Does this mean Ganondorf is Link’s father? Or perhaps Link and Zelda are siblings?

(Thanks to Delta Attack reader Geoff Daddy.)

The original Castlevania on the NES: 6 stages, 5 subweapons, 11 music tracks, and one slayer of non-glittery vampires that laid the gothic groundwork for a series that has been resurrected into almost 40 incarnations — so far. The roots of all entries in this iconic series can be traced back to this one action-laden creep-fest, and for that we owe it a debt of homage.

Let’s be critical, though. What made Castlevania so great back in the early days of the NES? How does it hold up by today’s standards? Should it still be played, or is it better left in the timeless realm of our nostalgia?

When Castlevania hit North America 26 years ago today, it was a journey into the macabre that was a welcome alternative to the mostly colorful, lighthearted games on the NES, such as Duck Hunt, Bomberman, and Burger Time. I’ll never forget wandering into the Aladdin’s Castle arcade at the mall and finding a curious machine titled PlayChoice-10, which offered ten different NES games that could be switched between at will, as long as you kept pumping in tokens to add another 300 seconds to the ever-running clock that would pull the plug on anything you were playing if your vigilance slipped and that timer hit zero. The PlayChoice-10 at this particular arcade had some familiar favorites, such as Contra, Excitebike, and Super Mario Bros, plus some great games that this excited young nerd had never beheld, including Goonies, Rygar, and — thankfully — Castlevania.

Love at first sight between people is a load of guano, but it can totally happen with games. Castlevania had me right from that first scene where Simon Belmont walks past rotting walls to the blood-rusted gates of Dracula’s domain, with the moon accenting the silhouette of the mammoth castle and bats flitting in the midground. The accompanying nine-second intro tune is etched into my mind.

Dark, decayed graphics and upbeat, catchy music are hallmarks of the series, and they nailed those aspects right from the start. The first Castlevania’s portrayal of the castle is of course extremely dated 26 years later, but still manages to be creepy. The tunes are legendary, and, to this day, can be enjoyed by any fan of video game soundtracks who can hear past the limited auditory aesthetics of the time and connect with the soul of Castlevania’s music.

Yet, the true measure of a game is how enjoyable it is to play, and Castlevania has not held up well in that regard. The unforgiving jump mechanic that disallows mid-air trajectory change is definitely more realistic, but also brutally difficult to manage. Combo that with Simon hitting terminal velocity instantly when walking off a ledge, and you’ve got an uphill battle just to get the game to do what you want.

When it comes to attacking, the connecting of whip-tip to the variety of horrific denizens wouldn’t be that bad — even with the two-direction limitation — if only you could control those jumps more easily. As it is, this title, while undeniably a classic, requires so much finesse that unless you’ve been playing it and/or its two NES sequels on a somewhat regular basis, returning to such rigid controls will quickly suck the life out of your nostalgic high.

Verdict

If you’ve never experienced the origin of one of the greatest series in gaming, I can’t really recommend it. Check out the music if you’re down with chiptunes, but leave it at that.

If you did play — and love — Castlevania back in the day, I still can’t recommend returning to it. Again, revisit the music, but leave the actual playthroughs in your past. They won’t live up to your nostalgia.

Rock it Out, Gothic Style

For Delta Attack’s very own Top 30 Castlevania Music selection, click here:

Check out this Mario made via paperart, which is sort of reminiscent of Super Mario 64:

Impressively, the site on which I found this included other paperart offerings that are far superior; click here to check them out.

The over-the-shoulder Zelda series counterparts — such as Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess — are certainly among the best in gaming, but they force you to spend a lot of time wandering around in wide-open spaces, because they had to make room for the camera that followed Link. With an overhead point of view, the level design is much tighter.

Enough of my gushing, though; here’s the reason for my excitement, and I’m sure many of you will feel the same:

What else might we see on the 3DS in side-scrolling or overhead? Castlevania? Metroid? Mega Man? Mega Man X? Sign me up for all of the above.

Deep thought, home slice. Keep ‘em coming.

Back before Final Fantasy 9 came out, it was heralded as the return to epic greatness that the series had experienced with 4, 5, 6, and 7. It was — for the most part — but battle animations were slow and the story devolved into some bizarre nonsensery near the end. Early buzz around Final Fantasy 12 promised the same redemption, but the title was marred by the Gambit system, which may as well have been called “autopilot”, and a generally weak soundtrack.

Now, there’s not any indication that Final Fantasy 15 is going to be the moogle’s teats — hell, there’s not even any official word that it’s in development (the logo above is just a fan concept), but come on, of course it is — however, that doesn’t mean I can’t fantasize about what it would be like in a perfect world. I sometimes yearn to have an experience like I did the first time I played Final Fantasy 4, 5, 6, and 7, each of which gave me a unique and profound sensation. I can’t put a value on what it would be like to have such an experience again with a Final Fantasy game, and though I doubt 15 will provide me with that special sense of adventure, here’s my vision of what it might be like if it did.

Writer, Director, and Producer

Hironobu Sakaguchi. Oh Bahamut yes, THE GOOCH. Sakaguchi’s brilliant work in various combinations of these roles was no small factor behind the greatness of Final Fantasy 4, 5, 6, 7, and (partially) 9. The Gooch is top-notch in the RPG industry for creating original characters for whom you develop real attachments and for weaving engaging stories and scenarios with those characters.

If the Gooch were to lend his amazing creativity to Final Fantasy 15, it would have a significantly higher chance of earning a place amongst its revered ancestors. Sadly, he no longer works for Square Enix, and is unlikely to return.

Composer

Nobuo Uematsu. This is as much of a no-brainer as the Gooch. The Final Fantasy series has, hands-down, some of the best music in gaming, and Uematsu is responsible for most of it. He was the sole creator of every soundtrack offering in Final Fantasy 1 through 9, which easily comprise the most solid scores for the mainline series.

Uematsu would be an essential component to an awesome Final Fantasy 15. Since he’s currently freelance, it’s not impossible.

For samples of Uematsu’s work, see our posts on the best general Final Fantasy music and the best Final Fantasy battle music.

Character Development

Job Class system. Final Fantasy 5, though having merely a good story, is one of the most fun to actually play due to how you can change a character’s class at will and combine skills from different classes to fit the build you think will be most effective. However, I’m thinking more expansive than the system in 5; something more along the lines of Blue Dragon, which allowed the use of roughly a dozen class skills per character by the end of the game.

Materia was great in Final Fantasy 7, but it also made every character largely similar. I’d like to see a system akin to materia, but limited so that each character only has access to a partial set of all available materia, which would help maintain the feeling of character individuality in battle.

Final Fantasy 9 had a cool system of learning abilities via equipment, which could be used even without the equipment once mastered. Yeah. Throw that in there as well.

In Final Fantasy 6, though the espers could make characters highly similar like materia did in 7, each character also had unique commands to use in combat. I think it would be reasonable to for each character in Final Fantasy 15 to have one battle command that was theirs alone.

This may seem like a lot to include in one game for customizing your characters, but Square Enix is really good at polishing systems (whether good or bad), so I’m sure they could make it all work together with great synergy and only a moderate learning curve.

Battle

I’m a huge fan of being able to see your enemies in the field before fighting them, but then doing the actual battle in a separate screen, like in Final Fantasy 13. Knowing you’re about to engage makes any grinding so much easier to stomach than being surprised by totally random battles.

Combat would be the player’s choice of traditional ATB (Active Time Battle) or full turn-based with a unit turn-order list like in Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy 10. Regardless of the flow chosen, the player could change the speed of all battle animations to 1x, 2x, or 4x on the fly. Maybe even 0.5x.

Minigames

Final Fantasy 8 and 9 each had a fun card game that provided a nice diversion from the main quest. It would be great to see something similar in Final Fantasy XV, but with an additional mechanic, like perhaps being able to consume cards in battle. There could even be a job class dealing with cards, such as a Jester.

It would also be great to see a slew of minigames like in Final Fantasy 7, some of which have awesome tangible prizes, while others are for pure entertainment.

Graphics and Presentation

Square Enix loves to have realistic graphics for mainline FF games, so that’s a given. They always want to outdo themselves, and that’s fine. However, I’d love to see a return to the PlayStation era with pre-rendered backgrounds and fixed camera angles. There’s something special about extremely-detailed static backgrounds that just isn’t the same when the entire environment is created via polygons. The locales of Final Fantasy 7, such as Midgar and the Forgotten Capital, are visuals etched into my mind, whereas I’m hard-pressed to recall any specific environments from Final Fantasy 10, 12, or 13.

What about you?

Which of my ideas are good or bad, and why?

What do you think would make for an awesome Final Fantasy 15?

Legend of Dragoon was a pretty mediocre RPG. Like most first-gen polygonal RPGs, its battles were slow, and it had low-polygon-count models over pre-rendered backgrounds. (Those backgrounds actually looked great, but just made the ugly models look even worse by contrast.) The battle system also had a timed-hit system with an annoyingly small window for success, making the action stop-and-go as you waited for overly lengthy animations and then had to rapidly hit specific buttons for better attack damage. To make matters worse, the story was generic, and you didn’t get attached to the characters at all.

Amidst this sea of lukewarmness, one of the battle tunes stands out as something really enjoyable. It’s not amazing compared to the best music that gaming has to offer, but it’s certainly just about the only worthwhile thing in Legend of Dragoon.

BTW, the section from ~1:08 to ~1:16 is actually the victory fanfare.

The Master of Twists brings you a new spin on classic hardware:

In an even more surprising twist, there’s a port on the back that lets you play Genesis games.

Ok, not really, and Shyamalan wasn’t responsible for this, but you have to admit that it could have been taken directly from one of his movies.

Thanks to Delta Attack reader Nic W. for sharing this with us.

Hey guys, when you think of games like Dead Space 3 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted, what comes to mind? Besides heart-pounding action and adrenaline, surely deodorant and products for the care of your hair and skin top out the list.

If so — and for whom would this not be true? — then you’ll love this testosterone-fueled deal on Amazon. Just buy $15 worth of qualifying Dove Men + Care products and get $20 off a select game from EA.

Thanks to Amazon and EA, now when you’re running from the cops or dismembering the horrifically mutated undead, you can smell like a frat guy. Click here for the boner-inducing deal.

Note: There’s a 99.99% chance that observing the level of nerdiness of the people in this video and the information shared will make you personally feel like less of a nerd, regardless of how you generally regard yourself. But then again… who’s the bigger nerd? These people, or you for watching them?

Yeah, you’re right — they’re the bigger nerds.

Thanks to Delta Attack reader Casey H. for sharing this.

The Kickstarter game Enemy will bring characters reminiscent of Mario, Link, Bomberman, and those dudes from Contra together for tactical, turn-based combat in destructible environments with Roguelike random levels and permanent death. Details:

With two weeks left to raise full funding, Enemy is already two-thirds of the way to its goal of $15,000. Visit the Enemy Kickstarter website for more info on the game and details about donation.

Thanks to Delta Attack reader Frank T. for this news tip.

[click image for full-size version]

Prints of this nostalgic artwork are available via oktotally.

Thanks to Delta Attack reader Brian Kerr for giving us a heads-up on this one.

The Ukiyo-e Heroes project pays homage to classic video game icons by rendering them as stylized samurai. From Mario, Zelda, and Metroid to Star Fox, Mega Man, and Castlevania, and more, these amazing works of art brilliantly express the soul of each game via a Japanese medium that is hundreds of years old and a cherished tradition. Best of all, you can purchase prints to enhance your own video game decor.

Here’s an excerpt from the Ukiyo-e Heroes website that explains the background of the project:

For hundreds of years, Japanese woodblock printmakers worked in a thriving popular art scene. Their prints depicted heroes, villains and monsters, spanning every genre from satire, to romance, to horror. It was all part of Ukiyo, or Floating World culture. Inventive and fast-paced, Ukiyo culture was the big movement of its day. That tradition has continued through the centuries, down to our modern day, where Japan is still known for its vibrant creativity. This heritage is especially evident in Japan’s video game industry. Boss fights. Invulnerable heroes. Holy swords. Even the classic double-jump can be traced back to medieval Japanese legends.

Long story short: the Japanese games we love are just the new chapter in an ancient, enduring culture.

To celebrate Japan’s contribution to video games, illustrator Jed Henry has taken his favorite game characters, and returned them to the ukiyo-e style. Modern costuming has been traded for the medieval, but the essence of each character remains, proving that you can’t take the Ukiyo out of these modern pop icons.

Here are some more examples of this impressive art:

See the Ukiyo-e Heroes website for the full gallery of video game prints available.

ATLUS’s upcoming 4th entry in the Etrian Odyssey series has a demo available now on the 3DS’s eShop. The brilliant aspect to this demo is that your progress will carry over to the full game, which comes out on 2/26.

So how does the demo measure up? Is it worth your time? If you’ve never played the series, should you give it a shot? If you’re thinking of returning to relive past glory, is it fresh enough to once again invest dozens of hours? Let’s explore.

For the first-timers: What is Etrian Odyssey? This series takes us back to the days of first-person, grid-based dungeon crawling, working in a mapping aspect that fans of old games and graphing paper will take to heart, but that is so easy to use it won’t turn off newcomers.

Even more importantly, the RPG elements have a strong core of party customization. Each character class has multiple abilities to be learned and upgraded, but limited skill points force you to scrutinize each ability and plan out a development path that will make not only an effective character, but a five-person party with excellent synergy. One of the biggest rewards in any Etrian Odyssey game is seeing your party grow into a cohesive unit that can survive the increasing challenge of the highly varied enemies and brutal bosses (FOEs).

Etrian Odyssey has traditionally been a very hard series, but IV marks an alternate, lower barrier to entry: Casual Mode. Perfect for beginners or those with less time on their hands to grind out levels, Casual makes battle easier and, should your party get wiped out, sends you back to town and lets you keep your progress instead of making you start from your last save.

Etrian Odyssey is a series that I highly recommend to any RPG fan willing to patiently invest time up front for a satisfying payoff in the long run.

For the returners: What’s new this time? I’ve played the 2nd and 3rd games (Heroes of Laagard and The Drowned City) quite extensively, and here’s a rundown of the improvements I’ve noticed so far in Legends of the Titan:

• Squads: You can save up to three party configurations that can be restored at the Explorer’s Guild. This is perfect for when you need to take a certain party on a particular adventure and then switch back to your standard characters.
• Skill Trees: The skills for each class are now configured into trees, making it far easier to tell the requirements for any given skill at a glance. You can use the d-pad to move between skills and the circle pad to pan the camera over the whole tree.
• Dungeon Circle Pad: While exploring, you can use the circle pad to look over other areas of your map. Equally as useful, and a nice touch, you can use it as a limited free-look to get a better view of the dungeon itself.
• FOE Info: The game gives a brief intro to FOEs, which is a nice refresher about their color-coding. They’ve also added auras, which show how much of a threat any given FOE is compared to the current strength of your party.
• Battle Reference: When selecting actions for your party during battle, you have the option to pull up the Reference. This is essentially a bestiary that shows known info on the enemies you’re fighting, provided you’ve defeated an enemy of that type before.
• Rare Breeds: Some enemies will look like their counterparts, but have a sparkly glow. These monsters are tougher, but worth extra experience, and have special drops.
• Stay and Save: When you pay to heal up at the inn, they give you the option of saving at the same time instead of selecting it separately afterward. A minor improvement, but definitely nice.
• Graphics: While the series has never pushed any boundaries for aesthetics, it certainly looks better on the 3DS. Enemies are fully 3D while still maintaining a mildly cartoony look, and the environments are an even better version of the dreamlike visuals you’ve come to expect.
• Music: The 3Ds’s increased power and cartridge storage allows for better musical quality, and the effect is really pleasing, unless you were hoping for the synthesized sounds of prior Etrian Odyssey games.

Legends of the Titan is shaping up to be a worthy torchbearer in this great series. This is one fan that’s eagerly awaiting the release of the full game.