Seriously some of the coolest box art for an NES game.
I'm really on a roll lately. I spent the long weekend at least partially wrapping up some retro games I'd been working on for a while, so I have TWO new What I'm Playing coming this week. And maybe a third, if I get some time tonight and tomorrow.
The first game I finished was one I've been working on for a while, although I took a break in the middle. It's Konami's Castlevania, the first in the legendary series of games that took a big U-turn in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Playstation) to adopt more Metroid/Zelda characteristics. But this game on the NES is the originator of the series, so that's where I started, having been inspired by the fantastic time I spent with Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. And the first Castlevania game is quite different, although still enjoyable in it's own way.
You play as Simon Belmont, a member of a long line of vampire killers. Dracula's castle has appeared, as it does every 100 years, and as the current living and quite swole Belmont, and possessed of a tremendous whip, you must siege the castle, cutting your way through hordes of zombies, skeletons, bats, and a wide range of horrifying monsters inspired by classic horror films, books, and tall tales. You start only with your whip and your jumping, and have to find your way through the castle.
Along the way, you can find special items that can be used, including a throwing knife, some kind of boomerang, an axe, and the legendary HOLY WATER (more on this later). You can also find hearts that will enable to use these items. You can only hold one special item at a time, which makes the choice of which item to carry technically important, although the holy water is almost always best.
The game has many strong points. It's music is superb, and it looks fantastic for an early NES game. The backgrounds are filled with loving details, and all of the sprites are clear and crisp.
The enemies come at you fast and furious, and you will die. A lot. The challenge of the game is well balanced so that you feel like you're learning even as you die and need to continue. Speaking of continues, you have infinite of them, and you'll need them! The stages are big and filled with lots of variety, and each stage has a unique identity which makes it a breath of fresh air.
The game tells a tale as old as time, and tells it well. With very little exposition, you get the sense of the story, and are immersed in it well. The game's ending is marvelously campy and lovable, with tributes to the actors who played the monsters featured as bosses, and you have a delightful celebration upon the conclusion of the game.
I am still not sure regarding the controls of the game. On the one hand, the controls feel clunky and unresponsive, far more like an Atari 2600 game than a polished NES title like Ninja Gaiden, Super Mario Bros., or Mega Man. On the other hand, I wonder about how effective those controls are in effectively immersing you in the world of Dracula's castle. Belmont frequently feels ganged up on and crushed by the hordes of monsters, and the clunky controls sell his underdog status. I lean towards not liking them, but they did add a certain value to the game, I suppose.
The single biggest weakness of the game was the balance of the items. The holy water is completely game breaking, if you can hang on to it. Most of the bosses are a cake walk with the holy water, as it puts the boss in stun lock while you beat on it with your whip. For the careful player, the holy water means a breeze through every boss in the game, save for the penultimate one. Getting there, however, is not so easy, if you have to hang on to the holy water without dying. I think the game would have been a bit stronger with a few additions. They could have toned up the power of the other items, or created compelling reasons why each should have to be used.
They tried this, for example, by making the dagger have a much longer range than the holy water, while the axe can hit enemies above Simon, while the holy water drops down below onto enemies. But the duration with which the holy water burns when it hits the floor makes it so you can sling it around with little accuracy and still get your desired result. The hearts are also very plentiful in the game, and leave you with little incentive to conserve them for harder battles. Each charge of the holy water only takes 1 heart, and hearts are dropping all the time, including big hearts worth 5 hearts. They could have also maintained the balance by making the holy water cost 5 hearts, making it a high risk, high reward item that you'd have to use carefully. But the challenge of the game was such that just having holy water was frankly a relief, in the situation that I managed to carry it all the way to the boss. But I would have liked being able to play around with different item combinations and strategies, while the balance of the game really forced you to rely on one item alone.
But for it's blemishes, Castlevania is a very good early NES game. It blazed a lot of new ground in its visuals and music, and while clunky, the gameplay is immersive and ultimately satisfying. It's storytelling strengths exceed its balance flaws, and is a recommended play for fans of horror games, platforming, 8-bit gaming, and gaming history more generally. I'll give it a 8.6/10.
My next game is one I've been meaning to circle back to for months, and shouldn't be too hard to guess...
*Shakes fist in defiance*
-TRO
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