Worthwhile-est game award

Last time at the Destructoid Institute of Critiquing Kusoge, I looked at Castlevania for the N64. We’ve established that the Castlevania serie??s has never been very good when it comes to its 3D titles, but the N64 games are likely the most worthwhile.

The second title on the N64, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, is easily the worthwhile-est. That’s mostly because it’s essentially an apology for Castlevania 64. Love it or hate it, it’s hard to deny that Castlevania ??64 had the signs of rushed development. This wasn’t anything overly major â€?most of its glaring problems today arenâ€??™t atypical for the time period it was released â€?but it comes down to a lack of polish. More notably, but less noticeably, Konami cut two characters of the planned four.

Legacy of Darkness reimplements one of these characters, adds a new one, then takes a polishing brush to the quests of the previous iteration’s main quests. The result is a title that’s perhaps closer to the developer’s original vision. However, it’s still the same game at its bones, with a lot of its content taken directly from Castlevania 64. If you played that one, it’ll be hard to sell you on Legacy of Darkness, and harder still if you, understandably, didn’t enjoy tha?t game.

For me, however, this is the current apex of the 3D Castlevania mashed potato heap.

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Extra pixels

Let’s start where Legacy of Darkness does: selecting your resolution. Expansion pack owners may?? turn on the special, VIP-only "High" mode. Like most N64 high-resolution modes, this definitely does have an impact on the game’s visual quality. There’s really no getting past the N64’s aggressive blurrine?ss, but shoving in some extra pixels does help.

However, I wouldn’t recommend it. I played through the entirety of the prologue quest with it on, and there were moments when my N64 practically let out an audible “hrrrrng�as it strained to lift the weight of everything happening on screen. When playing on the N64, bad framerate is a rule rather than an exception, but high-resolution Legacy of Darkness likes to get par??ticularly choppy at inopportune times. When it starts dropping frames, it’s usually during moments of precise platforming?.

There was one moment in the “Tower of Execution�level of the game where there was an obstacle that, by all rights, should have been easy for me to overcome. However, because it would turn into a slideshow whenever I got? near it, it took me several attempts to finally get through.

For reference, any screenshot here depicting Cornell or Henry was done in high-resolution mode, while Reinhardt gets low-resolution. I captured these directly from my N64 and upscaled them through a Framemeister??.

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Blue Crescent Moon

When you begin with Legacy of Darkness, Cornell is your only playable character. Cut from the original release, there really isn’t enough dialogue in the game to make Cornell interesting. However, he’s a werewolf which, by default, makes him the most interesting protagonist in a Castlevania title.

His adventure takes place 8 years before Reinhardt and Carrie bring the fight to Dracula in Castlevania 64. ??His sister is abducted, so he delves into Drac?ula’s castle to get her back.

It’s largely the same Dracula’s castle we saw in the previous title. Ma?ny of the locations within are mostly t??he same as they were. Some of them are rejiggered versions of previous locations, and some of them are new. Even when Cornell is in a place from Reinhardt and Carrie’s adventure, he’s usually tackling it in a completely new way. However, it’s hard not to get some intense deja vu from playing it. It’s especially hard to ignore when Cornell is following the same dance steps in a familiar cutscene.

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Fursona

Cornell isn’t that different than the other protagonists. The biggest difference is his extra ability where? he expends all his accumulated gems to transform into a wolf (with the L button, bizarrely). Beyond just looking irresistible, this makes him briefly more powerful. As a note, you can’t just turn this off at will. You need to wait until all g?ems have been used up before it deactivates. On the plus side, if you’ve already killed everyone, you can just zoom in and admire Cornell’s fursona.

When you finish Cornell’s quest, it unlocks Henry, a character who Cornell saves within the game??. Henry’s quest takes place right behind? Reinhardt and Carrie’s, with his goal being to save 6 children scattered throughout the early stages of the game.

This is weird for a few reasons. The first is that Henry just has a gun. Forget whips and magic. Those are only?? good for moving horses and making rabbits appear. Henry mows through things with a six-shooter. It’s too bad he isn’t there to kill Dracula, because he’d probably have an ?easy time of it.

The s??trangest part about Henry is that he has to visit levels after the first fork in the path for other protagonists. At the end of the Mansion section, Cornell, Carrie, and Reinhardt all jump into a hole and travel to different levels. Henry first jumps into the hole for one level, warps back, then jumps back in to be taken to another one, repeating until all the children are saved. I can only assume that the hole leads to a slide that branches in various ways. Otherwise, it’s a ma??gic hole.

Saving six children ??within seven days is an interesting concept, but in execution, it doesn’t live up to the promise.

[caption id="attachment_375168" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Moonwalker

If you manage to save all the children before the deadline, you unlock Reinhardt and Carrie’s quests. These are mostly the same as they were in Castlevania 64, with some mild rejiggering. Enemies might move around, patterns change, and some levels receive updates. Most notably, the game remixes later lev??els. I wouldn’t necessarily say they’re “better,�but they’re definitely di??fferent.

The gameplay itself has been largely unchanged. It’s really just smaller tweaks, both visually and in design. This is the first time I’ve played the two N64 titles back to back, and I previously thought Legacy of Darkness had more quality-of-life improvements. That really seems not to be the case. If you weren't a fan of that sequence where you need to transport the magical nitro without exploding, then? I've got bad news for you. It made its way to this title.

[caption id="attachment_375169" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Polygonal peril

On the other hand, playing through the game a few more times has led to a greater appreciation for it. It confirmed to me that their greatest issues are mostly due to the era of design it came out in. At its core, it has a lot of strengths. There's a decent amount of variety, as it frequently switches between combat, platforming, and puzzle-solving. Most 3D Castlevanias after this don’t?? switch things up with the same frequency, and I find them quite dull.

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness just has a lot more life to it than many games across the series. I feel like Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe got a bit of a bad rap. Their contributions to the Castlevania series (which includes Circle of the Moon for GBA) and the Ganbare Goemon series tend to have a bad reputation. Koji Igarashi was rather quick to eject the N64 Castlevania titles (and Circle of the Moon for that matter) from the series canon after he took the helm, for example. Despite this, Cornell appears in the spin-off Castlevania Judgment on Wii, so who even knows anymore?

Yet, I’ve grown to really appreciate the developer’s work through Legacy of Darkness. It’s probably way past time for me to check out their Ganbare Goemon games. You can sense the passion from the team that?? harkens back to Konami’s glorious Famicom d??ays.

Despite that, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness is a hard game to recommend. That’s largely because the early 3D era of video games has aged poorly. However, if you’re like me and are largely immune to the jank that came from a generation of developers learning how to work around an entirely new axis, then yeah, I totally think you should check out Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness. Better yet, if you're a fan of the console, this is one title that absolutely nails the feel and aesthetics. It almost completely renders Castlevania 64 obsolete, being the more definitive experien?ce of the infamous titles.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness ??is a worthwhi?le apology appeared first on Destructoid.

Corridorvania

I’ve been playing through Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, because despite not really liking Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, people have told me that it’s the more tolerable of the 3D Castlevania titles. I’m still waiting to get to th??e part that makes people say that because, so far, it’s smolderingly boring??. Just a bunch of long corridors with dudes in them.

I’d argue that Castlevania has never really found its footing in 3D. Fans of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow might be raisin?g their eyebrows right now, but I found that game as flavorful as d?ry bread made of drywall shavings.

As reviled as the N64 Castlevania titles sometimes are, at least they weren’t boring. I’m not here to make the claim that they were good ??games, but buried beneath all of that kusoge is a heart of�well, not gold. Ice cream, maybe? It tries, at lea??st. And it’s better to try and fail than it is to try and bore me to unconsciousness.

[caption id="attachment_374149" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Music of Sad

While often referred to as Castlevania 64, the first title in the N64’s duology is, in fact, just called Castlevania. In Japan, its title translates roughly to Castlevania: Apocalypse, which is just wonderfully generic. Released in 1999, it came out in the shadow of the seminal Symphony of the Night. It was before Koji Igarashi had a stranglehold on the series, so a lot was still up in the air. Naming, for example, h?adn’t yet settled into its “Music of Sad�categorization yet.

The story doesn’t really deviate from the typical setup. You play as either the current Vampire Killer whip holder, Reinhardt Schneider, or heir to the Belnades magic, Carrie Fernandez. Dracula has awoken again, and they need to put him back to sleep. I can’t say I ever played a Castlevania title for its story, so big shrug here.

The Japanese version refers to it as “Real Action Adventure,�which is a bit of an amusing description since “action adventure�is such a nebulous term. It plays like a lot of games of its era. The late �0s were pockmarked by games that just couldn’t get a handle on 3D, and Castlevania on N64 was certainly a prime example of this.

[caption id="attachment_374150" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Real Action Adventure

While Symphony of the Night shunted the series into a more gated exploration direction, Castlevania 64 tries something different. It’s more or less a linear platformer like the early titles, but with all the width, height, and depth of a 3D game. It plays a bit similarly to Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, but while that game was sort of free-roaming, Castlevania 64 was, as stated, largely linear.

It seems like there was some ambition to make it less direct, as the mansion level involves some exploration, but that’s sort of the only deviation. There’s a day/night cycle, but this is only important a few ??????????????????????????times throughout the game and forgotten about for huge swathes of gameplay. There’s even a single moment where you need to be somewhere at a specific time of day in order to proceed in the game, but this is literally the only time. Thankfully.

[caption id="attachment_374151" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Trust issues

The biggest issues of Castlevania 64 are the controls and the camera, both problems that were common in games of the time. The movement is rather erratic and slippery. The c?ombat relies on targeting, where you mostly don’t have an influence on what it latches onto. You can solidify what it grabs by holding R, but then you can’t move unless you press the jump button to dodge. But since the auto-aim is so aggressive, you can get away with just running around and attacking wildly. Carey has homing magic, which is usually just a matter of fire and forget, but Reinhardt has a more direct whip. The trade-off is that Reinhardt is more responsive, and, well, he actually requires positioning beyond just letting loose attacks.

The platforming is more-or-less fine. If you hold the jump button down, your character will grab onto ledges??, which is generally reliable. The only problem is that this is a system that very few games s??ubscribed to, so remembering not to release the button takes some getting used to.

Both traversal and combat are largely hampered by the camera. While both gameplay systems are functional, they both rely on being able to see what you’re climbing on or attack??ing. You have no direct control over where it’s pointed. That’s not entirely true. You can use the R button to move the perspective back behind your character if it wants to. A lot of the time, it will stay locked in place, and you? just have to kind of trust that it won’t let you down when you need it. That trust is very undeserved.

The levels aren’t particularly designed to alleviate frustrations caused by this. There is a ridiculous amount of instant death, and the save poi??nts are hardly generous. It’s bad enough that it’s very easy to misjudge a jump beca??use the camera isn’t cooperating, but it’s worse when it sets you back to a distant save point.

[caption id="attachment_374152" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Chainsaw Man

Likewise, there’s a strange reliance on grapple enemies. This becomes an issue early on when you’re running through a hedge maze, trying to escape two indestructible dogs and a hulking gardener with a chainsaw arm. The dogs will grab you, and then the chainsaw guy will chainsaw you. I think this part stands out to me as particularly frustrating, mainly because the save point is just so far back. It’s ??not a fun walk back to the maze just so you can get chainsawed again.

However, you may hear some speak fondly of Castlevania 64, and that’s mainly because of how well it nails the aesthetic. It’s not completely true to the classic side-scrollers because it does have you navigate many rather empty areas, but it manages to maintain a decent amount of gothic spookiness. There is the aforementioned chainsaw gardener and motorcycles that seem out of place in a story set in the late 1800s, but Castlevania has rarely been about historical accuracy.

The music is rather sparse but pretty decent where it appears. Notably, the game opens with a slowed-down version of Divine Bloodlines that sounds enjoyably moody. Most of the music throughout the game, however, is rather atmospheric, which is quite the contrast compared to other titles in the series. Most Castlevania soundtracks are more akin to how someone would score th?e spectacle of a sex doll being torn ?apart by wolves as it falls down an elevator shaft.

[caption id="attachment_374153" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Moldy cheese

Someone once said to me that for its 3D titles, Castlevania should have taken cues from Metroid Prime. While Castlevania 64 was a few years to early to be influenced by that game, I think it’s still a valid hope for the formula. On the other hand, if Konami were to take a crack at a 3D Castlevania now, I think it would be better off taking influence from Batman: Arkham Asylum. Punchy combat and exploration, moody environments, but maybe with a smidge more platfo??rming.

Castlevania 64 would be followed the next year by Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness. It’s a weird title that addresses a lot of this game’s issues, includes a couple of extra adventures, but then completely remakes the story mode of Castlevania 64. Itâ€??™s a bit of a weird thing that almost renders its predecessor obsolete, but maybe it goes a bit far at remaking some stuff. I’ll give it another playthrough and report back.

As for Castlevania 64, current culture is a bit too obsessed with something being either really awful or spectacularly brilliant for it to have any value. It should be perfectly acceptable to like something that is merely okay. A video game isn’t like a diamond, where its value declines with every imperfection. It’s more like cheese, where sometimes the mold is part of the experience. Castlevania 64 is m??oldy cheese. It’s a bit stinky, but it’s better than ??the flavorless plastics that came after.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Castlevania for N64 is a lot like moldy cheese appeared first on Destructoid.

There was no avoiding a "legendarily" gag

Castlevania is a series so sprawling with so many high peaks that the low valleys kind of really stand out. Except I’ve learned that the valleys aren’t always that deep. You can usually, at least, see the peeks from games like Castlevania Judgement and Castlevania 64. I’ve yet to find a Castlevania title without some merit, even if there are a few that don’t exactly crack my whip. I honestly think that 2010’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow might be the nadir for me, because I found it to be just so ??stiflingly boring. I don’t even want to know what ??the sequel is like.

Castlevania Legends is one that I’ve heard excluded at best and derided at worst. On paper, it has one thing that I’ve wished for in a Castlevania title: a lady-Belmont, but I’m told that it’s terrible, mostly by Koji Igarashi who helmed the series for more than a decade. In Nintendo Power Issue 230 (July 2008), Igarashi referred to Castlevania Legends as an embarrassment. That’s pretty harsh, and it wa??s enough to put me off ev?en trying it until now.

It’s not great, but if I ever referred to a game as an “embarrassment,�??I’d make damned sure I was driving the stake into? the right place.

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Pixelated butts

Castlevania Legends has you stepping into the thigh-high boots of Sonia Belmont. In the same Nintendo Power that Koji Igarashi called the game an embarrassment, he also confidently said that Shanoa of Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia was the series�??first main female protagonist. I keep bringing his comments up because I just can’t believe the brash confidence in this guy.

You can tell Sonia is supposed to be a lady because of her butt. My husband looked over my shoulder while I was playing it and recognized her outward gender while she was climbing? a rope because of the way her butt is shaped. This butt is roughly four pixels high by eight pixels wide and consists of three colors, yet somehow Konami was able to communicate Sonia’s feminine physique through her posterior alone. Masterclass.

Released in 1997, Castlevania Legends was out around the time that Castlevania: Symphony of the Night shunted the entire series into a new direction. It’s largely a continuation of the first two Game Boy Castlevania titles, sharing a number of the same mechanics. And like those games, i?tâ€??™s not particularly good.

[caption id="attachment_370956" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Pocket power

I know that Castlevania: The Adventure and Castlevania 2: Belmont’s Revenge, and I don’t want to pee on anyone’s monochromatic memories, but I’m not a fan. It was difficult for developers to fit even NES concepts onto the Game Boy in the early days. Most att??empted ports of existing franchises were watered down to varying degrees. It didn’t really matter; wh??at mattered was having a portable version of a license available.

By 1997, however, we’d seen games like Mega Man V, which was better than even some of the NES titles. Castlevania Legends, however, feels more like a step back. It was handled by Konami’s Nagoya branch, and helmed by Kouki Yamashita, who also directed Dracula X for the SNES. The fact that it was released six years after Belmont’s Revenge and stil?l features all the mechanics and shortcomings of those games is actually a bit of a weird sign. Rather than take a new approach, they just expanded on something that had been shelved for so long?.

I think the controls are the strangest part of the Game Boy series. Despite the fact that Castlevania’s early games are almost renowned for their int??entionally stiff control, the portable titles seem to simultaneously be stiffer while providing more maneuverability. Sonia can control herself in midair and even crawl along the ground, which is pretty spritely for a Belmont. Likewise, rope climbing is a central mechanic of these games for some reason. I guess this was before stairs were invented.

[caption id="attachment_370957" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Vertical perturbance

While Castlevania Legends at least fits in with a lot of the series�standards, it’s weakened by a lot of mistakes that shouldn’t even be in a game of its vintage. I’m talking things like having enemies that can?? move freely in all directions in vertical environments when you can’t attack up and down. So, you’re hanging on a rope and a bat is com?ing for your shapely, pixelated butt. What are you supposed to do aside from use limited movement options to attempt to stay out of its way?

There’s a lot of bad enemy placement, as there are spots where ??you can enter a screen into a collision that could only have been avoided if you entered at specifically the right spot. It’s a probl??em throughout.

The worst, however, is that it will hit you with dead ends. I thought we exorcised this terrible practice in the �0s, but Castlevania Legends will allow you to walk down the wrong path, only to hit you with a wall and nothing else. To make matters wor??se, there are a number of optional items, one in each of the five levels. Th?is means that you have to willingly go off the beaten path to try and find these things, at times subjecting yourself to the game’s juvenile traps.

Speaking of which, there are literal traps. Keep an eye on the coloration of the game’s wh??ippable, item-dispensing candles because some of them will trigger pitfalls into waste-??of-time enemy rooms, whereas others cut the middle man and just spawn an enemy.

[caption id="attachment_370955" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Not inept beyond redemption

That’s annoying, but maybe not as annoying as you might imagine. Castlevania Legends at least allows you to continue as often as you want. Your life gauge is pre??tty generous, so it’s not impossible to just live with mistakes that you?? weren’t clairvoyant enough to avoid.

On the other hand, even if it’s not inept beyond all redemption, it’s still rather bland. Its aesthetics aren’t a bad fit. Its enemy design is predictable, but as highlighted prev?iously, the sprite work in general isn’t bad. The music isn’t terrible either, but it has one of the worst rendit?ions of Bloody Tears that I think I’ve heard.

The biggest letdown is that the sub-weapons have largely been stripped. You get extra powers after defeating a boss, and these are the things that consume hearts. However, none of them are very e??xciting, you can simply cycle between the ones you unlocked, and since you don’t start with one, you spend an entire level collecting hearts that you can’t use. It’s like the game keeps handing you cans of gasoline, but you can’t have the car until you’ve walked far enough.

[caption id="attachment_370958" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Erasure

I’m mostly just shocked that I’m not entirely apathetic about Castlevania Legends. It’s definitely not a good game, but it feels at least comparable to the previous Game Boy t??itles. I suppose I’ve always had some disagreement with Koji Igarashi’s perspective and direction on the series, so at this point, I maybe shouldn’t be surprised when I feel they diverge from my own opinions.

Speaking of which, Sonia Belmont was excised from the Castlevania canon by Igarashi. This is unfortunate since she’s the only depicted female Belmont. That said, she doesn’t do much, though it’s hinted that she has some sort of relationship with Alucard. She was going to appear in a game called Castlevania: Resurrection for the Dreamcast, b??ut it was later canceled. I’m just finding out now that a demo of that game was leaked, and now I feel I need to try it.

Meanwhile, Konami hasn’t done anything new with the Castlevania series aside from releasing compilations (that omit Castlevania Legends, strangely). The company has started showing some signs of life and largely looking at resurrecting older franchises, and with the success of the Netflix series, maybe we’ll get to see something new. Maybe M2 will get another crack at creating a Castlevania: Rebirth title, and they’ll dig up Castlevania Legends. I’m not optimistic.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Castlevania Legends is legendarily unloved appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm bad, and that's good

Heroes get a lot of love. The main character of a game is, by their very nature, the star of the show. But a great villain is often even more compelling than a great hero - everyone wants to save the world, but it takes ?a special soul to want to destroy it.

It's almost impossible to whittle a list of iconic video game villains down to just ten. It would be easy to simply point to the villains from games that sold really well, but that's not really what it means to be iconic. So I tried my hardest to compile a list of ten video game villains who ?are real icons; the ones who stand tall in the world of gaming, wh?ose silhouettes are enough to send shivers down your spine.

[caption id="attachment_358899" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Nintendo[/caption]

10. Ridley - Metroid

The Metroid games have all sorts of great villains, but if you want to talk about iconography, Ridley's your guy. This nasty space dragon has done battle with Samus Aran on nearly every single one of her many adventures. To be fair, Samu?s has a pretty good reason to want Ridley dead: he killed her parents way back when.

Secretly, though, I think Samus got over that a while ago. She just wants to flex? about beating the same alien pterodactyl like a dozen times.

[caption id="attachment_356767" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot via Nintendo[/caption]

9. Sephiroth - Final Fantasy VII

If you asked ten people who played Final Fantasy VII what Sephiroth's motive was, you'd probably only get three answers, and you'd be pretty lucky if one of them was correct. Honestly, it's hard to remember much about Sephiroth himself. He wears that really cool coat, he's got a huge sword, and he's a weirdly chill co-worker in Crisis Core, but that's about it. He's not even really the main villain of Final Fantasy VII Remake. So how does a character like that wind up on a "most iconic" list? Why does Sephiroth keep cropping up in Final Fantasy VII spinoffs and crossover events?

To answer that question, I'd like to give? you a few instructions. First??, I want you to open up a new tab on your computer. Now head on over to YouTube, and type in "One-Winged Angel Distant Worlds." Go ahead and click on any of the first three results. See? Iconic.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVZVo2J53TM

8. Albert Wesker - Resident Evil

Looking at Albert Wesker now, it's kind of hard to believe that Resident Evil briefly tried t?o trick us into thinking he was a nice guy. See those sunglasses? Those are very evil sunglasses.

Wesker is such a classic villain. He meddles in things beyond his understanding, he gets arrogant about playing God, he throws his buddies under the bus. Even his death is incredible - how many guys can make it through multiple self-engineered zombie apocalypses just to get launched into a volcano by a missile ex?plosion? Just one. And his name is Albert Wesker.

[caption id="attachment_358901" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Capcom[/caption]

7. Dr. Wily - Mega Man

Speaking of guys who love to play God, who could forget Dr. Wily? T?his old weirdo has one of my favorite backstories in all of video games. He had a friend in college, his friend was smarter than him, so he got mad and moved to the ocean to build world-dominating robots. Who wouldn't?

Mega Man games are great on their own, but they're even better for their wrinkly antagonist and his stupid petty robo-army. Now, only one question remains: where is Dr. Wily?

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMTizJemHO8

6. Dracula - Castlevania

Maybe it's cheating to include Dracula on this list. I mean, he's Dracula. Of course he's iconic. But Castlevania's version of Dracula is a very specific take on the character, and one who's surely earned his place in the rankings. He's a frightening and sinister foe, and as i?f his long-standing anti-Belmont policy wasn't bad enough, he's also an?? awful father.

But, I mean, you?'ve gotta give him credit for that dope line about miserable little piles of secrets. What a cool guy.

[caption id="attachment_358903" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Valve[/caption]

5. GLaDOS - Portal

I have a feeling that anyone who's ever heard a single line from GLaDOS would include her on this list. You don't need to have finished Portal, or e?ven played very much of it, to appreciate GLaDOS.

Ellen McLain's performance as GLaDOS in the original Portal is one of the best pieces of video game voice-acting ever, and she delivers similarly impressive results in every other Portal project and crossover. She's so deliciously cruel to Chell, both as a demanding taskmaster and as a very rude friend, and the amazingly resentful songs that play over the credits of both Portal games only serve to cement her as one of?? gaming's ??greatest bad guys.

[caption id="attachment_358905" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot via Konami YouTube[/caption]

4. Pyramid Head - Silent Hill

..Sorry, Masahiro Ito.

[caption id="attachment_358906" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot via The Pokémon? Company ?YouTube[/caption]

3. Team Rocket - Pokémon

T??eam Rocket rules. Why does this organization of super-criminals have such a bone to pick with one random kid? Why is their plan for world domination centered entirely around children's sporting events? What, exactly, are they planning on doing once they've stolen all the most expensive pets in the world? How will that materially help them?

I don't know. But I'm glad they're out there trying, because I think they're very funny. They're also undeniably iconic. While they're only the main villains in two generations, they've been cropping up in remakes for years, and they even made a full reappearance as a secondary villain team in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.

[caption id="attachment_358907" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via SEGA[/caption]

2. Dr. Eggman - Sonic the Hedgehog

You can call this guy "Dr. Robotnik" if you want, but he'll always be Dr. Eggman to me. He's a m??an who kinda looks like an egg. It just ma?kes sense.

Ever since Dr. Eggman first started putting animals inside of robot suits, he's been one of the most ridiculous villains in the medium. That's fitting, given that his nemesis is a he??dgehog w?ho can move really quickly. There have been other Sonic villains, but I'd bet good money that you can't name three of them. Dr. Eggman, on the other hand, is a true icon. He's been given deeper characterization since his first appearance, but players have been enamored by this rotund rabbit trapper from minute one.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=03bAayBtcb0

1. Bowser - Super Mario Bros.

Was this ??spot ever going to belong to anyone else? Bowser, the big lizard who hates plumbers, is one of the greatest villains ever. He's also probably the only character on this list my gra?ndpa would recognize, which is a huge argument in favor of his iconography.

Sure, Bowser has oscillated back and forth between "kidnapper" and "reluctant buddy," but at the end of the day, this guy can only be called a villain, and a very good one at that. Any dinosaur who can be a doting dad, a piece of paper, a tyrant king, a go-karting superstar, and Dennis Hopper is okay in my book.

The post 10 mos?t ?iconic video game villains of all time, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

Return to Castlevania

The first announcement of The Game Awards pre-show just might end up being one of the best reveals of the night. Dead Cells, one of the best games of the past five years, is getting a new DLC campaign in 2023 that'll bring some familiar faces. Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania looks like it'll bring Simon, Richter, and Dracula to the world of Dead Cells.

Or is the Beheaded invading the world of Castlevania? Either way works for me ??as these are two excellent franchises that'll likely go together like peanut butter and jelly. Or a brick wall and cooked chicken.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu3zfCDbRoU

Return to Castlevania is the third DLC package for Dead Cells, following Rise of the Giant and The Queen and the Sea. The game is available on nearly every platform and was recently released for Apple Arcade as Dead Cells+. That's how I've been playing it recently and I keep forgetting how much I love this ga??me. Hopefully, I'll be able to experience this DLC on the platform when it releases in Q1 2023.

The post Castlevania is coming to Dead Cells appeared first on Destructoid.

Bloodlust. Or perhaps just lust.

If there’s one thing I love more than Castlevania, it’s the fantasy that someone can find me interesting enough to extend our companionship beyond the boundaries of a five-minute conversation about the weather. Ah, yes, that’s the good stuff. Now, what if you took Castlevania and mashed it up with my delusions of tolerability? You’d get Romancelvania, which sounds like a pun that is trying too hard until you realize it’s a play on the word Transylvania and not Castlevania. Video games hav?e warped my perspective on puns, apparently.

However, the way of executing this sort of composition eluded me when I heard the pitch. I could think of a few ways to approach it, and each sounded rather precarious. I’m happy someone is making the attempt, even though I’m skeptical. After spending some time with Romancelvania’s demo, I’m not fully convinced they can pull it off, but I’m satisfied that the project is moving in the right direction.

Gets the blood pumping.

The setup is almost flawlessly clever. You play as Dracula, 99 years after being defeated b??y humans. The humiliation of being whipped into submission has caused your lover to abandon you and all your followers to start q?uestioning your leadership. You’ve been moping ever since.

Your buddy, Death, has gotten tired of your constant whining and sets you up on a reality dating show. A number of potentially lucky guys and ladies are scattered throughout your newly renovated c??astle, waiting for you to put the moves on them. Or you can just be friends, which is nice to know. Not everyone is into Incubi, so having the option to keep things platonic is ap?preciated.

To win them over, you need to pick the best answers from a dialogue tree, complete sid??equests for them, and take them on dates.

You charmer, you

You also have to choose one of them to vote off with a currently unknown amount of frequency. This feels like a needless complication to me, and I have to wonder if the small development team is ready to deal with that many permutations of the gameplay. This is a concern I had through much of the runtime, but let me be clear in saying that ??the demo gave no indication that they’re in over their heads. I’m only saying that when I’m envisioning the end product, my mind gets a bit bogg??led. It seems precarious to me, but maybe I’m the one who lacks vision.

The demo itself is a small slice that introduces the game’s mechanics. Generally, things are similar to a Castlevania game of the Symphony of the Night formula. Areas are generally locked o?ff until you gather abilities that allow you to bypass whatever obstacle is preventing you from gett?ing there.

Scattered throughout the castle are 12 lucky contestants for you to get to know. The demo o??nly ?gave a taste of three of these: Medusa, Brocifer, and Vess the genie. The actual cast is quite a diverse buffet for different tastes. There’s a succubus, a werewolf, a siren, and a bunch of others who, I guess, will have to rely on personality to get my attention.

If there’s one thing that Romancelvania nails, it’s setting the potential lovers up as quest investments. You can tell, even from the demo, that you’ll be jumping through hoops to score with any of them, which is, of course, the whole crux of the dating sim genre. Maybe it sounds like I’m stating the obvious, but if Romancelvania comes up shor??t in any of its facets, the whole product will wind up limp and flaccid.

With extra cheese.

It helps that Romancelvania offers options for genders and gender preferences. While the demo only lets you play as the hunky he-D??rac, it demonstrates its plans for she-Drac as well. Likewise, the cast of bachelorettes also includes bachelors, as well, and neither seems to have a preference between oysters and blood sausage. Even visual novel-styled dating sims often exclude the abilit?y to set your preferences, so it’s great to see Deep End Games going the extra mile.

Once again, however, this adds ?an extra bit of chaos into the cauldron, so I remain cautiously optimistic as I watch to see if they can chew all that they’ve bitten off.

All of this is wrapped up in a goofy bow. From the obvious references to the Castlevania series to the provocatively accentuated anatomy, Romancelvania eagerly embraces its cheese. Some of the jokes it reaches for are eye-rolling but almost seem intentionally so. The area you start in, the ruins of Drac’s?? castle, are rendered with pixel-art textures while Dracula himself is sporting all the latest in abdominal shaders. It’s charming in its awkwardness.

On the othe?r hand, I did get some pretty crap performance on my PC, which seems strange. It had a habit of dropping frames with annoying frequency. There’s?? still plenty of time to spit-shine the technical side of things, I would just hate to see that get missed.

Immortal pleasures.

There’s a lot that is yet to be seen in Romancelvania. The demo isn’t particularly short, but it only gives a taste of what’s to come. If the dish comes out as flavorful as what’s been shown so far, it’s going to be an absolute feast for fans of dating sims and Castlevania. However, I feel like Deep End Games have set themselves up with quite the balancing act.? There are a lot of targets that they need to nail in order to pull off a real knockout.

On the other hand, the demo certainly suggests that they might be able to do it or, at the very least, they’re headed in the right direction. They’ve cert??ainly demonstrated enough talent to gain my attention, so I’ll be eagerly awaiting the opportunity to sink my fangs into it. It’s curre?ntly unknown when we’ll get the full four-course meal, and the demo is hardly substantial enough to satisfy, but hopefully, we won’t be waiting too long for some spooky romance.

The post The Romancelvania Demo shows off a strong marriage?? between two irresistible genres appeared first on Destructoid.

Announced at BitSummit

Inti Creates is at it again, continuing to corner the 2D market with the new action platformer Grim Guardians: Demon Purge. The game is actually being shown this weekend a??t BitSummit in Kyoto, Japan, on August 6 and 7.

Grim Guardians will feature two playable characters (who are sisters) in the form of demon hunters trying to rescue their school from peril: Shinobu Kamizono (ranged attacker) and Maya Kamizono (melee). Inti Creates says "swapping characters is key to gameplay," and in addition to solo play, there's also a two-player co-op mode. As our own CJ Andriessen points out, those two names are from Gal Gun: Double Peace.

Amazingly, Inti Creates is calling this "the beginning of a brand new series of 2D action games," hence the obvious subtitle. Whereas Azure Striker Gunvolt is their own take on the Mega Man franchise, so too will Grim Guardians mirror aspects of Castlevania (like their Bloodstained tie-in projects). Hey, if Konami isn't going to do it, so??meone else should!

Grim Guardians: Demon Purge release date and platform info

As for a release date and platforms, the former is listed as "TBD," but the latter includes PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The official website will likely be the first place we'll get that inf?o.

Just as I said in my recent Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 review, I'm game for basically anything Inti Creates that even looks remotely like Grim Guardians. This is an easy sell.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBHPxC3m_A0

The post Inti Creates announces Castlevania-flavored 2D action project Grim Gua?rdians: Demon Purge appeared first on Destructoid.

Why Wai Wai?

It’s hard not to look back at Konami’s Famicom days and not get a little misty-eyed about how it used to be a fun company before the soul was sold out from under it by the corporate powers. It’s even harder once you look at Wai Wai World 2. Playing the game is like finding a horse murderer’s photo album and discovering it’s full of colorful pictures of ponies. It’s all wide-eyed and cute until you realize, “These were their first victims.�/p>

The original Wai Wai World was a blast, just not a very big blast. It did its job bringing together a bunch of awesome Konami characters but did so into a clunky game full of annoyances. If you can believe it Wai Wai World 2 does the same thing, but with only one real ??annoyance: Upa. But then, babies ruin ab?solutely everything.

I don't care who you bokutte

Wai Wai World 2 is a completely different beast from the first game. While the original was some sort of exploration-based platformer, the sequel shifts genres quite a bit. The biggest slice of it is an action platformer. You choose a set of three heroes from predefined combos. There’s Simon Belmont from Castlevania, Fuuma from Getsu Fuuma Den, Bill Rizer from Contra, Goemon from Ganbare Goemon, and Upa from Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa. Your first thought is probably some combination of everyone but Upa, however, ??ther?e’s only one setup where Upa isn’t there. Sadly, this combo also omits Simon, so is it even worth it?

Each character has skills based on how they played in their res?pective games. Simon has a whip, Bill Rizer shoots things, and Upa uses a rattle to turn his enemies into clouds. They’ve all been unified by a cutesy chibi art style. Simon looks fantastic in his big-eyed form, but Upa once again just looks like Upa. Upa sucks.

You’ll notice that characters like Mikey from The Goonies and King Kong from King Kong 2 are missing, and that’s because they were licensed. This list of cameos may seem rather anemic in comparison, but in other modes of gameplay, you jump in as Twinbee and Vic Viper. Despite having fewer characters, Wai Wai World 2 is just as much a celebration of how gr??eat Konami used to be.

Child endangerment

Rather than? just choosing what character you play as you always start off as a generic-looking dude named Rickle (maybe). In order to change into one of your set of characters, you first need to grab a power-up, which then starts cycling through your chosen heroes. You then intuitively hit up and jump to transform into them. This is more of a power-up than a character change. A clock ticks down, and when it runs out, you turn back into Rickle. Taking damage decreases the time you have left, but you can also pic??k up health to increase it. If you play carefully, it’s possible to stay in your favorite character’s form for the duration of a level.

Some of the characters have special advan??tages on levels inspired by their games. Upa, that horrid infant, can swim faster and open his boxes. Fuuma can smash skulls in Yomi. Any character can get through any stage (although I got stuck with Goemon going through Yomi, and I was forced to wait for him to turn back into Rickle so I could proceed), so it’s generally just a bonus when you get to their respective level. That’s probably for the best, as you cannot change your character group at any point. You’re stuck with who you chose at the beginning.

Big-eyed Simon Belmont

Konami Wai Wai World 2 certainly loves its source material. While the unification of different genres means that certain levels don’t feel anywhere close to the games they were based on, few sacrifices are really made. There are sections based on Twinbee and Gradius, and remarkably, they play strikingly similar to Twinbee and Gradius. The stage based on Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa might as wel?l be ripped straight from the game based on how convincingly it replica?tes the experience. Which isn’t great.

Speaking of which, I hope you have some experience in Twinbee and Gradius, otherwise, those stages are probably going to kick your butt. The side-scroller st??ages are all pretty simple, but those shooter stages are perfect reflections of the genre. It can be quite a derailment, especially if you’re not familiar with their mechanics. It’s like being invited to the 100m hurdle??s and suddenly being forced into the high jump. Or when you take a swig of water and it turns out to be moonshine. It’s nothing you can’t handle, but some warning might have been nice.

A serial killer's photo album

The clean, chibi art style is what really sells Wai Wai World 2 to me. I didn’t realize how much I wanted a cutified, big-eyed Simon Belmont, but now I need a t-shirt. It’s a unique, uniformly silly way to look at these classic games. It's even better when you play it with a friend, which is more I can say for the original Wai Wait World.

The soundtrack, however, I can’t say I’m a fan. It’s not bad, but it’s drawing from a lot of games where the soundtracks are great. They’re once again remixed in a way that fits with their new style, but the result is that a lot of their punch is gone. Look, the Stage 1 theme in Contra was perfect. You can’t improve on that perfection. The first Wai Wai World did a better job of staying true to?? the original games, I’m not sure why that can’t be said here.

Once again, Konami ignored us over here in the West when it came to Wai Wai World 2’s release. To be fair, many of the characters available would be a mystery over her, though we’d soon see Goemon as Kid Ying in Legend of the Mystical Ninja. Konami was also still releasing games for the NES in North America through to 1993. We’d eventually get Konami Wai Wai Racing Advance as Konami Krazy Racers furthe?r down the line if you want to be optimis??tic.

Lucky for you, if you can’t read Japanese, Konami Wai Wai World 2 is still rather simple to play. There are some brief bits of dialogue between levels, but?? you can skip by them. If you’d rather, there is a fan translation available so you can read what’s going on. Too bad there isn’t a patch that remove??s Upa.

Check out previous Famicom Fridays right here.

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It's a sweet symphony

Netflix has confirmed a new Castlevania animated series is on the way, and it's centered around a new Belmont. Castlevania: Nocturne is ??????????????????????????officially in producti?on for Netflix, featuring Richter Belmont.

The new trailer from Netflix's Geeked Week stream doesn't show too much, other ??than a good look at Richter himself. Still, he's here, in full Belmont garb and whip in tow.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONqNEPTPyqU

Richter is a descendant of Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades, so that should make for an interesting continuation of the show. And longtime Castlevania fans are probably already very excited about Nocturne tackling Richter, considering his source material. Video game Richter means both Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night could be fodder for adaptation.

The series will be led by showrunner Kevin Kolde and creator/writer Cliv??e Bradley, and produced by Project 51 Productions with prod??uction services from Powerhouse Animation.

Rondo round the world

Considering the Castlevania Netflix series has traditionally been a looser adaptation of the source material, I wouldn't expect Castlevania: Nocturne to be a full-on retelling of Rondo of Blood or Symphony of the Night. That said, Richter alone provide??s a lot of fodder for potential story beats between those two games. Plus, having Ric??hter here means we could see the return of Alucard. Who doesn't want that?

We got a tease of this last year, but it's excellent to see the Castlevania adaptations are carrying on. While the streaming service has had some standouts in the adaptation department, Castelvania remains one of my favorites. The storming-the-castle finale of Season 2 is forever seared in my brain. I'm more than ??ready for some adventures with Richter.

The post Castlevania: Nocturne is coming to Netfli??x, following Richter B??elmont appeared first on Destructoid.

Veteran publisher sees revenue rise in 2021

Konami has released its financial earnings report for the nine-month period ending December 31, 2021. The document shows that the long-time developer/publisher saw continued success throughout the past year, with gain ?and growth in the majority of its financial sectors. The company also reconfirmed its commitment to future projects with the NFT/blockchain market.

Konami'?s overall operating profit grew by a significant 48.8% year-on-year, translating to a gain of ¥60.3 billion (or roughly $525 million USD). The company's digital entertainment arm saw a revenue increase of 6.4% on the previous year, bolstering its income by ¥154 billion (a staggering $1.3 billion). Overall, Konami's revenue increase for the nine-month period stands at around 12% on 2020, resulting ?in revenue to the tune of ¥215 billion ($1.8 billion).

Some might find the huge increase in fortune surprising, given that Konami seemingly released no "smash hit" titles over the course of the year. The revenue was driven mostly by profits from ongoing titles, particularly those within the company's home territories. PC/console titles such as Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 4th Heart and Power Pro Kun Pocket R delivered persistent sales alongside the rolling income of mobile games such as Professional Baseball Spirits, Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links, and eFootball PES 2021.

In addition to these reported numbers, Konami reiterated its commitment to the controversial NFT market. Despite many studios pulling quick about-turns in the face of public disapproval, Konami seems steadfast in its desire to sell digital receipts of artwork from its library of classic games. Back in January, Konami launched an NFT collection based on franchise Castlevania which, while met with deserved chagrin, did succeed in ne??tting the publisher six-figure sales.

The post Konami remains committed to future NFT market? projects appeared first on Destructoid.

Those are a sacred gift

I have a deep fondness for the Castlevania series. The original title is among my favorite games on the NES, the Metroid-style detour kept me addicted for weeks when I collected them all together, and I have plumbed the series�highs and lows. For such a long series, a surprisingly high per?centage are gravy, but then you come across the odd entry that is still gravy, but it’s really old gravy that has been left out.

And maybe the worst isn’t 2008's Castlevania Judgment for the Wii, but it might be the most offensive. I can completely dig a Castlevania fighting game; there’s been a great cast of heroes and villains to draw from. It’s just t?hen they slap on a veneer of old gravy and you’re left wond??ering if it’s still worth breaking out the spoon.

Oh, geez. It’s hard to know where to start with Castlevania Judgment. I really want to dive into why the game is just plain bonkers, but I think i??t’s best if ?I just give a sterile rundown of what it is.

Galamoth, who I actually needed to look up, wants to defeat Dracula by pulling some dirty time pool, but this guy shows up and pulls all these disparate heroes (and villains?) into a time rift to make them fight to see who gets to destroy the Time Reaper. I know what you’re thinking, but name a fighting game that doesn’t have a completely ludicrous plot that makes little sense. The only thing impressive is that Castlevania Judgment got here on the very first game,?? whereas most just ease into insanity by starting with a tournament.

The cast is made from recognizable characters with their wardrobes and personalities thrown into a blender. For example, Eric Lecarde is here, but he’s a child for some reason. Simon Belmont wears bondage gear. Trevor, Sypha, Alucard, and Grant reunite from Castlevania III, but for some reason, Grant is Voldo now.

So, let’s ?tackle the characters because it’s really the focal point. It’s the axis of this dec??repit centrifuge.

Since Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the series had a good thing going art-wise, with the aid of Ayami Kojima. Her art had a bit more beauty to it than I came to expect from playing earlier games. But if that was divergent from what I expected from earlier graphics, Castlevania Judgment is so far off, it ?isn’t even hanging in the same gall??ery.

For Castlevania Judgment, Takeshi Obata was brought in, famous for the manga, Death Note. His vision for the characters was lots of bondage gear. Screw whatever era they were supposedly from, they wear leather with lots of zippers. Take a look at Maria Renard, for example, who is closer to her appearance in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood if she and Richter invaded Dracula’s BDSM club.

She’s dressed like a leather goth lolita, and her personality is weirdly vacuous. I mean, there’s child-like naivety, and then there’s tripping during your special attack.? She also has an obsession with tits, expressing jealousy for how all the other female characters have heaping boobage. I get that this is a sort of a trope in anime for ?flat-chested girls, but I mean, Maria should probably just wait until puberty before she starts complaining. Wait, how old is she supposed to be. 15!? Whatever, she’s a late bloomer. Maybe she needs to learn the magic of a padded push-up bra like the rest of us. That leather is just going to bind them flat.

A few of the characters got off easy. Shanoa from Order of Ecclesia, for example, has a design that is closer to the one she rocked in that DS title. Sort of. She looks like a nun and wears garters over her pants, so�/p>

Alucard is just sort of okay, Cornell (from Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness!?) is a bit excessive but not horrible, Sypha is�whatever. There's obviously a lot of effort that went into their designs, but it just doesn't fit the subject matter. Vampire hunters from across ??time??? How about a bunch of zippers and buckles! Maybe if this was the sort of style that the series went with around the time that the protagonists started having actual faces, but it's not. It just sort of clashes against the rest of the game that sticks more with the series aesthetic.

Their interactions are absolutely loony, as well. The characters loudly shout both their motivation?s and con??fusion at each other. They’re also like, “You’re this person of legend?�then decide they want to throw down anyway. I get it, it’s difficult to figure out why Trevor would fight Sypha. However, maybe if they came up with a more imaginative premise beyond “they’re stuck here, so I guess they’ll fight,�it could be explained.

The gameplay? It’s bad. It’s not Transformers: Beast Wars: Transmetals level of awful, but that doesn’t mean its passable. The idea behind Castlevania Judgment is that Igarashi wanted to incorporate motion controls into a Castlevania title, and thought that an adventure would be ??too tiring. That should probably pu?t up some red flags right there.

So, I didn’t play it with motion controls because you can’t make me. I used a Wii Classic Controller, and you can kind of tell it wasn’t made for it. There’s one attack button, a button dedicated to throw items, and another button that I don’t think does anything at all unless you press it in conjunction with the attack button. You can block, which is sometimes necessary. There’s one dedica??ted to the special button which is all kinds of special.

You fill a gauge as you attack and defend, which is only used for your character’s super move and nothing else. This is a powerful attack that, if you land it, takes off roughly half of your opponent’s health gauge. That may sound like a decent finale, but you can pull one off early and the bar fills so quickly that it isn’t impossible to use it twice in a match. But think t??wice about doing that, because the sequences unleashed by these characters are so long that I wrote part of this article while waiting for them to conclude.

The camera is unlocked, which I think is to facilitate running around the levels and collecting hearts and items. However, Castlevania Judgment seems to want to be Soul Calibur so bad that you wish it had just settled for being a bad clone. The movement system is just so sloppy that it singlehandedly ruins a??ny chance for real skill and strategy to be tied into the game.

It’s sad, because the game’s concept isn’t a bad one. I could absolutely dig a Castlevania fighting game if they did it justice, but the whole product feels like spit in the face. Did no one on the development team have an issue with the character design? Were they really so?? creatively void they couldn’t come up with a more int??eresting way of mashing the characters together? It lacks any real cohesion or vision.

The environments, for example, fit the Castlevania theme just fine. The soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal, though it is largely just made from remixes of the series�best. Really, because it’s basically one big best of album. It’s generally what I turn to when I want some Castlevania music. It’s just too bad that it’s partnered with a sucky game. Castlevania Judgment is celery when I just want to drink the ranch.

I’ve played worse. The most painful part of Castlevania Judgment is what it does to the source material. Do you know what game did a better job of mashing up Castlevania characters? Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, and that’s partially because we don’t have to hear them talk to each other. You don’t need a reason to take all my toys and mash them together, I already do that in ?my head.

Castlevania Judgment is like when you ask for Frozen for Christmas, and your Grandparent gives you a bargain bin knockoff called something like “Freeze Sisters.�You might try to like it because of where it came from, but your disappointment sucks you into the depths of despair. Here’s Simon Belmont, but he’s wearing armored cargo shorts. Here’s Carmilla, but what do you mean you don’t recognize her? She was that mask boss in Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest.

It’s just bizarre. I don’t k?now how someone can put so much effort into something so blatantly disappointing. This must be the frustration that all my teachers felt.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

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The standard copy is $35, while the Classic Edition with retro-style artwork jumps up to $65

All things considered with the series' current output, Castlevania Requiem was a feel-good moment. While I would've liked to see it become available on more platforms, I cherished the chance to revisit Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood again on my PS4, and I'm sure many of you also look fondly upon these games. If you were holding out for a physical version �or you went digital but aren't against double-dipping �then pop over to Limited Run Games today, as pre-orders have opened for Castlevania Requiem.

As expected with Limited Run, there are a couple of affordable options as well as jam-packed, top-of-the-line bundles for the absolute die-hard Castlevania folks.

If you're simply looking to have a boxed PS4 copy of Castlevania Requiem, that'll be $35. You get a poster, too! There's also a fancier (and admittedly very tempting) Classic Edition, priced at $65, with the soundtrack and a sweet "retro-style box" design from famed Konami cover art illustrator Tom duBois. Both of these seem entirely sensible.

_{The Symphony of the Night save coffin even has a "detachable text box."}

Things go off the rails with Ultimate Edition of Castlevania Requiem �it's got physical trinkets like Alucard's sword and shield, the Vampire Killer, a Steelbook case, and the coffin that's used to save your progress in Symphony of the Night. It's ridiculous, but awesome. That's also reflected in the price tag, which is enough to make my wallet scream: $175.

It can be dangerous to browse around without a specific goal in mind, but Limited Run Games also has pins, keychains, and a Castlevania-themed Nintendo Switch carrying case, if you're all set on the Reqiuem front but still want to add to your Castlevania collection.

Did you notice that I'm in a Castlevania mood lately? What gave it away?!

The post Castlevania Requiem physical edition pre-orders are open at Limited Run, an?d check ??out that box! appeared first on Destructoid.

Worst case, this fan game is a cool what-if

Fan games are a tricky balancing act on multiple fronts. Living up to players' expectations after releasing a cool trailer, feeling on-brand without being too much of a retread, and just generally finishing the project before the well-meaning team's passion dries up or the license holder's wrath is incurred �the list of pitfalls stretches on and on. Just because a team has a great idea for a fan game and a willing audience that's extremely ready to hop in, there are no guarantees that their vision will make it out into the world. With all that said, man, Castlevania: Seal of the Eclipse looks sick as hell! You need to see the trailer.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=19bYGamq3Dk

If you're well-versed in Castlevania lore �specifically, the Demon Castle War �then you're going to lap this up. It's one of those background events that is acknowledged in-game (in this case, in Aria of Sorrow) but still conveniently left ??open for interpretation?.

The Steel Plate armor in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow describes a "uniform worn by a soldier who fought in the Demon Castle War," while a library entry in the DS jam Dawn of Sorrow sums up the 1999 conflict as "the battle that permanently destroyed Dracu?la."

If those wiki-residing words don't mean much to you, no worries, and also, kinda same �even without that context, Seal of the Eclipse looks like a neat retro Castlevania romp.

On the Castlevania Dungeon forums, Dracula9 posted a rundown of the project's origins, which include a pivot away from another hopeful, more resource-and-time-intensive Castlevania fan project called Umbra of Sorrow. The hope is that by focusing on a "downsized" retro aesthetic, there will be a "significantly lighter load on everyone's backs." Given the game's multi-hero premise, the animation workload can quickly ??pile up.

"With a (comparatively) reduced emphasis on exploration, backtracking, and puzzle-solving, the focus for this has become rather akin to how [Curse of the Moon 1 and 2] and CV3 and DoS handled things �pushing the formula of standard platforming to accommodate multiple player characters who all have different strengths and weaknesses," wrote Dracula9. "Obviously this is not a new concept by any stretch o?f the imagination, but with its goals being smaller in scope it allows more intense exploration of how to get those key elements just right, and polish them to a shine wherever possible."

In a tweet today, the Seal of the Eclipse team reiterated that this is "a fan project, we have no affiliation with Konami, and we *DO NOT* accept any kind of compensation for our work. Our project is free and born out of love for the Castlevania franchise."

As for the risk of posting an early reveal trailer, well, they're aware. "A conscious decision was made based on all the information we have, and we chose to ??make it anyway," the creators said in a YouTube comment. "'Hiding' isn't as effective as some might think it is, and?? is a gross underestimation of any given company's online awareness."

We'll see how this story plays out, and how the game progresses, as these projects tend to be a marathon, not a sprint. In any eve??nt, ??I thought it was too cool not to share.

The post Fan game Castlevania: Seal of the Eclipse looks sick, and I hope we’re lucky enough to play it appeared first on Destructoid.

Slay never-ending legions of the undead while running in circles

Dozens of games make their Steam debut every day, and it's easy for some to get lost in the mix. But do a little digging and you'll find something like Vampire Survivors, a hidden gem that's starting to get some traction, and for? good reason too. It's tense, fun, and it's only $3.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC8r7qIUkyA

Vampire Survivors is best described as a survival rogue-lite, but even that's a little vague. You take control of one character from a roster of many, and have only the option to move around; all your attacks auto-fire around you. Choose ??Antonio, and he'll whip at the air in front of himself in a rhythm.

The controls you have at your disposal are moving around and choosing upgrades. Gems drop on the ground, and collecting enough will level you up, which lets you add even more auto-firing weapons to your character's disposal. Bibles, axes, magic wands, and more Castlevania equipment fill out the potential arsenal. Yes, Vampire Survivors takes some pretty obvious inspiration from Castlevania.

Vampire Survivors' loop is fairly simple: run around, collect gems, d??estroy the monstrous horde, and try not to run out of health and die. It's deceptively simple. Because under the hood, there's a lot going on that has had me hooked for the last few days.

The arena-based, free-roaming movement reminds me of classic top-down shooters or an XBLIG favorite of mine, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1 As the horde grows and grows, controlling the stream of creatures creeping in from every corner becomes incredibly important. Even ?just opening up a gap in the crowd to pick up the gems dropped by throngs of bats and skeletons can be a challenge later on.

Taking away the fire button from your weapons also means you need to pace your movement around their tendencies. Some weapons pierce enemies, while others can only hit one with a single projectile. Some launch in whichever direction you're facing, while others target nearby enemies, and others still have distinct fly patterns. Getting further into levels means getting a handle on how to stand and move, sometimes d??ancing just within arm's reach of a horde and then back out.

The upgrade system is surprisingly complex, too. You can opt for new weapons or passive upgrades in your arsenal, or instead choose to upgrade the ones you have with every level up and chest drop. Yes, there are "builds" that eventu?ally form. And get far enough into a weapon's upgrades with the right passives, and you might be able to evolve it into an even more powerful version.

Those upgraded and evolved versions help, as Vampire Survivors will chuck all kinds of terrible curses at you. Encroaching walls of plants, huge boss-style enemies, and literal floods of enemies at times. There is a "kill screen" of skelet???ons I have become all too familiar with in one map. Overcoming it is usually the sign of whether my run was destined to go the distance or deserved to fall apart underneath the skeletal army. Thankfully, runs have been mercifully short when they go bad. My longest was over 20 minutes, but my shortest cratered at about six.

Outside of each run, there are permanent upgrades to unlock, and new charac?ters with different traits and starting weapons to play. And updates have been fairly frequent too, with new characters and a new map all arriving since the start of the new year.

After spending a handful of hours with Vampire Survivors, I get why it's gained some traction on YouTube channels and word-of-mouth. It's got a lot of room for even more growth, but what it's got is a really solid foundation. Vampire Survivors mixes wave survival, roguelite upgrades, and auto-battler build construction into Zen-inducing runs. Sprinkle in a heavy, heavy dash of Castlevania, and you've got a neat expe??rience that's wo?rth checking out at the low, low price of $2.99.

You can find Vampire Survivors on Steam here.

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Hands-on: It feels good to bonk pixelated monsters in this strange and evil land

While sprawled-out 'vania games have blown up in the last decade, we haven't gotten nearly as many tributes that are in line with the NES era of Castlevania, so I'm always happy to see more of 'em bubble up out of the indie scene. One game that really speaks to that retro style is Infernax, which made a good first impression with us last year.

Some would call Castlevania II: Simon's Quest a mess, others say it's beautiful, and I'll borr??ow from both stances �it's a beautiful, memorable, mystifying mess. Every time someone invokes its name, I have to f??ire up a YouTube upload of the soundtrack and bounce around enough to at least hear the catchy town music and iconic "Bloody Tears."

Based on my recent time with a preview build of the game, Infernax has the look, fee?l, and overall trappings you'd expect �and that's all I needed to know to be on board with it.

There's a brief story setup with some cool pixel artwork, as shown at the top of this article. In short, a mad alchemist possesses a mysterious b??ook, and our hero, Alcedor, has returned home to fight off the corruption. With evil afoot, there are skeletons to clob??ber, zombies to mash, floating eyeballs to squish, and meatsack bosses to outlast. The usual!

After jumping out of a boat and gaining control of Alcedor, I hopped back in to see if I could talk to a pixelated sailor. I could �and he shared the wisdom nugget that "You'll drown if you fall in the water," which is exactly the sort of reaction I was hoping for as a Simon's Quest fan. Chatting up the local weirdos is part of the charm, especiall??y in town.

The trailer for Infernax sets up a choice-based "good" or "evil" playthrough, and sure enough, I quickly ran into a villager who loo?ked like he was about to turn into something vile. I was a??ble to "Slay" or "Pray," and my choice led to a mutated mini-boss fight. I'm curious how far we'll be able to take things in the full game, but my curiosity is piqued.

Early on in my time with Infernax, I had to fight the urge to grind for currency and XP. It was so tempting. I couldn't resist jumping back and forth between screens to re-kill the same group of foes. At shrines, you can save and top up your health, and also upgrade your power, health, and mana. Early-game Alcedor is more fragile than you might expect, whether we're talking death by a thousand cuts against basic creeps or big hi??ts in actual boss fights. Interestingly, after death, there's a Casual and Hardcore restart.

The Hardcore restart takes you bac?k to your last manual save point, and it's meant for folks who want a more authentic, unforgiving experience (and presumably an eventual achievement payoff), while Casual sends you immediately back into the fray �it's a do-over. After choosing the Casual restart even once, the Hardcore choice is revoked.

I feel like I'll probably go through Infernax with Casual restarts in?? mind to get a feel for everything without taking things too slowly, then circle back for another playthrough with patient, methodical, not-too-risky practices in mind to make the Hardcore clear feasible. You do you, though! Even with grinding, I feel like the g?ame will likely get pretty tough. In the opening half-hour or so, I didn't encounter anything I'd describe as "cheap," so we'll see what old-school action-platformer nastiness might be in store later.

Outside of bosses, including one that was part of an optional backtrack-at-night quest, the starter enemies were easy to take out so long as I wasn't overwhelmed by pesky group-ups. Further into the preview build, one particular skeleton proved to be trickier in terms of its protected weak point and alternating movements, almost in a Zelda II sort of way, which I appreciated. (Nothing a lightning spell couldn't help me handle; on a second run-through, I p?icked up a healing spell instead. Both of t??hem felt powerful.)

I'm not sure if there are any plans to release this slice of the game to the public as a demo, even just as a limited-time offering in, say, a Steam Fest, but I think it would sell people on Infernax. This brief run through a Castlevania-inspired playground made m??e realize how much I miss the series' original vi??be, even now in 2022. It feels just fresh enough.

Unlike the screwball Simon's Quest, I'm pretty sure Infernax will be palatable to a wider audience. As much as I hope there are finicky secrets to figure out, I'm totally fine with (what appears to be) a les??s obtuse progression path. Enough breathing room for players to explore and make discoveries without leading them so astray that a guide feels mandatory �that's my ideal balanc?e. It's got a fun darkly humorous tone to it, too.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpwNTLiorCk

I've scratched the surface of this game �the preview build ended quickly enough that I was compelled to play it over again without a second thought �but I can say that it's on the right track. If you like old-school Castlevania, and you?'re open to some more modern touches, chances are, you'll dig this game. You made it this far into the article, after all.

Berzerk Studio and The Arcade Crew plan to release Infernax for PC, Nintendo? Switch, PS4, ?Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on February 14, 2022.

The post Infernax scratches that Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest itch appeared first on Destructoid.

Some people just really love evil

I hold no side-scroller in higher regard than the original Castlevania on the NES. It’s not the flashiest or more feature-stuffed game, but what it does, it does almost perfectly. The bosses could be better, I guess. However, perfection is a constantly shifting target, so I’ll take Castlevania as the closest we’ll ever get to it.

It’s probably why I prefer the classic formula of the Castlevania series over the later “Metroidvania�approach. Not that I have any distaste for it, but my preference is ?t??hat tough-as-nails, level-by-level setup. It makes my thumbs feel like they’re flexing.

However, I’ve never met a Castlevania I love more than the first, and I’ve played most of them. The closest I’ve come to the same admiration was actually with Castlevania: Bloodlines for the Sega Genesis. The Genesis isn’t typically what you think of first when you think of Castlevania or even Konami, but it’s among the company's run of completely stellar gam??es they sent Sega’s way, and it’s one that shouldn’t be overlooked.

When you look this good, you don't have to know anything

For some perspective, Castlevania: Bloodlines was released in 1994, the year following Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and three years after Super Castlevania IV. History shows that Rondo of Blood would have the most influence on the series�future. It provided things like branching paths, multiple characters, and a load of secrets to uncover. It’s a great game, and to be fair, Castlevania: Bloodlines has those things, just in lesser amounts. Lesser, as in the Bloodlines minotaurs are less sexy than the one in Rondo. My appreciation for games tends to lean not toward the games that accomplish more, but rather how well they accomplish the things they do. In that sense, I give the edge to Castlevania: Bloodlines, if only slightly.

Castlevania: Bloodlines puts the spotlight on two of the biggest fashion disasters to ever walk the halls of Dracula’s Castle. You have John Morris, who wears suspenders with jeans, and to make matters worse, the suspenders go over his vest. Then there’s Eric Lecarde, who I appreciate for rocking a skirt, but its pink hue is a little much. At least he didn’t break any laws. Actually, Castlevania: Bloodlines takes place in 1917, so there was proba?bly some archaic indecency law that wou?ld have nailed him to the wall for showing off so much of his gams.

In any case, John Morris is the wielder of the Vampire Killer whip, and despite not carrying the clan name, has the moves of a Belmont. Eric Lecarde, on the other hand, has a trident and can attack in more directions, making him the better choice. Eric also has a high jump that gets him onto out-of-reach platforms, while John can use the whip to swing over gaps. That’s where you get your branching paths, though they never lead to something as cool as entirely different levels like in Rondo.

We need to talk about butts

There are a few things that separate Castlevania: Bloodlines from other games in the se?ries. The major one is the fact that it definitely has that Genesis ‘tude. The music, the graphics, and the design all have that '90s Sega edge. There’s even blood in the North American version, and I think I even saw a butt. It was on one of the statues in the Versailles stage. I’m going to affix a screenshot here of the alleged butt, and need a consensus here, so please let me know if you think it’s a butt.

Butts aside, the fact that Castlevania: Bloodlines takes place all across Europe, rather than just in Romania, helps it stand apart. Each of its levels are entirely unique, both in setting and obstacles. You start off in Dracula’s Castle, but you then go off to Atlantis, a trippy version of Pisa, and a German munitions factory on your journey. Most Castlevania games don’t really go past Dracula’s front yard so it’s nice to have a Europ??ean vacation. Why are there mummies in Pisa, though? Shouldn't they be in the??ir natural habitat: The British Museum?

The bosses are also some of the better encounters in the series. While the typical Castlevania boss just has you attack their shins until they fall over, Bloodlines prefers bosses that keep their weak points out of reach until you have an opportunity. To add to the Genesis feel of the game, there’s one that looks torn straight from Vectorman. They’re nothing too groundbreaking, but when you compare them even to the ones in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, they’re a bit more stimulating.

Genesis does

The soundtrack is great, but it definitely isn’t the most memorable in the series. It is, however, one of the first times when I noticed a discernable difference in the sound processors of an early Model 2 Genesis and a Model 1 or later revision. There’s this awesome bass sound that a few of the tracks use, but on an original Model 2, it sounds more like a weird crunch. It’s not a game-breaker, but it’s worth hearing the tracks as they're meant to be.

The biggest embuggerance in Castlevania: Bloodlines is its reliance on limited continues. This is something that, to my knowledge, it’s alone on, but it’s also something Konami loved to do back in its early days. You have a small handful of? lives an??d continues to complete the game, but strangely, there’s a password system. The password remembers how many lives you dropped, but it does mean that you can repeat levels that you do poorly on and improve your stock through foresight.

Limited continues, and passwords shouldn’t co-exist in the same games. Limited continues shouldn’t exist at all, but it is a relic of bygone design. Castlevania: Bloodlines isn’t the most difficult in the series, but it isn’t easy, either. Notably??, the game caps off with a boss rush, meaning it’s not unlikely that you’ll get to the end of the game and then have to start over again because your clairvoyance wasn’t able to warn? you of the various patterns you’d be going up against. Of course, you can use a password to try the last level again. See how pointless that is?

Suspenders and skirts

Miraculously, Konami hasn’t forgotten about Castlevania: Bloodlines. As easily overlooked as it is, they not only included it in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection but also in the first Genesis Mini console. Considering they didn’t, for some reason, include Rocket Knight Adventures, I’ll take that as a win. It’s especially important sin??ce original Genesis copies of the game sell for quite a bit on the collecto??r’s market.

I don’t want to downplay my affection for the Castlevania series. There are a lot of games that I love, but the internet has conditioned me to want to rank them. In that sense, I’d place Bloodlines right behind the original Castlevania at the top of the list. It does quite a few things that were never again replica??ted in the series, all while maintaining a level of quality that puts it at the top tier of the series. Don’t let the suspenders and skirts fool you; this is a title you’ll want to sink your fangs into.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click ri?ght here!

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Dracula now the lesser of evils

Konami, always up for stumblefucking around its legendary franchises and IPs, has revealed a new "Memorial" NFT line based upon its excellent Gothic horror adventure series, Castlevania. The collectio???n is being released in line with the franchise's 35th anniversary.

?"Konami Memorial NFT is a new initiative to share content that has been loved by players all over the world, for many years," the publisher wrote in a sentence that literally eats itself. "As the company's first project in this area and with NFTs and blockchain technology in its infancy, Konami will continue to explore new developments and listen to player feedback following this initial collection."

On January 12, a total of 12 pieces of classic Castlevania artwork will go up for auction? on NFT trading ??site Opensea.

Konami is the latest in a line of publishers to take the step into the blockchain market. By the end of 2020 Sega, Epic Games, and Peter Molyneux had all stated an intent to get involved with the online trend. Ubisoft was the first publisher to take the plunge, announcing its "Ubisoft Quartz" NFT line to immediate criticism from fans and even its own employees.

Publisher GSC Game World announced NFT integration for its upcoming RPG, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, but immediately walked it back in the face of similar criticism. The new year kicked off with Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda saying that his company was interested in looking at games that allow users to "play to contribute," raising more than a few eyebrows.

The one defining factor of all the above stories is that these companies are clearly aware they're treading into shady territory. Each statement is accompanied by a "Fire Exit" get-out line, (see Konami's "will continue to listen to player feedback" above). The firms know they're entering into unpopular waters.

In my opinion, corporate NFT farming is a smash-and-grab plan: Acquire a large injection of cash from "investors" as quickly as possible, and then try and hit the bricks with a handwringing "We're listening to our fans" after the sales, but before too much reputable damage is done. It's a loop we'll likely be seeing a h??elluva lot of in the coming months.

For more reading on NFTs, blockchain, and how they pertain to video games, check out Jonathan Holmes' article here.

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