Games of the Abstract: Castlevania (1986)

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

One Player

Famicom Disk System / Nintendo Entertainment System

 

Castlevania is a franchise I got to with later games where more bombast and advanced graphical capabilities were brought in, starting with Castlevania: Bloodlines (1994) for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. It says so much however that, with the first game in the franchise you can feel already right at home and see all the virtues which were going to be improved upon, only being elaborated upon as this went. Originally released on the Famicom Disk System, a Japanese only peripheral for the Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom that used floppy discs, this could have accidentally become a game lost on one of the many peripheral and gimmicks Nintendo have brought to their consoles, which do offer some idiosyncratic work but rather get preserved and re-released by the company. Thankfully, with a cartridge version of the game which got a release in the West, this franchise would continue, developing a fan base from what Konami added to the original game’s template.

With the first member of the Belmont family, Simon Belmont, having to go forth to defeat Dracula, already the important game play tropes for Simon there for him to use, and the impede him and the player. Having played the later games, it does present a difficulty in a way to talk of this game as the later sequels for the 32 bit systems especially took all here and improved upon them including in atmosphere. Even the way you defeat Dracula’s first form, by whipping him in the head, was taken for Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (1991) for the Game Boy, so this game went on to influence all the later games in a variety of ways. What is however of note is that, for one of my forays into the third era of video games, this for the NES looks exceptional without any expectations for the era. Based on the premise of all history's horror and mythological figures being in Dracula's payroll to prevent people getting to him, the atmosphere is already there with its Gothic aesthetic even with the NES' technical restrictions including colour. The music by Kinuyo Yamashita and Satoe Terashima is insanely memorable too, marking the first notes (literally) of seminal soundtrack cuts for this franchise. Even in terms of the franchise's quirks into the later games, such as its obsessions with stairs, they show the charm of this franchise from the get-go.

Saying Castlevania is hard is like saying water is wet, but it is credible to the game how, with a lot of the challenge, it is negotiating the hazards even if I admit being terrible still with this franchise. The infamous Medusa heads for example, introduced here for the first time, fly in swerving patterns in arches, and were clearly designed to be mostly dodged when they are positioned in platform heavy sections. The challenge is tough but it is a game of dodging as much as attacking, even to the point you could miss most of the enemies, without needing to attack them, baring a few obstructing key areas. There are a few moments which show it could have been refined - the level with clockwork platforms, the first time for the series, has a few areas in that tiny section where it is confusing what is a platform you can land on jumping to it, rather than plummet to doom, and Dracula's final form is not well signposted for its moves - but I give credit to the game for a lot of surprising fairness even as a hard game. It could have been meaner than I got, and including the failed likes of Castlevania: The Adventure (1989), I have been prepared for this gameplay style, and how there is always a surprise piece of meat broken from a piece of whipped wall for health, even if done by pure accident as much as trying to find anything deliberately.

Castlevania is also pure fun if you can accept its difficulty, especially as this is also with a level of delirium to its Gothic tone. Appropriately there was a version of this NES game developed for the arcades, the VS. Castlevania version, which is apt as whilst this was a console game, this feels like an arcade game even in terms of its own surreal logic, especially when you have giant eagles dropping flea men at you in that aforementioned clockwork environment without context before and after. You find yourself fighting Igor and Frankenstein’s monster as a duo boss without having to ask why they are here, whether this is an extension of those forties Universal monster movie crossovers where Dracula got them and the Grim Reaper of all figures to help him out, and logic does not exist when the dreamlike spectacle in a rock hard NES game is too good to question. This franchise could have capsized, as it could have been derailed by the immediate sequel Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1987), an ambitious if divisive attempt to bring role playing and open world aspects to the series. That is a game that needs to be taken in separately as its own thing for a proper judgement, as it was a game both with its own ambitious ideas and problems with the translation of its more bluntly esoteric decisions, but alongside a huge 180 degrees turn back to what worked, Castlevania thankfully went a direction I appreciated immensely.