A Night with Symphony

Having played almost all post-Symphony of the Night Castlevanias, i was still pleasantly surprised when playing symphony for the first time at how familiar it seems and yet, altogether different than the rest of the games that followed. Perhaps that's the true testament of an all-time classic, it's so well ahead of its time that it still possess the ability to surprised and amazed even to jaded fans of the series such as myself.

I'm amazed at how much innovations Symphony has introduced and yet, somehow all the games that followed in the series failed to adopt it. The ability to transform to both a wolf and a bat, though isn't much of any use in the puzzles or the boss battle is still a welcome addition to the series. The ability to equip different weapon in both arms, clothes and equipment that appear on-screen when equipped, it's easy to see why Symphony of the Night is such a beloved entry in the series. Perhaps it's not fair to compare Symphony with the Castlevania GBA and DS games that followed, after all Symphony was a console game and i have always maintained that console and handheld game are very different, especially in the nature of the time and resources invested by the developers onto the project.

I'm hard-pressed to decide which one i liked better between Symphony and Rondo of Blood, being an action junkie Rondo of Blood felt like the Die Hard of the series with it's endless boss battles and straight-forward action approach while Symphony was amazingly innovative.

Gun-shy

Gun Survivor 2: Code Veronica is to Resident Evil what Rondo of Blood is to Castlevania, it's the holy grail of the series. Feverishly cherished by the fans, these games actually attracted more attention from their exclusivity status rather than how good these games are, having being denied of a release in the Western market. Though unlike Rondo of Blood, Gun Survivor 2 just happens to be pretty rare but not really any good.

Perhaps it's easier to go back to the beginning to explain how Gun Survivor2 ended up not being released in the US. Back when Capcom decided it would be a good idea to create a lightgun spin-off to their Resident Evil franchise, they decided to develop the game exclusively for the home console platform rather than putting it out on the arcades. The first gun survivor was released on the Playstation platform but due to the severe gun violence in America, the US version had it's lightgun support questionably dropped and even the title was shortened to the rather harmless, Resident Evil Survivor. With its clunky controls and rather unpleasant graphics, Resident Evil Survivor suffered poor reviews and sales though it still managed to attract some interest among fans of the series.

When it came to Gun Survivor2, Capcom have enough sense to partner with lightgun veterans Namco and jointly developed the game on the arcade platform. Borrowing elements and plotline from the recent Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Gun Survivor2 had next-generation graphics and a story that would interest any Resident Evil fans. However due to the poor sales in Japan and the restriction of lightgun use, the idea to release this game on home consoles in the US was completely dropped though it did wound up with a low-key PAL release. Unfortunately, Gun Survivor 2 also suffered from poor reviews but i happened to have a soft spot for this game as Code Veronica was one of the favourite games in the series. Looking back, Gun Survivor serves as a nice compliment to Resident Evil: Code Veronica similarly to how Umbrella Chronicles summarises the early Resident Evil games. It's a nice game to relive the moments of your favourite game, just too expect to learn everything from playing these games...

Code-breaker

Even with the two current handhelds, i have rarely played a handheld game devotely for some time now. Not even with the latest God of War PSP game, but Circle of the Moon recently had me playing religously all the way till the end, despite being a japanese import and i had to refer to an english script translation just to keep track of the storyline. It actually wasn't the storyline that kept me engrossed but the tight gameplay and finely-knitted level design that made things interesting enough to keep me hooked. I finished the game after having clocked 9 plus hours into it and the games' storyline and ending seems like a remiscent to one of the very first Castlevanina games i played, Belmont's Revenge on the Gameboy. Seeing that Konami decided to skip the Gameboy Color during that time by not releasing any Castlevania games on that platform, Circle of the Moon is a memorable return and an early sign of the great success that Konami would soon enjoy on the platform with its Castlevania series.

However if only the game didn't run into some slowdown issues whenever the action is too intense, it would have been worthy of the high praise and score that Gamespot bestowed upon it. Some fanboys call it "bad-coding", the fact that Circle of the Moon was one of the early games in the Gameboy Advance library certainly points towards that. Save for perhaps the last boss fight with the transformed Dracula, the game wasn't too overly difficult to the point where it was impossible. In fact, having just come off playing Rondo of Blood must have helped a lot, as i had a greater endurance to withstand and replay again and again some of the more difficult the boss battles. In the end, i manage to unlock the magician by inputting the password FIREBALL as the player's name which i have yet to try out.

Devil At Work

Castlevania fans are pretty divided when it comes to their opinion on koji igarashi, the man currently at the helm of all things castlevania. Some think he is the best thing to happened to Castlevania, since he was responsible for the most popular Castlevania game Symphony of the the Night while others just think he's the devil at work. For myself, i don't have much of an opinion on igarashi-san since i was a castlevania fan before the Symphony of the Night-era where the baton was officially handed to igarashi and he became responsible for the direction of the series and every Castlevania game to be released. From what i can tell, the guy seems to have a real passion for Castlevania and is trying his level best to keep Castlevania relevant and successful, what with the series having been around for 20 years now. Sometimes it's nice that the people responsible are as much of a fan as everyone else but we all know that passion can't be accounted for talent. His Castlevania are often criticised for having bad level design and poor attempt at storytelling though to his credit, i must say writing a good dracula story is never easy, just look at Van Helsing. Perhaps for those very same reasons Circle of the Moon, one of the few Castlevania games released after Symphony which did not feature iragashi was so highly regarded.

One of the last few Castlevania game to come out of Konami Kobe, the studio responsible for the Castleavania installments on the NES, Circle of the Moon was released as a launch game for the first Gameboy Advance in US, it's initial success was slightly marred by the fact that it was designed to be played with a backlight, something the original Gameboy Advance lacked. It was and still is the highest rated GBA game on Gamespot and has gone down as one of favourite of the series. Well playing for the first time, i must say it is harder than most recent Castlevania with the exception of Rondo of Blood, which was actually a remake of an old Castlevania game. Apart from that, it's quite hard to tell it apart from the other Castlevania games by Igarashi but isn't that the beauty of Castlevania? It never strays too far from it's winning formula and after two attempts to make the transition to 3D, i'm not sure if i would like see a third. However i get the feeling that people have under-estimated igarashi talents and that he will be recognised for his other contribution to Castlevania apart from Symphony. Of course, we are still waiting for this to happen.....

Circle of Life

Ever checked out Gamespot's highest rated games of all time? If you scroll to the all-time list for Gameboy Advance you will notice the highest score they ever awarded to a game on the GBA is actually a third-party game, in fact it's a launch game! It's none other than Konami's Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, the first of three Castlevania games to be eventually released on the GBA. Now either Jeff Gerstmann has been deprived too long of his vampire-staking fix or was feeling generous on launch day, i never really found out as Circle of the Moon was the only Castlevania title from the GBA that i have yet to play. In fact, once i got my Nintendo DS, it was one of the first title i sought to hunt down but during that time, most of the Castlevania GBA titles were already long out-of-print. I ended playing both Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow first when Konami re-printed both games as a Castlevania Double Pack. Yesterday when i happened to stumble onto Circle of the Moon lying in the bargain bins of a video game store. Though it was the Japanese edition, it was too good of an opportunity for me to pass up, especially after coming off the rather import-friendly Dracula X Chronicles.

Coming at a not-so bargain bin price, the cart and box looks to be in pretty decent condition save perhaps for a slight tear on the cover from the old original price tag.Though i was like to point out that i'm very impressed with the cover art for the Japanese edition, it's easily the best non-Ayame Kojima Castlevania cover art I have seen in a long time. Can't wait to get cracking on this game, as soon as i achieved 100% completion on Rondo of Blood....