This is a game I booted up solely as a joke, expecting a laughably bad experience I could forget about an hour after the fact. But as I played Castlevania 64, I began to have a lot of fun with it.
The gameplay is a strange mix of classic Castlevania in an experimental 3D plane. As expected from a first attempt at this structure—it's rough. Each character has a long range attack (whip) and a short range attack (dagger) as well as the sub-weapons staple to the series. You run, jump, and whip through a variety of surprisingly large and open areas as well as smaller corridors and hallways. For the most part, attacking feels good, and you can manually lock onto whichever enemy is closest to you during a fight. As there are no guard or dodge abilities, timing a jump is the go-to for defensive maneuvers. The camera can be quite bad at times, enemies knock the player down with many attacks, several jumps are very tight and precise, and a handful of sections could be annoying. That said, you can adjust the camera in most areas with the lock-on button, moving the camera to match your character's eyesight. Nothing in the game is overly difficult and it's all more than doable on a couple of attempts.
The story is pretty standard Castlevania fare. Dracula's back, get to his castle and send him back to Hell. Pretty plain and simple. There are a handful of side characters, but nothing remarkable in the slightest. But people don't really play Castlevania for the story, anyway.
The graphics work well enough. Given that this is an N64 title, it looks hella dated by today's standards, but anyone who shares my love for early 3D style will feel at home here. The game manages to have a storng sense of style and atmosphere that the classics before it are well known for. Some areas are surprisingly detailed while others can be rather drab. All in all, I think it works rather well.
The music and sound are quality, but not necessarily up to the par of other Castlevania games. Rather than the usual dead man's party style of groovin', the music here decides to aim for more ambient flair. It works well with the visual style, enhancing the previous mentioned atmosphere. While I love most Castlevania OSTs to death, I think the change here helped create a very engaging and enjoyable vibe that I appreciated greatly.
Castlevania 64 is a title notorious for being "the worst Castlevania game ever made" among other things. James Rolfe has a video dedicated to it, which usually means the game's terrible. But, to my surprise, I enjoyed my time with this game a lot. It has jank, do be aware, and it asks a lot from the player in regards to difficult platforming obstacles. But despite that, I had a helluva time cracking whips in the faces of evil as I always do in Castlevania.
Give it a shot. You might be surprised, too.
The gameplay is a strange mix of classic Castlevania in an experimental 3D plane. As expected from a first attempt at this structure—it's rough. Each character has a long range attack (whip) and a short range attack (dagger) as well as the sub-weapons staple to the series. You run, jump, and whip through a variety of surprisingly large and open areas as well as smaller corridors and hallways. For the most part, attacking feels good, and you can manually lock onto whichever enemy is closest to you during a fight. As there are no guard or dodge abilities, timing a jump is the go-to for defensive maneuvers. The camera can be quite bad at times, enemies knock the player down with many attacks, several jumps are very tight and precise, and a handful of sections could be annoying. That said, you can adjust the camera in most areas with the lock-on button, moving the camera to match your character's eyesight. Nothing in the game is overly difficult and it's all more than doable on a couple of attempts.
The story is pretty standard Castlevania fare. Dracula's back, get to his castle and send him back to Hell. Pretty plain and simple. There are a handful of side characters, but nothing remarkable in the slightest. But people don't really play Castlevania for the story, anyway.
The graphics work well enough. Given that this is an N64 title, it looks hella dated by today's standards, but anyone who shares my love for early 3D style will feel at home here. The game manages to have a storng sense of style and atmosphere that the classics before it are well known for. Some areas are surprisingly detailed while others can be rather drab. All in all, I think it works rather well.
The music and sound are quality, but not necessarily up to the par of other Castlevania games. Rather than the usual dead man's party style of groovin', the music here decides to aim for more ambient flair. It works well with the visual style, enhancing the previous mentioned atmosphere. While I love most Castlevania OSTs to death, I think the change here helped create a very engaging and enjoyable vibe that I appreciated greatly.
Castlevania 64 is a title notorious for being "the worst Castlevania game ever made" among other things. James Rolfe has a video dedicated to it, which usually means the game's terrible. But, to my surprise, I enjoyed my time with this game a lot. It has jank, do be aware, and it asks a lot from the player in regards to difficult platforming obstacles. But despite that, I had a helluva time cracking whips in the faces of evil as I always do in Castlevania.
Give it a shot. You might be surprised, too.