Twenty-five years ago, on September 26, 1986, Konami launched a brand new game in Japan that would go on to become one of the longest continuously running franchises in the medium's history. Akumajou Dracula -- roughly translating to "Demon Castle Dracula," which became "Castlevania" in the West in accordance with Konami's weird obsession with pun-laden localization in the '80s -- was actually two different games on two different platforms. The better-known of the two was a straight-up action platformer for Famicom Disk System, the rewritable NES add-on released only in Japan. On the MSX computer, on the other hand, Akumajou Dracula featured the same general play mechanics and aesthetics as its FDS counterpart but wrapped them in a more labyrinthine format, compensating for the MSX's lack of smooth video scrolling by turning its castle stages into self-contained mazes.
Castlevania was a different kind of game than players were accustomed to, especially on Famicom. Unlike so many of the other platformers that had followed in the wake of Super Mario Bros.' success (Mario having launched on Famicom almost a year to the day before Akumajou Dracula), Konami's game was slow-paced, methodical, and possessed a fairly realistic ambiance. The hero, Simon Belmondo (Belmont in the West), was proportioned like an actual human adult. Japanese games of the era tended to warp the proportions of characters to give their faces more real estate and allow for cute, visually expressive designs. Simon had a tiny four-pixel face with no details, his characterization instead coming through his determined gait and unique method of attack. The Vampire Killer whip was an uncommon choice for any video game protagonist outside of Indiana Jones, striking a middle-range balance between fists and guns. The game's unconventional look, pacing, and weaponry set it apart from its peers.
The names "Akumajou Dracula" and "Castlevania" both reflect the fact that the action is set within a very specific location, and Dracula's castle has always been at the heart of every game. Even when Simon ranged further afield in the sequel, exploring the furthest extents of the Transylvanian forests of Romania, the adventure ultimately led back to a final showdown in the ruins of the castle. This, too, was a distinctive facet of the original game, especially the Famicom version: Castlevania felt like an actual place, with logical architecture -- there were no magically floating platforms here, and pits were merely gaps between remnants of flooring held aloft by crumbling columns and arches -- and a consistent structure that matched the inter-level map that charted Simon's progress through the game's six stages. Castlevania was a much shorter game than Super Mario Bros., Metroid, or Adventure Island, but it traded quantity for detail. Its visuals were abstract, but they left the impression of rotting tapestries and murky shadows beneath mossy stone outcroppings. The visuals were bright and garish as only a system with a 52-color palette can offer, but the combinations of hues gave the suggestion of night and decay, even when you were looking at neon pinks and oranges.
And the music! The music was amazing. If Metroid had demonstrated the NES's potential to create aural atmospheres with four-channel sound, Castlevania proved that you could use those same audio capabilities to melt people's faces with brisk, ominous, layered melodies. The Castlevania series has some of the most remixed and remade tunes ever, and that legacy was in place from the beginning. VIdeo game cover bands continue to perform melodies like "Wicked Child" and "Heart of Fire," and any Castlevania without a new take on "Vampire Killer" barely deserves the title.
Despite its strong start, the Castlevania series had its rocky moments from the beginning. The game was soon reimagined for arcades in the form of Haunted Castle. The best thing you can say about Haunted Castle is that it includes great renditions of classic tracks like "Bloody Tears"; otherwise, it was a clumsy exercise in anti-fun. The first Castlevania sequel, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, expanded on the MSX version of the game by sending Simon across the sprawling Romanian countryside in a non-linear quest that was frequently confusing by design. NPCs gave deliberately misleading hints and outright lied at times, and the solutions to many objectives were utterly unintuitive.
As so often happened with NES series, the uneven second chapter was made up for by a superior third entry that returned to the nuts-and-bolts of the first game while expanding on them in brilliant new ways. Set hundreds of years before Simon's quests, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse told the tale of ancestral Belmont Trevor (tragically known as Ralph in Japan). Trevor's adventure advanced in the level-by-level format of the first Castlevania, but it offered branching paths through the game and the opportunity to team up with one of three companions, including man-handed lady wizard Sypha Belnades and Dracula's eternal teenage rebel of a son, Alucard.
Konami never quite seemed to know what to do with the series after the end of the NES era. While the first three games all featured a similar visual style and identical play control and mechanics, few sequels carried over those specific elements. The truest sequels, in a sense, were the Game Boy games; of those, however, only the second -- Belmont's Revenge -- holds up to the test of time. Super Castlevania IV brought the series into the 16-bit realm early in the Super NES days. While it's brilliant in its own right, Castlevania IV also feels radically different than any other Castlevania game, offering eight-directional whipping, grappling, and a swirling, muted, improvisational jazz soundtrack. Perhaps the truest sequel to the NES games was actually the Genesis game, Bloodlines, which plays like an 8-bit platformer loaded with delectably over-the-top 16-bit visual effects. Unfortunately, Bloodlines has gone into history as the forgotten Castlevania: The only chapter of the series designed specifically for a Sega platform (and thus overlooked by most of its fans, who grew up playing Nintendo systems), and the only pre-3D game that has yet to put in an appearance on Virtual Console.
Source: http://www.1up.com/features/castlevania-chronicles-killing-dracula-25-years
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