Let's Play Castlevania! (Part I)

And now for something different! I'm gonna talk about Castlevania games!


First and foremost, I got SOTN to work! I'm gonna blow your minds and just tell you now: You send Dracula to hamburger time at the beginning of the damn game. That whole "What is a man?" scene? That's the first scene.

And then the game actually starts, and you're playing as Alucard.



No, not that one, sadly. This one.

His son. In Canon!verse, this is the one we call Failcard. But we've never really gotten to know him- we just make assumptions based on his alignment and cameos in other games. Shall we get to know the real Failcard?

Oh hell yes. Now, Failcard starts out fully dressed. Let's see some of the stuff he's wearing, hmm?

Item Description: Twilight Cloak
A black cloak for vampires

Item Description: Alucard Sword
Mother’s family heirloom

Ahh. THAT's why Failcard’s on the run. He’s stolen his mother’s sword.

According to the game, this is his mother:
As I've said before, she looks awfully familiar. But you only see her in flashback. Here, though, is what you do see!

The first real enemy you meet in the game is what Aria calls a Warg. It’s a giant wolf. Kinda pretty. It’s really cool to see that Aria uses the same design, because it’s a well-designed enemy. It's pretty!



The second enemy you fight... is also a wolf. After you’ve gone inside. There’s like, five or six wolves in the first hallway. Weird.

It kinda irritates me that you start the game wearing all your Mary Sue clothes. Srsly. You have the best sword, shield, amulet, cloak, armor, shoes, everything!

And then there’s a boss fight
And it’s fucking DEATH.
FIRST BOSS IN THE GAME
IS FUCKING DEATH.
AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Only... it’s not a fight. Much like in Portrait of Ruin, Death shows up just to be a prick. He calls Alucard a pussy and then steals his shit. And... wow. He actually changes color! As if all his good shit was no longer on him! Could equipping of items to the character ACTUALLY show up in gameplay? Oh I hope so!

Woah. What the fuck is this? The save room is NOT a glowing statue of the virgin Mary or a fountain... it’s a pulsing red-and-yellow D20. Since I don’t have a PS1 memory stick, I’m just gonna heal up here.... hoooooooly crap. Trippy. It explodes, breaks apart, and forms a coffin around you.



Oh hey, the relics- things in the game that are useful- show up as cubes here! Just like in PoR. Hmm, what’s this relic?

Cube of Zoe?

Who... who’s Zoe?

Spittle bone enemies actually spit saliva at you. In the later games, they spit fire. I think having them spit spittle makes more sense.



Ee! I just equipped a new cape and woaho, Whinycard’s wearing a cape! CLEARLY when we gave him an infatuation with dressing up, we were correct!

Uhoh. Door sealed. Music stopped. T... time for a boss fight.


Oh! It’s Slogra and Gaibon... and they fight together... and... um... where is that spear going?

Yeah, I can see where all that horrifying Rule 34 stuff comes from.

And I died, and since I don’t have a PS1 memory stick, game over! Time to play something new!

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness.

This release for PS2 met with a hell of a lot of panning- apparently, if it's not a Metroidvania style game, it sucks. But I wanted to try it for myself!

Here’s all I got from the opening narration:

- Our hero’s name is Trevor
Something about a plague?
As I said, the two PS2 CV games took a lot of flack for being shit. We’re about to discover the truth of that.

It starts with a person who I am thinking is Trevor running towards a castle, yelling for Isaac.

Isaac... ISAAC? Isaac as in the bastard love child of Rip Van Winkle and Charles Foster Offdensen?

What, you know I'm right.


But, alas, it is not the right Isaac. Instead, it’s a pretty, red-haired, kinda crazy, femmy vampire with a sarcastic, almost British-sounding affected voice who’s hitting on and threatening simultaneously this Hector.

He also has a... thing... for chains. And whips. And he doesn't seem to own a shirt. But anyways, who the hell is Hector? As it turns out, Hector, not Trevor is our hero. I’m already NOT caring about Hector or Trevor or any of ‘em. I’m caring about this Isaac character. He’s got a hawt voice... though, come to think of it Hector does, too. Actually, Hector sounds really familiar. Why does he sound so familiar? The cutscene ends, and then the game begins.

Already I can see where peoples’ control issues came from. The controls are SUPER-sensitive, which might get irritating. Hmm. Why do those grunts and shouts sound so familiar? Do you recognize this voice?

(It starts at 1:36ish)

That guy with the white hair is Hector. Aside from a cool voice, he's also got a chair fetish. No, really. Part of the game is finding all the different types of chairs to sit in. Odd.

Anyways, onto gameplay. The first enemy pops out of nowhere, which is kinda cool. I do like the 3d fighting system; if you get behind the enemy, he goes all transparent so you can see where you are. It’s a pretty quick fight, not too tough... and then the enemy drops a hamburger.
What the hell. It’s 1500 and the enemy drops a hamburger. “A meat patty squashed inside a bun to make it easier to eat. This one has a lot of tasty pickles.” It only gets stranger when you enter the first save room. You sit down in this big throne with wings on it. It’s pretty, but it’s also inhumanly strange. What I really like about it is that whenever you’re near a save room, a little indicator appears under your feet. You always know when you’re near one.

The wolf enemies in this game are neither giant nor threatening. They’re actually kind of adorable. They’re cute little wolf things named Fenrir.

Apparently, tombstones in this world look like coffee tables with floating pixies on ‘em. Hector then picks up evil demon summoning powers. Why? We don’t know. No apparent reason.

Ad then you get applauded by some bald Aussie-Britthing. His name’s Zead. He congratulates you and spews some bullshit about Isaac or somebody... I have a feeling he’ll be important later. Apparently, what you just did is called Devil Forging. It made something called “Innocent Devil Infant Fairy” appear. You then must name the Innocent Devil. The game suggests Raji. I go with Bill. Basically, Innocent Devils are untainted familiars created by devil forgemasters. This game clearly has no idea what devil actually means. Anyways, they’re your subweapons in this game. It took me a good ten minutes to figure that out- the game doesn’t explain it well at all.

Fairy-type innocent devils can open up treasure chests, restore HP, or heal status ailments. THey also look like Tinkerbell, if Tinkerbell was a naked Fallout Boy fan. Seriously, was there any need to put that much eyeliner on a fairy?

This game really likes its fairies. From the weird-ass fairy chairs in the save rooms to the fairy devils that follow you around (and sparkle!), this game loves the fae.

Hit this link to see what I mean about almost all of that stuff.

And goddamn! WHERE have I heard that voice?

So that my map would be complete, I decided to run outside of the castle for a while. I saw two things floating in the distance. Thinking they were enemies, I ran closer. Much to my surprise, one was a floating miniature Easter Island moai, and the other was a potion. So far, this game has turned up fairies, moai, and hamburgers. And then my eyes started hurting from video games, so I had to stop. But I was still curious. Where had I heard that voice before? That summoning... that shouting...

...
...
... Wait. Go back to when he said "I see" and that bit about serving.

Now listen to this.

Well. Damn.

I think I'm gonna like this game.

And, just so you didn't slog through all this for nothing, here's concept art for the game's infamous succubus enemy.


(I imagine under the cutoff, she's wearing sequined bats.)