From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games

Castlevania - Second Afterlife
Why it was a good evening to step back into the shadows of the deadliest dwelling on earth.

Unless you're one of those people who are either new to this blog or not familiar with any of my previous projects, then you're probably already aware that I'm a huge fan of the Castlevania series (there are even rumors going around that I created a dedicated Castlevania fan site, though my personal research suggests that such rumors are more likely part of some elaborate psyop). It's long been one of my favorites.

Now, I admit that I throw around the word favorite a lot on this blog. Normally, you note, it's a word that people use selectively, attaching it to at most two or three prized works, and then you're confused when you come here and see it used multiple times per blog entry and therein used as a designation for several works in a given medium. And this happens because you're not dealing with someone who's normal.

I'm not telling you that I'm crazy, no. Rather, I mean to convey that I'm someone whose range of openness is much wider than the average person's when it comes to creative mediums. I developed that way because I was lucky enough to have grown up with access to an abundance of games, movies and literary works. There was so much to love. There were so many forces positively shaping me. That's why my favorite-games list, formed over a 30-year period, is a mile long.

Still, I don't deny that there is a hierarchy. Absolutely there are certain games that I cherish most. Certain games that I place high above all of the others. Certain games that have impacted my life so significantly that I hold them to be a part of my very fabric.

One of them is Castlevania, a game that has inspired me in a myriad of ways. It's one of those that helped shape how I think and how I create. It's a work whose influence served to broaden my interest in mythology and in the classic-horror genre. And, also, it's a game that played a big part in getting me into the amazing Castlevania series, which through the years has produced a number of games I cherish just as much.

And yet it almost didn't happen that way. In truth, there was a time when I wasn't much of a fan of Castlevania. My coming to love the game, and the Castlevania series in general, was a product of pure happenstance--of highly convenient outside influence.

You could say that it was a rocky start.

The story began in the early-middle portion of 1989, when I was given Castlevania as a gift during a family get-together. I don't remember what the occasion was (I think it was something school-related, like a celebration of my having made Confirmation, the Honor Roll, or whatever), but I do remember what I was thinking at the time; I recall that I was intrigued by both the game's title and the box cover's immediately recognizable visual: It was the mug of Count Dracula, the star of many of my favorite (there's that word again) monster movies!

See--I'd always been a big enthusiast of monster movies and particularly of their classic villains. I was so fascinated with those from their group that it was common for me to center entire artistic projects around them. I loved to draw legendary characters like Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolfman and the Mummy, and I especially loved creating grand illustrations wherein two or more of them could be seen battling it out in some fantastical setting (like, say, a haunted forest or any dark, gloomy location that could be suitably enveloped in shadow by a mountainous backdrop). And were it not the Universal-brand monsters, then I'd instead be using other famous monster-movie characters; I'd be pitting King Kong against Godzilla or Mighty Joe Young against the Kraken from Clash of the Titans.

And at the moment, the Universal characters were at my mind's forefront because I'd recently seen The Monster Squad, which I liked if only for the fact that it collected all of classic black-and-white movie monsters into one film! So yeah--there was definitely monster-battling fervor stirring within me.

"From the looks of it, this 'Castlevania' seems right up my alley!" I thought to myself. It couldn't have fallen into my hands at a better time! I looked forward to playing it later on, when we got home.

Of course, I had to stick to my routine--read through the manual, thoroughly, so that I could go in prepared. I mean, it was always important to know about a game's backstory before jumping in (this was an era in which companies relegated such information to manuals as to refrain from displaying it in-game and causing unneeded interruption), and it also helped to know what the items did and who the enemies were. There were times when this process was a chore, sure, but now wasn't one of them. Oh, no--Castlevania's manual, I was finding, was quite absorbing; it had strong presentation and exhibited some fine work in key areas--in the aspects that historically I'd enjoyed reading and viewing the most: the text descriptions and the always-desired enemy depictions.

As I was reading through those item descriptions and examining those character images, my excitement was increasing, though I had to suppress this feeling somewhat because I knew that it'd be a while before I reached the last page. I played it off like everything was chill, like I was some calm, rational researcher ("Ah yes, this 'Treat Your Konami Game Carefully' page is indeed worthy of closer inspection."). That's how I'd go about keeping my emotions in check; it was all a matter of pretending to be someone who wasn't a hyperactive monkey boy.

I should note that I was particularly enamored with the table design that was used to form the three weapons/items pages. That wonderful display, with its neatly arranged rows and columns, struck such a powerful chord with that OCD-afflicted pre-teen version of me. Oh, all of those straight lines and perfectly aligned cells--it was love at first site, I tell you. That design resonated so strongly with me that I made sure to incorporate it into my Castlevania site and base all of my table designs on it.

Yeah--you can blame Konami for that.

Then there was my first experience with the actual game, which, sadly, wasn't as positive. At first glance, there was a lot to like, sure: The presentation was appropriately creepy; working to establish as much were (a) the title-screen's impressively rendered animation of a brown bat flying in from the background--from a castle seen in the distance--and flapping in place below the logo, and (b) the following scene wherein Simon approached the dark, looming castle as an eerie, portentous jingle played. Together these displays produced an ideally grim mood and setting. Also, the game's graphics were pretty great, as was its music, whose tone, I couldn't help but note, was an odd-though-pleasing mix of energetic and haunting. Truly I'd never played a game that looked and sounded like this one.

But soon problems began to surface. First there was the control issue; Castlevania's, I learned, were a troubling combination of stiff and clunky. Simon's maneuverability was compromised to where I'd repeatedly find myself in scenarios in which I couldn't effectively or with any sense of immediacy turn toward, jump over, or whip the enemies that seemed to be spawning in endlessly. The issue was exacerbated when it came to stair-climbing, engaging in which gave me the sense that the controls were just plain broken; you couldn't use sub-weapons while climbing, it seemed, and you were lucky if the game responded to even simple whip input. If you tried to attack while climbing, all that would happen was that Simon would freeze in place, and you'd get stuck on the stairs. Hell--I couldn't climb a single flight of stairs without a mad-dashing zombie clipping my legs or a black leopard pouncing on me--this because the controls were unresponsive.

The existence of this annoying control conflict left me wondering if it was even worth it to climb up to the screens' candelabra-rich upper portions. Staying grounded appeared to be the much-safer option.

Fortunately the game kindly allowed for Simon to take multiple hits in the early going, so, still, I was able to make it to the stage's endpoint without great struggle. And because I'd procured the powerful, high-arcing throwing axe, I was able to easily, cheaply take out the oversized, slow-to-relocate Phantom Bat boss.

Then I faced some new struggles in Stage 2. For one, I wasn't able to react hastily enough to the bats that suddenly charged toward me the moment I moved to within proximity of them (my reflexes were far from sharpened at this point), and so I'd be down multiple health units very early on. And it was here, in this stage, where I first encountered one of the greatest terrors I'd ever know: Medusa heads. Those wavily-maneuvering, infuriatingly obstructive nightmares! Theirs was an obvious movement-pattern, yes, but recognizing such meant very little, and I was finding myself to be utterly incapable of either whipping them in time or safely jumping over or passing beneath them; I just wasn't able to get a feel for the timing.

Things really fell to pieces when I advanced to the stage's fifth block, whose first area was comprised of multiple screens and two separate levels. Most troublingly, it featured a number of gaps, falling into which spelled instant death, and a whole lot more of those endlessly spawning Medusa heads. And you can take a guess as to where I landed every single time I made contact with a Medusa head. That's right: at the very bottom of the screen, where only death awaited. On this area's first two screens, I suffered an untold number of plunging deaths, one after the next. This would repeat even when I was lucky enough to reach the upper level: If I was riding on a moving platform, it wouldn't be long before a Medusa head came along and knocked me down to the lower level or into a gap. Moving platforms and Medusa Heads--talk about a foul mix.

I was both angered and puzzled. "This is completely intolerable," I thought to myself. Up until then, I believed Adventure's grabby bat to be the most highly irritating variety of flying enemy you could ever encounter in a video game, but after being introduced to Medusa heads, all I could think was, "Man--that bat has nothing on these sadistically conceived menaces! I mean, yikes!"

I had to stop playing for a bit because my aunt and uncle from New Jersey had just arrived at our house (they were at that get-together I talked about earlier; they must've went out for coffee in between) and I wanted to properly thank them for coming. Accompanying them, as usual, were my two cousins, Steve and Doug. They knew a lot about the NES and were responsible for introducing me to a great many of its games. And after the greeting session and the associated small talk concluded, the three of us broke off from the adults and headed up to my room for some NES action. I figured that now would be a good time to return the favor and introduce them to one of my new games: Castlevania!

Though, it turned out that such an introduction was unnecessary because they were already familiar with it. As coincidence would have it, they, too, had recently come to own the game and therefore knew a fair bit about it. And they were nice enough to teach me a few tricks. To start, they taught me that you could break certain wall blocks to find hidden items and treasures. One such set of blocks was found at Stage 1's midpoint--on the left side of its large divider; it was hiding an health-replenishing pork chip. The other set was found at Stage 2's starting point, only this time, they noted, you had to trigger the treasure's appearance by walking into the freshly carved recess. "That's a strange-but-interesting mechanic," I thought.

Then they taught me about a second secret-finding mechanic whose operation entailed maneuvering about or "posing" in certain ways. They showed me, for instance, how in the game's very first area you could trigger the appearance of special moneybag by jumping over the castle's entranceway. Otherwise, you could trigger the appearance of a hidden item by posing (that is, standing or kneeling) atop specific block sets for a set number of time (two or three seconds).

In the future, I would come to view this type of secret-finding as a defining characteristic of Castlevania--as one of the features that helped to provide it a wonderfully unique air of mystery and further set it apart from its contemporaries.

But the most important piece of knowledge they dropped was that you could freeze bosses with the stopwatch (I was certain that it only worked on minor enemies). They demonstrated this trick by rendering Medusa immobile and destroying her before she could move even one inch from her starting position.

With their help, I was able to advance farther than I had before. I didn't get very far into the game that day, no (ultimately I was done in by the Mummies, who unfortunately, I found, couldn't be frozen with the stopwatch), but the progress I made was meaningful. I now had a better understanding of the game and was feeling more confident in my abilities. I was determined to keep at it.

Within a few days, I was able to capably advance to Stage 4, the castle's catacombs. "I can actually beat this game!" I started to think.

However, it soon became evident that this, here, would be as far as said capabilities could carry me. Suddenly I'd hit an enormous roadblock. Stage 4's challenges, I discovered, were ridiculous in comparison to those I'd faced previously. Its opening segment--whose platforming challenge entailed (a) jumping to and riding on moving platforms while under constant assault from suddenly-spawning bats and fishmen and (b) continuing to do the same later on while negotiating your way around and beneath low-hanging, stalactite-filled cave structures--was bad enough, but subsequent stage blocks introduced even greater horrors. 

First there were the hunchback-carrying eagles who would continue to fly in, in large numbers, and drop their pals onto the battlefield, creating an endless storm of hunchbacks; it was all so overwhelming, and it didn't help that I still found the hunchbacks' jerky movement-pattern to be incomprehensible. And then there were the ever-shifting skeledragons, which kept destroying me. They were much-tougher-skinned than all of the other enemies and spewed fireballs at sometimes-unevadable angles; in most instances, it was impossible to land a hit without taking reciprocal damage. And if ever I was lucky enough to make it to the cave hall's final skeledragon, I'd likely do so with an inadequate amount of health and quickly meet my end. (I was quite fortunate to randomly discover that you could easily bypass the first skeledragon--the one embedded in the block above the cave's doorway--by remaining in motion and simply walking beneath it.)

It was only after suffering a great number of deaths that I finally found a way to advance past those bony pests (the stopwatch was very useful here, I learned).

But for one particular reason, this would be the limit of my progression. It had to do with what was waiting for me up ahead. What laid beyond that final hall, you see, were a pair of insurmountable obstacles.

I'm of course talking about Frankenstein & Igor.

Well, to be perfectly honest, Frankenstein wasn't too great of a threat threat; all he'd do was brainlessly walk back and forth across the room's right half. No, the real problem was his buddy, Igor--a swift, highly nimble hunchback who would continuously jump about the room, effectively clogging it up, while regularly spewing fireballs and doing so with maddening precision. (I remember being strangely fascinated by Igor's sprite design and specifically the idea of him being a repurposed minor enemy. At the time, it felt like such a bold, defiantly flagrant breaking of the rules. "Wait--you can turn a minor enemy into a boss?!" I questioned in wonder.)

It was impossible to focus on Frankenstein and land consecutive hits when the hyperactive Igor was repeatedly assaulting me and doing so from seemingly every direction at once. I couldn't see how I was supposed to dodge both him and his fireballs at the same time. "This is insane," I thought. "What the game is asking me to do here is simply unreasonable!" And once again, Castlevania had me feeling overwhelmed.

None of my formulated strategies were effective: The idea of freezing Igor in place with whip-slashes and then using that window of time to focus on Frankenstein was a nonstarter; Igor's stun phase was simply too short. Tossing daggers at Frankenstein from the room's far-left side didn't work because Igor kept pinning me in the corner. Any attempt to deftly bob and weave my way around Igor and his fireballs would only result in my being slowly picked apart.

There was no way, it seemed, to counter the pair's relentless air-ground assault. Time and time again, battling them proved to be an exercise in futility. There was only failure. Crushing failure--the type that cemented in my mind the idea that I simply didn't possess the skill necessary to complete this game.

Though, I didn't give up immediately. Over the course of about a week, I made a few additional attempts. Sadly, they all ended the same way, with me angrily switching off the NES after having been repeatedly pummeled by Frankenstein & Igor.

I had no choice but to accept that Stage 4 was about as far as I was ever going to get in this game. And if that was the case, then I didn't need to continue playing it. "Why torture myself like this?" I had to ask myself. "And even if I were to somehow tank my way past Frankenstein & Igor, in some marathon effort, how in the hell would I ever manage to overcome what was waiting for me in those final two stages, which are no doubt exponentially more-difficult?"

Sure, I loved everything about Castlevania's presentation--its art direction, its music, its monster-movie theme, and its memorably Gothic atmosphere. It stirred my imagination in ways other games couldn't. But for however much I enjoyed observing it and listening to it, I didn't care for its punishing difficulty and how it made me feel about myself. Being put through hell was no fun. So I decided that I wasn't going to let it happen again. Right then, I ejected the game from the NES, likely for the last time.

In the months ahead, my game library grew exponentially, and consequently Castlevania was buried and eventually forgotten.

But soon fate would make the first of its two separate interventions.

So one Sunday, later that year, my parents and I made our annual 2-hour trip to New Jersey to visit my aunt and uncle (the same aunt and uncle I talked about earlier). And while I was there, as per usual, my cousins, Steve and Doug, introduced me to the most prized of their recently purchased/received NES games. This time it was Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, WWF Wrestlemania, Ice Hockey and the relatively new Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, which I'd only heard about.

As I watched them play through the first ten or so minutes of Simon's Quest, I became somewhat intrigued. "This looks kinda fun," I thought.

What was most interesting about Simon's Quest was that it appeared to be mechanically similar to Castlevania yet somehow completely different, like how Super Mario Bros. 2 and Zelda II: The Adventure Link were different from their respective predecessors. More so, its world had an entirely unique atmosphere to it--one that I found especially engrossing. It was that aspect of Simon's Quest that resonated with me most in the weeks and months ahead.

Now, I wasn't about to entertain the idea of actually buying the game, no, even at a moment in time when I was still in full copycat-gamer mode. There was no such impulse could possibly push me in that direction. That's because there was one very serious deterrent: my memories of playing Castlevania and being abused by it. Its sequel, I figured, was likely to be just as punishingly difficult. "And why the hell would I want to put myself through that kind of torture again?!" I asked myself.

But while that preview of Simon's Quest didn't do much to alter my view of Castlevania or the series in general, it was, as mentioned, able to make something of a mark. Mainly, it planted some seeds in my head--seeds that would begin to sprout a little more than 12 months later.

Cut ahead to winter of 1990, at a time when my NES game racks were filled with games that I'd played to absolute death and I was hungry for something new. Though, there was a problem: I already owned all of the games that I liked, and those listed on Nintendo Power's upcoming-releases list just weren't capturing my interest. So here I had $40 to spend but nothing to spend it on! (Oh, the troubles of the overprivileged.)

That's when fate made its second move.

So one day, my brother, James, and his friends decided to head on over to one of the local electronics stores and buy themselves some games (James was no doubt planning to empty out a few bargain bins and scoop up a whole bunch of NES games he'd never actually play). Before leaving, James came upstairs, walked on over to the den, and asked me, "Are there any games you want me to pick up for you while I'm at the store?" Having nothing in mind but desperate for a new game, I decided to leave it to chance; I handed him the $40 and told him to "just get anything," trusting his judgement in light of the numerous previous instances in which he had acquainted me with the kinds of games I would ordinarily ignore or overlook and therein helped me discover those that would go on to become some of my favorites.

It so happened that he came home with Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, which, apparently, he knew nothing about (my only guess is that one of his friends recommended it to him). He thought, though, that I might find it interesting.

In reality, I was kind of annoyed. I mean, the game had "Castlevania" in its title. "What am I going to do with it?" I asked internally. "I won't be able to finish this game. It's guaranteed to feature the same crazy-tough difficulty, and I definitely don't want to relive that experience!"

However, because I had nothing else to do, I decided that I might as well give the game a shot. And, well, I found myself actually enjoying it! There were feelings of deja vu, yeah--the clunky controls and obnoxious enemies ("Hunchbacks and bone pillars in Stage 1?!") still vexed me at times--but still this experience was playing out quite differently than I expected; suddenly, for reasons I couldn't explain at the time (mainly, as a consequence of having played so many "NES hard" video games, my reflexes and general gaming skills had improved significantly), it was all starting to make sense for me, and I was now able to succeed in instances where previously I'd failed.

An hour later, there I was, still playing Dracula's Curse and having a great time with it. In particular, I was enamored with its high production-value: Not only did Konami outdo itself in terms of presentation--it had created just about the best-looking and best-sounding NES game I'd ever played!

Truly I was blown away by the experience. I loved everything about the game: its pitch-perfect visuals, its outstanding soundtrack, its wonderful ally system, its entrancing environments, and its amazing sense of atmosphere. Within a very short period of time, I became intimately familiar with Dracula's Curse. I played through multiple times over the course of a week. I had to. It was too good.

And as the best games usually did, it left me wanting more--something else in addition. For that, there was only one place I could turn. There was only one game to which I could look for more of that same brand of action.

So almost two years after I'd last laid a finger on it, I pulled Castlevania's cartridge out from my game rack and popped it into the NES, determined to show it what I had learned and subsequently conquer it.

The play-through proceeded more smoothly this time (Dracula's Curse had trained me well), with a few minor speed bumps the only obstacles. Within minutes, I arrived at Frankenstein & Igor's chamber, ready to beat them down! "Finally," I confidently stated, "I'll have my revenge!

It didn't work out that way. Instead, the battle unfolded in much the same way it had two years prior, with me unable to survive Igor's screen-filling barrage. And that's how it continued: I'd make it to Frankenstein & Igor with full health, get completely overwhelmed, and die. Following a series of failures, I entered into a demoralized mode wherein I just didn't care anymore; my efforts were going to be for naught, I knew, so there was no reason for me to emotionally invest in what I was doing. "Go ahead and destroy me, game," I said with a deep sigh. "I'll just keep on playing, and you can continue having your way with me. Whatever, man."

That's when fortune smiled upon me: At a point when I was so dispirited that all I was looking to do was add at least a cosmetic twist to another sure failure, I made a discovery. Since nothing else was working, I decided to, just for a lark, try to fight Frankenstein & Igor with holy water (a "useless sub-weapon," I thought). So upon entering their chamber, I rushed over to the screen's right side, and, before the battle could even initiate, I started bombarding them with holy water vials--three at a time as permitted by the triple-shot power-up I picked up after slaying a nearby skeledragon. "Maybe I can score a few cheap hits before I go down," I thought.

Right then, I observed that something odd was happening: As I was tossing the vials, I noticed that Frankenstein & Igor weren't moving. From what I could tell, the holy water's engulfing effect was completely stun-locking them--freezing them in place and rapidly draining their health meter. So I kept on tossing vials, one after another, as quickly as I could. And seconds later, something incredible occurred: Frankenstein & Igor died, having been reduced to dissipating flames.

I was in shock. "You can do that to bosses?!" I questioned while trying to comprehend what it was that just happened.

And just like that, I was in Stage 5, a sanctum upon which I had never before laid eyes.

As I looked over its unfamiliar light-blue environment and listened to the first notes of its spooky-sounding theme, I entered into a state of silent awe. Being here was surreal. I had to pause the game so that I could take a moment to fully comprehend what I was seeing (and temporarily halt the movement of two aggressive hunchbacks). I was standing on forbidden ground, I felt--a place my eyes were never meant to see. Mixed in there was a feeling of accomplishment, yeah, but one that was negligible in comparison to the feelings of astonishment and wonderment that were currently consuming me.

Suddenly, the Castlevania experience felt new again. There were whole new areas to traverse and new sights to see. There was a newly introduced music track whose foreboding tone worked to render a wonderfully-distinct-feeling atmosphere. And there were newly debuting foes like the blood skeletons and the axe knights (with which I hadn't tangled outside of Dracula's Curse), whose very presence, more than any of the above, added an element of uncertainty and moreover strongly reinforced the notion that I was now entering into unknown territory. It was wild.

So I carefully advanced through the dungeon and learned how to deal with the new enemies--how to read their patterns and effectively counter their attacks. Things were going OK until I came to the stage's final hall, which proved to be a huge trouble spot; it was a room populated by two axe knights and ("Oh God!") Medusa heads, which made for an unfathomably awful mix--the type you'd encounter during a really bad level in a space-shooter game, only one in which you'd have more of a chance because its hero didn't control like a tank.

At first, this hall seemed to be impenetrable; no matter what strategy I employed, I simply couldn't get through it. Then later on, in those instances when I was able to tank my way through it, I'd be so woefully short on health that the stage's boss, the Grim Reaper, would absolutely tear me apart. It was like the Frankenstein & Igor situation all over again.

This time, however, I didn't get stuck. No--once I discovered that you could take out an axe knight with a single vial of holy water, the issue was promptly resolved and then each time I could blow through that hallway and reach the Reaper's chamber with full health.

But then there was the Reaper, himself. And boy was he an absolute terror! Scarily he was even tougher than Frankenstein & Igor! His wide-ranging swoop attacks and storms of conjured sickles would overwhelm me time after time. It was brutal. The most effective strategy, I found, was to use a triple-shot-powered boomerang to fill up the room--to flood its open spaces with crisscrossing projectiles--and consequently neutralize the sickles (well, most of them) and score multiple hits on the Reaper. But even then I couldn't win; four hits just wasn't enough to work with. "How the hell will I ever be able to beat this guy?!" I asked in frustration.

As I trekked my way through that long, drawn-out stage for what seemed like the 100th time, I once again started to descend into a state of despondency. "This is impossible!" I thought. But I wasn't ready to succumb just yet. Rather, I decided that now was the time to put into effect a last-ditch plan: I was going to attempt to surprise the Reaper by tossing holy water vials at him the moment he appeared.

So once the stage's final screen scrolled into view, I rushed over to the room's right side and began jumping and tossing holy water vials, one after another, onto the rightmost platform. I then watched on as (a) the just-arriving Reaper became helplessly frozen in place, before he could find opportunity to begin conjuring sickles, and (b)the holy water's engulfing effect rapidly drained his health. "Wait--you can do this to him, too?!" I asked in stupefaction the moment it started working, immediately recognizing that there were no limits to my ignorance. "I should have done this much earlier!" (The reason I didn't was that I stupidly assumed that the same trick wouldn't work on an enemy that wasn't already onscreen when I arrived at its chamber.)

Soon the shrouded ghoul vanished into nothingness and the magic crystal dropped onto the middle platform. After overcoming shock, again, I grabbed the crystal and exhaled. And as the score tallied, all I could do was wonder about what types of horrors would be waiting for me in that final stage.

  

As the stage's first screen came into view, that feeling of incredulity returned, and once again I felt as though I was walking upon sacred ground. I never thought I'd see this place. Yet here I was, closer to Dracula than I'd ever been.

However, that feeling of wonder quickly turned to disbelief as I climbed up that first stairway and saw a Phantom Bat--the Stage 1 boss--flying in place near the screen's top. "Are they crazy?!" I questioned, completely aghast. "Why is there a boss as a minor enemy?!" (Though, I had to admit that the idea of repurposing a boss as a minor enemy was just as fascinating to me as the reverse.) Even worse, this one could spit fireballs!

Each time I engaged the Phantom Bat, I suffered either major damage or a plunging death. When I finally killed it, I was relieved. "Thank goodness that's over," I said.

But then, just one screen over, there was another one! "What the hell?!" I asked as I started to question the designer's mental state. "Are these guys sadists?!"

"Screw it," I said, determining that the best option was to simply run past it. And that's when I ran into a third Phantom Bat! And then a fourth! Whenever I'd stop to fight one of them, I'd meet the same fate: swift death. "There's no way I can take them all out," I concluded, "so I'll just have to try to run past all of them."

Since I hadn't yet figured out how to manipulate the Phantom Bats' movements, my only option was to rush straight through and hope that everything would align perfectly--that none of the bats would charge into me or catch me with one of their fireballs.

Eventually the strategy worked and I was granted largely unfettered access to the castle's clock tower area. In following, I kept to that strategy and continued to bull-rush my way past the stage's multitude of cruelly-positioned skeletons and hunchback-dropping eagles. And through pure attrition, I made it to the game's final area.

Finally I'd made it to the end--to the Castle Keep, where Dracula dwelled.

And I've gotta tell ya, man: Overcoming Dracula was a long and arduous process that required several hours of effort spread over the course of weeks (and that's not counting all the time I had to spend replaying the entire game just to get back to the Keep).

The trouble started with Dracula's first form: For whatever reason, it took me forever to figure out how to successfully dodge his three-directional fireball attack. "What does this game want from me?" I'd continued to wonder as fireball after fireball smacked into my face. "Am I supposed to whip the fireballs then jump, or is it the opposite?" It didn't help that Dracula had the propensity to teleport in right on top of me, scoring guaranteed hits, and do so every time I was in the lead. It was maddening.

Eventually I discovered the trick: It was a simple matter of jumping over the fireballs and executing a whip-strike while at the jump's peak. That's all there was to it. (Once again, my previous failures were a result of foolish presumption--of thinking that you couldn't jump over the fireballs once they'd reached full extension.)

When ultimately I cleared away Dracula's last sliver of health (and knocked his head off, in a shocking scene), I thought it was over--that finally I'd beaten one of the most punishing games I'd ever played. But it wasn't over, no. Instead, intense, sinister-sounding music began to play.

At that moment, I immediately became numb. And that happened because I knew what the music was signalling: Unbelievably, there was a second form. "How?" I asked, having now fallen into despair. "How in the world am I going to be able to endure this?"

I felt like Louis Gossett Jr.'s character in Diggstown when he realized that his exhausting, hard-fought victory was a false one--that there was one final opponent.

I had no idea how to deal with this second form--this enormous blue beast. It crowded me into the corner and soon destroyed me with diagonally spewed fireballs and crushing jumps under which I apparently couldn't run. "If I'm entirely incapable of getting by his first form with an adequate amount of health," I wondered, "then how in the hell am I ever going to survive this fight?"

Thankfully, the game allowed for the player to continue from the Castle Keep. Had it not, I might very well have suffered an emotional breakdown and sworn the game off for good.

"Still," I thought, "I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to do this."

But you've probably already guessed as to how this story played out. It was the same ol' process: During a seemingly fruitless attempt, I failed to catch a boomerang upon its return and watched as it clipped through the room's far-left candelabra and revealed the holy water sub-weapon I'd been ignoring the whole time. Mostly out of desperation, I grabbed the holy water and began chucking vials at the winged behemoth's lower half, which I assumed to be its weak point. The holy water's engulfing effect, of course, worked to freeze the monster in place, even when it was in the air! "I can even do this to a Dracula form?!" I asked, flabbergasted by this discovery.

It was only after I started executing series of aerial whip-strikes on the blue beast that I learned, quite by accident, that its head, instead, was the true weak point. And once I'd obtained this knowledge, I knew that ultimate victory was now assured. All that was left to do was to toss some holy water and land a few more whip-strikes.

Moments later, it was over. I'd finally beaten Castlevania, a game that I long thought to be impossible. Right then, I experienced a new form of satisfaction--one derived from a feeling of triumph, yes, but more so a sense of closure. No longer would my previous failures weigh on me. No longer could Castlevania say that it had gotten the best of me. The mission--one that was once aborted out of fear and then renewed as a seemingly hopeless struggle--was at last accomplished. And as a result, I'd become the gamer I always wanted to be.

That's how I was feeling as I watched the Count's castle crumble to the ground and as the credits began to roll. It was an indelible, defining moment.

Though, for however absorbed in thought I was, I certainly didn't fail to notice that there was something particularly odd about the game's staff roll--that no actual staff members were listed and that the names displayed belonged to parodied versions of real-life actors (credited were people like "Vran Stoker," "Christopher Bee," "Boris Karloffice" and others whose names closely matched those of the horror genre's greatest legends. Those that I, a fan of old monster movies, knew so well). It was a strange departure, I thought, but also a cool one. It created the sense that Castlevania was an interactive horror film and one that I helped script. More so, it was a nice homage from a development team that clearly wanted to show respect to the people whose works inspired them.

The only thing that didn't make sense to me was the the final credit, which identified the game's hero not as Simon Belmont but as, instead, Simon "Belmondo." "It has to be a mistake made by an absent-minded programmer," I thought. "They just didn't catch it."

I mean, come on--it's not like other countries would ever do anything differently from ours. What a silly thought.

Above all, this experience helped me to find new appreciation for Castlevania. I mean, the game had put me through absolute hell, yeah, but still I couldn't deny that the journey was worth it--that there was a valuable type of enjoyment to be found in the struggle though at first I didn't recognize as much. I had to admit to myself that I really liked this game. That I liked how it challenged me. That I wanted more of it. So I started playing it on a regular basis. 

And in time, Castlevania became one of my favorites.

But I didn't want for play-throughs of Castlevania to become mere exercises in repetition--in employing unsavory tactics like using large quantities of holy way to basically stun-lock my through the game. No--doing that would have gone against the terms of our relationship. Instead, I'd revisit Castlevania with the aim of further increasing my skill-level. And when I applied such effort, I began to grow as a gamer. Soon I was deftly, effortlessly maneuvering my way around the five Phantom Bats that guarded Stage 6's clock-tower bridge. I was using triple-shot-powered boomerangs to take down Frankenstein & Igor, the Grim Reaper, and Dracula's Ghost (which was the name Nintendo Power had given to Dracula's second form), all of whom at one point seemed to be so unassailable that I didn't think I'd ever become capable enough to defeat them using conventional tactics. And I was playing through the entirety of Castlevania without having to use a continue. After a few months' worth of practice, I even became proficient enough to pull off no-death runs.

Even years later, I was still finding new ways to challenge myself. I would, say, restrict my sub-weapon use to just daggers. I'd endeavor to complete two loops without dying. I'd attempt whip-only runs. And if I was feeling extra bold, I'd even try to beat the game without taking a single hit (I'm still working to meet this goal)! Castlevania, I'd learn, would never be short on challenge. That was its nature. That's why I'd never stop playing it.

That's how it was: Castlevania had the amazing ability to make me feel as though I was capable of becoming even more of a master. Hell--it still does! It still has the ability to make me feel as though I haven't yet reached my full potential.

For that and many other reasons, Castlevania is truly special to me. I put it up there with games like Mega Man, Mega Man 2, Rygar and Metroid as one of those to which I always feel a strong desire to return. I play through it several times a year. I load it up whenever I have twenty minutes available and I'm hankering for some fun, satisfying monster-slaying action!

Though, while it's true that I'm likely to play Castlevania at any such moment, I find that there's one time in particular when playing it feels most appropriate: on a cloudy, rainy mid-autumn day when light rumblings of thunder are reverberating across the gray sky, when the trees' branches are almost barren, and when the air is still mildly cool. That's when it makes the most sense to pop open a window--to give influence to the sounds of nature and the landscape's suitably dreary visuals and invite them to provide a wonderfully supplementary layer of texture--and play some Castlevania. That's the time when playing it makes the most sense. That's the environment in which the game's emanations are best received.

Of course, I can't end this piece without giving credit to Castlevania's powerfully alluring aural and visual elements. For me, they're a huge draw. There are times when I play the game simply because I desire to observe it, listen to it, and soak in its wonderfully entrancing atmosphere. Its graphics and music have a way of transporting me into the game's world--one to which I'm always a willing visitor.

And its classic vibe, man; there's no other like it. No other game feels like Castlevania--not even either of its 8-bit sequels, which resemble it, yes, but can't quite reproduce its vibrational qualities. None ever will. From now until the end, Castlevania's irreplicable mode of conveyance will allow it to stand apart from all of the other games that are designed to look and sound like it.

And still there are other reasons why I like to immerse myself in Castlevania's world. For one, I like to draw inspiration from it; if ever I find myself stuck for ideas while working on an artistic project (particularly one related to monster movies or mythology), I load up Castlevania, let myself fall under its influence, and then begin happily mining. 

Also, I do so to remember. And let me tell you: This game never fails to conjure up memories of the time I spent with it as a youth. I'm always reminded of when I'd demonstrate for my friends and cousins my Castlevania mastery and prove to them that I could finish the game in under 30 minutes and do so without losing a single life. I always recall the desperate struggles I underwent when I was trying to defeat Frankenstein & Igor, Death and other terrors for the first time. And I remember how after receiving false information from my cousin Doug--that axe knights "drop their weapons when defeated"--I spent a half hour repeatedly killing them in an effort to trigger such an event--one that I somehow previously missed. "Wow! I didn't know that the game allowed for you to pick up enemies' weapons and use them as your own!" I thought after being told as much. (Though, this was a simple mistake on Doug's part: In truth, the higher-positioned axe knight seen on the first screen of Block 14 obscures an axe-holding candelabra. It so happens that if you kill the axe knight and strike the candelabra at the same time, it creates the appearance of the axe knight dropping its weapon.)

Really, I'd be here all day if I attempted to list all of the ways in which Castlevania has affected my life. So let's save a whole lot of space and just stop right here. I mean, I think you've got the point by now.

And that's my story with Castlevania, a game I hold dear. Without it, I wouldn't be the enthusiast I am today. I probably wouldn't have become such a big fan of the series. Also, there would be no "Mr. P's Castlevania Realm," and as a result I wouldn't have made so many important connections, and I wouldn't have met so many awesome people.

So thank goodness for Castlevania, a game that (a) shaped who I am, (b) helped me to form a deep, lasting relationship with one of gaming's greatest video-game series, (c) and provided me entrance into a world of opportunity.

You, Castlevania, played the greatest role in this story.