With the rollover to the 16-bit era, Konami completely loses any focus. Their next Castlevania (as with most games of its era) is intended as little more than an early demonstration for the unique capabilities of the SNES. Flashy propoganda, if you will.
Since this game was to be so technically adventurous, I guess Konami felt no compelling need to do anything interesting conceptually. The series' first grand leap into new and untapped realms of power results in just another remake of the first game, Akumajou Dracula, with Simon again in the lead. To further confuse issues, Konami's US branch later slaps the number "IV" on the game and touts it as Simon's next adventure.
Great. Just as we've begun to make progress, we're pulled back to Simon again. And it doesn't stop; Konami then spits out another remake of the original Castlevania (with much added and/or remixed content) for the X68000 computer. (This has recently been rereleased for the PSX as CV Chronicles, with some new Ayami Kojima art -- including the modern, fetishy redesign of Simon -- and a few small extras.)
With the introduction of Sonic the Hedgehog, Nintendo's monopoly on third parties is doomed. In the West, Sega's Genesis console has become something of a hot commodity. Even if it's barely a footnote in Japan, Konami would do well to support it in some manner. And yet, Konami's A-list talent will be much better spent on familiar (and domestically-successful) hardware. Thus, we come to Bloodlines.
Although decent, Bloodlines ain't exactly a great game. It's also perhaps a little ill-conceived in the concept department, as it tries to overtly meld the Stoker Dracula mythology and the Castlevania mythos. Still, it constitutes the first major, wild-n-weird step the series has taken in years up until that point.
The game is set in 1917 -- far from the medieval period of the previous games. You've got two playable characters. Dracula isn't necessarily the big bad guy (although he's present as the final boss). The game, for the first time in the series, is actually rather gory. Also, a few major figures currently involved in the series received their indoctrination with this game -- most prominently, current series composer Michiru Yamane.
Bloodlines serves to stretch the scope of the series in a helpful manner. Of course, the reason it's so separate from the rest of the series is the same as the initial reason for the difference in the Gameboy games -- because it's for an alien system, in this case the Genesis.
Heck, Bloodlines isn't even an Akumajou Dracula game, in Japan. There, it's simply titled Vampire Killer. The traditional heart items are replaced with gems. The subweapons have been mangled enough that they don't entirely resemble the traditional Castlevania style. Although we've a choice of two characters, neither is a Belmont (in name, anyway).
The impression one gets from Bloodlines is of a disturbingly close Castlevania knockoff, that just happens to be made by Konami. For all I know, this distinction could be due to some lingering phrases in Konami's contract with Nintendo.
Still, the ends render the means somewhat unimportant in a case such as this. From here on -- despite the occasional stumble -- the series begins to find its new set of bearings. And that self-conscious focus begins with the very next game.
Perhaps the first truly important game released since Castlevania III, Rondo of Blood introduces another key era in the series. As the earlier games were set 100 and 200 years prior to the original Castlevania, Rondo takes place 100 years later, flat in the middle of the colonial era. Not only that, but it includes a healthy dose of deliberate reference to the earlier games. I mean, the game starts off in one of the towns from Castlevania II.
Technically, Rondo is the start of a new subseries: Akumajou Dracula X. Again removed from the main Castlevania line (as the game is devised for the PC-Engine Super CD ROM), Rondo is a sort of an anime-ized reimaging of the original Castlevania legacy.
It's not unlike a game based on an anime, based upon the original Castlevania series yet projected another hundred years in the future. What if Dracula were to rise again in the late eighteenth century? What would the Castlevania universe be like then? In anime terms, that is?
And. As odd as it might sound, it works. The game proves successful enough that Konami's (now-defunct) Nagoya studios soon remake it for the SNES. Kind of. They call their rendition Akumajou Dracula XX (or Castlevania: Dracula X in North America -- an odd melange, I must say). The game isn't all that great.[1]
Regardless, we're sort of back on track. While Rondo clearly isn't intended as a "serious" entry in the series (or perhaps even a real one), it's the first game to really get the overall Castlevania vibe -- to treat the series legacy with any solid respect -- since the 8-bit days.
In place of Simon, we're introduced to our third new Belmont (an interesting one, this time). The game pays attention to the logic and architecture of the original games, then adds to it. And again, we've got the 100 years thing. By this point, it's perfectly clear that we're witness to a larger pattern behind the series. And yet, outside of the overt elements, it's not yet clear what its form might be.
After KCE Tokyo puts the wrap on Rondo (and Nagoya dismantles their work for the SNES), Konami apparently decides that it's time for a real Castlevania again. For whatever reason, someone assigns this task to Konami's (also-now-defunct) Kobe studio. As Nintendo has always been the true Castlevania platform, the main series will continue on the N64. In 3D, of course -- as 3D is the Way of the Future.
Simultaneously, Tokyo begins work on a sequel to Rondo. The PC-Engine is falling by the wayside, so they choose to work with the new up-and-coming Playstation console. Early in the production, the original project leader departs, leaving Koji Igarashi in the new role of director. Igarashi quickly decides that since the game is a side-story anyway, he'll just do whatever the heck he wants with it.
What Igarashi does, is he provides a structure for the entire Castlevania series. Where Rondo pays tribute to the original NES games in the process of defining and building its own world, Nocturne in the Moonlight takes the next step in reimaging what came before. He takes Richter out of the lead role and brings back Alucard, the semi-forgotten son of Dracula from Castlevania III, to serve the role of an omniscient voice from the past. After all, who else should know more about the Castlevania universe than the immortal son of its percentennial villain?
Through Alucard, and through an overly-healthy dose of references to nearly every previous game in the series, we're told just what's been going on in these games that we've been playing for the last ten years. Through the game's more adventure-styled design, we're allowed to explore the game's world at our own leisure, for the first time since Castlevania II.
Nocturne bends over sideways, in order to give us a broader perspective than we should have gained otherwise. In doing so, it contextualizes and, in a way, legitimates all that's come before. With the introduction of Ayami Kojima on character design, it also revises the series' long-ignored aesthetic elements, bringing them to more or less what they should have been from the get-go. From Indiana Conan versus Dracula, we arrive at a delicate Gothic moodiness.
In just about every facet, Nocturne for the first time makes the Castlevania mythology one to respect for its own sake.
Nagoya soon tries to follow up on this success with Dark Night Prelude. The cap of the original Gameboy trilogy, this game introduces Sonia as the mother of Trevor, girlfriend to Alucard, and the founder of the Belmont bloodline. While it's not a stellar game, neither is it a bad idea. If nothing else, these plot threads lend a nice bookend to the series. (And yet, Igarashi has more recently decided to discount the game altogether, for a set of what I feel to be rather silly reasons.) Hey, it tries.
Then, after what seems an interminable delay, we are faced with the revenge of Kobe -- the long-awaited real follow-up to Castlevania. And... well. It fails on more than one level. It's not just that the game (known over here as simply Castlevania -- which says... something, I'm sure) is a drab attempt at 3D. It's that after all that Igarashi painted with SotN, Kobe just couldn't keep up. They were stuck back in the early 16-bit days, mentally.
To the end -- all the way through Circle of the Moon -- they never really Got It. They never tuned into the Castlevania frequency. With Kobe, we're back to barbarians and thorough abject inattention to the series legacy; to the vocabulary and manner of thought that's been built up since the original game. The fact that none of Kobe's games aside from CotM were really any good in and of themselves is just the final blow, after the repeated pummeling of their carelessness.
Today, Kobe is gone. Control of the series is back at Tokyo; we're fully in the Igarashi era, as it were.
And Igarashi's got a few missions. One is to return and fill in the existing cracks in the series, as well as he can (as with Harmony of Dissonance). Another is to finish telling the overall story of Castlevania. (Lament of Innocence serves as a definite marker for the start of the series.) He's concerned with conservation, as in the case of Chronicles. And then he's also working on his own experiments in redefining the boundaries of Castlevania, with games like Aria.
Amongst these three tasks, he should be busy for a while.
I guess there are three distinct eras one can draw: The "golden", or classical, age; the middle ages; the modern (Igarashi) age, or renaissance. The Kobe games, although they follow Nocturne, all fall squarely into the middle age. The modern age starts with Rondo -- the first musically-titled game -- and continues from there, excepting the Kobe projects. There's a lot of overlap between Rondo and Circle of the Moon -- yet, as any historian will concur, these things are rarely precise.
As you can see, this series has come together pretty gradually -- and rarely as planned. Nearly every attempt at a traditional game has been a dead end. It's been like legos; every new experiment is stacked upon what's come before, and stretches what's established for the next game. It's instructive to see exactly how the series has evolved from The Adventures of Simon, Vampire Hunter to such an epic, multifaceted story.
It's also interesting to note that after the original NES and GB games, the series pretty much died up until Igarashi stepped in. After a decade of accidents, it's mostly another accident that it came together as we now know it; it's all really only due to this one guy's devotion to making something monumental out of something originally great (and promising of so much more), that had almost lapsed into complete inanity due to the apathy of its rights-holders.
And he's still the only guy who really gets it.
Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh
continues to hunt the night
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