This Week In Retro: Castlevania Chronicles (Patreon)

May 24, 2001: Konami releases the right Castlevania at the wrong time

by Diamond Feit

Is everyone watching the fourth and alleged final season of Castlevania on Netflix? I really didn't know what to make of the series at first, because Season 1 felt like a decent movie chopped into four episodes. Yet each season improved on the last and it ended on a bold note. I have to wonder if folks in medieval Europe really cursed that much with recognizable modern profanity, but I think the show did a great job adding depth and heart to old video game characters.

I bring up Castlevania because this week happens to be the 20th anniversary of a most unusual entry in the beloved video game series: Castlevania Chronicles. Like the recent anime, Chronicles looked to Castlevania's past and tried to inject more personality into a previously established tale. The game itself could not be more committed to the franchise's fundamentals but the fact that it got released at all, especially when it did, makes it feel strange even two decades later.

To chronicle the voyage of this release, we must begin at the beginning of the franchise. Akumajo Dracula, a 1986 game for the Famicom Disk System, depicts the adventure of vampire hunter Simon Belmondo on a quest to kill Count Dracula. This game would later be released as a Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge overseas (with slight modifications) under the title Castlevania, and from there a great many sequels, prequels, spinoffs, and even reboots would follow.

However, Konami must have felt Simon's initial battle with Dracula had a special quality that demanded revisiting, because the company would remake and reimagine this one game many times over. Just a month after its initial FDS release, Akumajo Dracula appeared on the MSX. This version strongly resembled the first, but played more like an adventure game, with Simon collecting different weapons and searching for hidden keys to unlock doors in order to proceed. The following year, Akumajo Dracula would come to arcades with all new graphics and sound; this incarnation played more like the Famicom version with a focus on action and a linear level layout.

On Halloween 1991, Konami dipped into the well again with Akumajo Dracula for the Super Famicom. Like the arcade version, this would be an action game with a total visual and auditory overhaul, taking advantage of the console's stellar sprite scaling and sound samples. This version made its way to the Super Nintendo as Super Castlevania IV, but it is no more a sequel to the original Castlevania than Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes is a sequel to Franklin J. Schaffner's Planet of the Apes.

Two years later, Konami brought Akumajo Dracula to the Sharp X68000 personal computer, retelling (for the fourth time now) the tale of Simon's fight with Count Dracula. With brand new graphics and sound, again, this version would surely be the best-looking one yet. Unlike all the above revisions, however, it was never localized for overseas markets, as the X68000 was only available in Japan.

Eight years later, Konami surprised fans everywhere by pitting Simon against Dracula yet again, this time on the Sony PlayStation. There would be no next-generation facelift though; Castlevania Chronicles is not a remake but a port of the X68000 game with a few subtle enhancements. It was not unheard of to port a game from a niche platform to a widely popular one (however well the PlayStation did in other markets, it was gigantic in Japan), but Chronicles did break the Akumajo Dracula pattern by not receiving a thorough overall for new audiences.

It would be unfair to assess Castlevania Chronicles by what it is not, so let us reflect on what it is: A straightforward platform action game wherein the hero marches to the right and fights a cornucopia of monsters. Its general premise and the layout of Dracula's castle aligns with the very first game, but Simon is much more nimble. His walking speed is faster, and his jumping ability has improved to allow for mid-air corrective motion.

Simon can again whip in multiple directions, but only when his feet leave the ground. Unlike the Super Famicom version, he cannot whip up nor can he wave his limp whip to deal damage, but he can whip straight downwards or at a diagonal. Simon's usual array of sub-weapons return, along with hidden multipliers that allow him to have up to three arms on screen at once. New to this version of the game is a small herb which Simon can "use" to restore some health at the cost of 10 hearts.

The bestiary contains few surprises, as most of the enemies and bosses are returning foes from past games. There are new fights against a female lycanthrope atop a clock tower and a strange wizard in an ice cave, but players can otherwise expect the usual assortment of bats, medusa heads, armored knights, and skeletons of all sizes. Frankenstein's monster makes a late-game appearance, but he is relegated to a mid-stage threat that can be completely avoided.

Graphically, this is the most impressive version of Simon's adventure to date. The Sharp X68000 supported twice as many colors on-screen as Nintendo's 16-bit console did, so this trip through the castle features fewer murky browns. Indeed, perhaps due to the X68000 being a computer and not a "console," the environments have a more sinister, even gruesome feel. Splatters of blood are a common sight, dismembered bodies hang in the background, and Death's art gallery always gives me the creeps.

If we are talking Castlevania though, what we really need to talk about is the soundtrack. The Sharp X68000 had an arcade-quality Yamaha sound chip that supported up to eight channels of FM synth glory. Considering this game was originally released in 1993, the music pulses with a beat that gives the entire experience more urgency. Familiar tracks like "Vampire Killer" and "Bloody Tears" are here, certainly, but there's a bouncy percussion driving the melodies which earlier versions lacked. Even "Simon's Theme," first heard on Super Famicom, now features extra instruments and sounds, giving it an all-new atmosphere.

For me, however, the standout track is the all-new composition "The Tower of Dolls." The music begins in the second half of Stage 6, the only stage with two distinct themes, as Simon escapes a collapsing bridge to enter a vertical shaft full of tiny chests. The chests pop open as Simon climbs the tower, releasing tiny bats or very small dolls, none of whom are friendly. In the original Japanese release, the flying dolls tell Simon kaerinasai ("go home") as they hover just out of his whip's reach; overseas versions cut the Japanese dialogue.

As Simon fights his way through this mad funhouse, the eponymous background music blends a funky bass line with soaring keyboards. It is somehow the perfect accompaniment for a battle between a vampire hunter and evil children's toys, simultaneously complimenting the oddball visuals while also making me want to dance my ass off. "The Tower of Dolls" would become a semi-regular tune among Castlevania compositions going forward, and can be heard in Order of Ecclesia as well as Castlevania Judgement, the Wii-exclusive 3D fighting game.

If Akumajo Dracula on the Sharp X68000 was a visually pleasing vampire-killing action game with fabulous music, what makes Castlevania Chronicles so weird? A couple things, actually, though the biggest issue was timing. When Chronicles debuted, it was 2001 and the 16-bit era was long-dead. The PlayStation was in its seventh year and on the way out, as the PlayStation 2 was already in wide-release. Graphical and audio expectations were sky-high, so a game from 1993 was a tough sell to audiences.

Looking specifically at the state of Castlevania in 2001, Symphony of the Night was four years old and Circle of the Moon had been a Game Boy Advance launch title mere months earlier. Both games were major departures from the sort of linear action that Simon's story represented. Not every Castlevania game post-1993 had been an exploration-heavy adventure, but even straightforward entries like Rondo of Blood and Bloodlines featured multiple playable characters or branching paths to inject the formula with fresh ideas.

Compared to its contemporaries, Castlevania Chronicles is a shallow game; the only replay value comes from high-score chasing or the increased challenge of repeated play loops. This does not make it "bad," for its base game comes from an era with different standards. Yet even for a Castlevania fan such as myself, picking up Chronicles in 2001 felt disappointing. The last thing I wanted was a timed action game with limited lives and a steep difficulty curve.

Revisiting Chronicles in 2021 is another story. Separated from its original release, I find it easier to appreciate its commitment to the old-fashioned Castlevania model. The slight tweaks added to "Arrange" mode (Simon and Dracula have new sprites, and enemy damage is less punishing) go a long way towards making the game more enjoyable overall, and of course the game's soundtrack remains just as excellent two decades later. Modern streaming services even allow unfettered access to the Chronicles soundtrack which includes no less than four versions of each track: the original X68000 FM music, two distinct MIDI interpretations with different instrumentation, and the 2001 PlayStation remixes.

Castlevania Chronicles isn't my favorite Castlevania game but replaying it this week, I admire it more than ever. Without this port to a popular platform, the original X68000 game would surely be lost to history by now, and any game with a soundtrack this killer warrants preservation until the heat death of the universe.

Had Castlevania Chronicles been globally released in 1993, I might have replayed it ad infinitum as I did Super Castlevania IV, and perhaps today it would place high on my personal list of favorites. Instead it exists as an outlier, arriving on store shelves when I least wanted it, and only years later did I learn to like it. Today when I think about Castlevania Chronicles, I lament my shortsightedness back in 2001...that, and I really wish I could pull off Simon's fiery hairdo.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.