This is the 250th review I’ve posted on this site, so I wanted to self-indulgently celebrate by sharing my origin story, which all comes down to this beautiful little game. Well actually, it comes down to a much, much less beautiful one. By the start of 2013, I was feeling like my time with gaming as a hobby was coming to a close, with the flood of Dota clones in full swing, and games like Borderlands 2 getting awards for excellent writing. However, one game was coming out in the Spring which I had high hopes for: Bioshock Infinite. I saw big-budget trailers for it everywhere, I even saw it on the big screen before movies, it seemed so fast paced and aesthetically unique, like this could be the game that reminded me how great games could be.
Sorry for anyone who really loves Infinite, but I found it to be so offensively bad that I was a hair’s breadth from saying I’ve just grown out of video games as a whole. If that’s game-of-the-year material, why should I trust any of the other games to come out this year, or even next year? However, about a week later, a Castlevania let’s-play was suggested on my Youtube feed, and I decided to check it out, since it was a series I recognized as a classic but had never actually seen. It didn’t stand out much when watching the video, but I decided that hey, these modern games look amazing but have no substance to them, this game seems like the opposite, let’s give it a go. Needless to say, I absolutely loved it. There was no nonsense, no pretense, just a straightforward challenge that could be overcome with good planning. I didn’t have to do combos or fast dodges, just pay attention to the enemies and my environment. The stages were difficult enough to where I couldn’t brute force my way through, but short enough to where having to restart the stage felt fair. The music was good, the style was good… really, I loved everything about it. I played it over and over again, and shortly afterwards I discovered speedrunning. I speedran this game for a while, met people I still talk to even all these years later, started the safari through gaming history that I’m still going on, got into game design and analysis after that path brought me to Resident Evil… it all started with this one game. I just imagine how things would have turned out if I picked a different retro game, something like Ikari Warriors, and said bollocks to the entire thing. On the other hand, maybe Bioshock Infinite could have just been good and held back the crisis a bit longer, but honestly, I don’t think there’s any parallel universe where that happens. I’m just happy I got to live in a universe with a game as good as Castlevania.
Sorry for anyone who really loves Infinite, but I found it to be so offensively bad that I was a hair’s breadth from saying I’ve just grown out of video games as a whole. If that’s game-of-the-year material, why should I trust any of the other games to come out this year, or even next year? However, about a week later, a Castlevania let’s-play was suggested on my Youtube feed, and I decided to check it out, since it was a series I recognized as a classic but had never actually seen. It didn’t stand out much when watching the video, but I decided that hey, these modern games look amazing but have no substance to them, this game seems like the opposite, let’s give it a go. Needless to say, I absolutely loved it. There was no nonsense, no pretense, just a straightforward challenge that could be overcome with good planning. I didn’t have to do combos or fast dodges, just pay attention to the enemies and my environment. The stages were difficult enough to where I couldn’t brute force my way through, but short enough to where having to restart the stage felt fair. The music was good, the style was good… really, I loved everything about it. I played it over and over again, and shortly afterwards I discovered speedrunning. I speedran this game for a while, met people I still talk to even all these years later, started the safari through gaming history that I’m still going on, got into game design and analysis after that path brought me to Resident Evil… it all started with this one game. I just imagine how things would have turned out if I picked a different retro game, something like Ikari Warriors, and said bollocks to the entire thing. On the other hand, maybe Bioshock Infinite could have just been good and held back the crisis a bit longer, but honestly, I don’t think there’s any parallel universe where that happens. I’m just happy I got to live in a universe with a game as good as Castlevania.