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Suffering Castlevania Fatigue

It's hard to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when it comes to Castlevania--I'd rather see an installment from Koji Igarashi's beloved franchise on the DS than yet another animal grooming game. But since the series has moved to the DS, I've been slightly disappointed. As good as Dawn of Sorrow was on its own terms, the game felt waaay too much like Aria of Sorrow, even within the limited Castlevania framework established over a decade ago by Symphony of the Night. (I'll go ahead and admit that, three years later, Dawn is a game I really need to re-visit, now that I'm even further removed from its predecessor.)

My reaction was even worse with 2006's Portrait of Ruin which claimed to be a return to the roots of classic Castlevania that I never liked much to begin with. I can't tell you if Portrait lived up to its promises, because my limited time with the game was spent pressing the character change button in order to annoy people in my immediate vicinity.

"Charlotte!"
"Jonathan!"
"Charlotte!"
"Jonathan!"

You get the idea.

Oh Crap I'm Thinking Too Hard About Castlevania's Storyline Again

Someone roll up a newspaper and smack me, quick.

(Harder.)

Too late.

The majority of gamers don't know enough about the Holy Bible to keep straight who fathered whom. Yeah, there was this guy and he conceived some bozo with some chick. Lather, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat until we get to Jesus somewhereabouts. Oh boy, Sunday School's over. So long.

Yet, we obsess about the lineage of our favourite video game characters. Lord knows more than one schpincter has been ruptured in an effort to trace Link's bloodline to wherever it started (Ocarina of Time. No, Minish Cap. No--).

Everyone's a little obsessive about their ancestors' original spawning grounds--I'd like to have words with whichever one of my Irish forebears decided to breed with a leprechaun to bestow upon me my towering height of five feet--so it makes sense that we'd wonder a little about game characters and the loins thereof. For instance, the "Symphony of the Night 2" trailer has me wondering about Alucard.

Watcha Playing: Castlevania - Portrait of Ruin

I have had Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin ever since it was released, but only now am I finally going to beat it. The first time I played it, I screwed up and wasn't going to get the best ending. Yeah, I'm one of those gamers who would rather start over than continue after making a bad plot point choice. Unfortunately, I just haven't been in the mood for a Castlevania game for quite a long time. After a few false starts, the game has languished on my shelf for months. There's another Castlevania coming for the DS soon, however, so it's time I closed the book on this one.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.