Thoughts on Castlevania, Part 2

I feel if my comments are to take on any semblance of order, they should be structured with a mind toward categorization. My goal here is to delineate why Castlevania works so well, and why I feel that what was once so great is now lost to a certain degree. To illustrate, let's start with the constituent parts of the series:

The Castle (and environs)

More than almost any other feature in a Castlevania game, the castle itself is paramount. Each Castlevania game presents its own riff on the way the Count's home is presented. Of course, this is Dracula we're talking about, and the castle has been privy to its share of cinematic interpretations as well. In Tod Browning's original 1931 film, the castle is cobwebbed and immense, but still retains trappings of finery. Both versions of Nosferatu present the castle as crumbling and defunct. The Hammer Horror collection presents the castle at the height of gothic finery, withered and decayed.

What Konami did with the first Castlevania was realize the potential of video games to fill in the gaps left by various literary forms. No matter how elaborate the set design of any film or play, Dracula's home never gets explored much further than the entrance hall, the dining room, and various bedchambers. This is due to the art form. The story doesn't require a room by room tour, and so, we are left to imagine what crawls in the dark places. The novel sheds little further light. Jonathan Harker is confined mostly to his room and the adjacent dining area. He visits a library, and on his one venture from his chambers, encounters Dracula's wives. Stoker is not forthcoming as to much else, though he does give us a wonderfully malicious scene at the castle gates in which the Count offers to let Harker go free while reminding him of the dangers of the surrounding countryside (he displays his power over the wolves).

From the very first, Castlevania removes notions of powerlessness. Simon Belmont is not Jonathan Harker. He is unafraid to enter the castle and storm through the halls on his way to his final encounter with evil. Konami's programmers had to give him a journey to undertake, and so six levels were crafted, using the license given them by the book's vague descriptions.

It goes without saying that this is as simple as the castle ever gets in the Castlevania series (okay, I'm forgetting Simon's Quest, but more on that in a minute).

If you take a close look at the map above, you can see that the designers did not really intend for this to represent a complete castle or even a particularly habitable one. It is a ruined castle, held together by the will of its master. Maybe this is ascribing too much to the intentions of the original programmers, but it makes sense inasmuch as the game ties into the Stoker novel. It also ties in well with Dracula's Curse, as the castle is much more intricate in that earlier time. What really matters here, though, is a sense of scope. Simon Belmont's assault on Dracula's lair is not a straightforward one. He has to make his approach through the lower keep, across the drawbridge, through catacombs, up into the clock tower, and finally to the precariously arranged inner sanctum in the highest tower. Dracula does not come to meet this man. He bids him come forth and prove himself.

This is a fairly extreme re-imagining of an established character. In every other iteration of the Dracula mythos, the Count is portrayed as a monstrous figure, but is menacing in the way that a disease is menacing. Castlevania transforms him into a towering lord of darkness, something that is inferred in Stoker's novel, and reinforced by the next few games in the franchise.

But enough about the Count. I'll have extended thoughts about him later.

Castlevania introduced the idea of Dracula's castle as something more than just brick and mortar. It is an indelible character in its own right in the series. This is a theme that would be seized upon by Koji Igarashi in Symphony of the Night and other games of its kind, but Konami's original Castlevania team had a different idea in the immediately proceeding entries to the series.

What's most striking about Simon's Quest is the fact that the castle is hardly there at all. While the game deservedly takes its lumps in the retrospective critical community, it took a bold step in examining the possibilities of exploration beyond the castle walls. Taking place several years after Simon Belmont defeated Dracula, Simon's Quest examines the notion that Dracula's evil endured, and that by cursing the entire countryside surrounding his castle, and Simon Belmont with it, he would finally be rid of his preternaturally gifted vampire slaying foes. The following is the entirety of the castle in Simon's Quest:

Yup. That's it. Number of enemies: zero. The entire, sprawling game takes place outside the castle, in the wasted, hopeless lands under the thrall of Dracula's curse. This, in itself, is a massively ambitious move. The cowering, superstitious folk of Transylvania are only glimpsed for a few pages in Stoker's novel, and films use them almost exclusively as extras intended to ratchet up the tension. Simon's Quest, flawed as it is, gives insight into the reasoning behind the inhabitants' dread. It displays the aftermath of Dracula's war, and gives life to the legend of the Belmont clan in their effort to end the Count's poisonous influence.

The reason why I'm focusing so much on the setting of the game is that Konami's original decision to look at Dracula prior to the events in the novel was groundbreaking, and by expanding beyond the walls of the castle, it expanded the scope of the ambition. What was dispelled was the notion that Dracula's castle existed in some other space, beyond the world of men, and was only the source of distant superstition. Simon's Quest gives depth to the experience of the first game, and provides a good precedent for Dracula's Curse.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is viewed by many as the true sequel to Castlevania, as the gameplay is intentionally similar, and this leads many to view the more esoteric Simon's Quest in the cold as something of an outlier. I contend that without Simon's Quest, there could be no Dracula's Curse, because the former had already broken the boundary of the castle walls. Indeed, where Dracula's Curse could have easily aped the original game by limiting action within the castle, it instead makes great use of the approach to the famous gates through which Simon Belmont will eventually cross. More than half of the game takes place in the dark places, marshlands, caverns, sewers, and ruined keeps that surround the Count's home. If one is so inclined, a haunted ship will provide passage from the closed drawbridge to the castle port.

The point, belabored though it is, is that there is much more than the castle going on here. There is a feeling that something outside the castle matters, that it's not just an insular world with no consequences. In fact, just the opening image of Dracula's Curse, of Trevor Belmont praying before a giant crucifix before heading out for battle, indicates that he is fighting for his people, and that the oppressed masses are counting on him.

This is important because it's a theme picked up for the remake of the first game. In Super Castlevania IV, Simon undertakes a solo quest (unlike Trevor, who gets the option of some limited help), just like the first game, but has to approach the castle in much the same way as his grandfather did, making his way through the desecrated lands surrounding the castle before entering.

Here's where the major split begins. After this point, Konami had two separate teams working on Castlevania titles. The two games they produced, Castlevania Bloodlines and Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, were very dissimilar in feel and approach. Where Bloodlines attempted to further integrate the Stoker novel by inserting the son of Quincy Morris (the slayer of the Count in the book) into the timeline, Rondo of Blood dove straight into the continuing tale of the Belmonts, one hundred years after the end of Simon's Quest.

Bloodlines took a stab at expanding the world of Castlevania even further, taking place in multiple locations around Europe. Unfortunately, the game was less than memorable, and the lack of a castle (sorry, Carmilla's Mansion doesn't cut it) makes it feel second rate.

Rondo of Blood, on the other hand, is a stunning masterpiece of gaming. Richter Belmont is a worthy successor to Trevor and Simon, and his journey through Dracula's castle is memorable and unique. In Rondo, Richter must make his way through linear levels, but which have multiple exits, making for an enormous number of paths which all lead to the same place: Dracula's inner sanctum. Though the game does make the player at least consider rescuing Richter's girlfriend and a number of other distressed damsels, it maintains the look and feel of the first games, and replicates the same winning formula: Belmont. Whip. Subweapons. Kill Dracula.

That having been said, Rondo of Blood is the first game in the series to initiate a subtle paradigm shift. Never intended for the eyes of western audiences, Rondo has numerous anime-styled cutscenes, and utilizes some tropes from that genre in telling the story. In fact, Konami was so sensitive about this that when they agreed to port the game to the SNES, the resulting attempt to westernize the game was the undercooked embarrassment that was released as Castlevania: Dracula X. If you want any pair of images to show what a diversion the games were from each other, check out screens from Rondo's final battle, and then Dracula X's:

Don't ask. Not worth the effort.

What I'm driving at here is that the Castlevania series, based originally on the effort to pacify western audiences with a re-imagining of a familiar story, was becoming more eastern in style and feel. This may seem fait accompli considering it was being developed entirely in-house in Japan, but it wasn't until Rondo that these elements began to take hold.

By the time Symphony of the Night rolled around, all vestiges of the original concept had been revamped or discarded. Though the game itself is an unchallenged classic, it drastically altered what the castle in Castlevania was meant to suggest. In the first games, the castle was menacing, decrepit, dangerous, and shrouded in mystery. In Simon's Quest, it's a collapsed ruin, and it's still creepy as hell, if only because it's so empty. And in all of the early games, the castle was synonymous with its master and the curse he represented. In Symphony of the Night, the castle is the only battleground. No stone is intended to be left unexplored. The entirety of the structure is in tact, other characters traverse the hallways and meet Alucard as though they're extras in a remake of Clue, and, most annoyingly, the castle is then flipped upside down to double the play time.

Don't get me wrong. I love Symphony of the Night. I love it good. But it introduced the precedents that have fueled the 2D Castlevania games since. The castle is no longer the seat of an ancient evil, but the transmogrified representation of the age it infects, or something like that. I believe Death tells Juste Belmont in Harmony of Dissonance that the castle changes every time it re-appears due to the ever-changing nature of evil or Dracula, or something. Hell, in most instances, in the new games, the castle appears before Dracula ever awakes, and it's the player's job to prevent that from happening. But more on that in the section on the Count himself. I need to wrap this section up.

The overall point I'm making is that by reducing the scope of the game to transform the castle into a supernatural event existing outside of space and time diminishes the impact of the very quest. When Simon Belmont marches up to the gates of the castle in Castlevania, whip in hand, ready to join battle, it means something. But when Soma Cruz stumbles upon the castle in the year 20XX in Japan because of some solar eclipse, there is something lost.

I'll elaborate on those thoughts in the next section, when I analyze the heroes of the Castlevania series, starting with the one who got this whole business started in 1987: Simon Belmont.

Thoughts on Castlevania, Part 1

So, I'm sure that my first post should be something about myself, a brief explanation of the title (hint: read some poetry), or something vaguely didactic about the purpose of the blog or anything that could be considered introductory.

Nah. I'm going to talk about video games. More importantly, I'm going to use this space, today, to talk about the video game that shaped my first impressions of an entire genre. I'm going to talk about Castlevania.

Now, there have been many and varied commentaries about the Castlevania series, including some rather famous ones by the Angry Video Game Nerd and other YouTube luminaries. Most of these have been about the genius of the first game, the failings of the second game, the controversy over the transition from linear action gaming to the Metroid-vania trappings of Symphony of the Night and the other Koji Igarashi titles, and snarky asides about the utter ruin of the 3D games during the late 90s. I'm not going to focus so much on those topics, as they have been examined thoroughly. I'll touch on them a bit, but my purpose is slightly different.

I suppose my fascination with Castlevania is something that ought to be qualified. I am a huge fan of many other video game series. I have devoted countless hours to Mario, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, The Elder Scrolls, Metroid, and even Zelda, which I have never really connected with on the level of some of my peers. However, there's something different about Castlevania, especially the early games. I could never quite put my finger on it. All I knew is that I loved it, played the original game, Simon's Quest, and Dracula's Curse for hour upon grueling, uncompromising hour not only as a child or teenager, but quite often as an adult as well. The common accolades of the early games have to do with the gothic atmosphere, expertly planned level design and the great music. YouTube artisan egoraptor has a great rundown on the advantages of the first game over the second, including rhapsodizing about the control and level design here.

While I agree that these elements contribute to a great game experience, the lure of the first Castlevania is not in its atmosphere, its music, or its control scheme. I contend that the longevity of the series, indeed its refusal to die, is rooted in the endurance of literature and the incredible courage of the game's original creators.

To adequately explain what I mean, consider the popular titles of the time. Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda were on top of the heap in 1987. Mega Man and Metroid were soon to come. All contain great gameplay, level design, and lasting backstories. What these games have in common is that they are original stories, born of the video game age, with no connection to previous works. Where Castlevania differs is that it is based on a previous work, and not any previous work, but Bram Stoker's Dracula.

It's easy to counter that this is not exactly rocket science. Dracula is an intellectual property that has been used more often than a rest stop toilet, and has been appropriated by as varied sources as Andy Warhol and Abbott and Costello. The original story of the novel has been twisted and modified unrecognizably by countless directors, authors and playwrights, and the title character has been played by innumerable actors, including Christopher Lee, Frank Langella, Klaus Kinski, Udo Kier, and, yes, Leslie Nielsen. Dracula, since the original scuffle over licensing between Stoker's widow and F.W. Murnau over royalties on what became Nosferatu, has preyed upon our natural fears of darkness and vulnerability in ever-changing forms.

What I've noticed about most expansions on the Dracula mythos is that they tend to linger on what happens after the events in Stoker's novel. Indeed, from the Hammer Horror films to Son of Dracula to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the appearance of the Count tends to involve him rising from the grave to feed on the blood of the living in our century. Very few of them look into the most thrilling aspect of the novel, and, indeed, of most honest attempts at adapting the story to film: the castle, and its history.

What Castlevania dared to do, from the very first, was attempt to fill in what Count Dracula was doing before Jonathan Harker made his fateful journey to Transylvania in hopes of making his fortune as a real estate solicitor. And what the team at Konami decided was that the Count was very busy indeed, waging a centuries long war against mankind, and, in particular, the Belmont family, who were tasked to send him back to Hell every hundred years or so. In addition, Konami has always maintained that the Stoker novel is very definitely a part of the Castlevania timeline, though excessive Japanese influence on later titles has admittedly muddied the waters somewhat in this respect. More on that later.

When reading the novel, one gets the sense of deep forboding and danger surrounding Dracula's castle. Jonathan Harker is trapped in the castle and knows that he will soon be left as a meal for Dracula's vicious wives. The Count himself is portrayed as a wizened shadow of ancient glory, hungering for new environs, far away from the decay of his homeland, a decay for which he is largely responsible. Everything about the castle and the demeanor of the Count indicates a deep well of power and darkness that was once even more terrible. The genius of Castlevania, while playing to rather boyish interpretations of what ought to be present in the castle (Frankenstein and Igor? Really?) lies in the expansion of an already potent legend, tapping into unexplored possibilities that rested dormant in the stones of a crumbling castle.


The way that Castlevania began, and its continuing tale of a cursed land in Simon's Quest, is light years away from the ridiculous permutations of the Aria of Sorrow age, in which Dracula's castle appears due to an eclipse in Japan and involves a spirit vessel for Dracula... and I'm already bored. The point is that the original design was simple and alluring. The Belmont family is doomed to prevent Dracula from exerting his dark will on the people of Southern Europe, and armed with a whip and their wits, must venture into the castle to send him back to restless slumber for about a hundred years. The reason the story was set up this way was to appeal to fickle Western audiences, and thus, the scenario writing team attempted to use Western sources to mollify the target demographic. As time has gone by, and the Igarashi team has taken over, the 2D Castlevania games have taken on an increasingly Japanese bent, introducing anime elements and unnecessarily tangled plot contrivances. Linear progression has given way to open exploration (not dogging this aspect, just wondering if it's gotten out of control), and what worked in Symphony of the Night is becoming increasingly stale.


This is why I'm a big fan of the recently released Lords of Shadow. While other 3D efforts at making a Castlevania game have gone awfully awry, Lords of Shadow goes back to the original concept: Belmont with whip goes forward relentlessly to destroy evil. The formula is compelling and effective. As one reviewer (I believe this was Joystiq's review) noted, Castlevania is about being the only good guy in town, the only one with the stones to walk up and knock on Dracula's door.

I'm realizing this is getting prohibitively long, and I have much more to say. Guess this one's gonna be a multi-part series. Tune in next time.