Retroview - Super Castlevania 4 and Dracula X

Source: Youtube Channel DarkEvil87

I just ordered Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate for the Nintendo 3DS and I have my worries.  I love the Castlevania series and have come to embrace the Metroidvania style mechanics that the handheld series utilizes after the creation of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.  So a certain dread came over me when I heard that the newest handheld Castlevania is not being made by Konami, is not a Metroidvania free-roam gameplay, and will be touching upon the stories of Trevor and Simon Belmont.  The game is developed by the same studio that created Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (which I have but yet to play).  Since it's another studio making the game, how much of the original Castlevania do they know about?  It makes me scared of what they might have done with the stories behind the original characters within the series.  I'm not against the original style of Castlevania, but I do have some problems with it.

Super Castlevania 4 was a game I played quite a bit when I was younger and continued to play because I was never able to complete it.  Last summer, I decided to finally sit down and beat it as I'm much more experienced in playing games than I was when I was younger.  The major differences I noticed when I first played the game when I was younger was that I could control my jumps rather than committing to them.  The second major difference was the whip could be manipulated.  As a kid that played the original, these two changes were really awesome.  Supposedly, this made the game easier than the original, but I still couldn't finish the game.  Fast forward nearly 11 years later to last summer.  I'm playing the game again, but it felt different for me.  Everything was more familiar because I've played so many other games similar or more difficult than it.  I'm more patient, observant, and I utilize my items more effectively.  In Castlevania 1, items were essential in completing the game.  In Super Castlevania 4, it wasn't as essential; however, they were really nice luxury items that helped make boss battles easier.  Being more knowledgeable in game design now that I'm actually working on them rather than just playing games, I felt that Super Castlevania 4 had the right idea about the whip, but didn't quite design the game around it enough.  Other than a few parts of the game where the player can swing from platform to platform with the whip, there wasn't much else that worked with the whip other than killing enemies.  The game was straight-forward and pretty fun, but had potential for more.  From what I understand, Castlevania:LoS-MoF will utilize the whip quite a bit, so perhaps it will borrow ideas from Super Castlevania 4 and capitalize on creative utilization of the whip.

Castlevania Dracula X (video above) is the game I had problems with as well as many other fans did.  What was supposed to be a port of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood turned into a different game with the same assets and setting.  Rondo of Blood had a lot of challenging and creative level designs that made it difficult, but entertaining.  But for some reason, Dracula X has similar levels with diabolical changes where every part of the level had something to piss me off.  Be it falling debris and enemies, enemies that spawn out of nowhere during a mid jump, or having to get through a part in one go or forcing you to jump off and die just to restart the level, there was always something unexpected that happens that cannot be foreseen.  Castlevania's difficulty usually is designed around giving the player an obstacle and taking the time to conquer it.  In Dracula X, it was designed around creating unexpected traps and events and learning from it AFTER dying.  I have to admit that Rondo of Blood did have some of that in it such as the boss doing one last attack right before they die unexpectedly.  This would have been fine if it weren't the fact that where were lives and running out meant restarting a level.  The one design choice that was made that I fear might appear in Mirror of Fate is the multiple paths.  Without doing something very specific, the player misses out on certain levels and will get bad endings.  This is an old design practice many games had alongside extreme difficulties in order to extend playtime and replay value.  For the Metroidvania style, the player can replay the game as different characters, a harder difficulty with their items intact, or different modes like flipped mode.  With Dracula X, you just replay the game again and hope you find the specific places and events to trigger something different.  And the boss fight against Dracula at the end was possible one of the most annoying ones I have ever faced in a Castlevania game (And if you bring up Order of Ecclesia, that was just difficult, not annoying).  You essentially fight on pillars and must jump to him in order to strike him which made it really easy for him to tap you in mid-air and have you fall to your death.  Did I have fun?  Maybe a little.  It didn't leave a good impression on me though.

Mainly, the biggest problem I have when hearing that Mirror of Fate was going to be like the original Castlevania games is that it was going to be too short.  Both Super Castlevania 4 and Dracula X took me about 1-2 hours at most to complete each.  Many fans of the older Castlevania complained that the newer Metroidvania style Castelvania games were too easy.  That's probably true, yet I enjoyed them a lot; however, Order of Ecclesia proved that it could have free-roaming maps, RPG elements and still be incredibly challenging and satisfying.  I spent about 14 hours on my first playthrough of Order of Ecclesia and loved it.  I've waited for quite a while for a new Castlevania game for handheld to release once again, and now I'm worried about the outcome.  Honestly, I worried about Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia when I first heard about it but ended up enjoying both.  Maybe I'll end up really liking LoS - Mirror of Fate.