Episode 185 - Roast Beef, Some Chicken, A Pizza - Castlevania 64

This is not the anger of a vampire killer. This is the podcast of
all humanity! Welcome back to Fanbruary! Today, we’re going to be
talking about Castlevania 64, an oft maligned entry in the
Castlevania series and the first to be in 3D. In classic
Castlevania fashion, your goal is to infiltrate a castle and kill
Dracula to restore peace to the world, so it doesn’t have a ton of
innovation in that respect, but porting that formula to 3D means
reworking the design of the platforming and combat, which it does
surprisingly well…at times. Being on the N64, this game definitely
has some amount of jank, but outside of some specifically
problematic areas and letting the sometimes uncooperative camera
slide, it feels better than you might imagine. Combat is very
punchy, at least playing as Reinhardt, with his whip feeling
satisfying to use and enemy effects like parts of skeletons falling
off or heavy flinch animations giving meaningful feedback. The
platforming is more hit and miss, but it’s serviceable enough that
much of the early and midgame challenges feel fair and fun to get
through. It hits some weird difficulty levels at points where the
systems just aren’t prepared to keep up with the design, and it
seems like a symptom of early 3D growing pains mixed with a team
unsure how to work within the new limitations. Throw in the fact
that the game hits that Castlevania cheesiness in its atmosphere
and writing and the resulting game is much better than you may have
been led to believe, which is to say, worth checking out, even if
it isn’t the most exemplary entry in the series. We’re going to be
talking about the importance of a game’s first level, the
differences between playing this at the time and in the present,
and we wonder if this game’s protagonist might also be a form of
transportation. Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve
still got more Fanbruary coming up even though it’s technically
March now, so stay tuned. This was significantly more competent
than we expected given its reputation, and overall had a pretty
good time with it. Are you a big fan of the series and have
opinions on this entry? Did you play this (or it’s weird expanded
version) on the N64 or is this the first you’ve really considered
it? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time,
we’re going to be talking about Shenmue, so we hope you’ll join us
for that.