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Bloodletting: A Look at Castlevania By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman With the recent release of Castlevania: Order of the Ecclesia on the DS, I’ve decided to do a series of articles based on the Castlevania series. Ever since I played the first installment at the arcade, Castlevania has long stood as one of my favorite video games series. Perhaps, it’s the concept of a family of vampire hunters using semi-dark forces (I refer to the powers of the occult, not the Lucasarts first person shooter) to fight the ever resurrecting Dracula. Or perhaps, it’s the well designed characters and locales along with a notoriously great soundtrack that make each installment less of a game and more like an interactive piece of art. However, as the Castlevania series began to take a step away from the arcade platforming genre as seen in Castlevanias: 1, 3, 4, Bloodlines and the other “classic” Castlevanias; the series also began to step away from its notoriety of being incredibly challenging. Gone are the days of Castlevania 1 where you would hear that “you died” jingle at a rate of once every few minutes or so. And in comes a myriad of “metroidvanias” on the Gameboy Advance and DS that practically let you waltz and tap dance into the heart of Dracula’s lair. Since I love a difficult game and the Castlevania series, I thought it would be good to check the archives and round up…. The Top 5 Toughest 2-D Castlevania Games Yes, that’s right we’re only going to be including the 2-D installments of the Castlevania series. While I did find that one on Xbox was pretty hard, I kinda blame its difficulty on its control scheme. Also, we tried to be fair and incorporated a split mix of the recent/current Castlevania games and retro ones.
5) Castlevania 2 - Simon’s Quest: This may not make much sense to many of you classic gamers. Unless you’re the Angry Video Game Nerd, this game is not very hard in terms of challenge. Many of the mansions have incredibly easy bosses and Dracula’s castle doesn’t even have any henchmen trying to stop you, however, the real challenge is found in trying to understand the game. In a way, I’d compare the riddle aspect to the original Legend of Zelda. Even though everything is pretty much in plain English, many of the NPC’s lines are hauntingly cryptic. Thus, creating a confusing gameplay experience where I’m constantly trying to decipher what some random villager “really meant” by their statement.
4) Castlevania – Circle of the Moon: Being the first Castlevania on the Gameboy Advance, this game was truly a marvelous little gem. The thought of being able to carry a full fledged “metroidvania” in your pocket was unheard of at the time, and Konami didn’t fail to disappoint their fans. The game added a new enhancement system through attribute cards found by killing foes. This not only added a new element of strategy as you needed certain combinations of cards to access certain parts of the castle, but it also added a sort of collection element to the game.
3) Castlevania - Symphony of the Night: This entry comes with a minor caveat. Since there’s a weapon and shield combination that can essentially make Alucard some sort of invincible battering ram. However, if you don’t use the exploit to cheat the game; you’ll find that is quite an arduous challenge making your way through Dracula’s castle. Another thing that ramps the challenge quite a bit is the inverted castle. While nearing the end Symphony of the Night’s story; the player is given access to a strange teleportation device which transports them an upside down version of the castle. Not only does this add a whole other version of Dracula’s castle to work through, it also offers some new and challenging baddies and bosses. Add the fact that in order to get the best ending in the game you have to explore over 100% of the castle and you must defeat one of the main bosses in a different (and harder way); and you’ve got yourself one tough trek through Dracula’s castle.
2) Castlevania/Vampire Killer: The original! This is truly classic platforming at its finest. Not only are the levels designed to be very challenging with their: roundabouts leading you through a swarms of enemies, battery of jump sequences to master, and some pretty tough bosses (although many can be beaten quite easily with the right gear, a few of them are really hard to take down like the mummy twins). But even the game engine seems to be working against you. Simon Belmont jolts back when taking a hit in the air, often causing an untimely fall into a bottomless pit. Also, each time you die your whip is downgraded back to that near worthless flap of leather forcing you to break quite a few torches and candelabras to get it back to its full power. As I mentioned before, you will hear the “you died” jingle ad nauseum, so just get used to it as soon as possible and begin to take a Zen approach to your deaths. You’re going to need the serenity boost.
1) Castlevania – Order of the Ecclesia: Many of you saw this one coming a mile away. Especially, all my real life friends who had to hear me rant about this game over beers, pizza and chicken dinners all throughout the week. But let me tell you this game is genuinely difficult. Let me put the difficulty in perspective; currently my in-game clock says that I’ve been playing this game for about 2 hours. However, I’m sure that I’ve logged in about 6 hours into the game. That’s right, about 2/3s of my actual game play time has not been counted because I keep dying. Elements of the scenery kill you, the enemies kill you and bosses kill you (only faster). I must say I’m not slouch when it comes to 2-D platformers. But this game just has it out for you. One thing I wished this game had was an indicator telling you remotely how much life a boss has, as the bosses will often have a “desperation” attack where their fighting pattern goes into overdrive as a last ditch effort to catch you slipping.
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