I thought long and hard about this, because as a freelance writer, that’s what I get paid to do. What good would I be if I couldn’t scoot my chair over to a window overlooking the marvelous vista of Hoboken and ponder important matters like “I wonder how I should go about blogging my Castlevania experience?”
Let’s get an executive order out of the way first. This shit’s going down in roman numerals. That’s the first thing I’m changing right off the “bat” (get it?). If you can’t read ’em, this is part 2. I’m also going long with this, because I don’t have anything else to write about on the JLR at the moment, so bear with me.
The original Castlevania has been a TV game thorn in my side since my youth. It became one of many classics that I wrote off as something I would just never finish. It wasn’t meant for me to complete; it was crafted for greater savages. The issue I always held with this, however, is that I love the series. Even in the face of great difficulty, it’s like something that was created specifically for my tastes. Dracula! Mummies! A freakin’ Frankenstein (or “The Monster” for you purist nerds)! Fleamen!
But no matter how hard I went at it, there was always a little roadblock by the name of Death. As in all ‘Vanias, he awaits the player in his chamber, where he proceeds to rain the terror of a dozen flying scythes upon their heroic person. By the time you get to him in stage 5, a mere four or so hits spells death for Simon Belmont (or Belmondo, if you like). This is maddening, and usually results in Simon bouncing around the room like a rag doll before collapsing in a pile of shame and embarrassment.
Previous attempts over the years had me doing just that, if I even made it there at all. However, somehow I had never been privy to knowledge of the “Holy Water trick.” Once I saw the above .gif, I knew I might actually have a chance of making it past Death, if not Dracula himself.
The next entry in this voluminous yarn will explore just how this opened the gates for conquering Dracula’s gnarly castle. For now, I leave you with a track from the game, something I’ll be doing with each post from here on out. This is probably my favorite song from Castlevania, and I think it took that title because I had to play stage 5 so many times that it burned itself into my mind like a searing brand against a horse’s ass.
Listen: Heart of Fire
subhumanzoids 