Occasionally, there are days where I just wake up and the first words that come out of my mouth as I stare at the ceiling are “god dammit”.
What I look like when I can’t fall asleep due to the memories
involved with beating the Water Temple from Ocarina of Time
The good news my friends: today is not one of those days. In a rare moment of committing to what we in the industry like to refer to as “a good fucking idea”, Konami stealth released the Castlevania: Dominus collection on August 27th, without any fanfare leading up to the titles launch day whatsoever. While this move has backfired in spectacular fashion in the gaming world in the past (See: The Sega Saturn launch), this circumstances surrounding the surprise release was met with nothing short of jubilation from both the gaming public and press alike, as we have been collectively waiting for the re-release of the DS trilogy of games for a long time.
The face of Castlevania fans the world
over when they heard the DS titles were
finally getting re-released
The reason Konami may have waited so long to let loose this collection of classic games is anyone’s guess, but I have a sneaking suspicion if you correlated the data of Konami’s success in the pachinko machine arena vs video game release schedule, you would see a not too surprising financial story of weary and woe, as Konami mostly gave up the ghost of having any value as a game company a long time ago. With the quality of the Dominus collection standing as the last time the Castlevania series was topical and relevant, see: 16 years ago, Castlevania may have represented the canary in the coalmine that not all was well in the land of Konami, as even outstanding titles like Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia weren’t even considered good enough to prevent the series from falling out of relevancy.
It would be like if the LOTR series fell into obscurity after the
movies released
I am only very slightly exaggerating in reference to the slow decline of the Konami gaming empire (in the West, at least) with that short synopsis, as the mix of their successful foray into the world of pachinko machines, combined with their complete lack of commitment in retaining talent circa 2010, while failing to maintain their big name gaming series is the stuff of nightmarish legend at this point. I will apologize after the fact at the complete lack of citation involving the history behind the collapse, as I don’t have much time right now so can’t be arsed to cobble together a hyperlinked timeline for you. One of the only reasons we likely even got the Dominus collection in our greasy little gaming hands was probably due in part to Nintendo and Netflix doing all of the heavy lifting and reminding people that Castlevania is still really fucking cool.
A Konami exec’s face while watching the Castlevania
anime on Netflix and thinking it would be an ideal
property to adapt to a video game series
I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Castlevania’s former series creative lead Koji Igarashi’s massive success with his kickstarted game Bloodstained, amongst the cornicopia of titles populating the metroidvania genre he helped to spawn, also helped to keep alive the spirit of the series he had to abandon, but I digress. This write up wasn’t suppose to be pissing on the memory of the failed and the fallen, but the first of a multipart retrospective involving the games in the Dominus collection. I chose to arbitrarily start with Portrait of Ruin, mostly due to the fact that I’ve played Dawn of Sorrow the most, and Order of Ecclesia is quite similar to what Bloodstained ended up being, so I feel as if I’ve spent the most time away from Portrait of Ruin, so let’s shoot the shit a little about what Portrait of Ruin has to offer.
Picture: slightly related
One of the more bizarre moments of interest with Portrait of Ruin was that based on how it was received overall upon release vs the other two DS titles that launched on the system, was that Portrait was more or less considered the lesser of the three. Don’t get me wrong, the game reviewed well and was placed on lists of acclaim left and right after launch, I think it’s more a telling dictation of just how strong the pedigree was for the DS titles across the board, with Dawn of Sorrow and Order of Ecclesia only making Portrait of Ruin pale in comparison to the level of quality they were bringing to the table.
Is Portrait of Ruin the Temple of Doom of the
Dominus Collection?
Building off of that point, I think that when you look at Dawn of Sorrow, the only detractions from people you ever really hear about the sequel are 1: the touch controls, and 2: the art direction. I think most people agree that while the DS certainly had it’s moments of innovation with utilizing the systems touch screens in a lot of amazing ways, the stuff they did with Dawn of Sorrow was needlessly tacked on bullshit to fill some ridiculous quota of showing off the systems capabilities. Whenever you change formula drastically enough to fundamentally upset the status quo enough that gamers start to turn against you as a result, you know yah dun goofed, which is essentially what happened with the touch screen based seal mechanic in Dawn of Sorrow.
They really sealed their fates with this
goofy gimmicky inclusion
The only other point of division for gamers with Dawn would be the people who lamented the lack of art done by infamous Castlevania illumni Ayami Kojima, who had helped to create some stellar art work for the series going all the way back to Symphony of the Night.
Dat Alucard, tho…
And as someone who pisses all over the idea of how derivative and bottom of the barrel crutching on basic anime stylization for one’s aesthetic can end up being, IGA’s decision to go that route to attract a younger demographic for the series based on the DS’ average age demographic was on point, as was thusly cemented way down the road after the fact.
Pictured: Trevor Belmont grumpy he looks so fashionable
within an anime format
I guess to summarize my last few thoughts in a more succinct manner; with even the small points of contention involved with Dawn of Sorrow as a follow up to Aria, involves the game still being a follow up to Aria, which was just so damn good, it didn’t matter if the title took the low road with anime aesthetic or some clunky touch screen gimmicks: Aria was essentially nearly flawless as a spiritual follow up to Symphony of the Night, and likely the Castlevania game people had been waiting on impatiently for six years to finally get to play. No offense to the earlier GBA titles, and my condolences to the N64 “games” (it was really like one game and then a re-release with extra content), but Dawn of Sorrow was the sequel to the phantom that had haunted the series since gamers had finally and excitedly worked their way through the inverted castle.
For people who don’t know, the inverted castle was infamous
in that in order to beat it, you had to turn your tv upside down
in order to play it correctly (holds back laughter)
Which is why I ultimately think Portrait of Ruin wasn’t seen as the next grand ascension for the series, as gamers had already been recently treated to a double helping of what were arguably near ideal follow ups to Symphony in the form of the Sorrow duology. Not surprisingly, Ecclesia would go to course correct following Portrait, again, not because the title was considered bad by any metric, but because IGA and his team realized the way forward with the series after having been inspired by their own ideas in incorporating the portraits the way they did, to create a feeling of a more robust, expansive world Castlevania largely hadn’t seen up to that point, with the series usually being lock step with the equivalent of a bottle episode setting in video game format.
Hell of a piece of real estate
Whew, fun run down on some aspects involving my retrospective on the DS titles thus far, even though I ironically failed to discuss Portrait of Ruin at any great length. Something to look forward to for part two, I suppose. Stay tuned.
~Pashford
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