now each allow access to a unique screen nuke move at the cost of more hearts, adding a layer of spectacle and strategy to an old mechanic. You can jump onto staircases like in Super IV, but you can jump out of them as well, making stairs actually responsive for the first time in series history. These are thoughtful, intelligent changes that streamline the way the game plays without disrupting that strict, purposeful Castlevania feel. It feels intuitive without losing any intentionality.
It also helps that these levels just rip so much ass, dude. Most of them are new spins on familiar locales—castle interiors, ghost ships, clock towers, even the village from Simon’s Quest makes an appearance—but with the production values increased and a greater emphasis on memorable setpieces. That’s the stage with the giant candles, that’s the stage where the whole town is on fire, that’s the stage with the giant bull that chases you! The whole thing feels very cinematic, in the same way that Castlevania I and III strived for but with the hardware to take it even further. The level design itself is also pitch-perfect. Enemies are a lot more aggressive than past games with more varied attack patterns, but they all have very clear telegraphs and are always placed where you can see them. It’s tough, especially considering how brief your invincibility frames are, but it never feels brutal. Haste and hesitation are the real killers here, and you’re given plenty of room to learn how to get through each level without relying on them. It’s a game that wants you to succeed and gives you all the tools to do so. It captures that oh-so-satisfying Castlevania game loop where every stage seems insurmountable at first, but with each attempt you get better and better until it becomes second nature. It took me forever to beat Dracula the first time, but when I realized I had forgotten to save Annette and had to redo the final battle to get the good ending, I took him down in only 2 or 3 attempts. Everything just feels so well-balanced, and the sense of skill progression is so, so rewarding.
And hey, speaking of replayability, that’s another huge thing Rondo of Blood has going for it! Most levels have branching pathways, secret exits to alternate stages, hidden maidens to rescue, and all kinds of little goodies buried in the nooks and crannies. I absolutely LOVE this kind of shit, scouring stages for unlockables is like my not-so-secret kink. I really like the addition of alternate stages in particular, it allows you a lot of flexibility with how you make your way to the final areas, but only as a reward for engaging with the level design first. Dracula's Curse experimented with something similar, but I much prefer its integration here since you can backtrack and see everything all in one playthrough.
Of course you can’t talk about replayability without discussing our two playable characters. Our Belmont for this adventure is Richter, and he’s handily my favorite of his clan yet. Simon has a special place in my heart, but Richter just has so much more personality. He’s as much a hero of destiny as any of his ancestors but with a more lighthearted, even dorky demeanor I find really endearing. Also that design with the headband and the torn sleeves absolutely rocks. But if you're tired of macho Belmont action, you could also play as Maria Renard, a twelve-year old girl who fights the hordes of evil using her magical animal friends. Maria is the best, aesthetically she feels like she belongs to an entirely different game (to the point she looks superimposed in her own cutscenes and her game over screen looks like Panel de Pon) which is a gag made all the more funny by just how much stronger than the Belmonts she is. She takes more damage than Richter but moves much faster, has a bird-boomerang attack that shreds through enemies, gets a double jump that makes platforming a breeze, and her animal buddy item crashes are totally busted. Her inclusion is likely intended as an “easy mode” of sorts, but it’s so fleshed out it hardly feels demeaning. You can see the entire game with Maria and she plays so differently that even if you prefer Richter’s challenge, it’s worth retrying stages to see how she fares. I tended to go through stages as Richter first, switching to Maria when I was backtracking for secret exits or to get through particularly tough platforming gauntlets. I really like how she’s implemented here, you have to find her hidden away in stage 2 to unlock her first. It’s a nice way to incentivize exploration, and happens early enough that you gain a feel for how Richter controls first while still having the option to use Maria for the much harder levels to come. Rondo of Blood is really dedicated to letting you play how you want to, and that’s something I really appreciate.
If I try to write anymore it’ll just devolve into unintelligible gushing but yeah, Rondo of Blood is a sweet ass game. Cool as fuck, super fun, and with a great amount of player freedom. It’s the Castlevania I’ve come to know and love but with so much more style and depth to really keep me coming back. Without a doubt my favorite Castlevania so far–this is the new gold standard.
Castlevania: Bloodlines is a weird game I have weird feelings about. Sega certainly does what Nintendon’t, for better or for worse. I feel like this is going to be one of my more contentious reviews, so let’s just dive into it.
I’ll start off with what I liked: This game is fucking bonkers! It’s the twentieth century, and Dracula’s previously-unmentioned niece, Elizabeth Bartley, is trying to resurrect the big man himself. Her plan to do this? By starting World War I and generating enough dead souls to bring Drac back early, of course! That’s right folks, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand wasn’t motivated by complex geopolitical machinations, but a secret plot by fucking vampires! As the player, you take control of either John Morris or Eric Lecarde, the former of which is stated to be both a distant descendant of the Belmont clan as well as the son of Quincy Morris from the Bram Stoker novel. According to the manual, John and Eric were even present for that book’s final showdown, just slightly to the left off-screen, Lion King 1 ½ style. Insane move on Konami’s part to canonize the Dracula novel this late into the series, only to turn around and claim one of its major characters as part of their lineage of video game OCs. Definitely not as insane as asserting vampires orchestrated World War I, but insane nonetheless! After some cursory googling it seems Elizabeth Bartley is also based on Hungarian noblewoman Erzsébet Báthory, a real-life alleged serial killer rumored to have murdered over 600 women. Very cool detail to add to your game that probably sat on the shelf next to Ristar and Sonic 2. You can go to Atlantis in this one! Shit’s crazy!
Bugnuts lore aside, the actual selling point of Bloodlines, in my mind, is that it looks and sounds amazing. Castlevania games tend to be a cut above the rest in that regard as a given, but even still Bloodlines sticks out as something special. That distinct Genesis color palette and sound chip are pushed to their fullest, lending the game a very unique flavor among its franchise peers. The globetrotting conceit is really what sells this adventure, each stage jam-packed with unique iconography to remember it by. Romania has those huge windows and that sicknasty hellhound. “Atlantis, Greece” has those beautiful rising purple tides and the giant statue heads you can THWACK. Italy lets you climb up the Tower of Pisa, here reimagined as a constantly-teetering mode 7 dutch angle nightmare. The munitions factory in Germany is like a typical clocktower level cranked to 11, full of whirring cogs and gears and treads and skeletons in little army helmets. Versailles has that cool-as-hell blood fountain and fucking MOTHRA like holy shit dude it’s MOTHRA as the end-of-stage boss. And then you get to the final level and there’s exploding bridges and more stairs and boss fights than you can shake a whip at. There’s just so much to marvel at here–I’ve talked a lot about how these games emphasize spectacle, but Bloodlines really has no equals in that department. Seriously impressive showcase for the system.
Unfortunately, beyond that is where Bloodlines… kind of loses me. This game has a reputation for being difficult, and it definitely is, but not in the ways I was anticipating. The first thing I noticed is that unlike every other game in this series, you do not have infinite continues. Game over 3 times, and it’s back to the beginning. This is just really dumb in my eyes, it totally disincentivizes the kind of trial-and-error mastery Castlevania thrives on by attaching such a harsh penalty to failure. But whatever, with some passwords and save states it’s an easy enough problem to circumvent. It’s not ideal, but it’s not a dealbreaker. But then you get past that and…hm.
Look, I got nothing against hard games. Obviously not, I’m doing a Castlevania marathon. And with all the other games in this series, I’ve risen to the challenge and had a great time doing it! But I think with Bloodlines we may have reached my personal threshold for how much ball-busting I can tolerate. Maybe it’s franchise burnout, but it just felt like this one had a much higher degree of bullshit than usual, particularly in it’s second half. There’s only six stages, but they’re six looong stages, each one absolutely swarming you with enemies and obstacles. That wouldn’t be so bad on its own, but it feels like they all take a million hits with uncharacteristically erratic attack patterns. I usually scoff when people dismiss the difficulty of this series by saying “you have to read the game’s mind to beat this” but like… it felt kinda true with Bloodlines! Stage 4 is pretty bad, but stage 5 is where I really reached my limit, with its control-reversing spores and superfast swinging plants and low-visibility chandelier hallway and that stupid wheel knight that takes like a full minute to kill and that dumbass statue head boss that you can only damage when he’s NOT on screen???? By the time I got to the final stage I was so annoyed by the experiecne that I was savescumming like crazy just to get it over with, something I normally avoid doing with these. The final bosses aren’t even that bad really, Belmont’s Revenge was way worse, but I was just so tired and frustrated by then I needed an easy out.
I feel bad because Bloodlines really does do so much that I love. The music and visuals are spectacular, the levels are incredibly memorable, and it takes the series into some refreshingly weird directions. From what I understand this is a fan-favorite, and I totally get why! I mean hell, it's got MOTHRA in it! But if I'm being entirely honest with myself, this was really a slog to get through. Can’t say I’m a hater, but I can’t say I’m a fan.
I’ll start off with what I liked: This game is fucking bonkers! It’s the twentieth century, and Dracula’s previously-unmentioned niece, Elizabeth Bartley, is trying to resurrect the big man himself. Her plan to do this? By starting World War I and generating enough dead souls to bring Drac back early, of course! That’s right folks, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand wasn’t motivated by complex geopolitical machinations, but a secret plot by fucking vampires! As the player, you take control of either John Morris or Eric Lecarde, the former of which is stated to be both a distant descendant of the Belmont clan as well as the son of Quincy Morris from the Bram Stoker novel. According to the manual, John and Eric were even present for that book’s final showdown, just slightly to the left off-screen, Lion King 1 ½ style. Insane move on Konami’s part to canonize the Dracula novel this late into the series, only to turn around and claim one of its major characters as part of their lineage of video game OCs. Definitely not as insane as asserting vampires orchestrated World War I, but insane nonetheless! After some cursory googling it seems Elizabeth Bartley is also based on Hungarian noblewoman Erzsébet Báthory, a real-life alleged serial killer rumored to have murdered over 600 women. Very cool detail to add to your game that probably sat on the shelf next to Ristar and Sonic 2. You can go to Atlantis in this one! Shit’s crazy!
Bugnuts lore aside, the actual selling point of Bloodlines, in my mind, is that it looks and sounds amazing. Castlevania games tend to be a cut above the rest in that regard as a given, but even still Bloodlines sticks out as something special. That distinct Genesis color palette and sound chip are pushed to their fullest, lending the game a very unique flavor among its franchise peers. The globetrotting conceit is really what sells this adventure, each stage jam-packed with unique iconography to remember it by. Romania has those huge windows and that sicknasty hellhound. “Atlantis, Greece” has those beautiful rising purple tides and the giant statue heads you can THWACK. Italy lets you climb up the Tower of Pisa, here reimagined as a constantly-teetering mode 7 dutch angle nightmare. The munitions factory in Germany is like a typical clocktower level cranked to 11, full of whirring cogs and gears and treads and skeletons in little army helmets. Versailles has that cool-as-hell blood fountain and fucking MOTHRA like holy shit dude it’s MOTHRA as the end-of-stage boss. And then you get to the final level and there’s exploding bridges and more stairs and boss fights than you can shake a whip at. There’s just so much to marvel at here–I’ve talked a lot about how these games emphasize spectacle, but Bloodlines really has no equals in that department. Seriously impressive showcase for the system.
Unfortunately, beyond that is where Bloodlines… kind of loses me. This game has a reputation for being difficult, and it definitely is, but not in the ways I was anticipating. The first thing I noticed is that unlike every other game in this series, you do not have infinite continues. Game over 3 times, and it’s back to the beginning. This is just really dumb in my eyes, it totally disincentivizes the kind of trial-and-error mastery Castlevania thrives on by attaching such a harsh penalty to failure. But whatever, with some passwords and save states it’s an easy enough problem to circumvent. It’s not ideal, but it’s not a dealbreaker. But then you get past that and…hm.
Look, I got nothing against hard games. Obviously not, I’m doing a Castlevania marathon. And with all the other games in this series, I’ve risen to the challenge and had a great time doing it! But I think with Bloodlines we may have reached my personal threshold for how much ball-busting I can tolerate. Maybe it’s franchise burnout, but it just felt like this one had a much higher degree of bullshit than usual, particularly in it’s second half. There’s only six stages, but they’re six looong stages, each one absolutely swarming you with enemies and obstacles. That wouldn’t be so bad on its own, but it feels like they all take a million hits with uncharacteristically erratic attack patterns. I usually scoff when people dismiss the difficulty of this series by saying “you have to read the game’s mind to beat this” but like… it felt kinda true with Bloodlines! Stage 4 is pretty bad, but stage 5 is where I really reached my limit, with its control-reversing spores and superfast swinging plants and low-visibility chandelier hallway and that stupid wheel knight that takes like a full minute to kill and that dumbass statue head boss that you can only damage when he’s NOT on screen???? By the time I got to the final stage I was so annoyed by the experiecne that I was savescumming like crazy just to get it over with, something I normally avoid doing with these. The final bosses aren’t even that bad really, Belmont’s Revenge was way worse, but I was just so tired and frustrated by then I needed an easy out.
I feel bad because Bloodlines really does do so much that I love. The music and visuals are spectacular, the levels are incredibly memorable, and it takes the series into some refreshingly weird directions. From what I understand this is a fan-favorite, and I totally get why! I mean hell, it's got MOTHRA in it! But if I'm being entirely honest with myself, this was really a slog to get through. Can’t say I’m a hater, but I can’t say I’m a fan.