Lately, I’ve been rediscovering my goth side. Yes folks, believe it or not, I once had a wardrobe of entirely black clothing, with dyed hair and painted nails, listening to screaming metal music and visual-kei. Then my mid-20s happened, and for whatever reason, probably because I had a job with a degree of power and I wasn’t intent on sleeping in a car ever again, I repressed it all. I cut my hair, let the dye run out, went out into the world with regular nails, brought more colors into my closet, and tried to be a “normal adult,” whatever the fuck that is.
But fuck all that. I’m turning 36 this year. I’m not getting any younger, folks. I’ve also reached a point in my life where I’m significantly less invested in what people think of me; you already made up your mind about me back in 2015, and either you like me, or you curse the laws of this country for making murder illegal. For all the chest-beating and grandstanding about “keeping it real,” I haven’t been keeping it real to myself, and it’s time to change that. I’m getting fucking goth again in 2022. Let’s start by reading the rest of this post while listening to my favorite Malice Mizer track, Shiroi Hada ni Kuruu Ai to Kanashimi no RONDO:
Anyways, this has mostly been a long-winded way of saying that I’ve been playing Castlevania games again, as those were the games I played a lot of back when I was a proper Moody Teen™. It may seem weird that someone into morose shit like vampires and rainy nights and heavy music with church organs and wispy femboys with impossibly good skin would like a game where I have to kill the vampires, but uh, well, I never really gave much thought to that other than the games look cool.
The Castlevania that I just finished, and the one that I’ll be writing about, is the Sharp X68000 remake of the original NES Castlevania. This would itself eventually get remade for the Playstation and released as Catlevania Chronicles. Or as most of the world knows it, that one where Simon Belmont has pink hair.
I stuck with the original computer game for this post, because I wanted to see the game as it was originally designed, since the PSX version has some changes made to balance the difficulty. Also apparently, the PSX game did not include the third sound chip option that the X68k game has, which makes the music and sound even better.
Having played through the original, I can tell you that the difficulty is greatly over-exaggerated by the internet. Maybe it’s because I’m America’s Most Important Gamer, but I had very little trouble finishing Dracula X68k (as I will now refer to it). I lost maybe three lives, used zero continues, and did not use the modern-day emulation crutch of savestates. I sat down at my PC, and acted as though it were 1993 and I was sitting down in front of my X68000. Don’t get my wrong, it’s challenging, and may seem daunting at points, but it’s a very “doable” playable game. This isn’t exactly Castlevania 3 in terms of being really hard.
As I said earlier, Dracula x68k is a remake of the original Castlevania. It has some new enemies, two new levels, some slight layout changes, and Simon can whip downward while in the air. Other than that, it’s still Castlevania 1. The castle entrance is the exact same as it is in every subsequent CV, and you fight a giant bat at the end. You fight Medusa, Frankenstein’s Monster, Death, then Dracula himself. The mummy, Akmodan, is gone. In his place is a clone of Simon that bursts through a mirror. New bosses are a dragon skeleton, a wizard, and a werewolf. I think it’s a much cooler line-up, personally. The remake comes across as less hokey than the original, with the new bosses and the new art style, which is awesome. Monsters look more gruesome and the architecture is more detailed, which I appreciate. But where the art truly shines is in the remade level where you fight the Grim Reaper. It is the most gory, edgelord level, and I fucking love it. Dismembered and flayed bodies hanging on hooks with blood and guts all over the place. Babies bursting out of formaldehyde jars to attack you. Still-living humans trapped in a sentient paint canvas. It is so cool, like something out of a torture porn movie.
This level in particular goes a long way towards highlighting just how much the monsters in Dracula’s castle simply do not care for and even outright hate humanity. It reminds you that, oh yeah, the Belmonts are fighting for humanity’s survival in the face of nearly insurmountable evil, not dancing with a bunch of movie monsters once every 100 years. A nice mix of brutality with the elegant, decadent designs of the castle.
Dracula X68k is awesome. It’s another great quest through Dracula’s castle, fighting off the most evil of the evil, that looks and sounds great, and plays really well. Having finally played this, I’m kicking myself for waiting this long. This is an all-time great game in the series; I would put this up there with the likes of Symphony of the Night, Rondo of Blood, and Bloodlines. Just an absolute stone-cold classic that needs to be played, whether it be through emulating an old computer, or playing it on the Playstation. Better late than never to support Dracula X68k, I suppose.
naming save files is always fun lol
Comments