Castlevania: The Anniversary

The Castlevania franchise celebrates its
25th Anniversary today. The first game in the franchise released in Japan for
the Famicom Disc System on September 26th, 1986, a long, long time ago (but in
this galaxy). One of the most interesting points to bring up when discussing
the franchise’s history is the change in pace it received after eleven years of
existence.  Its later 2D titles resembled
Metroid‘s in terms of their
non-linear design and character building, which helped coin the term
“Metroidvania.” Speaking of Metroid, it also celebrated a 25th Anniversary this
year. Also like Metroid, its anniversary went been sadly unacknowledged by its
publisher.

 

Oh sure,
it’s possible Konami’s American offices could announce something later to
celebrate its anniversary (it’s already too late for Japan), but it’s quite
unlikely. No, releasing Harmony of
Despair on Playstation Network tomorrow doesn’t count.

 

Despite
being one of the biggest fans of the franchise on this blog, my personal
history with Castlevania is actually pretty brief. When I was younger, it was
always one of those franchises I wanted to dabble in, but didn’t for some odd
reason. The first game to really pique my interest was Symphony
of the Night, after hearing about how good it was from some friends in
high school. Unfortunately, that was well after its fall 1997 release, and the
game was well out-of-print despite being part of Sony’s Greatest Hits program. The
PS2 didn’t receive any similar games quickly enough for my tastes, so I made my
first official start with Harmony
of Dissonance on GBA.

 

That was not
a good game to start with. It left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, and I ignored
the release of Aria
of Sorrow because of it (which released a paltry eight months after
HoD). The Castlevania team’s first 3D outing, Lament
of Innocence didn’t leave a good impression either. After hearing how
good Aria was and dabbling with the rom (despite the admitted immorality in
doing such a thing), I managed to find a copy of it at Gamestop despite being
well out-of-print — this was a trend with many of the best Castlevania games.
Aria was the game that immediately made me a fan of Castlevania, and it decided
to check out all of the other games.

 

The well OOP
SotN was finally rereleased on Xbox Live Arcade, PSN (via PSOne Classics), and
though a relocalized version on PSP through Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles in 2007 for the game’s tenth
anniversary. The Metroidvania line of games continued on DS through Dawn
of Sorrow, Portrait
of Run, and Order
of Ecclesia. They were all perfectly enjoyable games, but after OoE’s
release most fans had tired of those entries. Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth on WiiWare did OK critically and
commercially, but Konami had plans to reboot the entire franchise.

 

A lot of
gamers tend to forget that Koji “IGA” Igarashi and his team actually had plans
to make a sequel to SotN, as evinced by a CG teaser video featuring
Alucard presented at Tokyo Game Show 2008. It hasn’t been heard from since,
so it’s highly likely that Konami scrapped it in favor of the
MercurySteam-developed canon reboot Lords
of Shadow. LoS did OK at retail worldwide, and has received mixed
impressions from fans. IGA himself hasn’t been heard from since last year’s
release of Harmony of Despair, so who knows what his position at Konami is
these days; or if he’s even still here. Some of us would have still liked to
have seen his 3D SotN sequel, despite the teams’ first two forays into 3D being
staggeringly average.

 

In
considering what lies ahead for the franchise, you have to ask one of two
questions: “What lies in the future of Castlevania?” or “Does Castlevania have
a future?” Plenty of fans of LoS are hoping Konami will green light the
development of a sequel, but that depends on whether its “OK” sales are enough
for that. And as much as I still like the 2D games developed by IGA’s team, it
doesn’t seem likely that we’ll see another one anytime soon; or ever. These are
indeed dark times for the franchise.