#*rinaldo voice* lament... lament... lament....

[angelbinder]

for a twink he seems very sure of himself

[beevean]

Thoughts on Castlevania: Leon's not very nice evening?

The more I played Lament of Innocence, the less I liked it.

Lament of Innocence feels like an odd blend of Classicvanias, Igavanias, and the hack ‘n’ slash games of the time, DMC1 in particular (say hello to fixed cameras).

The plot is interesting, but there are some issues. Leon is set to save his girlfriend Sara from the clutches of the evil vampire Walter, so far so good. Some bosses leave hints at something that has happened in the past, like the Succubus being responsible for the death of Rinaldo's daughter, or Joachim who is a vampire who rebelled to Walter (I suspect that he was meant to be far more important, considering that he's an unlockable character lol)...

The first twist is that Sara was “tainted” (very uncomfortable implications there...), and Leon can’t even kill Walter to save her because his whip is “incomplete”: coincidentially, Sara’s tainted soul would complete it and make it super powerful. Okay, poor Leon who went through this journey for nothing but I really can’t feel bad for Sara lol. This is Iris all over again. At least Sara became the source of power of the infamous Vampire Killer - it would have been cool if we saw her in, for example, Portrait of Ruin when Jonathan fought Richter inside the whip.

Then Walter was used by Death, who is under the control of Mathias, Leon's friend who was only mentioned before. Okay? I don't know him. I don't feel betrayed. I was more curious to hear why Death serves the owner of this Crimson Stone.

Then we discover that Mathias became Dracula because his wife died, and... really? We don’t even hear of this wife before, we don’t see her, and also this is literally what happens in SOTN! At least with Lisa (really, the same name too) we know that she was killed by humans, Elizabeth... died. This is the great motivation of the main antagonist of the series.

I liked Leon in that scene, though. Mathias sought eternal life to spite God; Leon thinks an eternal life without Sara would only be painful, and would rather honor her final wish. He plays a good contrast to the antagonist. I like him and his cute hair :)

So yeah, the plot felt like it missed something, but overall, it was enjoyable. Even the voice acting wasn't bad! Now onto the gameplay.

The castle is essentially made of 5 dungeons, plus the final area. You can access the main dungeons at anytime, and you only need powerups for optional content. This means that there’s no real difficulty progression, but you can also customize your adventure everytime you play (the more correct order would be based on the keys you find, but again, they’re optional). Although, maybe it’s my impression, but some dungeons are definitely harder than others: the Garden Forgotten by Time was a cakewalk, compared to the Dark Palace of Waterfalls that I had tackled previously.

The level design complements the style. The maps are nicely laid out, and it’s easy to orient yourself, even with the repeated assets. There are just a little too many empty, repetead corridors, though. Very rarely the maps take advantage of the 3rd dimension: at best the entrance is up a ledge... at worst you’ll fall down a floor lol. But it works.

So, for now, the game is doing fine. I was having fun! ... then problems started to become bigger and bigger...

The biggest issue for me was that the controls are stiff. Leon doesn’t jump very high or very far, and once he does, his trajectory is locked in - you can only change direction by double jumping. There’s very little platforming here, but what little there is is annoying, not helped by the lack of depth perception that you’d need for these challenges because of the fixed camera. The electric fence puzzle in the House of Sacred Remains, the wall blocks puzzle in the Anti-Soul Mystery Lab, the dark room puzzle in the Ghostly Theatre, they were all very irritating. I gave up on fighting the Frost Elemental because the blind, perspective-less jumps you have to make are just unnecessary, the way you fall down at every mistake reminds me way too much of Catwoman for PS2 for my tolerance, and the idea that if I had died to the boss I would have had had to redo the whole thing again... no. Sorry Whip of Ice, you aren’t worth this. (I could have gotten the Whip of Fire, but by that point I was just done and didn't want to see any platforming ever again :\)

Combat is... repetitive. You have two buttons for attacking, a focused weak attack and a swiping strong attack (it feels like it should be the other way around, but no big deal), and you have to unlock new moves simply by attacking. It works, but at first it feels like busywork. Sometimes you can skip enemies, since the only incentive you have to fight them is money (you don’t level up, you buy or find better equipment)... but since this is a 2003 game, sometimes it likes to lock you in typical “kill all enemies to proceed” scenarios. It’s very arbitrary. It also happens if you revisit old rooms. Some of the moves you unlock are pretty effective, though, I especially like the diving kick that can hit bigger enemies multiple times, and that move that makes enemies fly in the air.

(also, I don’t understand why you can only select items in a secondary menu screen that doesn’t pause the game. What if I needed a break to find my potions?)

What makes it a bit better is something that I discovered by accident :P the orbs aren’t there just to be used as keys, you can equip them, and it changes how the subweapons work! They cost more hearts, obviously, but 7 orbs (5 collected after defeating the main bosses, 1 to be found, 1 as a prize for defeating the gruesome bonus boss) for 5 subweapons equals 35 attacks to experiment with! That is really, really cool :)

The bosses are also enjoyable. Only the Succubus gave me some trouble, but the others were all the perfect difficulty and had nice strategies. The dodge mechanic is fun to exploit but isn't completely broken. The double combo of Walter and Death was intimidating at first (also, hi Death, I'm glad you finally managed to become the final boss!), but I genuinely had fun fighting both of them. Easily the highlight of the game.

But back to the nitpicking... Exploration was another gripe I had. It’s boring, Leon isn’t particularly fast, and there are no warp rooms - the closest thing would be a ticket that sends you to the last save you used and a ticket that sends you to Rinaldo's cabin - it's an efficient combo if you feel like stacking up before a boss fight. Add the issues of forced combat and insufferable “platforming”, and exploring areas for optional content is just demotivating. Speaking of which, the game can be very stingy with save rooms - why isn’t there one near the Succubus arena? Was it really necessary to put it on the floor above? Same with the Frost Elemental, although in that case you can say that it’s optional.

Even the finale was somewhat underwhelming. It goes like this:

go to the second floor

go to the east wing and get the VI tablet

go to the central hallway and reverse the tablet

go to the east wing and put the now IV tablet in place

go to the central hallway to face Walter

While in the meantime, tanky enemies block your way. Not exactly the deepest design. You can choose to visit the even harder west wing for a Health Up and the Unlock Jewel, but it’s optional. (I know that there is a room similar to the dark room in the Ghostly Theatre, and honestly, never again)

Where the games shines is the aesthetic. The game looks good for its time, with plenty of details that enhance the atmosphere. From the holy chapel with stained windows, to the luxurious theater, to the floors covered in water, the game is very pretty and isn't ashamed of thinking so. The PS2 graphics feel nostalgic to me too (I was constantly reminded of Hogwarts), so maybe I'm biased. In particular I like the look of the save rooms, they really feel like small sanctuaries for you to rest. Even the models of the humans are pretty good all things considered, although in the pause menu Leon looks like he hasn’t slept since he was born lol

But the music... boy. Michiru Yamane could finally unleash her whole talent, unrestrained by MIDI sounds, and the absolute job that she did <3

You know what you’re getting into when the entrance theme, usually an upbeat track, is a one woman wail

House of Sacred Remains keeps the tradition of beautiful chapel themes. It’s as peaceful as Requiem for the Gods :)

Statue Enchanted by Darkness has huge Berserk 1997 vibes, what a contrast from the previous track

ah yes, my favorite 11th century style music. rave. Something about it reminds me of Letz Get This Party Started from Sonic Adventure and I don’t know how to feel about that.

Ghostly Theatre is as elegant and somber as the abandoned theatre itself

Dark Palace of Waterfalls is like Michiru Yamane listened to Crystal Waterdrops and realized that she could now work with real instruments. dat organ tho <3

Garden Forgotten by Time is not what I expected from a greenhouse environment, but for some reason it feels the most SOTN track

its companion piece, Fog Enshrouded Nightscape, is just so pretty <3

Dark Night Toccata is almost wasted for such an easy boss

And finally, Lament of Innocence is clearly the masterpiece of the whole OST. When I got to the second floor of the Pagoda and this played, I went like “oh ho ho, now we’re talking!”. Shred that classic piano <3 Michiru said “A piece that shows Leon's grief and anger”, and yes it is. Love how the theme of the protagonist plays near the end of the game, rather than at the beginning like in most games - he got his theme after a great amount of grief. Also, is it me, or is the part at 1:34 reminiscent of Dracula’s theme in Super Castlevania IV? I hope it's intentional because I am in love.

Bonus: the three arrangements from Aria of Sorrow, because they slapped with the GBA soundfont so imagine with actual instruments. The Cross of Fate is how Ruined Castle Corridor was meant to sound, Requiem for the Dark Soul hits much harder than the original Chapel, and Holy Cross Obsessed by the Moon (should be “possessed”, but no matter) lacks Top Floor's catchy piano but makes it up in finality.

So, did I hate the game? No, I may have been negative overall, but I don't think it's that bad. I would say that it's better than Megaman Legends, which truly made me furious for its terrible controls. This one was just... undercooked? I could see the ambition in creating a 3D Castlevania game that would satisfy both fans of the Classics and fans of the Igavanias, but something is missing. I can tell that Igarashi wasn't well versed in designing a 3D game. I'll take it as a relic of the time and an interesting origin story.

[nightslain]

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT MEME repost. do not reblog.

FULL NAME: Leon Belmont

GENDER & SEXUALITY: Cis Male & Demisexual/Panromantic

ETHNICITY & SPECIES: French, Human

BIRTHPLACE & BIRTHDATE: Carnac, Brittany; July 22nd 1072

GUILTY PLEASURES: Poetry. He’s a romantic at heart, even with the kind of life and upbringing he’s had and that much is reflected in this particular thing he reads for leisure.

PHOBIAS: The loss of his loved ones and the powerlessness to prevent it happening; he can be almighty in battle, but he cannot stop death. Watching it eat away at Mathias for an entire year during his sickness as well as his inability to save Sara only worsened that fear in him. After the events of Lament of Innocence, the fear of his children (and later ancestors) growing to resent him for the burden he has placed upon their shoulders is a very prevalent one even if such a legacy is one he knows the world needs. A part of him sometimes fears as well that Sara’s sacrifice will have wound up being in vain.

WHAT THEY WOULD BE INFAMOUS FOR: Obviously, Leon is a very prominent figure of his time, hailed as the greatest warrior of his country and earning the title the Lion of France; his reputation only becomes more notorious after his sudden dismissal of the church and his legendary rivalry with Dracula, as well as being the Belmont to begin the family tradition of vampire hunting, which upon entering Wallachia reaches a height of acclaim all its own.

Though rumours about Leon’s strange gifts, namely the amateur use of alchemy and magic, certainly cause a stir all their own upon making landfall in Romania. Quite sure that France has some varying opinions of him now after his abandonment of the church and the knighthood--a hearty loss for the people, if nothing else.

WHAT HAVE THEY/WOULD THEY HAVE GOTTEN ARRESTED FOR: Leon has always been law abiding and honourable, though we already know the price the Belmonts pay for him beginning the family’s tradition of using magic.

CHARACTER YOU SHIP THEM WITH: Nobody is surprised by my first answer being Mathias lmao. I was admittedly magnetised to the potential between these two almost immediately, which has only deepened with the opportunity to plot and RP with my lovely Mathias @notte-la-lagna. These two are a rich, tangled web of a story to say the least with some of the most soul-crushing elements of tragedy I’ve ever played out in a ship before. They are a joy as much as they are the death of me.

And of course, his love for Sara is undeniable as well as being equally as heartbreaking, even if the games didn’t give us a whole lot of story to work with there and I have not explored their relationship much outside my own headcanons. There is a very sad poetry to her becoming Leon’s guardian angel in the form of the Vampire Killer, and Leon’s selflessness in the pursuit of her rescue is nothing short of touching.

CHARACTER MOST LIKELY TO MURDER THEM: I’m pretty sure there’s only really Joachim or Walter that would have taken immense pleasure in killing him, even if they failed in that endeavour. Given that Mathias went into hiding after his betrayal of Leon, I can’t say with much confidence even from a canon perspective that he would have been in a hurry to kill his old friend.

FAVOURITE BOOK GENRE: Poetry, Historical Documents, Mythology and General Fiction

LEAST FAVOURITE BOOK CLICHÉ: Heroes that have everything fall into their lap, or artificially slanted in their favour from the start, despite the author’s attempt to make it seem they are challenged by the plot.

TALENTS OR POWERS: As a soldier, he is obviously possessed of some pretty impressive swordsmanship and knowledge of most actual weapons and their uses; his physical prowess by itself in general is unmatched among his peers. And though he is quite novice to the practice, he has grasped the ability to use magic since his gauntlet was enchanted by Rinaldo and has begun practising the applications of alchemy which also grant him additional advantages in battle. 

WHY SOMEONE MIGHT LOVE THEM: He is a genuine, kind, compassionate man. There are no lengths he won’t go to for the people in his life, evidenced in how quickly he was willing to throw away his wealth, fame and his life as he knew it to save his fiance--plus how quickly he musters sympathy and attachment for Rinaldo throughout the course of the game. Leon is a man with a heart of gold to say the least, and I feel like his Netflix cameo (brief as it was) has aided in giving his position as the Patriarch of the Belmont clan a certain sense of gravity and real weight that it otherwise lacked in the game. He has a certain noble and, as I’ve heard some people say, an almost angelic quality, despite being merely a flawed and hard done-by human. If not a tenacious and acclaimed one. The drama of his backstory with Mathias also makes for a fantastically interesting concept for the origins of his family and their war against Dracula. He’s really just quite an attractive concept in some ways!

I do think those of us that care about Leon in this fandom sympathise deeply with just how much he’s suffered, too. But there’s also some inspiration to be taken in the fact that Leon does not let his losses make his heart cold. For all that he has lost and all the hurt that he has felt, he didn’t let it consume him in the way Mathias did, choosing to uphold his humanity and his belief in the inherent goodness of it. In my circle, at least, we love him as a symbol of light, hope, and rising above our sufferings. 

WHY SOMEONE MIGHT HATE THEM: Because the game is a fucking joke and makes Leon look like a complete and utter moron for its entirety, save a few sparse glimpses of promise. Leon seems to be a contentious character in the fandom for multiple reasons, though I’m willing to bet the game’s God-awful presentation of his person is what put the nail in the coffin for a lot of people at least at first. Drab voice acting, awkward dialogue, laughably foolish characters, this game really is a piece of work. And that’s sad, since it has such amazing potential if only given a bit more polish. But alas, the game is not greater than the sum of its parts. I really don’t think the game did any of its characters justice in any regard, nor its story. Leon was not the kind of character I had built him up to be in my head upon being introduced to him and reading about him, to say the least.

But I suppose even in a perfect world where Leon had an updated personality and well fleshed out story in the Netflix show (pls), then people I believe would take issue with his naivety? I do think there is always going to be a certain element of it to his character after all--his innocent nature being the entire namesake of his game--and that leads him to some very misguided doings, beliefs and consequences. He is not stupid, but he is guileless in many ways.

HOW THEY CHANGE: His change is perhaps not as dramatic as some, but is quite gargantuan no less. He changes from an esteemed, naive puppet of the church to a scorned but resolute saviour of mankind; a protector of a different stamp, for sure, but a protector nonetheless. One that is wiser but not less kind. He sheds much of his old naivety after Mathias’ betrayal, and he shapes himself into the kind of father he knows his children need in order to perpetuate his teachings and see that it lasts well after he is dead and gone. Though there is always a certain tenderness Leon holds to his heart, he is quite a different man come the time to raise his own children--living up much more to a sort of sagely, wiseman figure than the guileless youth he was at the beginning of his journey where he was the one in need of guidance. 

WHY YOU LOVE THEM: Because he represents so much in the grand scheme of things in Castlevania’s story, for one thing. And because his character is, when divorced from the laughable absurdity of the game, so very charming. He is a fount of potential that was never lived up to as well as it could have been, which is always an irresistible challenge for me as one that loves to explore and fill in the blanks with characters that aren’t well loved by their own source material! At face value, Leon is a very interesting figure in the story, and of course, you can’t have him without Mathias--those two together with their heartbreaking backstory makes for a positively tantalising concoction that has me weak.

Tagged by: @putrefactie lmao ilu ⭐💖 Tagging: @lus-a-chalmain @dominatie @cruciavit-pias @empyream @blanchette

[doshmanziari]

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness ~ It’s Just Like Symphony of the Night, Except Not At All! [Part III]

Nothing guided my anticipation for Curse of Darkness’ release as much as the promise of a soundtrack by Michiru Yamane. And, I have to say, back then, it really delivered. I even ordered a physical copy of the OST alongside one for Lament of Innocence. It’s difficult to remember precise moments from that first playthrough -- it was eleven years ago -- but I do recall hearing Yamane’s theme for the Garibaldi Temple, a hollowed-out baroque-gothic complex flooded with rainbow moonbeams, and feeling a rush of physically compelling excitement when the piece rolled into those recognizably baroque cyclic passages of fifths. Years later, I understand that the excitement derived from that very recognizability; as if, in its formal evocation of centuries-old pieces, Yamane’s track demonstrated a power of legitimacy within a format, that of videogame music, so often seen as illegitimate.

Today, it’s honestly difficult for me to get enthusiastic about more than a handful of tracks from this truly gargantuan score -- fifty-six tracks in total. Yes, some of the pieces are short incidental ones written for cutscenes, but even so this was a significant undertaking. Consider also that Curse of Darkness was released the same year as two other games’ with scores composed by Yamane: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (co-composed with Masahiko Kimura) and Over Zenith, or OZ (whose OST is nearly as large as Curse’s). The pressure to produce on merely the quantitative level must have been crushing. This is perhaps what led to a less experimental score, relative to the previous CD-based Castlevania game Yamane scored, Lament of Innocence, although it is just as possible that Lament’s musical inventiveness was a part of that general uncertainty about what making a jump from 2D to 3D meant after the critically-cooling N64 Castlevania titles (in fact, several of the tracks on the second disc for Lament’s OST seem to be unused pieces for an earlier build). The newness of that transition, led by KCET rather than KCEK, produced a variety of particular exciting results, even if the overall game was lacking.

Actually, I believe what we hear in Curse of Darkness’ score is, in addition to an aesthetic conservativeness (relative, again, to Lament of Innocence), a Yamane-led standardization of musical tropes for the series. Instead of a strange ambient piece with absolutely no melody and sparse vox samples for the file selection menu, we’re given a classical keyboard/chorus piece; thereafter, take note of the menu themes for Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia. You could also compare the standard combat themes for Lament and Curse: whereas the former’s themes read as curious jazz-orchestral hybrids, the latter’s are a sort of orchestral rock which seem like a deliberate attempt to recall the only combat theme from Symphony of the Night most people seem to remember (as the constant, incorrect characterization of that soundtrack as “symphonic rock” attests to), much like how Curse’s overall design -- its interconnectedness, wider array of weaponry, familiars, leveling-up, etc. -- strives for associations with Symphony.

As a place, the Garibaldi Temple is an elaboration on Lament of Innocence’s House of Sacred Remains -- above all else, the ornamental density has flowered to an inescapable amount -- but the possible impact of this plentifulness can never be realized, constrained as it is by the utterly stock level design. Yamane’s track is quite a bit better than the setting it’s been matched to, yet there’s a not-overreaching parallel between the two. Rather than housing the clear-voiced melodic figures of “Wood Carving Partita”, or dividing itself into distinct portions like “House of Sacred Remains”, “Garibaldi Temple” opts for cloudy pomp, where no one part stands out from the other (despite the frequent doubling of melodic leads) and every constituent is swimming among a sunken arena of strings, choirs, and harpsichords. Again, like the area’s visual bombast, this could be a persuasive virtue if the track had setpieces besides endless, modulating zig-zags of just the most standard baroque passages.

If we’re to continue on this path of associations, I’d observe that as the game’s settings progressively lose their veneer so too does the soundtrack turn disjointed and assume a wearied blandness. “The Forest of Jigramunt” has a promisingly unusual opening that is in no time undermined by a main body best described as plodding (and then there is its environmental partner, “The Cave of Jigramunt”, an unbearably elongated and meager reformulation of Symphony’s “Rainbow Cemetery”). This plodding quality returns for tracks like “Cordova Town” -- melodic quotations from earlier Castlevania soundtracks rise up as if on awkwardly isolated pedestals and then just leave -- and “Aiolon Ruins”, whose lopsided melodic writing, enlivened elsewhere by the waltz rhythm of Aria of Sorrow’s “Dance Hall”, accrues dust in quadruple time and is paired with the arbitrary, one-time resurgence of a theme used throughout Lament of Innocence. No tracks, however, disinterest or irritate on the level of an offense like “Infinite Corridor” and “Dracula’s Castle”: each hypothetically functional as brief novel sounds for brief novel places; each in reality a maddening fit for two of the worst designed and hugest places from the game.

Trying to balance out this spate of negativity with enthusiasm would feel artificial. Even the best tracks here don’t really sit among Yamane’s high points. Why outright ignore them, though? “Mortvia Aqueduct”, thanks to its rhythmic brevity, bouncy bassline, and infectious melodies, is perhaps the most exciting environmental theme. “Abandoned Castle” and “Baljhet Mountains”, for being rather long pieces, have a coherent sense of an arc to their durations -- something that cannot be said for, say, “Mortvia Fountain.” Boss themes tend to be Yamane’s weak spot, especially when they’re in an orchestral mold, but the half-silly/half-serious “The Visitor in the Silk Hat” and vigorous, highly likable “A Toccata into Blood-Soaked Darkness” -- slightly marred by plain percussion and the strange lack of any identifiable lead instruments after the long intro -- make lasting impressions. Of course, there’s also “True to Your Dreams”, the melodramatic credits theme employing tenor Russell Watson’s voice for operatic effect. For an anomalous lyrical finisher, it is much better than “I am the Wind”, having a formal precedent in the rest of the soundtrack (and, as someone inclined to stand up for maligned lite-jazz, I can say that “I am the Wind” is some flimsy shit, as depressing as a meal of icicles and saltines).

All things about Curse of Darkness’ soundtrack considered, what makes me saddest about its role as a musical standardizer -- qualitative judgments aside -- is that it was the Japanese-helmed series’ death knell for environmental themes with minimal or no percussion. To personally consider Lament of Innocence’s music is to recognize the subdominant trend of relative quietness, and the in-game friction of that artistic decision: the player character’s combative motions swathed in a type of faintness. “Prologue to the Black Abyss”, “Rinaldo’s Cabin”, “Fog-Enshrouded Nightscape”, “Dark Palace of Waterfalls”, “Ghostly Theater”, “Nightmare Aria” -- all of these, in their restraint, seem like calls to notice one’s environment, to linger and admire; in the space their instrumentation allows, suggestions of the castle’s own space, seen and unseen: enormous, venerable, and echoing.