(Originally published to Glitchwave on 7/19/2022)
[Image from igdb.com]
Castlevania Bloodlines
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Genre(s): 2D Platformer
Platforms: Genesis
Release Date: March 17, 1994
While the European title of Bloodlines is a lame, generic subtitle for a sequel, it applies to the game’s direction. Bloodlines take place far later than any previous Castlevania game in the early 20th century at the start of the first World War. Konami experiments with a case of alternate history in which the catalyst event of assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand was enacted by Dracula’s niece Elizabeth Bartley, who is directly influenced by real-life Hungarian serial killer Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Since then, a resurrected Dracula has been the cause of the Great War like Satan in “The Howling Man” episode of The Twilight Zone. The source of continental strife across an industrial age Europe is not due to avaricious empires or expanding military powers but an ancient vampiric lord. He relishes in the suffering of humanity. At least vanquishing Dracula again is a simpler solution to the complex political bedlam that was World War 1 in real life.
The Belmont family is out of commission due to the lengthy passage of time, so Bloodlines ushers in a “new generation” of vampire hunters tasked with taking down The Count. John Morris is an American-bred vampire hunter whose choice to brandish the whip recalls Castlevania’s traditional gameplay mechanics. Spanish Eric Lecarde, on the other hand, wields something of a trident with a longer range. These valiant young men are the two playable protagonists in Bloodlines. Working together to eradicate the source of turmoil in a war-torn Europe like other Castlevania games featuring multiple playable characters would be efficient, but Konami has decided to keep John and Eric separated. The player gets the choice of selecting which of these men they’d like to play for the duration of the game rather than swapping them during a level like in Castlevania III. Forcing the player to commit to one character may seem like an inaccessible demerit, but I think that this increases the replay value of Bloodlines. There is enough discernibility between John and Eric’s methods of defending themselves against the creatures of the night to warrant another playthrough with the other character. The discernibility is restricted enough that one character doesn’t cause an imbalance in difficulty like Maria did in Rondo of Blood. In saying this, I feel confident enough to declare that Eric is slightly easier to play than John. One might think a veteran Castlevania player would be more comfortable playing as John. Still, the slight level of versatility with Eric’s weaponry and frog-like jumping ability gives him a smidge of an advantage over his more orthodox cohort. John plays like a compromised version of Simon Belmont from Super Castlevania IV. John can only whip diagonally in mid-air, and the whip swinging technique is slightly finicky. Some Castlevania fans might prefer John’s restraint because it makes the game more challenging, but I thought playing as John tended to be awkward.
Along with expanding Castlevania’s character roster to non-Belmonts, Bloodlines also reaches past the confines of the usual setting of Dracula’s castle. Dracula’s plague reaches across the entire continent of Europe, so John and Eric’s quest takes them all over the land of milk and honey to expunge Dracula’s influence. The first level still revisits the remnants of the vampiric lord’s estate in Romania, but the characters never ascend to the castle’s peak. After that brief excursion, our heroes travel across the map of intercontinental Europe to five more locations. A Castlevania game has never been set outside Dracula’s castle, making this the most radical point of evolution Bloodlines introduces. One might think this decision would be a blasphemous one as the consistent setting provides a sound, continuously spooky tone fitting for a game like Castlevania. Bloodline’s premise expresses that Dracula’s influence has spread across the continent, so it allows everywhere in Europe to look like a perpetual Halloween. Frankly, the climb up to Dracula’s throne room was growing tiresome. The locations around Europe not only provide new variations to Castlevania’s progression but explore the mythos of other cultures beyond the elements that the series has numerously established. The Shrine of Atlantis, located in Greece, is a temple whose sunken sea level status allows flooding water to be used as a hazard. The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy acts as a warped, surreal platforming climb similar to something like the fourth level of Super Castlevania IV. The fourth level in Germany explores a sort of dingy, industrial setting commonly associated with the country and the Palace of Versailles in France looks as resplendent and sublime as one would expect from a gothic French landmark. The castle where Dracula is located in the UK looks like a standard final level for a Castlevania game, but it serves its purpose as a brief final trek up to the final array of bosses. Progression may not feel as organic as the typical climb, but the series desperately needed a refreshing change of pace.
Besides the “blast processing,” the other appeal Sega had over their rivals at Nintendo was a more lenient stance on censorship. Nintendo had always been marketed as a “family-friendly system” and drastically toned down the blood and gore of third-party developed games released on their systems. Sega, on the other hand, deviated from the prudish principles of Nintendo as a marketing scheme to win over the adolescent/adult demographic. Castlevania’s home for several years had been Nintendo, but the horror-inspired series was never specifically intended for a younger audience. The greatest perk of putting a Castlevania game on the comparatively wicked Sega Genesis was that the developers could revel in the potential of excess blood and gore unseen in a Castlevania game on a Nintendo console. A bloody mess of human remains is littered all over Dracula’s castle, and the wolf boss at the castle’s grounds convulses and pulsates on the ground after deleting its health bar. Harpies that reign over the skies of Italy can be decapitated by John’s whip, moving about with gore gushing from the open neck holes like a chicken. I’m also pretty sure these same enemies possess discernable but nippleless tits. The graphic content of Bloodlines may seem tame, especially considering it's delineated by pixels, but Bloodlines would most likely be the only Castlevania game to rile up the concerned soccer moms of the western world during this era.
Unfortunately, the amplified shock factor of Bloodlines is the only way that signifies that the series has grown up. I’m starting to realize that the appeal of the Genesis lies only in gimmicks like blast processing and lack of censorship because Bloodlines greatly exposes the console’s inferior foundation compared to the SNES. Several Genesis games (Strider, Gunstar Heroes) pierce my eardrums with a sharp, grating sound design, and Bloodlines is at least more pleasant than the worst the system has to offer. However, the sound design of Bloodlines isn’t nearly as crisp as the SNES’s Super Castlevania IV. The dialogue of Rondo of Blood might sound horribly processed, but at least the sound design during the gameplay was pleasant. The moment in Bloodlines that confirmed its shoddy aural fidelity was during the section in Greece when the player had to destroy structures to make for sturdier platformers. Knocking down the head of a statue results in a depleting sound reminiscent of having stat decreased in an RPG. It was the least appropriate sound for a crashing marble head heavier than an elephant. As for the graphics, the starless skies in the background are so drab and flavorless compared to the level of visual flair seen in the other two 16-bit Castlevania games. The developers had some leeway with blank backgrounds in the NES era due to the primitive nature of the system, and at least the contrasting colors with the foreground were pleasing. What’s Sega’s excuse here besides laziness?
Sega also seems to eschew the quality of life improvements made by the evolution of home consoles because so many games on the Genesis recalled an arcade-like sense of consequence with continuing. Someone at Sega apparently raised a banner over the offices of the developers that said, “save features and unlimited continues are for pussies”, and the publishing of a Castlevania without those aspects makes this all the more evident. Bloodlines makes it so the player can continue from the last checkpoint when they get a game over, but there are only a limited number of game-overs before the player is forced to start the game over again. A password system was implemented for the first time in the series, but these were obsolete by the 16-bit era. Not including a save feature is one thing, but Castlevania offered unlimited continues as early as the first title on the NES. The franchise broke ground as a merciful purveyor of them when its NES contemporaries still forced the player to start from the beginning after too many deaths. Bloodlines are also just as short as the first Castlevania, so I cannot see any perspective to consider praising Sega for deviating from the staples of the series. Sega wanted to screw the player, which is further supported by the dearth of health items and no extra lives earned in Bloodlines. Sega’s initiative simply makes the game unnecessarily harsh on the player.
Every hit of damage and life counts in Bloodlines, which is tested to the limit with the game’s bosses. Bloodlines has more bosses than all three NES Castlevanias combined, which sounds great in theory. However, the pacing of Bloodlines mixed with the decreased facilitation makes every boss encounter a tense experience. For some reason, the developers found it appropriate to include three bosses per level, appearing every other block of the level until the last boss somewhere from the ninth to the twelfth one. None of the bosses are as difficult as many previous Castlevania games, but they still take a few tries to learn their attack patterns. Because Sega has stripped away the chances to learn these attack patterns, constant boss encounters feel like deliberate roadblocks. The Grim Reaper’s floating scythes finally have a learnable trajectory, but the player must fight three of the game’s previous bosses without dying. Hitting one of the cards during the Reaper fight will cause a splurge of roasts enough to end famine in a third-world country to pop out, but I only felt insulted due to the game being miserly with health items up till this point. The relentless endurance test doesn’t end here as the final fight against Elizabeth and Dracula both have multiple phases and must be beaten without dying. Elizabeth has only a few fatal tricks up her multiple sleeves, and fighting Dracula might be the easiest duel with the dark lord, but every mistake counts. I’d rather try to defeat a harder version of Dracula as many times as needed than feel ultimately defeated by relinquishing my number of chances to fight him.
Castlevania: Bloodlines should always be included in the discussion among Super Castlevania IV and Rondo of Blood in the category of 16-bit Castlevania games. After all, this title was the only real competition Nintendo faced with a Castlevania game after sheltering the series with their own hardware for so long. Whether or not Rondo of Blood is superior to Super Castlevania IV is ultimately superfluous because the fight with those two combatants took place so long after it was relevant. Bloodlines was the turncoat title intended to stab Nintendo in the back and drive attention towards Sega. Still, Bloodlines didn’t have the same appeal as Super Castlevania IV did other than a Castlevania game on a non-Nintendo system. Bloodlines regresses so far back to points even cruder than the Castlevania games on the 8-bit NES. Sega didn’t understand that cheap frills like guts and boobs were not substantial enough to mask their austere game design and lack of presentational polish. I’ve even come to appreciate Rondo of Blood more after playing Bloodlines despite criticizing that game for being more rigid than Super Castlevania IV. Castlevania: Bloodlines simply isn’t up to par with the excellent franchise evolution seen in its competing titles. It will always serve its position as the libertarian/green party representative of 16-bit Castlevania games.
No comments:
Post a Comment