The original Castlevania trilogy was a huge deal to me when I was a kid. Those NES games were mind-blowing. Given that I was nine years old when the third one was released in the US, it felt like the equivalent of getting my hands on an R-rated horror movie or something. It felt unbearably cool.
My love for Castlevania has never waned over the years. And that original NES trilogy is still a super nostalgic thing for me. And each of them feel really special in completely different ways. Truthfully, each of them could probably be my favorite, depending on when you're talking to me. Let's rewind. The first game is well, the first game. So it's super important. It's the one I was first introduced to. The one that made me a fan. It's linear – sort of built from the mold of an arcade style game. It's amazing. The second game adds in all these RPG elements, and soul-crushingly difficult and obtuse BS. But I also love it, and even powered my way through to the end, which was a gigantic moment for me as a gamer, so again, I kind of love it. Castlevania III is a unique successor to these games because it kind of meshes the cool things from the first two games. It goes back to being more linear; it strips out the RPG stuff. But it introduces three other optional playable characters and offers branching paths, which makes it feel more open-ended. It's interesting, because it seems evident that Konami was really trying to learn from their previous games, and make something perfect. And it almost succeeds. From a history point of view, it's hard to undermine just how big a deal Castlevania III is. Perhaps the most obvious thing to point out is that it was a huge influence on Symphony Of The Night. And I mean, Alucard is actually a playable character in Castlevania III. If you love Sympony Of The Night (and who doesn't?) and you haven't played Castlevania III, then you're just doing it wrong. Castlevania III is also the clear inspiration for the two (and counting?) Curse Of The Moon games in the Bloodstained series. Bloodstained, of course, is the "new" Castlevania series in all but name that Koji Igarashi created... he himself the creator of – wait for it – Symphony Of The Night. He also did all those portable Castlevania games that continued the Symphony Of The Night style. So yeah, kind of a big deal. Anyway, I've gotten a little off topic here I guess. But I decided to replay Castlevania III this week. Something I've done many times over the past few decades. And I think that if I had to put the trilogy in order of rank, it'd be release order. The first game is my favorite, the second is in the middle, and the third is my least favorite. But that doesn't paint an accurate picture, because I think they're all classics that deserve to get played (and replayed). I think the coolest thing to me is the branching paths. This makes it feel like each replay is slightly different. Sometimes I might feel like tackling the clock tower, while others I'll take the low road. The upper path is usually considered the "easiest," probably based on its relative brevity. But it also features the aforementioned clock tower which is a jerk. And so is the boss of that level. The lower path is longer, but offers up more options to recruit other characters. When I was a kid, I thought Sypha was the coolest. And she is awesome. And even now, the variety of playstyles opened up by having multiple characters really does separate this one and make it special. Sypha uses magic, Grant can climb stuff, and Alucard can turn into a frigging bat! Probably my biggest issue with Castlevania III in 2022 is that frankly, it's a game from 1990. Which means there's been a lot of time to iron out the wrinkles. The game is still incredibly challenging, which is not a complaint. But the checkpoint system can be a pain, and when you compare it to the Curse Of The Moon games and all of their quality of life improvements, you start to miss that stuff. But whatever. That’s sort of unfair, and its neither here nor there. The game is still a straight up classic than influenced so much in the series (and outside the series proper) that came after. It's still an awesome game, and even if it is my least favorite of the original series, it's still unique and keeps me coming back to play it again year after year.
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Capcom's Final Fight was a huge deal for beat-em-ups. Though it certainly found its inspiration in the Kunio-kun series, it made enough improvements to the formula to set genre cliches up that would carry on to this day. A whole chicken found in a garbage can? That was from Final Fight first. And yet to me as a gamer, Final Fight meant very little. At the time of its release, I spent far more time sitting in front of a console than I did playing in an arcade.
By the time Final Fight was ported rather poorly to SNES, I had already cut my teeth on Renegade, River City Ransom, and the first two Double Dragon games on NES. But even more damning was Streets Of Rage, the Sega beat-em-up released on the Genesis in 1991. Streets Of Rage borrowed liberally from Final Fight and yet in my mind outdid its inspiration flawlessly. Somewhat hilariously, Sega had a hand in later porting Final Fight to Sega CD and delivering what was at the time the definitive home port as well. I have a vague memory of playing Final Fight on SNES back then. But I wasn't impressed. I didn't actually give the game a fair shake until it was re-released on GBA many years later. And I still didn't love it. But thanks to the Capcom Arcade Stadium collection, I know have the original arcade game available to me so I figured why not give it another spin? Thanks to an unlimited supply of virtual quarters, I plowed through the game in ninety minutes or so. And... it's fine? The two-button setup feels kind of antiquated but it works. You've got just an attack and a jump. Hitting both buttons does your crowd-clearing move that snatches a few HP. It's pretty standard stuff. There's not a ton of levels, but the game still feels a bit too long for my taste. It does look great, though. There's huge sprites and lots of great character and detail to every enemy and environment. The overuse of sprite swaps is kind of annoying, but understandable for the hardware of the time. The game is downright unfair, though. And honestly, it gets tedious as every ounce of challenge comes from just being constantly overwhelmed. How many Andre The Giant rip-offs can you fight at one time, really? In 2023, if I want to play a retro beat-em-up, I'm still going to gravitate towards Kunio-kun, Double Dragon or Streets Of Rage. But it was fun to see this one through. There's some genuinely over the top 80s action movie stuff going on here, culminating in dropping the last boss from a penthouse window. To me now, the most interesting thing about Final Fight is its relationship to Street Fighter. To note, the game was under development as a beat-em-up spinoff called Street Fighter 89 before becoming its own thing. Let's do a quick run through of crossovers from this one game, though. Street Fighter Alpha - Cody, Guy, Rolento, Sodom Street Fighter III - Hugo Street Fighter X Tekken - Poison Street Fighter V - Abigail, Axl And this list is just the characters from the first Final Fight game that overlap with Street Fighter. Really the two series are completely intertwined, and that makes it pretty damn interesting. But on the whole, I find the game a little bit of a slog. It feels like a true quarter-muncher arcade game of its time. Though I must admit it has some good set pieces. The wrestling ring fight against Sodom is awesome for instance, and even sort of led to its own spinoff with Saturday Night Slam Masters. I really think that Final Fight is one of those retro games that I appreciate more for its history than for its actual gameplay now, though. The truth is that Streets Of Rage steals from Final Fight pretty wholesale. But I'd still rather play Streets Of Rage any day of the week. |
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