So my Vampire Survivors obsession finally got the better of me. Craving for more gothic horror video games, I turned to one of gaming’s most revered series: Castlevania. Because this series’s reputation for its insane difficulty is legendary, I never dared to seriously try any of these games. But what the heck! I grabbed the recently–released collections on Steam and gave it a go on the Steam Deck during my vacation.
In order of play:
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow: Wow, what an awesome soundtrack. It had been a while since my last metroidvania, so everything here was quite fresh and I loved the story. One of my favorite games in the series so far.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow: Not as good as Aria of Sorrow. Drawing the runes felt gimmicky, and the game was more of a grind-fest with the money.
Castlevania: The original on NES. Could not do it without save states. Even with save states, Death is really insanely difficult! Loved every minute of it.
Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse: OK, my favorite “classic” Castlevania so far. Best soundtrack, awesome graphics, good platforming. Still super hard, but manageable with save states.
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood: This is the “real” Rondo of Blood on the PS5 re-release. No save states this time… By far the most difficult time I had with any game in the series. But I beat it anyway! What I loved most about it was the ambition; you could tell the creators were starting to develop big ideas for the series. Really quite a turning point.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: Yeah OK, now I get it. Really glad I did not start with this one; having the context of what came before makes it easy to understand why this game was so groundbreaking at the time. Loved every minute of it.
Castlevania: Bloodlines: Oof, that one was rough. Other that the awesome soundtrack and the boss fights, I did not enjoy that one so much. There’s just something wrong with how the controls felt.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin: Not a fan of that one either. Maybe it’s formula fatigue, it just felt like a throwaway game. Story was OK, but Jonathan is an ass from start to finish. Probably the most sexist entry in the series too, I was wincing at some of the dialogue with Charlotte. Again, good music though.
I’m not done yet. I might give the series a pause a bit since I’m starting to feel the fatigue setting in. I do want to check out a few more of these before I call it done though! Particularly: Super Castlevania IV, Lament of Innocence, Curse of Darkness, and Order of Ecclesia. Maybe I should also check out the cousin series Bloodstained while I’m at it. We’ll see what the future holds, but I’m really glad I did this experiment!