Castlevania: Past, Present and Future

[GunnyMo]

Following right on the heels of the Final Fantasy history, awesome reader Mortis pointed out IGN also has up a Castlevania retrospective. (http://ds.ign.com/articles/756/756726p1.html) History is fun!

A series now over two decades old, Castlevania is looked at as one of the true classics franchises of our industry. Starting as an unassuming horror movie look-alike in 1987, Castlevania has seen its fair share of ups and downs, successes and failures, moments of greatness and tribulation. As Konami celebrates the 20 year anniversary of the game we saw it fit to take a look back on the franchise's humble eight-bit beginnings, its current standing on both handheld and console systems, and the future of this longstanding gaming tradition.

[Adam Blue]

This is probably one of my favorite series out there story-wise. I've pretty much played every game and am as hardcore about this as SHMUPS and the Dreamcast.

Not too pleased with how IGA has been changing around the story though.

[Mortis]

Damn you tossed this up quick! This is a pretty nice article, I agree with a lot of what they have listed in the series highs/lows section.

[Spigot]

I know I'm in the minority, but damn, I loved Simon's Quest back in the day. Does it hold up as well now as some of the other games in the series? Maybe not, but at the time I know that my brothers & I had a blast working on it.

Plus the music was awesome.

[Food Nipple]

That was a truly excellent article. The article covers the big points of every era and the series high/lows are very accurate. Rondo of Blood is generally considered the pinnacle of the old school Castlevanias, not Bloodlines, but it's hard to tell if the game's status is due to the fact that it's so freaking rare. I'm sure half the people that talk about it have never played it (myself included).

I know I'm in the minority, but damn, I loved Simon's Quest back in the day. Does it hold up as well now as some of the other games in the series? Maybe not, but at the time I know that my brothers & I had a blast working on it.

I liked it back in the day, but after seeing the angry nintendo nerd (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4we8iFk-fY) segment, I have to say he has a lot of good points.

The best part of the article, from the series lows:
The Jump to 3D: Belmonts live by two rules: Run right, kill everything.

hilarious

[LarsenNET]

Cool I didn't know Dracula X is rare. I have the SNES version complete with box, manual etc. in perfect condition. I should sell it on ebay...

[Food Nipple]

Cool I didn't know Dracula X is rare. I have the SNES version complete with box, manual etc. in perfect condition. I should sell it on ebay...

Dracula X isn't worth money the PC Engine version is the expensive one

[Nate Graves]

I liked it back in the day, but after seeing the angry nintendo nerd (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4we8iFk-fY) segment, I have to say he has a lot of good points.

I have never seen that, and I agree. That was awesome.

While I agree with the swimming thing...let's face it, that's the weakest argument. Water has traditionally killed video game heroes for decades. Everyone knows swimming is bad news. :D

The best part of the article, from the series lows:
The Jump to 3D: Belmonts live by two rules: Run right, kill everything.

hah. Truth.

Circle of the Moon shares company with Legends and the two N64 games as a title that didn't really fit the original storyline and is thus a less-integral part to the Castlevania lineage, this time following the families of Baldwin and Graves rather than Belmont and Morris.

oh hay, fuck you IGN.

I love that game. :(

[Rommel]

I hate prequels. They are lazy storytelling and present nothing but continuity errors. Worse, when they try and fix things, usually with another prequel, they have to erase something tht someone held dear.

[Spigot]

OK. I've read most of this article now and while it's a good retrospective, the actual article itself is very much in need of a good editing. There are a lot of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors throughout the thing. I can let one or two go, but if I'm picking up 2-3 errors per page in a 10 page article, I have to point it out.

ie. "Street Fighter-esk" instead of "esque"

"According (to?) the critics and fans world wide(,) Aria of Sorrow and its DS sequel Dawn of Sorrow are considered to be the best Castlevania titles since Symphony of the Night..."

[LarsenNET]

Dracula X isn't worth money the PC Engine version is the expensive one

One went for 132.50 on ebay. That's not too bad.

[sixtyfps]

OK. I've read most of this article now and while it's a good retrospective, the actual article itself is very much in need of a good editing. There are a lot of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors throughout the thing. I can let one or two go, but if I'm picking up 2-3 errors per page in a 10 page article, I have to point it out.

ie. "Street Fighter-esk" instead of "esque"

"According (to?) the critics and fans world wide(,) Aria of Sorrow and its DS sequel Dawn of Sorrow are considered to be the best Castlevania titles since Symphony of the Night..."

Thank you! Reading about your discontent with that nightmare of professional literacy brought my own discontent down to a manageable level. I hope that was a fan submission, because... wow. That's pathetic writing.

[KingGorilla]

Eerily similar over 20 years.

[Ultima Thulian]

Great series, thanks for the heads up on the retrospective Mortis.

[Spigot]

Thank you! Reading about your discontent with that nightmare of professional literacy brought my own discontent down to a manageable level. I hope that was a fan submission, because... wow. That's pathetic writing.
Yeah. If it was something by one of the actual IGNers, wow... they really need to step up to the plate and whack the editorial staff soundly about the noggin.

Decent article at its core, run-on sentences, wacky spelling errors and all... but it did kind of hurt my eyes to read it.

[GWhite]

Androgynous Male Characters: It's Castlevania. We like our monsters mean, or ladies busty, and our men… manly. Find a lumberjack (or if none can be found, a surly countryman will do), give him a leather kilt, hand over the legendary Vampire Killer whip, and step away slowly.

Of course this is a problem with many japanese games, but hey...