| Game | CastleVania Chronicles |
| Release | November 9th, 2001 |
| Genre | 2D Platformer |
| Publisher | Konami |
| Devloper | Konami |
| Time Played | 24:19:30 |
| Buy It On | Ebay |Amazon |
It feels like a really long time ago now that I had beaten 80 PSX games. Those days are long gone and now we must restart it all from game number 0001 again. For those who have not been tuning in, paying attention or just cannot understand anything that I say into this really low-quality microphone on streams (I really do not understand how anyone hears a word that I say, I have rewatched these VODS in awe of y’alls understanding) All data has been lost for the previous challenge and we are starting it all over. At the time of writing this, I have also decided that the PS2 will be having its own challenge running at the same time because game #0002 Castlevania Symphony of the Night will not work on the PS2 that I have. I am currently still awaiting the PS1 to be fully modded to continue playing PS1 games. Without any further ado, let’s reach into why I say Dracula sucks, still sucks, will always suck, and fuck this game.
So, I have been working on posting AI Reviews and Descriptions of these games for the later part of 2023. My PSXSlayer reviews will be in contrast and comparison of the popular belief that the AI creates reviews off of. There are a lot of projects being worked on right now for this whole thing to make sense, but I just ask that you bare with us in the time being until it all slowly unravels itself in its magnificent glory at the end. Nah, its probably going to just look like some generic shit but whatever its going to take a long time to get to the finished product anyway. We have like 10 million games to play now.
Castlevania Chronicles for PS1: A Challenging and Immersive Classic Platforme – The Negative Press This is the link to what the AI thinks about this game, now we can jump into what I think about this game.
CastleVania Chronicles is a remake of the original version of CastleVania. I am not talking about that NES version of CastleVania I am talking about that FUCK OFF AND DIE Sharp X68000 version, the game that was made to make people who were fans of the OG NES version cry in misery. They broke this game down into two different modes. You can play Original Mode, which is entirely a port of the X68000 or, you can be smart and play the Arranged mode which is the mode Konami wanted you to play on the PlayStation. yeah… I am not smart and made it halfway through Original and wanted to die.
So where exactly does CastleVania Chronicles take place in the story and what is it about?
Like I have mentioned earlier in the pre-text, This is the first CastleVania game remade. Even though there is a reskin available in the Arranged Mode, the story does not change. CastleVania is about a dude named Simon Belmont who is a descendant of a long line of Vampire Killers. 100 years ago Simon’s ancestors killed Dracula and now Dracula is back for no god damn reason other than to get whipped back into his shitty stupid coffin and go back to sleep. There really isn’t much of a story here to be told and Konami loves retelling the origin of this game anyway so don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense. Now there isn’t much to rate here on the story as the only real story being told is what is happening in each stage and the cutscenes that are shown in the beginning of the game. Actually you know what it has a cool story to be honest. Dude says fuck it imma go kill Dracula, walks right up in his castle kills all his friends and pets, EVEN KILLS DEATH IN THE PROCESS, so it is possible to kill the almighty immortal Dracula. Yeah, I am going to give this game a 8/10 on story telling. Thats pretty bad ass when you think about it.
If you are going to take into consideration the stage progression as the story as well it flows very well into each stage on making it make sense. Each stage is a different part of the castle with a boss that is one of Dracula’s protectors. You start off walking into the castle, you end up in some watery catacombs, take a little detour outside through the courtyard, climb the tower, cross into another more elegant part of the castle and then get to Dracula’s throne room.
CastleVania Chronicles Story 8/10
Castlevania Chronicles Features Gameplay Designed to Make You Want to Kill Yourself
Ok, the fun part, the one that everyone is dying to hear about. The fucking Gameplay. Why do I hate it? I don’t. It just made my piss boil more than it should have. When playing this game on Arranged Mode all the things I am about to highlight with what is wrong with Original Mode get fixed, I do feel shameful that I couldn’t beat this game on Original but whatever, I tried and died… halfway through the game on Medusa’s bitch ass.
Generally speaking, on the first few stages the game is kind of easy. By easy I mean sure you are going to die but whatever you get the hang of it and progress a little bit more each time. Each section is broken down into 3 stages. The first stage is the easiest, the second stage either greets you with troublesome platforming and traps and the third stage ends with the section boss. There are 24 stages all together with 8 bosses.
The first 3 stages are fairly simple. If you are a fan of CastleVania, the opening of this game may look suspiciously like many of the other starts of the other games in the 2D realm. You walk through a giant hallway of zombies whipping the shit out of them, go downstairs to go see some fish boys, then make your way back upstairs to fight a giant bat. Its pretty easy on both Original and Arranged modes. Once I hit the part of the game where it is crucial to explain the gameplay difference between the two I will.
Stages 4-6 see you down in these catacombs, like a hidden riverway under the castle. Stage 5 is much of the same as before. Stage 6 is where the game STARTS to get annoying. You have to ride a little floating piece of wood upwards while avoiding getting hit… now is a good time to talk about difference one. In the Original Mode you get knocked back every time you are hit by anything, in Arranged Mode there is no knockback. This part is a lot easier on Arranged as what will kill you more than anything else is getting hit and knocked off the little floating piece of wood. The boss here is just a giant Bone Dragon, still pretty easy. Honestly there is only one boss fight that I feel is super hard and we will get to that soon enough.
In the next set of stages we are now in a courtyard being rained on by fleas. This part took me fucking forever to figure out how to do. In arranged it was no big thing at all. Stage 8 feels like a weird Sinkers and Floaters game from MXC, you are surrounded by septic sludge and frogs… OH NO NOT THE EVIL FUCKIN’ FROGS! Stage 9 is a frozen stage and you fight a magical ghost summoner thing, it’s not too hard.
Ok stages 10-12, the reason I stopped playing on Original Mode. This part is just an upward battle to get to the top to fight Medusa Luckily the one saving grace of this game is that when you die, you do not start the game over, you just have to start the section over. I should also take this time to say that when you lose a life you just start from the start of the stage mostly. With the end of the game being the only caveat. I almost beat Stage 12 in Original Mode, but I just could not get past the fucking guardian just before Medusa and I realized why the second I switched to Arranged. In Original Mode, each normal enemy hits you for whatever section number you are on amount of energy. So, on section one each normal enemy hits you for 1 hp, section 2… 2 hp and so on. This is section 4, each mother fucker takes 4 hp from you. In this section you die from a lot of bats and a lot of traps. Have fun.
Welcome to Stages 13-15, Welcome to hell. This is the god damn clock tower part. This is no exception to every other Castlevania Clock Tower part, it sucks, it knows it sucks, it doesn’t try to not suck, in fact it tries to make sure you know that it knows it sucks. You will get hit here, you will turn to fucking stone here, YOU WILL DIE HERE. if I were to request ONE thing that this game should have it is an upward whipping motion or diagonal up whipping motion, YOU CAN ONLY DO IT DOWNWARD WHILE JUMPING THAT IS FUCKING USELESS. Basically, you fight through a whole bunch of bullshit you can’t avoid to fight a boss that is bullshit. I still don’t know how I beat this boss. We will just act like this part of the game never happened.
Stages 16-18 are not that bad; it is more of fighting against the castle than anything else. Getting across the bridge does suck because of the Medusa’s on stage 16 but it’s not bad because the music rocks and its just a decent set of stages. You fight the doppelganger on stage 18, that fight is pretty easy as well. Its hard to talk about this stage being difficult after the clocktower bullshit.
The next 3 stages are kinda bullshit though. You fight your way through the prison keep of the castle to fight Death. The alignment of the enemies in these stages really will fuck with you and Death is an asshole like always.
The final set, holy shit we fucking made it. Make sure you grab a cross. Seriously MAKE SURE YOU GRAB A CROSS. The first part of this section is the hardest part as it takes a bit to understand how the enemies are going to attack you and how to deal with them but once you figure out how to deal with all the armor foes and crossbow bullshit you will beat it. Stage 23 is a mother fucker though, You got giant bats in your way while trying to cross the missing bridge sections. Stage 24 nail Dracula to the fucking cross and eat a steak. The end.
I would say if you are going to play this on Original Mode, my rating for Original is 4/10. My rating for Arranged is 8/10
CastleVania Chronicles Gameplay 6/10
Castlevania Chronicles Difficulty
I believe that difficulty is an important thing to take into consideration before playing this game. A lot of people like a fair challenge, I do not believe this game is fair at all. If this game were to have an upward or diagonally upward attack the difficulty would fix itself. This game is super hard, I would say its a 10/10 hard. but the rating here is based on fairness of the difficulty and if its worth a challenge and balanced. 10 meaning that you feel like you are adequately challenged fairly, and a 1 meaning that game was unintentionally stupidly easy or infuriatingly impossibly difficult. I feel like this game falls somewhere right in the middle of fair and stuff that wasn’t supposed to be AT ALL as hard as it is.
CastleVania Chronicles Difficulty 5/10
Castlevania Chronicles Graphics
Graphically this game is pretty damn good looking. For a game that was released in 1986 and remade in 1993 and remade again in 2001 without any huge improvements, the game has stood the test of time, much like Dracula’s stupid ass.
CastleVania Chronicles Graphics 8/10
Castlevania Chronicles Controls
I do not feel like the controls are at all to blame with anything wrong in the game. I feel like the controls are pretty spot on. There are some points though where you wish you had an extra button to do something. Maybe a reset button or something.
CastleVania Chronicles Controls 8/10
Castlevania Chronicles Sound
Dude, there are some killer tracks in this game. Whatever that song is that plays on Stage 16, I could let that loop all day. The whole entire OST is worth listening to and its awesome. Sound wise this game is of the best games ever fucking made.
CastleVania Chronicles Sound 10/10
.The AI gave this game a 78%, I give it
Castlevania Chronicles Overall Rating
%
Rating
About the Author: Re_LodeR was born in the 90s and lives in Michigan. Hobbies including complaining about video games and life, Listening to a lot of niche music and enjoying classic flims like Die Hard. This guy is a huge Simpsons fan and likes to watch wrestling.
He can be found on Twitch, contacted on Discord, and you can email him at ReLodeR@thenegativepress.com