Ok, before we talk about the game itself - what in the Goosebumps is that title font?
Legacy of Darkness exists in a weird little spot. People complain about remakes and remasters happening way too quickly these days, such as The Last of Us Part I or Spider-Man Remastered. Leave it to Konami, then, to be over 20 years ahead of the trend - Legacy of Darkness is a weird, sort-of remake of the same year's Castlevania on N64, basically being the finished product compared to Castlevania's rushed release state. Most people consider it a direct upgrade. Me? I'm not sure it's quite that simple.
Rather than Reinhardt or Carrie, you only have one campaign unlocked from the start; newcomer Cornell. He's a man-beast who has a somewhat unique moveset compared to the original games' characters. His main attack is this projectile that takes the best parts of Reinhardt and Carrie's attacks - it deals as much damage as Reinhardt's whip, while having a range similar to Carrie's magic. It doesn't track, but it moves fast enough for it to not really matter. I found it surprisingly overpowered for most of the game, to be honest, though the new bosses won't all have you missing the old attacks.
Cornell can also assume a man-beast form with one of the triggers. This basically increases your stats a fair amount, but drains your crystals each second - which, by the way, are still used for your sub-weapons. It's a good idea, but with a crucial flaw: it cannot be disabled once activated. So if you accidentally trigger it, well, no more subweapons for you.
Speaking of subweapons, they're all about the same as before - knife for quick projectile attacks (which is almost useless for Cornell considering his basic attack is just the same, but better), axe flies in an arc, cross acts like a powerful boomerang, and holy water creates a damage area on the floor for a period of time. One big difference, though, is that collecting duplicate subweapons now upgrades them up to twice, massively increasing their area of effect and damage. It's a great change, though annoyingly they go back to level 1 upon loading a save file, be it from dying or powering off.
Cornell's campaign is the longest by far, adding in a bunch of new levels while overhauling the older ones. While it puts a lot more meat on the game's bones, I found it to become a little tedious, maybe outstaying its welcome. It makes better use of the day/night cycle for the dungeons compared to the original release, but mainly through a labyrinth of day/night doors. You can probably imagine how tedious it gets to keep going into the menu and using a sun card or moon card to change the time of day just to open a door - now imagine that 20 times in succession. Castlevania 64 was short, but I think I preferred that length compared to Legacy of Darkness' - and this is just one of four different campaigns in the game.
The second campaign you unlock is that of Henry, and it's the most unique of the campaigns between the four. You have 7 in-game days to find 6 children, scattered through a small selection of the levels. It's a fun change, but it relies on you knowing the layout of these levels to begin with. As such, I can't agree entirely with the notion that you can play Legacy of Darkness instead of Castlevania 64, as a campaign such as Henry's makes more sense after beating both Cornell's campaign, as well as Reinhardt and Carrie's from the original release. Now, while both of their campaigns are also in Legacy of Darkness, there's a reason I've not brought it up - they're unlocked for saving a certain amount of children from Henry's campaign. Even then, they use the remixed level designs from Cornell's campaign, so it's not quite the same experience.
If there's one thing that stands out about Henry's campaign though, it's his weapon. These losers brought a whip, some shitty magic and whatever those projectiles are to fight vampires and shit? Henry isn't messing around - he brought a motherfucking GUN to this fight. Not many games cause me to physically pogchamp, but pressing the attack button for the first time only to hear a gunshot was enough to illicit that reaction in me. Combat with Henry is such a one-sided joke with his firearm that I'd say it's best saved for last, when you've already beaten the other three stories.
Altogether, it's definitely got more going on than Castlevania 64, but it takes away a little from what made me like it. The camera controls are different - instead of three choices of automatic camera, there are only two now. I found the auto camera to be a lot worse in this game, but as it turns out you can now use the D-pad to manually adjust it yourself, so that counts for something.
What bothered me a little more is the music. I mentioned in my Castlevania 64 review how much I liked how they went for a more atmospheric, B-movie horror style feel. Legacy of Darkness retains some of the music, but also throws in a few more Rondo of Blood remixes. It's nice to hear them, but it takes away from the unique identity of the N64 titles in my opinion. Symphony of the Night got to go all out with their music direction, so it pains me to see this get stifled in that regard.
Altogether, I find this to be a decent little 3D platformer that makes gameplay improvements, but stylistic downgrades from its predecessor. They even took out the hammy voice acting! Still, it's worth a try. Begrudgingly, I'll admit that if you have to play only one of them, that you'll probably enjoy Legacy of Darkness more than 64, but I maintain that the optimal way is to play 64 first, and appreciate (or not) the changes that LoD goes on to make.
Legacy of Darkness exists in a weird little spot. People complain about remakes and remasters happening way too quickly these days, such as The Last of Us Part I or Spider-Man Remastered. Leave it to Konami, then, to be over 20 years ahead of the trend - Legacy of Darkness is a weird, sort-of remake of the same year's Castlevania on N64, basically being the finished product compared to Castlevania's rushed release state. Most people consider it a direct upgrade. Me? I'm not sure it's quite that simple.
Rather than Reinhardt or Carrie, you only have one campaign unlocked from the start; newcomer Cornell. He's a man-beast who has a somewhat unique moveset compared to the original games' characters. His main attack is this projectile that takes the best parts of Reinhardt and Carrie's attacks - it deals as much damage as Reinhardt's whip, while having a range similar to Carrie's magic. It doesn't track, but it moves fast enough for it to not really matter. I found it surprisingly overpowered for most of the game, to be honest, though the new bosses won't all have you missing the old attacks.
Cornell can also assume a man-beast form with one of the triggers. This basically increases your stats a fair amount, but drains your crystals each second - which, by the way, are still used for your sub-weapons. It's a good idea, but with a crucial flaw: it cannot be disabled once activated. So if you accidentally trigger it, well, no more subweapons for you.
Speaking of subweapons, they're all about the same as before - knife for quick projectile attacks (which is almost useless for Cornell considering his basic attack is just the same, but better), axe flies in an arc, cross acts like a powerful boomerang, and holy water creates a damage area on the floor for a period of time. One big difference, though, is that collecting duplicate subweapons now upgrades them up to twice, massively increasing their area of effect and damage. It's a great change, though annoyingly they go back to level 1 upon loading a save file, be it from dying or powering off.
Cornell's campaign is the longest by far, adding in a bunch of new levels while overhauling the older ones. While it puts a lot more meat on the game's bones, I found it to become a little tedious, maybe outstaying its welcome. It makes better use of the day/night cycle for the dungeons compared to the original release, but mainly through a labyrinth of day/night doors. You can probably imagine how tedious it gets to keep going into the menu and using a sun card or moon card to change the time of day just to open a door - now imagine that 20 times in succession. Castlevania 64 was short, but I think I preferred that length compared to Legacy of Darkness' - and this is just one of four different campaigns in the game.
The second campaign you unlock is that of Henry, and it's the most unique of the campaigns between the four. You have 7 in-game days to find 6 children, scattered through a small selection of the levels. It's a fun change, but it relies on you knowing the layout of these levels to begin with. As such, I can't agree entirely with the notion that you can play Legacy of Darkness instead of Castlevania 64, as a campaign such as Henry's makes more sense after beating both Cornell's campaign, as well as Reinhardt and Carrie's from the original release. Now, while both of their campaigns are also in Legacy of Darkness, there's a reason I've not brought it up - they're unlocked for saving a certain amount of children from Henry's campaign. Even then, they use the remixed level designs from Cornell's campaign, so it's not quite the same experience.
If there's one thing that stands out about Henry's campaign though, it's his weapon. These losers brought a whip, some shitty magic and whatever those projectiles are to fight vampires and shit? Henry isn't messing around - he brought a motherfucking GUN to this fight. Not many games cause me to physically pogchamp, but pressing the attack button for the first time only to hear a gunshot was enough to illicit that reaction in me. Combat with Henry is such a one-sided joke with his firearm that I'd say it's best saved for last, when you've already beaten the other three stories.
Altogether, it's definitely got more going on than Castlevania 64, but it takes away a little from what made me like it. The camera controls are different - instead of three choices of automatic camera, there are only two now. I found the auto camera to be a lot worse in this game, but as it turns out you can now use the D-pad to manually adjust it yourself, so that counts for something.
What bothered me a little more is the music. I mentioned in my Castlevania 64 review how much I liked how they went for a more atmospheric, B-movie horror style feel. Legacy of Darkness retains some of the music, but also throws in a few more Rondo of Blood remixes. It's nice to hear them, but it takes away from the unique identity of the N64 titles in my opinion. Symphony of the Night got to go all out with their music direction, so it pains me to see this get stifled in that regard.
Altogether, I find this to be a decent little 3D platformer that makes gameplay improvements, but stylistic downgrades from its predecessor. They even took out the hammy voice acting! Still, it's worth a try. Begrudgingly, I'll admit that if you have to play only one of them, that you'll probably enjoy Legacy of Darkness more than 64, but I maintain that the optimal way is to play 64 first, and appreciate (or not) the changes that LoD goes on to make.