61 Frames Per Second : castlevania 2

Suffering Castlevania Fatigue

Bob Mackey — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:00:00 GMT

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.

But the new Castlevania game, Order of Ecclesia, actually has me thinking my disappointment might go away, even if the Symphony of the Night formula doesn't hold the novelty that once made people think Circle of the Moon was even remotely good. For one, the art has reverted from the kid-friendly redesigns back to its former gothic glory--and that's a move we can all be happy about. Word on the street is that the game also features adventurey gameplay elements that are very similar to Castlevania II, except not retarded--frankly, any change to the format is welcome at this point. My interest is piqued; here's a trailer in case you're still on the fence.

Related Links:

It's Official (And Officially Sad): Castlevania Judgement Is Ghoulish
Watcha Playing: Castlevania - Portrait of Ruin
When Good Developers Go Bad: Koji Igarashi

The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History, Part 2

Peter Smith — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:31:00 GMT

Super Mario 64

If you'd asked a young me to imagine a three-dimensional Mario Bros. game, I'd have pictured a screenshot from Super Paper Mario — essentially, the point-A-to-point-B linearity of classic side-scrolling Mario, shot from a different camera angle. Instead, Shigeru Miyamoto's first 3D adventure completely rewrote the rules of platforming, replacing the "get to the end" format with a variety of challenges set in one, open physical space. To a generation weaned on linearity, this was pretty overwhelming at first — I remember being plunked down in Bob-Omb Battlefield and wandering around like a chump for an embarrassingly long time. 64 was so different from its precursors that you arguably wouldn't call it a sequel, but bear in mind that no one knew at the time what the next generation of games would look like. Early 32-bit games like Bug and Clockwork Knight dressed 2D gaming in 3D clothes. As usual, that nut Miyamoto had something different in mind. — PS

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

This game is full of fucking liars. That's the least of its eccentricities but it's worth pointing out up front. Up until the late '80s, Konami's bread and butter was short arcade games, heavy on action and reflex based play as exemplified by well-known staples like Contra and Gradius. The original Castlevania was no different, just six linear stages of unforgiving reaction play that demanded careful attention to the game's weighted attack/jump timing. As home consoles strengthened their grip on players, Konami followed the growing trend of creating longer, deeper play experiences. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest has only superficial similarities to Castlevania. You jump over platforms, whip monsters, and move from left to right. But the world is persistent, requiring you to revisit most locales, and it's littered with towns. Towns are full of non-enemy characters selling items and offering "advice" on how to proceed through the game's barely defined obstacles. Simon's Quest also introduced one of gaming's first night-and-day systems. During the day, towns are safe. At night, everything kills you in two seconds and towns are full of zombie chicks. Konami retreated from Castlevania II's experiments for almost a decade, but the series has never since done anything quite so daring as having its lead die after beating the game. — JC

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

We are aware that this list is populated almost exclusively by games designed by Shigeru Miyamoto. What can we say? He's an adventurous guy. [Shouldn't that be "adventuresome guy?" — PS] The first Legend of Zelda is, arguably, Miyamoto's true masterpiece, the culmination of his first design era. His benchmarks: Donkey Kong created context and narrative, Super Mario Bros. brought speed and an expanding world beyond a single screen, and the Legend of Zelda created an actual world to explore, an organic place peppered with secrets. After its release in 1986, the next decade of Miyamoto's career was one marked more by refinement than creation. But, in 1987, Miyamoto got experimental. Alongside the aforementioned Super Mario Bros. 2 is Zelda's sequel, The Adventure of Link, a sequel so bizarre in its design choices that it's still seen as a blemish on a series considered unimpeachable by gamers and designers alike. While Zelda II doesn't eschew the original's birds-eye-view perspective entirely — travel and world exploration is presented this way, albeit with a much more expansive view — all the action takes place in multi-tiered scrolling stages (not dissimilar to SMB2's.) Items were replaced by spells learned from chatty townspeople, heart containers and swords replaced by role-playing style attribute growth, and link himself grew from a diminutive elf into a teenager with a peculiar, post-lobotomy stare. Unlike some of the other games on this list, very little of Zelda II's design has been used in subsequent adventures. I've found it only gets better with age, a diamond in the rough of a series that's become bloated and stagnant after twenty years of little revision. — JC

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 3.

The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History, Part 1

Peter Smith — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:30:00 GMT

Videogame designers have found a great deal of inspiration in elemental dichotomies. Wood versus stone, wind versus lightning, ice versus fire — these natural conflicts are excellent bases for compelling environments and rich atmospheres. What better than tangible extremes like hot and cold to convey a sense of place to a player? To celebrate the imminent arrival of summer, 61 Frames Per Second is going hot with our first top-ten list, looking at the greatest fire levels in gaming history. If you're sweating, don't worry — we'll get to ice soon enough. — John Constantine

Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts — Crucible of Flame

Nobody would subject themselves to the brutally difficult Ghosts 'n Goblins series if the games didn't feature Capcom's usual immaculate production values. Dying a hundred times in Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts' third stage, the Crucible of Flame (and you will) is made marginally more bearable by the brooding music (forever seared in my brain after a misspent youth) and the characteristically idiosyncratic twist on the usual "fire level" theme: instead of a generic inferno, the Crucible of Flame finds you in some kind of metallurgical hell. The stage has a lot of character; as fire levels go, it's more of an oozing, molten nightmare than a pyrotechnic fun fair. (In fact, some would say there's nothing fun about it.) A word of warning: it only gets worse from here. — Peter Smith

Dracula X: Rondo of Blood — Dinner of Flames

The games in the original Castlevania trilogy all open with scenes of civilization. In the original, Simon Belmont approaches Dracula's titular castle via a gate on a road. The second finds Simon in the town of Jova, and Simon's ancestor Trevor passes through Wallachia Town and a cathedral at the opening of the third. All of these places feel oppressed by evil but, even when full of monsters, they've got a lurking malevolence. They're not overtly violent. The opening stage of Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, Dinner of Flames, is a different story entirely. Veros — a town neighboring Jova in Castlevania 2, for a nice garnish of continuity — is literally burning to the ground around Richter Belmont while the metal chords of "Divine Bloodlines" play in the background. The flames don't directly affect your passage here. They do, however, make the stage completely fucking sweet. — JC

F- Zero — Fire Field

When F-Zero first came out, its sense of speed was awesome, and nowhere more than in its ultimate track, Fire Field. If you made it through the fourteen previous tracks, you might — just might — have the skill to make it through this godless collection of hairpin turns, speed traps and exploding mines. The soundtrack matched the intensity of the track layout, with one of the game's most memorable hard-rock grooves. Some would argue that the "fieryness" of Fire Field is purely incidental, with no direct relevance to gameplay. But as a thought experiment, imagine Fire Field as a frozen wonderland, or a barren ocean. Not quite the same. No, there's a distinctly combustive quality to this level, as any King League veteran would be quick to tell you. — PS

Click here for Part 2.
Click here for Part 3.