Historically interesting in the sense of how Symphony made it more approachable while kind of fumbling/copying design decisions blindly, and how the rhythm to it feels really like Souls's fighting styles and focus on arcade-esque perfection. Of course, Souls added a lot to the mix with exporation/customization but it definitely wouldn't be what it is without borrowing from the way precise enemy placements slowly gate your way through dense levels.
I like Castlevania's creative level variety and enemy varieties! It's neat to see Wall Chicken, hearts and subweapons in a context they really make sense. But, even though this is so well designed for what it is, it just lacks that special something that makes it really shine as exciting to me - it's just thematically dry to me like a lot of games (even today). The design is really straightforward - layers of mastery culminating to a performance of clearing the game without dying.
On a nitpick level there's a level of trying to guess the enemy AI that's required to succeed (e.g. sticking close to phase 2 Dracula to prevent fireballs) and that kind of AI design just isn't my preference... it's also hard to learn later sections without save states. But I think those design decisions made a lot of sense for a time where people would discuss and share strategies, so you don't want the game to be totally self-contained. And to some extent memorizing those little AI quirks is part of the charm of these games.
I like Castlevania's creative level variety and enemy varieties! It's neat to see Wall Chicken, hearts and subweapons in a context they really make sense. But, even though this is so well designed for what it is, it just lacks that special something that makes it really shine as exciting to me - it's just thematically dry to me like a lot of games (even today). The design is really straightforward - layers of mastery culminating to a performance of clearing the game without dying.
On a nitpick level there's a level of trying to guess the enemy AI that's required to succeed (e.g. sticking close to phase 2 Dracula to prevent fireballs) and that kind of AI design just isn't my preference... it's also hard to learn later sections without save states. But I think those design decisions made a lot of sense for a time where people would discuss and share strategies, so you don't want the game to be totally self-contained. And to some extent memorizing those little AI quirks is part of the charm of these games.