Fangs for the Memories

I have been spending a lot of time and money on Castlevania of late, picking up the Limited Edition Lords of Shadow and then the Santa Lilio artbook shortly after. The sheer volume of Ayami Kojima artwork in the compilation is simply overwhelming I'm not sure if all her Castlevania works are there as I have yet to finished going through.

Could this sudden surge of interest in Castlevania stems from the 25th anniversary of the series looming this year? It felt like only a while back when the 20th anniversary package was given with pre-orders of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin but I guess the years have a way of creeping up on you. I remember gleefully going through the package as every game in the series is nicely chronicled in an art collection booklet and a series timeline foldout pinup. Aside from Mercury Steam's DLC expansion episodes to Lords of Shadow, very little is known of what Konami has in store for fans this year. Hopefully this 25th anniversary of the series will not go by unnoticed.

Anniversary Reflections

Capcom has been guilty of their fair share of cheap port and quick remakes but Deadly Silence should not be counted as one of them. Released to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Resident Evil, Deadly Silence looks and plays like the original except now you are playing the whole thing in the palm of your hands.

The pre-rendered background could be copied over directly from the original but the 3D character and object polygons could not so Capcom had to re-draw everything from scratch. A rebirth mode was added where many of the newer RE moves were implement to the original included the all-important quick turn, knife attack and quick reload. All of these moves could now be performed without going to the item menu just like in Resident Evil 4 and 5. Some of the pre-rendered background were redrawn to accommodate the new costume and puzzles in addition to a handful of new camera views of "background" for the knifing mode.

I wasn't impressed with Deadly Silence back during the tenth anniversary but now I'm beginning to see the effort the team put into the port. It made have been all fans got ob the tenth anniversary but right now it seems a lot better than what we are getting for the 15th anniversary this year.