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Castlevania |
| Platform: NES • Developer: Konami • Genre: Action/Platformer • ESRB Rating: N/A • Words: Man9child |
| While technically not the first game that pitted Simon Belmont against Count Dracula, NES Castlevania may as well have been as it was the game that introduced the vast majority of us to Konami's longstanding franchise. But aside from inspiring 20 years of sequels, imitators, and detractors, the original Castlevania also provided us with an adventure that was quite unlike anything else available at the time. Combining elements from Greek mythology with movie monsters of the 30's and 40's, Castlevania created an atmosphere, gameplay mold, and aesthetic that endures to today. |
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| Upon starting up a new game you find yourself in front of the gates of Castle Dracula with a crescent moon looming ominously in the dark sky. You make your way past the flickering candles, foreboding trees and ancient sculpture and into the castle itself to be immediately swarmed by throngs of the undead. The castle walls are aged, the curtains torn, the paint peeling away. You make your way down into the depths of the castle sewers where fishmen leap out of the water hungry for blood, mold clinging to the bridge beneath your feet. At the end of the stage a gigantic bat unfurls itself from its sleeping position on the ceiling and spreads its wings to attack. The whole Castlevania experience is fleshed out with an attention paid to detail that was something quite uncommon at the time. Castlevania manages to be so engaging on an aesthetic level because, in spite of the limited cartridge space and color palette the designers had to work with, Dracula's Castle is almost believable. Its very appearance conveys a sense of history, of realness. But it's the interactivity with this world that goes one step farther in immersing you inside of it. In what can only be described as a stroke of genius, the candelabra that hang from the castle walls can all be destroyed. On a practical level, this serves mainly as the game’s way of distributing powerups. But on a psychological level it lets the player engage with his surroundings. You're never just aimlessly walking around, your attention is led from one destructible object to the next. Even the walls themselves hold secrets. In this sense, the entire world is rife with the sense of discovery. Castlevania succeeds, in part, where similar titles fail because of its interactivity. |
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| But aside from the world of Castlevania being tangible and interactive, even your virtual persona is grounded with a certain amount of weight. A far cry from your typically floaty videogame hero, Simon Belmont trots along at a slow and deliberate pace. His striking with his whip is again, slow and deliberate. But it's dependable, and it always comes out when you need it to. Besides, when Simon swings his whip he means it. All of your actions have a satisfying weight to them, and although your actions are quite limited, extreme mastery and precision is required to navigate each stage. The reason for this is that each level forces you to use your limited abilities to their fullest. Instead of giving you more skills than you would ever need, Castlevania instead places a heightened importance on the few that you have. Due to its fixed trajectory, even one botched jump could mean defeat. In this way, the designers constantly force you to remain on your toes, fighting against enemies and situations more formidable than yourself; more capable than you were designed to be. The entire game is built from the ground up around your substantial limitations, forcing you to press against them the whole way through. A certain amount of ingenuity and skill with the game’s assorted sub-weapons are what you'll need to overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds that you're put up against. While this usually works in the game’s favor, there's one fight against (ironically enough) Death that is nearly impossible to overcome without either the holy water or crucifix...get to that point holding anything else and it's basically game over. Still, that one part aside, Castlevania manages to walk that thin line between difficult and downright impossible without ever stepping too far into the latter. |
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| It's hard to look back onto such an influential title, a classic in the truest sense of the word, and form an opinion of it anything but stilted. Though sequels would refine and improve Castlevania's particulars, it's amazing how much of the core material and mechanics that continue to define the series were present in this first outing. Castlevania is, on its own merits, an ace platformer that is almost without peer. Still engaging 20 years after its release, Castlevania is one of the games of the 8-bit era to be legitimately timeless. And with new sequels appearing in what seems to be a yearly fashion, Castlevania doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. Long live the king. |
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9.0 |
 + Exquisite detail and a very appropriate disjointed and gritty art style in the game’s textures and environments. +/- Charming, though lacking, animation. |
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9.5 |
 + Fans are still getting worked up over Vampire Killer remixes 20 years later. As far as sickeningly catchy 8 bit anthems are concerned, there's none better. |
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8.5 |
 + Solid and weighty control, innovative and subsequently often copied sub weapon/item system. - Play control issues would dog the series for years concerning those infamous staircases. |
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9.0 |
 ++ A seamless meld of mythology and early horror films that would set a precedent for the series to follow in the future. These aren't just random video game monsters, the enemies here all have subtext. + Substantially darker in tone than any other platformer I can think of from the time. Until Splatterhouse came out, this was as close to survival horror as you could get. |
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8.5 |
 + Timeless, and though devoid of any true replay incentives other than a second loop and a score tally, possess an incredibly high replay value on fun factor alone. |
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9.2 |
 + Classic. And to think, it was only a taste of what's to come. |
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