The New Classics #14: Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles

 

The Backstory: Do I need to present Castlevania? Of course I don’t. What I need to mention, on the other hand, is that CDXC is my very first foray into that mythical series. It seems that all the legendary Platformers of the ‘80s and ‘90s passed me by for some unfathomable reason — said reason not being my enduring dislike of Platformers, given that there was little else to play at the time. But I digress; will CDXC mark the beginning of a new burning love story, or will it join the graveyard of Platformers that failed to click with me? 

 

 

The Game: Although I had yet to touch some Castlevania before booting up CDXC, the series was not completely unknown to me. I’ve watched a number of playthroughs of different entries on Youtube over the years; and so, I kinda knew what to expect in terms of atmosphere and gameplay.

 

Let’s start with the former, shall we? I’ll be honest: I totally dislike the whole vampire-meets-goth shebang. I thus knew that if I ended up loving Castlevania, it would be despite the vampire theme and not because of it. And well, there was no miracle: I indeed disliked what I saw. What I expected to like, on the other hand, was the soundtrack; not only is the series immensely famous for its music, but I really liked it when I watched Castlevania videos on Youtube. However, once I played the game, I found out that the soundtrack grated on my ears, and even prevented me from focusing efficiently at times.

 

And mind you, I needed all the focus I could muster to make it through the game. Although CDXC is not nearly as tough-as-nails as I feared, it remains difficult enough to give me trouble. It’s just as stiff as I expected from watching gameplay videos; and while cracking the whip is really darn fun, there are just way too many booby traps and foes all over the place for my taste. Said foes move constantly, and they move fast; getting rid of them requires precise timing, which in turn requires good motor skills — which I totally don’t have, as we all know.

 

Boss battles, on the other hand, are nearly too easy. I fought a dragon with uber-predictable attack patterns, which moved so indolently that I nearly fell asleep on my PSP. All the thrill you normally expect from a boss battle was totally absent; I swear I struggled more with the knight throwing axes in level 2 than with that dragon boss. 

 

 

The Verdict: CDXC is a perfectly decent game with a reasonable difficulty level, a game I could see myself finish given how I managed to progress… But alas, I have no interest whatsoever in progressing more, let alone in actually finishing that game. I can understand the series’ appeal, but I cannot feel it in my thumbs and my gamer’s soul.