Castlevania: A 3D Retrospective

In the light of the new "Castlevania: Lords of Shadow" game, I thought I'd talk about the last few attempts at bringing the Belmont legacy to life in 3D.

The N64 ones are some of the most underrated games ever made. As a Castlevania fan, i think they perfectly converted what was so good about the old-skool series into 3D- straight up platforming action. People complained about it's difficulty, camera and controls but i never had a problem with them. I'm glad people are warming up to them now in time and they are seen somewhat as "cult classics". I personally love them (though it's really just one game- Legacy of Darkness is the definitive N64 title), i played through it over a dozen times back when it was first released and I had a blast with it, very fond memories.

Lament of Innocence was a great start to a new 3D series. Acting as a prologue/prequel, i think it set the series up nicely for a new, fresh run. It wasn't perfect, but it was a brilliant shot- more combat and action orientated whilst utilising some of the RPG elements that IGA introduced (but not all, it was severely minimised as it was intended to bring in newcomers to the series), it had an excellent fighting system, fantastic atmosphere and visuals, art+ design and absolutely superb music as usual (long term CV veteran Kojima's score should have won soundtrack of the year at a game award ceremony but unfortunately it went to Halo 2 instead- very lame). Although there wasn't much to the game itself (it all whittled down to a series of rooms where you have to kill everything in it, then unlock the door and move on to the next room), i admired the attempt and it remains among one of my favourite Castlevania games. The camera wasn't as great as it could have been though because it was always fixed and set high up looking down, and all you could see was the room at hand- they could have utilised it more and shown off some more of the environments, as the game did have excellently modelled setting but you could never see them properly because the camera never allowed it. I always used to jump up just to see some of the more beautifully designed interiors and ceilings..shame no-one else could see them if you were playing casually. Though, it always focused on the action and i guess that's what counted.

Curse of Darkness, however...that was the killer. Having been impressed with LoI, i was really looking forward to where they would go next...but Curse was a really big disappointment. Sure, this time they completely implemented the RPG system that IGA was known for, but this time it wasn't enough- the visuals suddenly looked dumbed down than before, the environments looked really bland, and the gameplay was repetitive as hell. They improved on LoI by having bigger environments to run around in but there was never anything to do, all you were doing was running around from one part to the next and fighting the same enemies over and over. The weapon forge system was decent but none of the weapons were good to wield- every weapon felt the same, nothing was different about any of them. The Devil Forge thing was a lame gimmick that never took off- like a Pokemon style familiar that follows you around, this was a good idea but just not implemented well enough.

The music was excellent as usual from Kojima as was the art and design, but it was wasted on a poor game. It just didn't do anything it tried to well enough- just boring, bland, repetitive and uninspiring. The bosses were also quite lame and it had one of the gayest villains i've ever seen (Isaac).

A shame as they set up the series really well with LoI and it looked like it was finally going places, but then they single handedly ruined it with CoD. I know there are fans of it, but i hated it. It's sad because the series did get a ton of new fans who were finally introduced to this gothic and beautiful world crafted by Kojima, IGA and Yamane but now they have abolished it because of the reboot. I know they still make hand-held versions of their universe, but it's not the same...and their last attempt (Harmony of Despair) was pretty horrible.

So, i think the best ones were the N64 ones and then LoI. Though they aren't as bad as people claim to say, sure Curse wasn't all that but there's still stuff in there that makes it a decent entry, if not heavily flawed.

From the looks of it, Lords of Shadow has giant bosses you have to climb, very much like Shadow of the Colossus and God of War. One think that i'm worried about are the lack of throwbacks to the original games- i hope there are some nods and references to the previous games, like musical cues, weapons and such, but so far there doesn't look like there are any and some reviews say that it's not very old skool CV. A shame really as i'd love to be running through the castle Clock Tower or something with an orchestral version of Vampire Killer or Bloody Tears playing in te background. But this game looks like a total new revamp altogether, molded off another game entirely with the Castlevania title tacked on it seems (the game was originally a new IP called Lords of Shadow but then Konami came into it and then developed it into a Castlevania game). It shows.