This Week In Retro: Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (Patreon)

October 21, 2003: Thank you Leon, but our Dracula is in other castle

by Diamond Feit

Few things angry up the blood of hardcore fans more than debates surrounding canon. The longer a story stretches, the more complicated it becomes for the creative minds behind it to ensure every element in each new installment properly aligns with all the information that came before. If a contradiction emerges between two points in continuity, which one is correct? The situation gets even stickier when a property expands to such a point that new writers or producers take charge; their subjective interpretation of previous material might clash with how the audience viewed past story beats, creating a divide.

Canon in video games is notoriously difficult to wrangle due to the interactive nature of the medium. The original Street Fighter II had eight playable characters, each with their own dedicated ending for winning the tournament, a pattern that fighting games still follow to this day. Yet the next entry in the series cannot possibly account for every potential outcome of the last game—only one fighter may defeat the last boss while the others fail. Without a canonical winner, every player will have their own version of those events, splintering the story into an infinite number of individual threads.

Konami's Castlevania series takes an unusual approach to canon: Instead of coming up with new excuses to have one man fight Dracula over and over, the official narrative takes advantage of the almighty vampire's immortality and has a new hero take up the fight in each game. The story thus revolves around a single family of vampire hunters—the Belmont clan—who must embrace their destiny and battle evil whenever Dracula returns from the grave.

20 years ago, series producer Koji Igarashi turned back the clock to 1094 in order to explain the genesis of the eternal conflict between the Belmonts and Dracula. This new game, the first of the franchise on Sony's PlayStation 2, would introduce players to Leon Belmont and explain why he sought to slay vampires in the first place and how he acquired such a powerful weapon ideal for defeating them. Befitting the game's status as an origin story, it carried the simple title of Castlevania in Japan, but for the rest of the world Konami dubbed it Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.

When players first meet Leon Belmont, we see him running through a forest, desperately seeking a vampire named Walter Bernhard. While elegantly clad in fashionable armor, Leon carries neither sword nor shield, a sign of either remarkable courage or a devastating lack of foresight. Leon's quest is driven by passion and vengeance, not justice, as the stakes here are personal; Bernhard abducted Leon's fiance Sara and the former knight will not leave the forest without his betrothed.

Luckily for Leon, he meets a friendly face before encountering any unfriendly fangs, as a hermit named Rinaldo Gandolfi offers to help him in his task. An alchemist by trade, the elderly Rinaldo hands Leon a special whip he made for repelling monsters and enchants Leon's gauntlets. He also tells Leon that Bernhard views this entire episode as a game, a distraction from the tedium of a vampire's eternal life. Armed with this new equipment and fresh insider knowledge, Leon charges the gates of Bernhard's castle, only to have the drawbridge lowered to grant him entrance.

Lament of Innocence adapts the exploration-heavy formula of 2D Castlevania games into a three-dimensional environment. Leon has nearly free reign of Bernhand's estate which is divided into six distinct areas—seven if you count the cellar containing an optional boss battle. The route to Bernhard himself is locked behind an enchanted door. Only by first eliminating five designated guardians can Leon gain access to the top floor for a showdown with the master behind it all.

Combat likewise follows Castlevania tradition, albeit translated into a rhythm resembling other popular 3D action games of the early 2000s. Leon's primary weapon is his new whip with which he can perform both light and heavy attacks. Unlike two-dimensional Belmonts, Leon's swings strike fast and cover a wide area around him. Lament of Innocence reflects this philosophical difference with a combo meter that tracks how many consecutive hits the player can land in one sequence. Subweapons, elemental buffs, and magical relics supplement these actions and are key to exploiting enemy-specific weaknesses.

By 2003 the Castlevania series had evolved considerably from its days as a linear action-platformer homage to Universal monster movies. After the success of Symphony of the Night in 1997 and multiple handheld titles on the Game Boy Advance, Konami conditioned fans to associate Castlevania with large, interconnected stages that they could explore at their own pace, killing monsters and gaining levels to grow stronger and stronger before challenging the final boss, Dracula.

However, Konami couldn't seem to decide whether Castlevania should be a 2D or 3D series of games. Other long-running franchises had taken advantage of modern graphics technology to switch perspectives: Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and even Metroid all migrated from pixels to polygons to much acclaim. Castlevania's initial efforts in 3D garnered no such warmth, and an official timeline of the games' history in 2002 omitted both Nintendo 64 releases from the record.

Still, Konami entrusted Koji Igarashi to make another attempt at a 3D Castlevania, and his team gave it their best shot. Aesthetically speaking, Lament of Innocence improves leaps and bounds over its polygonal predecessors. The characters' outfits have detailed flourishes that give them personality and their faces are capable of emoting. The castle itself impresses as well, thanks to quality textures and dynamic lighting that give every hallway and chamber a dark yet beautiful atmosphere.

Igarashi also entrusted the soundtrack to series veteran Michiru Yamane who delivers another astonishing collection of tunes. Even though Lament of Innocence takes place almost a thousand years in the past, her work includes electronic instruments and even aspects of modern dance music to give the audio a pulsing quality unlike any other game in the series.

What of Lament of Innocence's purported emphasis on storytelling? Again, an effort was made, with an abundance of fully-voiced and motion-captured cinematics that provide Leon, Rinaldo, Bernhard, and an assortment of lesser foes a personality beyond good guy or bad guy. It's impossible to overlook the shoddy treatment of women in this script, however, as every man is driven to action on behalf of a female damsel or victim in his life. In fact, there's one plot twist that reminded me of the infamous eye-rolling narrative of 2009's Bionic Commando, a game that revealed the hero's telescopic artificial limb contains the intelligence and memories of his late wife.

I outright dismissed Lament of Innocence back in 2003 because I had fresh memories of Castlevania 64, its frustrating camera controls, and the general difficulty of swinging a whip in a 3D environment. Giving the game a chance today, I found it exceeded my expectations while also vindicating my concerns about three-dimensional Metroidvanias.

Leon's overall speed and range with his whip does wonders for rectifying the issues I had with Castlevania 64, while his guard and dodge abilities help navigate crowded spaces. Carefully entering a defensive posture with proper timing will trigger a Perfect Guard, but simply holding the button will still repel most enemy attacks. In other words, Lament of Innocence has a parry mechanic reminiscent of modern games but also lets you block multiple foes with seemingly no penalty.

Yet fighting is only one component of a Metroidvania game, as movement and exploration are just as if not more important for keeping the player engaged. In this regard, Lament of Innocence never clicked with me. Leon has a double-jump by default and his whip offers limited grappling to aid with platforming but I struggle to clear even basic obstacles. I also feel running from room to room just takes too much time; Leon moves quickly but the castle is so large, if I make a wrong turn or need to backtrack, it feels like a chore.

For all its promise of rewriting Castlevania canon, Lament of Innocence really drops the ball with its biggest reveal. You may have noticed that amongst all the names I've mentioned, one omission looms large: Dracula is nowhere to be found. Beginning with Harmony of Dissonance, the world's most famous vampire took a backseat in the series as characters spoke of his death in the past tense. Konami started to brand the games in Japan using the English title Castlevania instead of Akumajō Dracula during this time to better reflect his absence.

However, since Lament of Innocence reveals how the Belmont family first met their sworn enemy, surely that necessitates an appearance by Dracula whether his name is written on the box or not. Instead, during the final battle, one character admits he was secretly a vampire the entire time, infuriating our hero. Leon swears his family will forever stand against this mastermind but the two never fight. Weirder still, after Leon overcomes the game's final boss and the credits roll, only then does the narrator state that the head vampire would return to face the Belmonts again many years later, but he does this without mentioning the name Dracula.

I recognize this must sound like nitpicking. One reason I love Castlevania is its diversity; each game can introduce new heroes or villains without restraint. In fact, most of my favorite entries feature little or no Dracula at all, and this includes the two most recent seasons of the Netflix-produced Castlevania anime. However, if you promise me a Dracula origin story, I really must insist that the legendary villain who will torment the Belmonts for millenia show up for more than one conversation.

My latter-day experience with Lament of Innocence does have one unequivocal positive outcome in that it made clear to me that I need to revisit and re-evaluate the franchise's fledging 3D releases. A snap judgment I made 20 years ago—amidst major struggles with my mental health no less—cannot continue to stand. If Konami can retcon or reboot all of Castlevania canon, then I can do the same with my own opinions.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts about video games, films, and dessert.