Castlevania was one of those Nintendo games that while popular at least in my social circle, I never owned myself. My first encounter came with going to my cousins house and she popped in a game, saying it was about Dracula. My mind crept to Christopher Lee, who was the popular Dracula at the time, and old school horror movies of the Universal and Hammer Vintage.
And then she hit start, and I beheld a man with a whip, and one of the most awesome video game musical scores I EVER HEARD.
The three Castlevania games on the Super Nintendo were not a massive revolution. Their scope only seemed more epic then Mario Brothers or many of the one word Nintendo titles like Karate or Golf because of the sheer variety of levels. Castlevania succeeded because it created an atmosphere. You as a lone man going through a castle and taking on every mythical creature and classic monster you could possible think of, and even Death himself all to destroy Count Dracula. This game was literally every kid’s fantasy if they were fascinated by horror and monster movies.
The plot of the series is centered right on stokers Dracula mythos, taking place primarily between the 11th and 18th centuries. Mathaias Cronqvist, who assumes the name of Dracula, is a vampire and count of Wallachia. Because of his vampiric nature he is a natural enemy of the Belmont clan of vampire hunters. In the first game (in terms of production) Simon Belmont, follows in his grandfather’s foot steps to ONCE AGAIN suppress a resurgent Dracula.
Resurgence and suppression is the main theme. It is acknowledged that Vamparisim, particularly Dracula’s Curse, can not ever be truly destroyed, merely battled. Throughout the series many characters that may be allies in one game are manipulated into foes in the next, creating on ongoing cycle of valor, betrayal, and redemption. Most of this is explored in latter games with more sophisticated platforms and the ability to better explore narrative.
As awesome as the setting was and a wonderful challenge to conquer, Castlevania was one of those games that defined “Nintendo Hard.” Aside from managing the maze of bullets and bad guys you had the three fatal flaws in the game to contend with.
The first flaw was that if your character got hit, at all, by anything, he would be propelled back a good four tiles. This can sometimes lead to you being able to clear a gap you would have trouble jumping, but most of the time it shoved you into a bottomless pit, or more bad guys.
Fatal flaw number 2 is that when your character had to climb stairs, he is fundamentally defenseless. Later games allowed you to attack on stars, which helped a bit, but when you are climbing a staircase between twin columns of fire breathing dragon skulls, expletives will leave your mouth.
The final flaw is the inability to control your jumps. When you are stark still, you jump strait up, and when you are moving forward, you jump forward a set distance. You can not short change your jumps, or perform any course corrections in mid air. And while games receive high praise for realism these days, on the NES THAT level of realism is a handicap.
Over the years Castlevania has produced over 30 games on over a dozen platforms, making it perhaps the most wide spread of the Nintendo 8. These days most Castlevania games have abandoned the linear progression in favor of a more exploratory format. 8 bit chip tunes have passed in favor of orchestral scores. But the core of the series remains the same. The twilight always comes, Dracula’s Curse lives on, and children of the night will dance once more in the woods of Romania.
Hope you all have a wonderful new year, it will be 2011 when we come back to take a look at memories of one of the most loved, yet hated, Nintendo turned gaming franchises, Ninja Gaiden!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Sorry to keep you waiting!
In an age where franchises in all popular media are being turned through the meat grinder for any last ounce of profit they can generate, one kid had been left behind. Kid Icarus was a gem of a game that was largely left behind in the great Nintendo boom of the 1980s and early 90s. It was known largely for its unforgiving difficulty, unique story and setting and quality music.
The story takes its roots in a hybrid of Greek mythology and Christian demonology. You play as an angel named Pit; whose “Land of Good” was invaded by an army of monsters from the “Land of Evil.” I shit you not, the plot is that much of a trope. So you as a surviving angel are given a bow by the gods and told “go forth and conquer.”
Graphically the game was built on the same “guts” as fellow cult classic Metroid. You can tell with the jump physics, and even the patterns that some on screen enemies move. Musically it had a style all its own though. Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka provided four six tracks (massive for the NES) that gave an ambiance any Dungeons and Dragons player would love for their own games. Not nearly as up beat as Mario’s over world theme, nor as depressing as Zelda’s Dungeon music, Kid Icarus Soundtrack managed to capture a sense of epic adventure and wonder.
In terms of game play, Kid Icarus was a platformer that managed to work out two sub genres in one game. The first sub genre was typical platforming, with the twist of stages being largely vertical since the goal is to “retake heaven.” The second type of plat forming genre is the dungeon crawl, where three levels are set up in a castle like area.
The game was mind blowingly difficult though. You started bare bones in the game, with next to no health, and a weapon with no power and range. The vertical nature of the game meant falls off the screen were lethal and enemies could hurt you in was you did not expect.
Most famous of these said enemies was the so called “egg plant wizard” a purple one eyed magician who instead of damaging you transformed you into a walking eggplant, preventing you from attacking or using any of the items you collected along with way until you were uncursed.
Kid Icarus was praised critically for the past 25 years, despite only having one sequel on the Game Boy console. Released in 1991 “Of Myths and Monsters” was largely a port of the classic game, with a minimally enhanced story and few additions.
The classic Nintendo game reach something of a cult item, retaining a certain popularity. Four Nintendo consoles passed up the opportunity for a full blown new game however, with only the Wii paying homage to the character in the crossover orgasm Super Smash Brothers Brawl.
It was not until the 2010 E3 this past year when Reggie Fils-Amie was pimping Nintendo’s latest handheld and showed us a very special trailer.
Sorry to keep us waiting indeed. Whatever took you so long Pit, We are just glad to have you back.
Next time we will return to the original schedule and I will talk Castlevania.
The story takes its roots in a hybrid of Greek mythology and Christian demonology. You play as an angel named Pit; whose “Land of Good” was invaded by an army of monsters from the “Land of Evil.” I shit you not, the plot is that much of a trope. So you as a surviving angel are given a bow by the gods and told “go forth and conquer.”
Graphically the game was built on the same “guts” as fellow cult classic Metroid. You can tell with the jump physics, and even the patterns that some on screen enemies move. Musically it had a style all its own though. Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka provided four six tracks (massive for the NES) that gave an ambiance any Dungeons and Dragons player would love for their own games. Not nearly as up beat as Mario’s over world theme, nor as depressing as Zelda’s Dungeon music, Kid Icarus Soundtrack managed to capture a sense of epic adventure and wonder.
In terms of game play, Kid Icarus was a platformer that managed to work out two sub genres in one game. The first sub genre was typical platforming, with the twist of stages being largely vertical since the goal is to “retake heaven.” The second type of plat forming genre is the dungeon crawl, where three levels are set up in a castle like area.
The game was mind blowingly difficult though. You started bare bones in the game, with next to no health, and a weapon with no power and range. The vertical nature of the game meant falls off the screen were lethal and enemies could hurt you in was you did not expect.
Most famous of these said enemies was the so called “egg plant wizard” a purple one eyed magician who instead of damaging you transformed you into a walking eggplant, preventing you from attacking or using any of the items you collected along with way until you were uncursed.
Kid Icarus was praised critically for the past 25 years, despite only having one sequel on the Game Boy console. Released in 1991 “Of Myths and Monsters” was largely a port of the classic game, with a minimally enhanced story and few additions.
The classic Nintendo game reach something of a cult item, retaining a certain popularity. Four Nintendo consoles passed up the opportunity for a full blown new game however, with only the Wii paying homage to the character in the crossover orgasm Super Smash Brothers Brawl.
It was not until the 2010 E3 this past year when Reggie Fils-Amie was pimping Nintendo’s latest handheld and showed us a very special trailer.
Sorry to keep us waiting indeed. Whatever took you so long Pit, We are just glad to have you back.
Next time we will return to the original schedule and I will talk Castlevania.
Friday, December 10, 2010
TwouptwodownleftrightleftrightBA
Contra was not exactly a compelling game. The plot, like most in the NES series was a single four sentence paragraph that really served as a meager justification as to WHY you pumped quarters into the arcade machine. Your in game avatar was a silly knock off of the shirtless John Rambo, complete with a little bandanna, and you ran to the left and shot up billions of dollars of military hardware in the jungle. The game stayed that way until the very last level, which then made it look like the game should have been an “Aliens” arcade game.
Contra was a game for the Nintendo that characterized several things that are important for gaming as a whole. It clearly demonstrated that tight mechanics are important to narrative, and that a shallow game experience can be made up for by extreme difficulty.
Contra also reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of early video game producers. The limited lives and continues of early NES titles were brought to simulate the effect of being in a real arcade operating an actual cabinet. Lath meant limiting lives, something many video games continue to do this day, but also limiting the number of “continues” fabrication to represent limited pocket change. This created a whole slew of Nintendo game that demanded exceptional skill on part of the players to even finish.
Konami got around this with one simple keystroke combination though that spread like wildfire. The button pattern Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right B,A, entered before you started the game gave you 30 lives in the game, including after continues.
This key combination spread like wildfire in the 1980s, quite remarkable considering that the internet as we knew it was in it’s infancy. Word of mouth was powerful though, and it inspired game producers to include other so called “cheat codes” into games, or sometimes even allow players to enter a “debug” mode allowing you to fully customize your game experience.
Wow, I really did not have much to say about this game after all. Enjoy this music video then.
next time I will talk about the most under appreciated NES game, Kid Icarus
Contra was a game for the Nintendo that characterized several things that are important for gaming as a whole. It clearly demonstrated that tight mechanics are important to narrative, and that a shallow game experience can be made up for by extreme difficulty.
Contra also reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of early video game producers. The limited lives and continues of early NES titles were brought to simulate the effect of being in a real arcade operating an actual cabinet. Lath meant limiting lives, something many video games continue to do this day, but also limiting the number of “continues” fabrication to represent limited pocket change. This created a whole slew of Nintendo game that demanded exceptional skill on part of the players to even finish.
Konami got around this with one simple keystroke combination though that spread like wildfire. The button pattern Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right B,A, entered before you started the game gave you 30 lives in the game, including after continues.
This key combination spread like wildfire in the 1980s, quite remarkable considering that the internet as we knew it was in it’s infancy. Word of mouth was powerful though, and it inspired game producers to include other so called “cheat codes” into games, or sometimes even allow players to enter a “debug” mode allowing you to fully customize your game experience.
Wow, I really did not have much to say about this game after all. Enjoy this music video then.
next time I will talk about the most under appreciated NES game, Kid Icarus
Friday, December 3, 2010
I'm Blue... and Cyan...
In my NES retrospective I am compelled to move beyond the realm of Nintendo owned characters, and into the world of licensed properties. Mega Man (Rock Man in Japan) has spent the better part of his 25 years of existence dominating my gaming life. Living in an implied near future (constantly referencing 20XX) the world the game takes place in seems to be a mysterious blend of Issac Assimov and Harry Houdini’s wettest of dreams.
6 NES games, 1 SNES, 1 Playstation, and two throwback style games for download on your console of choice, and the entire plot is the same. Dr. Albert Wiley, a mentally unstable computer scientist specializing in Artificial Intelligence, in an effort to get revenge for his perceived ostracizing by college Dr. Thomas Light builds (or in a few cases steals) robots to engage in terrorist actions around the world.
The Core Mechanics of Mega Man are nothing special. Solid Platforming around obstacles and bad guys is a must. The ability to blow the hell out of what’s in your way is important as well. But Megaman offered two unique mechanics that let it stand out.
The first is that you hyad the ability to choose the order of the levels you went through. A relatively simple mechanic that blows away the concept of levels simply getting “harder” as time went on, instead level design had to pose unique challenges.
The other mechanic was that every time you beat a level, you got to use the master of that levels weaponry. weather it was an explosive, Flame thrower, or even bladed boomerangs, whatever weapons you picked up also served as tools to assist you in getting through other levels as time went on, until you reach Wiley himself, and had to use all the tools at your disposal to even GET to him.
In my adulthood I realize the game was far from perfect. Plot-wise, as I said before it can be summed up in the same old
“Dr. Wiley is on the loose again.”
While certainly not the first, nor the last to have a plot point repeat to the point of silly I really wish Capcom has stuck to their guns. In the 4th game of the series a whole new character was introduced in Dr. Cassock, and then in the middle of the game they backed out and revealed it was Dr. Wiley blackmailing Cassock. In the 6th Game a Mr. X (creative right?) who stole robots from a competition was also reviled to be Dr. Wiley in disguise.
What would be so wrong with having a NEW villain… Seriously? Each time it Might have breathed some fresh life into a stagnant plot, and it DID till you screwed it up! but it does not end there.
Finally in the often derided second game, our protagonist finally had enough and was ready to vaporize this clichéd villan. Here a Robot with a sense of justice finally had himself pushed to far, where he overrides his own programming for the sake of a perceived greater whole. When it is pointed out that he as a robot is programmed never to cause a human harm he replies
“I HAVE BECOME MORE THEN A ROBOT!” the only thing that keeps him from firing though is not pity, but self preservation, as the building they are in is about to collapse.
COME ON! we were about to explore self actualization of an AI CAPCOM! And you BLEW IT!
Mega Man still has a huge following after all this time. To the point of Bands like the Megas dedicated to making music based off the games, plenty of artwork and ROM-Hacks out there as well.
What is most fascinating is that Eddie LeBron, an independent film maker, actually created a film, about an hour and a half long, based on the Mega Man Franchise. I got to be honest, it’s not Oscar quality, but it certainly has Lifetime Movie Quality script, even if the effects and costumes are…. UPN quality.
Then again this is big budget action on no budget.
The series is worthy of a checkout if your not familiar. You can find a compilation of the first 8 games on the Playstation 2, as well as the Mega Man X Series (which I consider separate)
You can also get the classic Nintendo games at vintage stores, but the price tag tends to hover around 20 dollars, if you pick ONE up, make sure it is Mega Man 2 or 3 often held as the gold standards of the series.
6 NES games, 1 SNES, 1 Playstation, and two throwback style games for download on your console of choice, and the entire plot is the same. Dr. Albert Wiley, a mentally unstable computer scientist specializing in Artificial Intelligence, in an effort to get revenge for his perceived ostracizing by college Dr. Thomas Light builds (or in a few cases steals) robots to engage in terrorist actions around the world.
The Core Mechanics of Mega Man are nothing special. Solid Platforming around obstacles and bad guys is a must. The ability to blow the hell out of what’s in your way is important as well. But Megaman offered two unique mechanics that let it stand out.
The first is that you hyad the ability to choose the order of the levels you went through. A relatively simple mechanic that blows away the concept of levels simply getting “harder” as time went on, instead level design had to pose unique challenges.
The other mechanic was that every time you beat a level, you got to use the master of that levels weaponry. weather it was an explosive, Flame thrower, or even bladed boomerangs, whatever weapons you picked up also served as tools to assist you in getting through other levels as time went on, until you reach Wiley himself, and had to use all the tools at your disposal to even GET to him.
In my adulthood I realize the game was far from perfect. Plot-wise, as I said before it can be summed up in the same old
“Dr. Wiley is on the loose again.”
While certainly not the first, nor the last to have a plot point repeat to the point of silly I really wish Capcom has stuck to their guns. In the 4th game of the series a whole new character was introduced in Dr. Cassock, and then in the middle of the game they backed out and revealed it was Dr. Wiley blackmailing Cassock. In the 6th Game a Mr. X (creative right?) who stole robots from a competition was also reviled to be Dr. Wiley in disguise.
What would be so wrong with having a NEW villain… Seriously? Each time it Might have breathed some fresh life into a stagnant plot, and it DID till you screwed it up! but it does not end there.
Finally in the often derided second game, our protagonist finally had enough and was ready to vaporize this clichéd villan. Here a Robot with a sense of justice finally had himself pushed to far, where he overrides his own programming for the sake of a perceived greater whole. When it is pointed out that he as a robot is programmed never to cause a human harm he replies
“I HAVE BECOME MORE THEN A ROBOT!” the only thing that keeps him from firing though is not pity, but self preservation, as the building they are in is about to collapse.
COME ON! we were about to explore self actualization of an AI CAPCOM! And you BLEW IT!
Mega Man still has a huge following after all this time. To the point of Bands like the Megas dedicated to making music based off the games, plenty of artwork and ROM-Hacks out there as well.
What is most fascinating is that Eddie LeBron, an independent film maker, actually created a film, about an hour and a half long, based on the Mega Man Franchise. I got to be honest, it’s not Oscar quality, but it certainly has Lifetime Movie Quality script, even if the effects and costumes are…. UPN quality.
Then again this is big budget action on no budget.
The series is worthy of a checkout if your not familiar. You can find a compilation of the first 8 games on the Playstation 2, as well as the Mega Man X Series (which I consider separate)
You can also get the classic Nintendo games at vintage stores, but the price tag tends to hover around 20 dollars, if you pick ONE up, make sure it is Mega Man 2 or 3 often held as the gold standards of the series.
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