Count Dracula acting through proxy vampires to initiate the First World War from the comfort of his English castle is such a darkly rich conceit that I’m surprised it was a video game that had the idea first. Despite being a Mega Drive game that has more in common with its straightforward NES and SNES sidescrolling siblings than any PlayStation descendants, Castlevania: Bloodlines does a pretty decent job of exploring war’s truths and horrors just through good sprites, background work and instruction manual blurbs.
I know it’s a Backloggd cliché at this point to read video games far more closely than they deserve, but the American John Morris arrives in 1917 Europe to clear out a German munitions factory full of dead men walking and then heads to the Palace of Versaille to soak in a fountain of blood with more skeletons bearing army helmets - I think this game is trying to say something!! It wasn’t until I was more or less done with the game that I even put together that I was playing as the dad from Portrait of Ruin (set 1944), too. I really like that Castlevania’s bloodlines and relationships feel like genuine legends that you have to explore via dusty old ancillary texts (i.e. crusty Fandom sites and 2004 forum posts) instead of being linearly spoon-fed through exposition that nobody really needs to hear before they go around whipping werewolves. (Netflix, if you’re looking for another Castlevania story to do after Rondo of Blood…)
Because I am obliged to talk about how the game actually plays, I will let you know right here that the gameplay of Castlevania: Bloodlines is, indeed, Castlevania. You stiffly jump, you whip, you beat up Frankenstein. It’s clear by this point that Konami had more or less exhausted the formula; this is solid-well made Castlevania, but it isn’t a ton of miles removed from 1986, and it’s plain to see why Symphony of the Night came a few years later, because this series would otherwise have been buried in a crypt. The not-mode-7 effects totally rule, though, and the music rips, too. Glad to finally trace the genealogy of Iron Blue Intention.
I know it’s a Backloggd cliché at this point to read video games far more closely than they deserve, but the American John Morris arrives in 1917 Europe to clear out a German munitions factory full of dead men walking and then heads to the Palace of Versaille to soak in a fountain of blood with more skeletons bearing army helmets - I think this game is trying to say something!! It wasn’t until I was more or less done with the game that I even put together that I was playing as the dad from Portrait of Ruin (set 1944), too. I really like that Castlevania’s bloodlines and relationships feel like genuine legends that you have to explore via dusty old ancillary texts (i.e. crusty Fandom sites and 2004 forum posts) instead of being linearly spoon-fed through exposition that nobody really needs to hear before they go around whipping werewolves. (Netflix, if you’re looking for another Castlevania story to do after Rondo of Blood…)
Because I am obliged to talk about how the game actually plays, I will let you know right here that the gameplay of Castlevania: Bloodlines is, indeed, Castlevania. You stiffly jump, you whip, you beat up Frankenstein. It’s clear by this point that Konami had more or less exhausted the formula; this is solid-well made Castlevania, but it isn’t a ton of miles removed from 1986, and it’s plain to see why Symphony of the Night came a few years later, because this series would otherwise have been buried in a crypt. The not-mode-7 effects totally rule, though, and the music rips, too. Glad to finally trace the genealogy of Iron Blue Intention.
JimTheSchoolGirl
2 years ago