Rabbits Full of Magic

My all time favorite video game series is Castlevania. For one thing, I have always found myself drawn to the supernatural and the spiritual. As a child I was entranced by Egyptian hieroglyphs and poured over mythology and legends and folklore from around the world. 

This is not just fiction. Not nearly the same way that Harry Potter or Captain America is just fiction. This is culture, this is symbolism, this is history. These symbols are not arbitrary, these monsters and ghouls, undead crypts, moonlit castles, etc. that populate Dark Fantasy are all from our collective past. The age before modern technology, before the globally interconnected world, when cultures were allowed to flourish in isolated pockets around the Earth. Where local legends and spirit entities would manifest themselves through songs and stories and tales.

Castlevania is fully aware of and in celebration of these parts of our collective history. Call it the Medieval Cinematic Universe. You saw a few classic fantasy video games but for the most part gaming stuck to modern technology based activities like shooting spaceships and driving cars. Castlevania came around at the right time technology-wise, because NES and other 8-bit machines could now accurately store and display a great deal of well crafted pixelated art, as well as multitrack music and sound effects. The resulting chiptune depiction of gothic cathedrals and heavy metal-influenced dark fantasy soundtrack is too enticing to resist. 

IMO The series also could not have come from an American or European creator. The West is far too weird about their own religion, Christianity is a forbidden topic for an anti-Christian pop culture, where you are expected to be quiet about your religion, if that is a part of your life. You should celebrate all the ways in which you have sex, of course, but your feelings on the meaning of life, that's unimportant.

It had to be Japan, where they are far more isolated from other countries, and thus have cultivated a culture of appreciating from afar. You can see this in the 90s music scene Shibuya-Kei, which was a wholly Japanese phenomenon based around tastefully curated 60s music from around the world. They would mix garage rock and go go and easy listening and house music with no pretensions of what was higher or lower, and seeing it all with fresh, new eyes. 

I feel like they take this approach with Christianity often, because the Japanese do not have so many hang-ups. They will make a game like Bayonetta, featuring a super sexy nun witch that reads from the Bible and prays before single handedly destroying demons taken right out of the Key of Solomon. Rightly, Japan knows that when you are looking for Dark Fantasy, you can't get any more metal than the demons from the Judeo-Christian cosmology. Satan and all his devilish minions, who seemingly control Dracula and the army of the undead, are all from Christianity. The New Testament shows that demons are most scared of Jesus and just straight up say, terrified, that "I know who you are!" the minute he shows up, because they know their time is over. It is only through Holy power that the Christians are able to subdue and yes control demons, like Jesus does. Because in the hierarchy, God is of course Lord over all. This is why crosses and holy water work the way they do. This is why vampires repel at the sign of the cross.

It is only 40 years later that I am fully realizing the very Christian origins of a lot of this imagery. Now that I am reading the New Testament for the first time. The vampire being an undead being, a twisted soulless creature who must feast on human blood. This is a Satanic perversion of the partaking of the Eucharist, the central mystical ritual at the heart of Christianity. Jesus is God given flesh, sent down to the world, so that He could give of His blood for humanity's sake. It is a consentual act on the part of God, to have a Son that he knows He will be sentencing to die. The Vampire has no such choice in the act, his craving for blood is a compulsion, a sin that has taken complete control of his body, to the point where he is no longer human. Christianity in large part derives humanity from the ability to choose and to exercise Free Will. Satanism is about enslavement.

Anyways, enough theology. What kicked this off what I am replaying the Castlevania series this October. I have worked my way through most of the 16-bit entries, and am currently trying to beat Rondo of Blood.

Here are reviews for each one:

Castlevania (1986): Really, you can stop here if you need to. It is funny, because the guys at Konami kept going back to this one, remaking it outright several times, and finding so much inspiration in it. But it is easy to see why. The soundtrack is fully formed and beyond classic. The artwork is spot on and right away shows the appeal. Where most other games might have a single brick wall tile replicated many times, here you have variation, even including cracks in the wall and crumbling windows. The game is also balls out hard but it doesn't start that way, it has an amazing sense of progressing difficulty. One of the greatest games of all time.

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1987): Hard to believe that this came out one year later! But here it is, and not just the first game but different, this is an entirely new experience. My favorite entry is this one, because despite all it's flaws, it is a very ambitious game. No longer in a castle with linear levels, this is a full open world RPG, complete with levelling up, purchasable weapon upgrades, shops, day/night cycle, etc. The music, my God, it is unreal. It is so good. The town theme is maybe the best chiptune track of all time? And playing this game is so much fun, wandering the European countryside, fighting warewolves and skeletons, going over swamps and into haunted mansions. The bosses are also really really easy, which makes this game the easiest to drop into and play. Ah, I love this game.

Castlevania The Adventure (1989) I had this on Gameboy, and I vividly remember playing it while my family was getting their haircut at a barber shop. It only has 4 levels but you are glad when they are over. At the time, it was quite a technical achievement, as outside of Super Mario Land, handheld 2d platformers were pretty rare. Some of the jumps in this are insanely frustrating, it feels like they tried to make up for a lack of content with difficulty. Played with the Anniversary release, using rewind feature, it was fine.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (1989) This is a good one. But it feels a little too unwieldy for me. Maybe this is because I did not have an NES on release and didn't play it for a long time after it came out. I prefer the first two, but I bet if I played this on release, and really lived with the game for months on end, it might be my favorite.

Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (1991): The second Gameboy game. I did not play this as a kid but on the Anniversary collection it's pretty good. Much better than the first GB game in every way.

Super Castlevania IV (1991): This is a legendary entry. Personally I have found the graphics to be my least favorite from the entire series, I think it is a bit too muddy and stretchy, but I am still glad they tried to do something different. And to be honest the graphics match the music, which is incredible, fully using the soft SNES synth chip to give a kind of New Age Fusion sound, it's like if Herbie Hancock made the soundtrack to a Ghosbusters prequel set in Renaissance era Europe. The stand up bass is really quite nice, and it is cool to see how the move to 16-bit revitalizes the series. This is a series largely driven by art, both visuals and audio, and one of the best things about replaying it all is seeing all of this gorgeous pixel art and hearing wonderful music.

Castlevania Chronicles (1993): This one is funny, but it is kind of a forgotten landmark in a lot of ways. Originally made for a Japanese PC, this is a remake of the first NES game, but using CD-ROM technology for the first time. This allows them to go hog wild on the art, in a way they couldn't even do on SNES. The game opens with an animated cutscene. The music, praise Jesus, it is now made with commercial quality synths and drum samples, and it sounds so good. The game itself has a lot of cool tricks and trolls throughout it, and they play up the formula of the original to a big extent so you don't feel like it is a straight remake for much of it. And at the end of the game, when you find Dracula, he is sitting in a chair with a glass of wine, which he tosses on the floor before jumping into battle. This is a motif they would re-use in the next game (also a CD game) and use again in the opening to the famous Symphony of the Night (also CD). This being the first CD-ROM game, they really pepper the game with original pixel art, and the final hallway before Death, which is a simple hallway in the first game, is filled with paintings and artwork and show off Konami's artists. You get the sense that the additional space freed them up, they could now make all kinds of stuff, filling these castles with pixel art. SOTN being kind of the culmination of that approach.

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (1994): This is where I am now. It might be the best one? The most polished 16-bit Castlevania is right here, with a kickass anime style presentation. Basically a linear variation on the first game but with lots of alternate levels and some really cool anime style cutscenes, lots of beautiful art all around. The music is also even better than the last CD-ROM game, with some kicking slap bass and City Pop style renditions to a lot of the music (I keep thinking "Thriller" whenever I hear the new version of "Vampire Killer", below).

posted by Adam  # 12:50:00 PM