With the laptop hijacked and my wife playing Paper Mario I think back to the brew… blue lined whip handler Juste. Invited to a castle of my possible oldest rival where my girl may be held hostage. My best friend and training companion, Maxima, seems to have lost some of his memory and is not feeling quite above the weather today.

Could this be Dracula’s castle?

Well, if it’s not now it once was. This game plays quite similar to the Symphony of the Night Castlevainia, hence the musical themed name. So we have what would appear to be a Metroid-vania… or was it Castle-oid. Nonetheless this game is instantly set off as much different than previous versions of the series. I am assuming that Juste is always highlighted in a blue glow to solve the previous problem of the GBA game, which was that on a GBA (not SP) it was very difficult to see and play the game.

It looks just cheesy to me. They go with this color scheme anyways.

You are led through the castle in a semi linear manner at first, which then becomes less and less linear as you gain abilities. Some of the areas are slightly original, where others are either standard or just less original. The game does hook you right off the bat as you’re treated to an excellent boss-ish fight before you enter the castle. The giant armor, which just looks like a pile of metal when you first pass it, becomes quite animated and hostile. Moving with a mode-7 quality to it you realize that it is not too hard to defeat. I’m exited at this point.

The entryway was also slightly different with something following you. You know it is because you can see its shadow though the curtain. Interesting. That is about where the innovation stops for this game. See I am left with this feeling that there were really high hopes and grand designs for this game, but they just stopped short for some reason.

Yes this shit contains spoilers, stop reading if you don’t want to know what they are. I will probably even ruin the story if you even play for that reason.

The way that the Castle is set up in SotN leaves one feeling a bit let down when you get to the point of the second castle, the inverted one. So it was eliminated in Circle of the Moon. But they try their hand at it again in HoD. They come much closer to succeeding in HoD.

Now we have Castle A and B, like I said the innovation stopped, and one is the castle that Dracula set up (sorry Vlad) and the other is the one that Maxima created in his imagination. So one is the nighttime castle and one is the daytime castle. There are a few instances of items that use this to a gaining potential when you wear the right item at the right castle, but usually you have something better that does not take the babysitting power. Castle B is a bit more dark and bloody too, so you can tell that which castle you are in by the motif.

Now I plan on putting together a piece eventually for The Gamer’s Quarter dissecting the double castle syndrome so I won’t touch on it too much here, but you do need to go back and forth between the castles somewhat regularly to progress. I will say that both castles in this game have some enormous empty areas that just seem like filler or the programmers never got around to putting enemies there.

I would like to move onto the boss designs. There is not a single stimulating fight in the entire line up. Like a fair amount of CotM you have bosses that only make you hit them frequently enough and learn the most simplistic of patterns. Where the hell are my old 2D Sonic boss fights that were actually tough? Top that all off with poor designs ripped from either old Castlevanias or just plain bland mythology and horror references. It is really disappointing.

Speed is really prominent in this game. The R and L button dashes you toward that side of the screen, and you do not even have to be facing the direction. See, I got 199.98% of the game unlocked with all the Spell books, the relics, and all the collectable. I had to use a FAQ once (I was going to settle for less than every collectable, but I wanted the last spell book and I could not find one of the relics… I felt stupid about the relic afterwards, but who the hell decided to put the –useless- summon book where it was deserves to get shot) and still did it in just under 10 hours. That is as much time as I spent on SotN just getting 89% and only the bad ending. Dashing makes this game go slick’er ‘n shit fast. Topped with empty areas this feels overall very small even with 2 castles.

What else should I say about this game? Well, perhaps it is about time to say that I did enjoy it. I enjoyed it on the level of a not very serious Castlevania game. I also got the first ending pretty quick, which is the castle A ending, so I did go for the other ending. I would not have if I was not enjoying myself.

See it feels like a simple game that does not take itself too seriously. Rather large experiment with a new idea for 2 castles and the ability to do speed runs. So in a light hearted manner I enjoyed my quick travels searching for Lyde in Maxima’s realized castle. A few better places clues to help me not wander around in the middle of the game lost would have helped, but that can be forgiven.

Which leads me to the ending. I liked it. Well kind of. See the castle A ending is the easy, you-don’t-need-to-find-too-much ending. But it was the happy, “better” ending. The castle B ending is a bit darker, no win situation ending. It reminded me of how a tragic ending sometimes seems more right. Even though your friend can give in and you have to defeat him so he will stop being evil. You have to kill your long time training partner because he told you to, and is now fighting you. You can save your girl this way.

But the battle arena starts to pulsate, flow and glow hues of green and wine.

The battle was pretty easy. I was left wondering about more. So I get the relics (all the parts of Vlad) and seek out the true “I know who you really are” ending. But Maxima has given into Dracula… shit, Vlad’s will and you can’t save the girl. When the dust clears and the battle is over you are only left with realizing that you were a failure in the whole reason for entering the castle.

It felt good to get it wrong.

Like I said it was pretty lighthearted in the game play. Many times it felt uninspired – well the Simon Wraiths were pretty damn cool - and empty. There are many things that I liked about the game. I am a bit tired of the too damn serious, hard as nails, Castlevanias. This was nice. I can’t wait to get Aria of Sorrow.