Castlevania

The Car Door is Miyazaki

  • Reading time:4 mins read

The Castle of Cagliostro is better than I expected, even knowing its reputation. What struck me after seeing it — aside from how reminded I was (and with good reason) of Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door — was how imperfect the movie was. How imperfect Lupin seemed, in comparison to how he might have been. After all his effort and his skill and lucky chances, he, indeed, in a move which must put a gleam in Robert McKee’s eye, fails his mission.

This is part of the standard screenplay arc; the hero must rise to a height, then fall so he might rise again. See any boxing movie ever made, and note the moronic misunderstandings every couple must face three-quarters of the way through a romantic comedy, just so the man can make it up to the woman and they can realize how stupid they were for acting like completely different people just long enough to create tension. The difference here is, although we have a pretty good idea that Lupin will succeed, somehow, in the end, it never is certain. When he does succeed, he does it not because the plot demands it (although again, it does) so much as because he has earned it: not because he must, but because he might.

This works because we see him fail. Lupin is a flambuoyant man. He swings for the ropes, and although he knows what he’s doing, there’s a certain element of risk built into this behavior. Sure, Lupin can control himself — but that’s different from being in control. And with as small a window of success as his stunts need, if it’s not one darned thing it’s another.

Take a look at the episode on the rooftop, where Lupin intends to cross the several hundred yards of empty space, to a tower. He has one plan; life has another. That he is rescued by a sight gag — should we always be so fortunate — does little to dampen the near-disaster he put himself into. By the time Lupin does so suddenly, and arbitrarily, fall, we are prepared for it. We aren’t prepared in that we expect it; just in that it comes from somewhere. Yes, these things happen — and oh damn, he almost made it. It feels unfair, and frustrating — because we know on another day he might have succeeded. Chances are, he would have. Those are just the odds. What is all the more upsetting is that it is not until then we fully realize all that had been riding on Lupin. Even his archantagonist, Zenigata, had been on his side; with Lupin’s failure comes that realization so many antagonists come to: that without the protagonist, they have no reason to be.

The solution, then, is to stack the odds. The rest of the movie plays out much as one might expect: all the characters play to their strengths; the world is set to its normal order, perhaps a little wiser, perhaps a little sadder. We get perspective on the unending battle of the TV series. We feel wistful. And the oddly-silent credits roll.

Still, what we got is better than it need be. Better than, maybe, it should be, for what it is. A movie based on a long-running cartoon: this ain’t the kind of place you expect to go looking for truth, much less of the standalone sort. The characters jump into play with no real introduction; if you don’t already know the cast, why would you be watching a movie like this? No introductions are really needed, though. Relationships are implied, and used to the extent that the movie implies them. No one needs announce himself, as the personality is evident. One look from Lupin, and you know who Fujiko is — even if you don’t, really. She isn’t in the movie enough for it to matter, anyway. If you’re still burning for information, she clarifies the matter towards the end, saying nothing that first look didn’t.

I don’t know if I need to see this a dozen times. Then, for what the movie is, maybe it would be a failure if I did. It is worth the time, however.

Oh, and Konami almost certainly borrowed from this when designing Castlevania.

Dragon Warier

  • Reading time:4 mins read

There is something strange about the renaming of Dragonquest, in the West. Linguistically, the two titles imply different concepts. (That much is clear; if they didn’t, then the game would never have been renamed.) The word “Quest” denotes a search. It is somewhat more ambiguous, and uncertain. There is no guarantee of the direction or of success, in a quest. It is, in effect, a venture into the unknown. With luck, some fruit might come of it. The word “Warrior” conjures an image of a large man with a codpiece, bashing something’s head in with a big stick.

In this case, the former is more appropriate a title in that the game is basically about the quest; about its purpose. It is a template, more or less, for the execution of an extended search as the body of a videogame. That is why it exists. The western title, however, implies a focus on character that isn’t present in the game. Who is this “Dragon Warrior”? The hero? Erdrick/Loto? Dragonlord/Dracolord? None of the above, I say. Though the intention, I venture, is to pretend that the hero, thereby the player, plays the role of this “warrior”. It is not enough to suggest that the player is to be sent on a quest, and for any function and role to come as a result of the actions required by this goal; it appears that the Western player must feel important. He must feel that the world revolves around him, as it might an epic hero. Or at least, that’s what Nintendo figured when they localized the game.

I’m not saying that this is a correct or an incorrect set of assumptions about the cultural biases of one territory against the next. I just find it interesting that someone clearly thought that there was a significant enough a disparity to account for it.

Perhaps, rather than it being a cultural issue wholly, it is more of a Nintendo issue. You recall what I have been saying for a while about Super Mario Bros. and what the game did, in effect, to the popular conceptions of game design and focus. Maybe this just follows the shift from concept to character.

I wonder whether the change in title had any effect. I’d like to think that some people would be frustrated when faced with a game which seemed to purport a focus upon character, and was really more about a melancholy search, and all the travails necessitated in the process. The level-chugging and growth does serve a purpose here, to illustrate just how hard this particular quest is; how much work and trial and error is required, just to set a couple of things right. It’s kind of bleak, yet educational. And it’s filled with moments of whimsy.

It’s not about any person. It’s bigger than that in a sense. In another sense, it’s just not concerned with individuals. It’s a concept game.

Had the game been labeled more well, would it have done better over here? Would it have done worse?

What about now? Were Squenix to release DQ8 as “Dragon Quest VIII” over here, rather than bow to Nintendo’s convention, would it make a difference? Would people get it?

It might be time to give it a chance. Heck, Castlevania is called “Castlevania” in Japan now, rather than “Akumajou Dracula”. There’s precedent. And it’s not like too many people here would be confused. Foew who are not already fond of Dragon Warrior would be confused by the change, as they probably have barely heard of the series, despite its influence — and I think most of the existing fanbase would welcome it.

Or. Perhaps not.

EDIT: See comments.

Thunderstorm hovercrafts

  • Reading time:2 mins read

F-Zero GX does, indeed, go fast.

…

I enjoy this, lots. This game has spirit.

The original F-Zero never caught me. It struck me as little more than a glittery tech demo for the totally amazing Mode-7 capabilities of the SNES. Then, I had that problem with a lot of SNES releases.

This is clearly a real game.

* *

It occurs to me that there could be a less-deep reason for the whole Kobe/Igarashi twist in the Castlevania series. Igarashi, of course, includes Kobe’s games in his revised timeline. (He also omits Dark Night Prelude, or “Castlevania Legends”, as it’s called here, for even murkier purposes.) The obvious rationale is that these games generally aren’t all that good (save Circle of the Moon, which is fun and well-made for what it is), and that they kind of ruin the storyline that Igarashi had been putting together.

A less-obvious and less-inspiring possibility lies in something that I learned from someone at Konami a few days ago. It seems that every development studio has independent rights to the games it produces. Even for as self-referential a company as Konami, it seems that the different studios have to be careful not to reference each other’s games without permission, for legal reasons. So KCE Tyo can inwardly reference anything it wants (Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, and so on) — but it can’t mention games made by, say, KCEJ (Kojima), without reason. And vice-versa. And all around.

So.

Hmm…

Monsters known as “Hellspawn”

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Oh, there is a Japanese dub. Was this in the menu before? I don’t recall seeing it. Although still not perfect, the acting here is about the level of a decent-budget anime. Especially given the setting and the subject, the game sounds far less proposterous this way.

Yeah. The only part of the game which is really tough so far is in the jumping. And that is not so much because the jumping itself is poorly-done; it’s just that it can take some trial-and-error to gauge where Hotsuma can leap and where he can’t. The game does not really support this approach: when you fall, you die; when you die, it’s game over. You must start the round again from the beginning. This can be refreshing; in this way, you learn the hard way how to blast through a level without error — as with, say, Castlevania. For platforming sections, and for other areas where you’re just trying to figure out how to progress, it is less refreshing.

Still. This is kind of fun, so far. Although I guess it does have some Shinobi-ish qualities after all — they are just minimized — the game continues to remind me more of Ninja Gaiden. Which in itself is fun, since — as I mentioned a while ago — the new Ninja Gaiden reminds me more of Shinobi than of Ninja Gaiden.

I think I am on the doorstep of a mild sickness. I am doing my best to backpedal.

Bishounen have the best firearms

  • Reading time:3 mins read

All is well. I cracked my way into the parental menu. I’m my own daddy now! I just watched A Fistfull of Dollars. Interesting how all of the elements are pretty much in place, yet Leone has not yet figured out how to mix them well enough to turn out something like he did two films later. Still not bad. The movie, on its own, comes off as far above average for the genre. It just doesn’t transcend it, making the genre irrelevent.

Speaking of such things: I just got around to playing Devil May Cry.

Jesus. I had avoided this game since long before its release, because I was annoyed with how vapid and trendy it looked — and because of the way people reacted to the game. I guess I never really learned my lesson from Kojima. Yes, the game is supremely stupid and shallow — yet consciously so. It is so over-the-top that it comes off as a lot of fun.

Also now I see just how inspired Koji Igarashi was by this game. Everything from the not-falling-over-edges-unless-you-want-to mechanic to the odd stopping-in-mid-jump-for-a-combo detail, to the zooming-into-the-character’s-back-when-he-opens-a-door effect, to the way you hold the right trigger to duck and weave and strafe around. There are the over-the-top round titles. There’s the atmosphere. There’s the jumping (although Dante has no need for a double jump; instead, he has a variable and really high normal jump, plus a wall jump — not unlike Leon’s ability to whip railings to pull himself even higher).

Thing is — Devil May Cry is so much better a game. At least, so far. It’s linear, as Lament of Innocence should have been (and I think originally was supposed to have been). There are a few invisible walls, yet mostly you can not only jump all over the scenery but you can smash it up. It doesn’t take itself seriously in the least, unlike Igarashi’s game — which is goofy, yes, though as decoration on top of a concept which struggles and does not entirely succeed to do something marginally meaningful.

So. Now I understand some of what I have heard.

I still defend some of Igarashi’s intent with Lament of Innocence, and a bit of what he accomplished. He did get a decent start down. Just, hmm. The game is even more of an unfinished doodle than I realized.

I would say that I expect his next game to be far better — yet his next game is Nanobreaker. And. Well. I have yet to write about that. It didn’t impress me a whole lot. Of the recent set of slash-slash-slash combo games, it strikes me as one of the duller. Granted, all that was available for play at E3 was some kind of a time attack mode. So I don’t know how the main game is supposed to work. Yet, I don’t know about this.

Ah well. I need to play more of both games.

Perhaps this ties in with my ICO vs. Silent Hill 2 thing. I think that Riven, Super Mario Bros., and Bionic Commando might, too. And a few other things.

This might get kind of messy.

I will know, later.

Igarashi: For the Nerds

  • Reading time:3 mins read

A few things I don’t remember seeing mentioned anywhere:

When Leon renounces his title in order to go searching for his woman, he is forced to leave his sword behind. As a result, Leon is unarmed when he rushes into the vampire’s forest. This is why, when Leon runs into this Gandolfi fellow, Leon is presented with an alchemically-fortified whip (later, I assume, to be dubbed “Vampire Killer”), with which to defend himself.

It always did seem a bit out-of-place, did it not?

To go with the whip, Gandolfi then treats one of Leon’s gauntlets, giving it energy-absorbing powers. This allows Leon to block near any attack, and also to absorb magical power with every blow the gauntlet withstands.

Whenever the player defeats an Elemental (in the Dungeons & Dragons sense of the term), that Elemental’s power may then be applied to Leon’s alchemical whip. So the way you get a flame whip is to kill a fire elemental (modeled after Weta Workshop’s idea of a Balrog). Sort of clever.

You know those orbs that you collect after you defeat a boss in the older Castlevania games? They are kind of arbitrary, aren’t they. They refill Simon’s or Trevor’s or Juste’s life bar, and they mark the end of a level. That is about it.

In Lament of Innocence, the orbs are back. In this game, however, Leon collects the orbs; each contains a unique magical influence. Do you remember the Spell Fusion system in Harmony of Dissonance? The way it works is, Juste collects spell books — ice, fire, what-have-you — and then can apply those powers to whatever secondary weapon he might be holding. So if you have the ice book and the cross, a little ice crystal will follow Juste around and shoot at enemies. If you have the wind book and the dagger, Juste can throw a bunch of daggers really quickly.

Exactly the same deal here, with Leon — only with a logistical twist. Get a subweapon, equip an orb (claimed from a defeated boss), and you may use your gauntlet — and the power you have absorbed with it — to cast similar spells depending on which orb and which subweapon you choose. The important thing is, this relies on Leon’s enchanted gauntlet and on the old boss orbs. It… well.

I really like some of these details. It would take a while to explain why I find this as neat as I do.

The game is, indeed, getting more interesting now. That first level I entered — the one in the center — was bland and annoying. This second one — the one on the far left — has a lot going on (in comparison, if perhaps not absolutely). If the game continues to improve at this rate, it could be pretty darned satisfactory by the end.

Again, we will see.

Neon Leon

  • Reading time:5 mins read

I have progressed a bit in Lament of Innocence; I am now closing in on the end of the first level. All I have to do is beat the boss (I died toward the end of my first attempt), and I may move on.

The controls — I don’t know that there is any end of praise I can give to how they are designed. The only flaw I can find is that there is no way to cancel an attack with the block button. So if you see, say, an incoming spear, and your whip is extended, you can’t make Leon lift his gauntlet and block the attack until after his animation is completed. By then, it is usually too late.

Otherwise… well, I will dissect it all later. The mechanics are precise and splendid; they are exactly what I remembered from E3.

The real problem — again! — seems to be in level design. See, now I enjoyed the E3 demo. It was just room, room, room, room, room, room, boss. Clear all of the monsters; move on. Clear the room; move to the next room. Occasionally the player would face a small puzzle room or a platforming section; then he would move on. At the end, the boss.

That was it. It was fun! It was mindless, yet wholly entertaining. It was a straightforward action game, as with the original Castlevania, yet organized like the first well-made 3D brawler I have played. Castlevania: Fists of Fury. No nonsense. Just leap into the game and have fun with it.

When people complained of how shallow the full game was, I scoffed. Well, duh. Igarashi has already said that he intended the game to be a shallow hackfest. And it looked like he succeeded in making an enjoyable one. If the demo was any good representation of the finished result, then I did not see how a person could confuse the game’s ambition for anything else.

The problem with the full game — from what I have so far seen — is that it is no longer so focused. Now there is… wandering. And it is not particularly enjoyable wandering. It is not the sort of “backtracking” that one sees in, say, a Metroid game — which consciously exists to create a coherent sense of place, for the player. It…

Well, take the first level. There are two doors you need to open, to reach the boss. To do so, you need to go out of your way and flip six switches in far, unmarked corners of the level. To do that, you need to zigzag across the same collection of flat, almost wholly non-interactive (if pretty) rooms over and over and over again, fighting or avoiding the same respawning enemies over and over — to no benefit, given that the game contains no experience points (since it was supposed to be more of an action game).

There is almost no verticality to the rooms. When there is, it is usually just to hide a money bag or some other trinket; there is nothing vital on the upper plane. There is no sense of coherence, as the player wanders from one room to the next, as there is a scene transition every time the player opens a door. This, again, is because the game is supposed to be an action game: room, room, room. Clear a room; move on.

That ain’t how the levels are built, though. Instead, it seems like somewhere along the way, someone became worried that the game was too linear. So the rooms became connected to each other in a big enough network as to necessitate a map. In order to encourage the player to explore every corner of that map, the designers threw in obstacles such as those doors and switches. Puzzles now, instead of existing as a relief from battle, act as yet another hinderance, preventing the player from just trudging forward as she is supposed to.

At this point, I think you can see the problem as well as I: it is that Igarashi did not stick to his original idea. If he had just made the game he wanted to make, I am confident that it would have had a bunch of energy and would have been a blast to play. This is just tedious, though. Either someone interfered, and told Igarashi to make the game longer and more complex — although the game was not designed to work that way — or Igarashi himself lost confidence in his design somewhere close to the end of production, and tried to spice it up.

Not a good plan, that — as I am sure you are aware by now.

Oh well. Igarashi does have him some great ingredients, anyway. And heck, maybe the game gets more focused as it progresses. We shall see.

Whithervania

  • Reading time:2 mins read

GAR RAR

In a sudden hurry, although I just woke.

I acquired Castlevania: Lament of Innocence the other day, for… almost nothing, along with the Xbox version of Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams, for a similar price. I have not yet played past the introductory area of the former. It still controls as well as I remember. I enjoy the campy voice acting. The plot is… well, there’s something wrong with it so far — even if it is sort of clever in how it intertwines the Castlevania mythology with history.

The thing which most bothers me, though: I spent an hour wandering around, before I managed to find my way out of the first three or four rooms. All I had to do was double-jump off a block (which I knew was suspicious, and I had double-jumped off any number of times), and not move, and Leon would automatically pull himself up to a ledge which was imperceptible from what the camera had to show me.

And… right after I found a way up, I had to do something else. I will say more later.

I will say more on other things later.

I will, for instance, comment on whether this trend toward showing me level geometry then putting up invisible walls so I can’t interact with it will continue.

Later later!

Here comes the sun

  • Reading time:5 mins read

Just to let you know: Henrik Galeen is the fellow who invented the whole sunlight + vampires = unhappy and/or dead vampires device. I thought it likely that Nosferatu was the origin of this cinematic convenience. The commentary track on the DVD has confirmed this for me.

While we’re on the subject…

Konami pretty much seems to have ignored [Sonia Belmont] based on the supposedly bad game she inhabited (good character design and scenario aside)…

Actually, Igarashi wrote her game out of the official canon because he thought it was too far-fetched for a woman to be an action hero during the period in which the game was set. There’s an interview on Gamers where you can find these statements.

Aside from the obvious logistical strangeness here (since when were the Belmonts your average peasants?), Igarashi seems to be overlooking an awful lot of potential for character and story depth.

A woman would have to be all the stronger — all the more of a hero — to hold up against the repressive society of the time, and all of the fear and persecution she’d probably face. The stronger she’d get, the more that people would fear and resent her.

Thus the Belmonts were chased out of Transylvania after Dark Night Prelude/Legends, and thus Trevor/Ralph had to be called back in Akumajou Denetsu/Dracula’s Curse.

At the outset of that game, Trevor is kneeling by a shrine, praying. He could be talking to his dead mother, asking for the strength to follow in her stead.

I suppose an action game doesn’t need to go that deep, however.

I also suppose it doesn’t help much that Igarashi is filtering all of this through his own Japanese mindset.

Note that, as far as I know, Sonia still exists as a character in the official timeline. If so, however, she’s been demoted to little more than Trevor/Ralph’s mother.

He seems to care a lot about the atmosphere and continuity of Castlevania and the few Castlevania games that have had historical errors have all been the ones that Igarashi hasn’t worked on, such as CV64 with its turn of the 20th century biker skeletons.

Now, I really like Igarashi and respect what he’s trying to do with the series. Again, though, this doesn’t seem a necessary change to me. If anything, the storyline seems stronger with her in than with her out. If nothing else, she opens up a lot of intriguing possibilities.

Igarashi makes the occasional vague reference to historical accuracy, but he’s hardly a stickler. Thus the wailing guitars in Symphony of the Night and the classical music in Lament of Innocence (each anachronistic by at least one hundred fifty years — and more like five or six hundred in the latter case). There are all kinds of weird details in Harmony of Dissonance, like phonographs and elevators. The list goes on.

And even within the game’s internal world, Igarashi is willing to break form if it suits him. The “Spell Fusion” system in Harmony of Dissonance serves as a sort of a placeholder in terms of gameplay systems. It helps to explain whence Richter’s and the later Belmonts’ Item Crash techniques originate, while it makes clear what happened to the Belnades bloodline once it merged with that of the Belmonts. (That is, it went dormant until Juste found it.)

So, given that Lament of Innocence takes place several hundred years before Sypha was ever born, why did Igarashi put a Spell Fusion system in the game? Because it makes the game more interesting.

To be sure, he originally wanted the game to be straight out whip-and-subweapons action. That would have made it more accurate. He said that was a little too dull, though. So, with a shrug, there goes continuity.

What I’m saying is that his explanation doesn’t really hold water at face value. It’s a fictional world; you can do whatever you like with it.

It’s a convenient sound bite, yes, and there may be some element of truth to it — but he’s got some other reason. If you go strictly by what he says, basically what it translates to is “I just don’t want a female lead in my series.”

So. Is he just a jerk? Does he have issues with women? Is he gay? (Hell, Soma Cruz might as well be a woman. Maybe that’s how he likes it.)

Perhaps it’s something more mundane — like politics. Notice that he doesn’t include in his official timeline any game produced by either the (now-defunct) Kobe or Nagoya studios. In the case of Kobe, this is understandable. They kind of screwed up whatever they touched, even in the case of the rather enjoyable Circle of the Moon. But Dark Night Prelude took special care to adhere to the continuity established up to that point. So that would seem a curious explanation.

Maybe it’s some other problem entirely. Maybe he just doesn’t like that plot thread. I don’t know. I suppose I can’t, unless he lets something slip.

I doubt he’s written the game off for any really powerful concerns about historical accuracy, though. Nor does the quality issue seem right to me, given what other games he does choose to include (like the two Dracula Denetsu games).

So, as before, that just leaves one to marvel at how strange his statement is.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA/Konami)

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Last year, Harmony of Dissonance presented to me an interesting dilema. Although a better Castlevania game (as such) than KCE Kobe’s Circle of the Moon, Harmony lacks the mindless glee of its (now-apocryphal) predecessor. Indeed, it is rather a heady experience. It’s more well-conceived than Kobe’s game, it has a pleasantly glitchy atmosphere, it’s full of neat continuity. It’s just that it’s not as crunchy; not as much empty fun.

Well, no such dilemma here. Aria of Sorrow is both a good Castlevania game and a fun game on its own right. I daresay, and do say, and am in the process of daring to say, that this is one of the most joyous, well-designed games in the series.

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

Fungaloid worms

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I’ve been sitting here for over twelve hours, playing with MAME. It initially began as a quest to find and play the Castlevania arcade game. While it is pretty… not-good, I did get me-out a hefty basket of insight on Simon’s Quest.

I’ll let your imagination play with that for a while.

It only took a few plays to fill me as full of Haunted Castle as I wished to be filled. So, I took to seeing what else MAME happened to support. This was the first time that I’d really paid much attention to the program. It used to be a practical nuisance, last it was high on my radar.

Now, though, it… kind of works okay. It’s still not got some features that I’d like, but it makes up for them in how comprehensive it manages to be. You’ve got your Art of Fighting 3 right next to your Asteroids and your Rolling Thunder and your obscure Japanese porn Mahjong.

Through all of this business, something struck me.

I’ve… most recently spent an hour with Centipede when I could have been sleeping. This wasn’t in the plans. After about fifteen minutes, though, it occurred to me what was going on with the levels. Merely by playing the game, I was altering the level design. It couldn’t be helped.

When stage 2 came around, it wasn’t a different stage because of a pre-ordained set of obstacles. It didn’t even rely on a random generator. I made it different, albeit unintentionally. The randomness of my actions was translated, through various side effects, into the randomness of the mushroom field. All I had to do was be there. To exist.

It keeps going on like that. Perpetually. You get the same thing with Asteroids, although with all the moving pieces it’s not quite as evident.

…

Games aren’t quite so poetic anymore, are they.

Hmm, I say!

EDIT:

According to the KLOV, Centipede was the first arcade game to be designed by a woman (a certain Dona Bailey — sister to Justin, perhaps?).

Curious, curious.

And to think I just WALKED ON HIS FACE!

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Good lord! I just watched Sherlock Holmes battle the Nazis!

He was certainly spry for his age! He didn’t look much the worse for his fifty lost years or so. Nor, for that matter, did Watson or Inspector Lestrade. Moriarty, of course, was the one operating on the side of the Nazis. He also looked reasonably well, considering.

Gazdooks.

Odds Bodkins, even!

When did Holmes become an action-packed master of disguise, anyway?

I’m going to have to go back to sleep, now.

Did I mention (and I didn’t) that I finished up everything there was to do in the first, normal-mode quest in Aria of Sorrow? Every soul; every item (at least one copy). Am now starting hard mode, with all of the items and souls from last time around. It’s going… more quickly now. I fear that I might not make it to as high a level as last time (that being around 75, with all of the wandering and whathow). It seems that the clock is still going even through this second quest. It’s now at around 18:30, I believe.

… Sounds like a good time for a nap!

It’s almost like casual jeans day.

  • Reading time:7 mins read

Game:

A few days ago, having recently acquired my very own copy of Truxton I uncloaked my Genesis — for the playing thereof.

Truxton, I found to be almost identical to Fire Shark — only… not as much fun. I can’t get past the beginning of level two without some dumb ship popping out of nowhere and running into my back before I know what’s up.

Still. It’s there. And now so is my Genesis. Being it that I’m on this Castlevania kick — again — I pulled out my Majesco-republished (and thereby terribly-boxed) copy of Bloodlines. As not entirely bad as this game is, I’ve rarely bothered to play it past the second level or so. The game is difficult — but in a more floaty way than I expect from Castlevania. It lacks some charm. As applaudable as Michiru Yamane‘s music might be, her sound effects are entirely loathsome. All in all, the game is just kind of… well, again — it’s there.

On one default set of two continues, I managed to get to… what I think should be Dracula’s final form: a big, fake Mode-7 demon with a face in his crotch. I might even have beaten him; I had the pattern down and everything. He didn’t have much life left. And yet: I didn’t dodge when I should’ve.

Still. Bloodlines. Last form (?) of last boss. Not bad, I say. Dare I suppose, better than you.

If you’ve actually beaten the game, don’t tell me. Let me feel special for the moment.

Movie:

The Italian Job: Sure.

It’s got energy. It’s certainly nothing special in its own right; all I could think of, from the premise on out, were the observations of Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation. Still, it’s very well-made. It has a great sense of momentum. The plot doesn’t follow through on any of the stupid possibilities that it coudl have; it manages to dodge away — fairly — every time it approaches a potentially-unsatisfying easy answer. Not once did I feel insulted or cheated. I felt tense when I was supposed to feel tense. I cared when I was supposed to care.

I think the whole Napster bit could have been minimized. The movie also acted as a rather obvious commercial for those mini cars (which I don’t believe are real Minis, as such — not that I know anything of, or much care about, cars). Still, not enough to overly stretch my patience.

So. Yeah. For what it is, it’s certainly worthwhile. There’s not much to study, but it’s enjoyable just in the fact that it’s so unusually competent. It feels more European than American — which might explain the previous observation.

UPDATE:

According to Ebert: “This is just the movie for two hours of mindless escapism on a relatively skilled professional level.”

Didn’t I just say that?

Music (and… Game, again):

Harmony of Dissonance: seriously, this game has to possess the most powerful soundtrack in the whole series. Most Castlevanias have really impressive power-melodies. The NES trilogy: if Bach (not J.S.; perhaps a lesser Bach) were aware of 20th century music, this might be what he’d have come up with. Circle of the Moon has some of the most lush, layered, driving, just plain fun music in the series.

However: the HoD score is the only one to really make me feel anything in particular. The more closely I listen, the more impressed I become. This isn’t just videogame music. There’s something else going on here; a certain kind of genius, or at least wild inspiration. The contrasting melodies swirl into madness, creating a dark updraft for the player — instilling an unsettled momentum into his musculature.

The bass takes up the central melody role, holding the piece together while the lead stutters incoherently. The entire piece pulls in its legs, rotating more and more tightly, getting all the stronger — until it snaps; it lets go, carrying the player to sanity with one key breeze. There’s but one escape, and the music finds it — yet it doesn’t stop. It must keep going while the player remains dazed from the last bit of overstimulation. It has places to go. It can’t let the player loose to drift away. It can’t break the atmosphere.

All of the parts speak to each other. They’re not just there to fill out the orchestration, as in so many other soundtracks in this series. They argue. They trade off. They team up. They go in their own disparate directions, then crtash back together again. They listen. They respond.

This soundtrack knows what it’s doing. It has an intelligence to it. It has a personality unto itself. It would be worth talking to.

Again, I can’t say that about the Aria of Sorrow score. That music is just… nice. And appropriate. It’s… there. It has no personality of its own — and I imagine that’s probably the whole intent. People screamed so much about the HoD score that Igarashi must’ve told Yamane to give him something more typical this time around. It looks like it’s worked, given the popular reaction.

Sigh.

See, this is where informed feedback could do a developer well. I’ve slowly been poring my way through the free magazines that I got at E3 — and, man. I’ve yet to see one thoughtful critique. One interesting, well-considered argument. The obviously lousy games get bad scores. The high-profile games get good scores. The ones in between are gernally analyzed on the basis of a few random observations which might or might not have anything to do with the intent of the game in question. It’s hard to tell.

HoD gets a 9.5, because it must — although note is made of the terrible soundtrack. In this case, the reviewer doesn’t even bother to explain that it sounds like NES music (!). Then, neither does he vaguely brush off its composition, as in so many web reviews. Not enough space to explain. Must conserve words.

Metroid Fusion gets a 9.5. Why? Because it must. Show some respect for the Gameboy game of the year, people. Everyone knows that Metroid is flawless. Reword the press release, and perpetuate the consumer cycle. Even if it’s not perfect, so what. It’s one of the best games ever. Must show the proper respect. Mustn’t question the publishers (aside from Acclaim; they’re okay to bash at will), or they might complain. Can’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Since E3, I’ve come to the realization that the game industry — at least over here — seems to be made up of a million frat boys, all in it for the ride. And I’m not just talking about the “journalists”.

Let’s talk about the journalists, though. Brandon asks two or three well-informed questions. He listens to the responses, and asks follow-up questions. PR guy, astonished, comments that Brandon “should work for CNN”. So: how has everyone else been acting? Brandon was only being professional.

Then I remember the reviews I see on IGN and — particularly — Gamespot: the big sites. Then I remember the way news travels — rarely credited or researched with so much as a phone call. Then I overhear Tim’s experiences with a particular site to which he contributed for… about two or three weeks. Then I come home and I read the fucking press releases.Then I read the magazines.

…

I… was going to say more, but I’m beginning to tire — both of this subject, and in a more general sense. Maybe I’ll pick up this thread later.

For now: EGM continues to be not-all-that-bad.

Genya Arikado, indeed.

  • Reading time:5 mins read

Aria of Sorrow is good, yes?

It gets much better, once one gets past the first, false ending — although that final arrangement of souls isn’t exactly intuitive (at least, not until they’re all slotted into place). This is the third game in a row where Igarashi’s pulled an obscure trick like that. I wish he’d quit it.

I had noticed that the Flame Demon’s power looked sort of familiar — as did Soma’s item-use pose…

I’ve still a final boss to beat (and I’m out of potions!), and there’s still another whole hunk of the main map which remains mysteriously inaccessible. And yet… yes.

The “bad” ending is… interesting, as is the manner in which it is accomplished.

I think this counts as the first major Castlevania game since SotN. HoD, it seems to me, was intended as a smaller, bridge game — both in terms of plot and development. It exists in order to fill in some gaps in the larger series. AoS is something rather new and creative, in a manner not unlike SotN.

I do wish that its music were more interesting, though. While it really shouldn’t, it does baffle me that all of the reviews I’ve seen for the game have complimented it on the drastic improvement in both its sound quality and the compositoin, over HoD. Uih? Sound quality, perhaps — although I think the low-res samples in HoD are actually quite a bit clearer and more resonant than what one tends to find here.

Amd yet: composition? The hell?

HoD has perhaps the most intelligent, well-written score in the series. The AoS soundtrack is… good, but largely unremarkable. It’s one of the most conservative scores in the series; it doesn’t attempt anything new. Its main melodies are tired, simplistic, unimaginative. The structure is as straightforward as it can get. There are a few good pieces later in the game, but in comparison to either HoD or Circle of the Moon (each of which had its own strengths) it’s… really kind of mediocre.

Less evolved, less energetic, less adventurous. It’s just… there. It sounds pleasant and Castlevania-ish.

I’ve gone into this before, rather vocally. It’s perhaps my fault for reading the mainstream reviews. It’s perhaps even more my fault for reading the somewhat more hardcore fan reviews.

Since I’m on the subject, I’ll paste here a bit of something that I recently blathered (and then subsequently forwarded, in part, to Tim).

I just noticed something with the Japanese naming schemes. None of the games in the series — not one so far (aside from Circle of the Moon — which makes… one, I suppose) — have had the same title in the US and in Japan. Even recently, they’ve changed seemingly for no reason. Aria of Sorrow was made for the US, for instance — and yet it’s getting a different name in Japan.

But if you look at the names — the US titles have rather arbitrary musical names. Most of them are just [musical form] of [something bleak] or something otherwise rather negative-sounding.

  • Symphony of the Night
  • Harmony of Dissonance
  • Aria of Sorrow
  • Lament of Innocence

In Japan, though — well, look at the pattern.

  • Nocturne in the Moonlight
  • Concerto of the Midnight Sun
  • Minuet of Dawn

Keep in mind that Castlevania Legends is originally called “Dark Night Prelude“.

With the exception of Rondo of Blood, these all have to do with time of day or other related astronomical phenomena. Further, they tend to make a bit of sense in terms of the plots of the games in question.

Minuet of Dawn (AoS) takes place about thirty years in the future, at the dawn of a new era. Dark Night Prelude — it was, indeed, a prelude to the rest of the series (even if Igarashi ignores the game now).A “Midnight Sun” or a “White Night” is a kind of a surreal experience. It’s not really night, although it should be. Things aren’t really what they seem. And indeed, in that game things are not what they seem at all. It’s night, as such, but the darkness is gone; Simon defeated it fifty years earlier.

So. The names are much more meaningful and consistent in the Japanese releases, even now. This is kind of bizarre.

To go back to Circle of the Moon, I only notice that it has perhaps the most pithy title of all, even if it doesn’t necessarily have much to do with the game’s plot. Yet another example, it seems, of something that sounds good, which Kobe just thew in for the heck of it.

It’s really a shame that they had to mess up on so many tiny details within and about this game. A game this enjoyable should certainly be part of the main continuity, rather than a weird non-canon side story. It wouldn’t have been difficult to have changed a handful of superficial details. Maybe have reworked a few of the more arbitrary abilities, in the process. Put in some more thought.

Ah well. It is what it is. At least it doesn’t take itself any more seriously than it takes the series as a whole.

…

So. Yeah. I’m curious to see where Lament of Innocence goes. I also wonder whatever happened to that intended port of Rondo of Blood to the PSX. A while back, Igarashi said that some Konami higher-ups were nixing the project on him. He asked fans to send in mail and show their support if they wanted the game to be released. Looks like they must not have gotten enough.

A shame; I’ve never even gotten a chance to play the thing. It’s become one of those things like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Radiant Silvergun.

It seems I am more or less rested now. I shall set out to writing, momentarily.