Annotated Appendix: The First Great Cleanup

This was both the easiest and most difficult video to put together. Go ahead and watch it:

First, from an actually editing perspective, it was kind of a snap. I didn't need extensive clips from previous games since it was mostly just B roll from Symphony itself, which saved me a lot of resizing/ reframing for the side window, which always makes things easier. Since we've pretty much seen the entirety of the castle at this point except for a few hidden rooms with no real visual splendor to them, there wasn't a whole lot to discuss about actual locations, either (which will be true for the entirety of the second castle, actually), which also makes getting through things a little faster. I could just point out what we found, throw in some clips of what makes them interesting, and move on.

Even though this is maybe the longest video, too, it moves along at a faster clip than the others do, too. I think people will like that about this one, especially with the extra "filler" information that I've had in the can since this series started. Without the need for Alucard to stand around and wait for me to finish speaking, it certainly makes for a more interesting video to watch, but that's also where some of the troubles came in. All of the stuff that I point out that isn't exactly native to what we're seeing on-screen had to be nestled in there or totally re-written and re-recorded. I'm not totally above that, but there's a balance between working smarter and working harder. Thankfully, it all kind of fit. So a few sentences are a little awkward in that I keep saying "series producer, Koji Igarashi," and "an interview recently translated by Shmupulations," (whom does work so great that you owe it to yourself to dig through their back catalog and lose an afternoon or two, and then contribute to their Patreon like they deserve), but I think it gets a pass. It's nice to do a video that's essentially an information dump but winds up being a much more active one.

Last thing about that: boy, I sure did a shitty job getting around those Flea Riders in the Keep, huh? That wasn't by design; I actually thought that I had enough magic that I could make the flight in mist form to the other side of the keep. By the time I got swarmed, I knew I was in for it. But it sure was convenient, though, because the dialog running over that whole clown show fit perfectly. Happy accidents, my dudes. Happy. Accidents.

So a note going forward-- I'll probably do two sections of the inverted castle per video, so things should move along a little faster. Other than the new enemies to talk about, there's just isn't that much to discuss. Sad, maybe, but the truth, so be prepared.

Thanks again for watching, and I'll see you in a few weeks.

Annotated Appendix: The Clock Tower

Here's the funniest thing about the Clock Tower in SotN: It's not the fact that it's obviously a stopping point for early players, like most armchair critics like myself love to point out. Yes, you can only basically walk into the entrance of the area before finding the need to turn back and explore the castle some more. It isn't because it's a classic area of the series, either. Clock towers were basically baked into just about every Castlevania at this point, so its appearance here is basically par for the course.

No, what makes this particular Clock Tower interesting is that it practically doesn't matter unless you're gunning for the best ending of the game. There aren't any key items to be found in it (the Fire of Bat doesn't count), and by the time you make it to the point where you can properly map it, most of the weapons and items scoured through it are old news. There also aren't any save rooms here, either. You finish it or you don't, and that's pretty much that. I guess for the hardcore, though, this is soonest one can find the Muramasa sword, which takes a ridiculous amount of effort to bring to its full potential. I've already said it enough times, but you never need to do what needs to be done with it to destroy the game, and even if you do, it's assured overkill anyway. But I'm not you, Mr./Ms. Muramasa wielder, so you do you.

From a video-making perspective, this area presents its own unique challenges. For one, it's another of those areas with a lot of wide open space, so I was initially concerned about not having enough to say (which wasn't the problem). The other hard part, though, is the constant assault of Medusa Heads inside the actual CT. It can be hard to stay put while my dialog rolls along while also putting up with that, which is one of the reasons I stop for a while to talk about the Harpies without actually getting in there and dealing with them (SECRET: The other reason is because I sat in that spot expecting to talk about something totally different for way too long, so it made more sense to get through the Harpy explanation ahead of time as opposed to re-recording the video).

This episode also has a bit of obvious re-recorded dialog sections. I never, ever, use the Cross weapon in this game. It's too expensive to toss and doesn't inflict enough damage vs. the Holy Water to justify hanging on to it, and lacks a certain versatility when other weapons/ magic will give you the same effect. So, it's probably been, shit, years since I actually picked up the Cross and used it, and totally forgot that it was basically an item crash and not the boomerang like in other games of the series. That patch of dialog needed some fixing as well as other stuff that you can probably make out on your own. I try to have these videos down to a science, but sometimes, you know, memories and such get in the way.

No discussion question this time. This area's about as straightforward as it comes, and there wasn't anything that struck me as odd that was worth talking about (but I'm happy to be proven wrong). The next episode, though, is going to be an odd one. I need to head back and map all of the hidden rooms and areas that I couldn't without the ability to fly, but backtracking is boring, so I'll use the time to drop in further info and dev tidbits that didn't fit neatly anywhere else. That said, I'm on the fence about taking the slowest possible route or blasting through it to save some stuff for later. Sine there isn't a ton of development info left to talk about, I might lean for the latter. I don't know.

Again, thanks for watching.

Annotated Appendix: The Catacombs

Oh, hi. This one took forever to get out, so let me just start this one off by apologizing for the tardiness. Thanks for sticking with it so far, though. Let's get into the Catacombs.

The big insider dope with the making of this one is the fact that I totally botched my save files, which set everything back about a week. Most of you know this already, but one cannot make multiple saves in SotN, so if you accidentally save the game at a point that's inconvenient (which, really, only happens if you're making internet videos because it's practically impossible to screw yourself in that manner here), you have no choice but to start from scratch. It had been so long since I had made a previous video that I mis-juggled my current playthroughs and saved over what was the master run of the game. Yes, I am stupid.

I guess I'm lucky in this regard in that getting back to that point was only a matter of hours, but it's not the same save file, which slaps the some of the original intent of this series in the face. It's really not that big of a deal, I know, but there was a certain integrity that I wanted to maintain and now I have a flaw that maybe I alone will notice. Oh well, I suppose.

To the actual episode, though, there really wasn't a ton of development anecdotes to relay with this one, but there was a lot of fun research to put into it all the same. This is really where the references to demonology kick off in earnest, and the Tolkien stuff is also starting to mount, too, but sadly, nothing really specific came straight from Iga's mouth here. The best stuff about the Catacombs are its subtext, really.

I mention in the video that the area is basically split in half, and I'm almost 100% certain that this was an early design choice. On the left side of the map, Alucard can fight it out with Granfaloon and obtain the Mormegil, which is a proper Dark elemental weapon. This is for the crowd that may not map the whole castle because Mormegil is a weapon that can turn Richter Belmont into mush. Since it takes some exploration and a little experimentation to get through the pitch black spike room on the right side of the map, the designers want you to take this new weapon to the top of the castle, finish the game, and remain curious about what you didn't uncover. This means a return trip to the area after obtaining the Echo of Bat. It's honestly not all that deeply hidden, all things considered. "I can go here, but I can't go there, yet," is, in this genre of game, all the enticement necessary to eventually get there. It's why we crossed oceans and go into space. People just want to see what's out there.

The other big nod is the combination of Orphic myth and Dante's Inferno. I make it pretty clear in the video, but just to reiterate: Alucard is descending to the lowest reach of the castle. Like in Greco-Roman mythology, he was transported there by a boatman only to be met with a watchdog sentry before breaking his way in to fight a demon that was mentioned by name (which is fairly rare) in the Christian Bible. He literally goes into the underworld, complete with fire at his feet. The prize for killing it is a means to finish the game, but only one facet of it, so this Hell that Alucard is in must be explored thoroughly or fought through a second time. For those of you in the know (which I'm pretty sure is everyone reading this), we get to see much later the difference between a Hell that we thought was under our feet (as our ancestors may have thought) and the Hell that's an upside down reflection of reality, which, in a lot of ways, is a whole lot worse.

Not much of a discussion question this time around, but after doing my share of reading into the origins of catacombs, I kept thinking of Edgar Allen Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" and wondered if there were any subtle references to it in the game. I have a feeling that one of the statues in there might be, but that's too much of a stretch. Curious about that you all think in the comments.

Thanks again for watching, and we're off to the Clock Tower.

Annotated Appendix: The Abandoned Mine

Sorry for the break between episodes, but a nice chunk of freelance work has come in. Some of it was harrowing, all of it was awesome. Head over to USGamer.net and bask in its majesty.

Ok, then. The Abandoned Mine. Let's get to it.

This was a nice place to ease back into movie-making because it's the smallest section of the castle, except for maybe the Entrance. There's still a lot to say, though, and it even has a very cool. cleverly hidden reference to a mythic story of a Gothic king.

To get there, though, we needed to nab the Demon familiar, and have him hit the switch in the more mountainous-looking sections of the zone. Not that big of a deal to those in the know, but in practice, it's a finicky behavior for the little devil to take part in.

Here's why: whenever you summon a familiar from your Relic menu, they'll say a few words to you to sort of announce their presence as long as Alucard is standing still after you leave the submenu. This is a neat little extra feature that doesn't have any bearing on the game other than this one spot (and its counterpart in the Inverted Castle), because if you bring in the Demon while you're standing still, it will come down to your side and mumble something and not fly upward to hit the switch like its supposed to. The other weird quirk that I found with this is that it won't consistently press the button if you go from the Fairy familiar to the Demon, either, which has got to be some sort of weird bug. I can nearly always get it to behave the way I need it to when I start with the Sword familiar, though, which is why you see me equip it immediately as this episode starts. What you don't see is about 20 minutes of previous recordings as I try to get the little bastard to do what I want without starting with the Sword. This right here is why these Appendices exist. Inside baseball!

Anyway, as you work your way through the secret passage, you fight it out with a few random Thornweeds (Unes) and a Venus Weed (Alura Une), which is a pretty tough enemy if you don't come into the fight prepared. Notice the Venus Weed's shape, though, that of a giant rose (and, sure, the naked woman that sprouts within it). The next room is where Alucard finds the Ares Ring, which is called Laurin's Ring in the Japanese version. The video tells the story of Laurin the treacherous dwarf king and his rose garden. You just busted your way through a giant rose, and since half of this level looks more opulent than the more cavernous sections (like where you pick up the ring), the game sort of implies that this whole section is a representation of King Laurin's mountain palace. That's pretty cool.

The other thing (that I'm asking about in the comments) is the Peanuts room where the Power of Sire is found. This is a stretch, but I always sort of considered this room as something of a lament for Alucard. Follow me here: in the West, there's a certain cultural cliche of a father playing catch with his son, whether it be a bonding experience or a teaching exercise or whatever. Traditionally, professional baseball games sell peanuts by the truckload. Since the small room has a smattering of peanuts lying around next to one of only two Power of Sires found in the game (a bomb item that displays Dracula's image in two separate ways), I always connected these items as going to see a ballgame with your dad, and maybe it represents the strained relationship that Alucard and old Vlad have. Or, since it's a secret room within a secret room, it's more from Dracula's perspective that it represents a botched fatherhood. I wonder what you think. Talk about it in the video's comments, if you please.

Speaking of subtext, the whole next episode, the Catacombs, will make Alucard's descent into Hell complete. I honestly have no idea when I can put it together, but hopefully in the next two weeks or so.

Annotated Appendix: Underground Caverns

First, a warning: Don't Google search "succubus" or "Lilith" in a public place. Trust me on this.

Now, for the video; it's kind of trivial, but the long drop into the more cavernous sections of the Underground Caverns is maybe my favorite callback to an older game in the series. I think it was just one of those things that I remember noticing the first time I played it (the other getting the meat out of the staircase in the Entrance while I was killing time at a Babbages when the game was new and having an employee impressed by its old-timey-ness) and wondering if other people would pick up on it, too. I played the game several times back-to-back-to-back when it was first released, and part of the fun for me was to mine any kind of references that I could. But in 1997, this was all from memory since I no longer had an NES to play and older games to go back to. That's maybe where this whole odyssey started, now that I think about it. So you have this section of the game to thank, or something.

More into the specifics, I was really concerned with the amount of silence on my end when putting this one together. It was the easiest one to compile so far, which is probably why it came out only a week or so after the last, but the small amount of new foes to fight and interesting stuff to say about the development of this zone left me a bit nervous that people would call me out for being mute. Thankfully, that hasn't happened, and I think I had enough ground to cover that the quiet places don't stick out as much as in others. Big shoutout to Icebrand and the Nunchaku for that, maybe.

I actually recorded myself going through this section of the castle twice. See, SOTN is a pretty easy game, all things considered, but you wouldn't know it by my playing because I've been getting my ass kicked up and down the street in almost every video. Granted, showing everything that I can in the game means that I have to put myself into some ugly situations, but I just about got killed fighting Orlox in the last video. That shit can't stand. Worse, my Gravity Boots traversal was downright terrible during my first crack at recording. For whatever reason, it took at least two minutes to get back up the waterfall, and I knew right away that it would translate to film the same way Jordan did in Space Jam. Lucky for me that playing this game zone-by-zone is pretty short, but this turns out to be one of the larger places in the game by area (strangely enough), so I wound up with a solid hour of video by the end. And I still beefed it a few times on the Gravity jumps. Man...

One thing that a commentor on this week's video pointed out that I probably should have brought up was how Maria is locked in a cell in an area that's practically the same as the Underground Cavern in Rondo of Blood. Sure, the castle is a "creature of chaos," which is a convenient way of having it be a different layout in every game, but I could probably have made a case for her cell being where the Holy Symbol is found since it's at the end of a long stretch of water in a locked room. Thanks to Billy Greggory for reminding me (and no, I'm not remaking this video to include it) (for now).

This was the first episode that I had a discussion question in the comments, and I'm glad that people chimed in. I always took the toad and frog enemies for being replacements for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because they were reptiles that dropped "NY style" pizza. One of the commentors shares my thoughts that turtles were probably just dumb enemies to put into the game, and since frog sprites already existed from Rondo, I had always guessed that they stretched the reference a bit to make it work. I can't confirm it, though, so in the comments is where it stays. I guess if someone that worked on the game in some official capacity wants to reach out to me and say yes or no, maybe I actually will redo this one to include it. BUT THAT'S ON THEM.

Lastly, this is probably the only video that should have been labeled "NSFW" with the Succubus art attached to it, but I didn't do it. Maybe it was a mistake, but I'm open to hearing opinions on this. If folks want me to, I'm happy to update the episode title to put the distinction in there.

The next video might be one that stretches two sections of the castle: the Abandoned Mine and the Catacombs. The Mine is relatively short and there isn't a ton to say about it, so maybe combining the two might be the way to go. Then again, I have a fair amount of freelance work in the pipeline over the next month, so maybe a shorter video could be in the cards to keep things moving along. We'll see, I guess.

Thanks again for watching, everybody.

Annotated Appendix: Library and Orlox Revisited

Let's talk about silence for a second.

When I originally envisioned these videos, I wanted to both tell as much of the story around the building of the game and its references to other media as possible and also show as much of Symphony's weird subtleties as was I could. Yes, there's a lot to say about this game, but it's still a complete playthrough with unique enemy behavior to uncover. The problem is, these can sometimes be at odds with each other.

Take, for example, the fight with Orlox in this week's video. Normally, I would have farmed or bought an iron shield to tear through him with the Shield Rod spell, or just continued to shower him with Holy Water subweapon attacks, making the battle a total shit show in my favor. But that's not showing the game; notice how Orlox has a variety of special attacks in his first form from summoning ghosts and bats to shooting blasts of energy from his hands and the floor. It's cool stuff, actually, but it's easily missed. With the way my Alucard would run into this fight equipped with the Holy Water, a constant dousing on Orlox pushes him into the second phase without breaking a sweat, but that means not showing these special attacks in the video. Then there's the second part which, while not exactly a cake walk, isn't super challenging with the Faerie familiar floating around, but it's a time-consuming throwdown with Orlox's boosted defense. Notice how his behavior becomes more aggressive as I whittled down his HP. That's not something that can discerned by bum rushing the battle.

But without specifically pointing these things out over the mic, this is a quiet moment for me because, well, there just isn't that much to say about this fight that wasn't already covered on the way up there (itself a silent slog if I let it be). Balancing the voice over minutia with actual gameplay has always been a problem of these videos that I've worked hard to address, but sometimes there just isn't a way around it. I could tear through this game --it's really easy to do-- but that's not what this video series is made for. With that, some silence must be understood by the audience.

HOWEVER, there's a big difference between watching me quietly mow down Bloody Zombies and standing around like a jackass, which is this episode's biggest (and most recurring) flaw. Part of that had to do with improper math on my part. I think I've mentioned this before, but the way I make these things is to write a script, record the voice, annotate the script for timing, and then play through the scripted section with a list in front of me and a stopwatch by my side. Usually, it works out fine. In videos like these where there's not clear end point, though, makes it really, really hard. That doesn't change the fact that I could have probably cut at least 15 seconds of inert waiting like a dummy, though.

The latter fact I just mentioned, though, was what made this particular episode so hard. Sine I have to show a run of the game as efficiently as possible --meaning, the least amount of backtracking that I can get away with-- there was a lot of script revision, map study, and video-watching. At one point, my wife walked by me while I stared face-in-hands at the map wondering if I was getting sick or something. No, honey, I'm deciding the best course of action to pick up a floating sword that talks. Olrox's Quarters is a fairly contained area, which is nice, but one that branches back into a previously-covered area, so the question for me was which exit do I take to get to the next location. When sussing out the next part of the map to cover in the next video, the obvious answer is to leave the way we came, but that can be boring for the viewer.

And now, I hope you see the struggle, here. Yes, a little silence is golden, but no, you don't want to be bored with seeing things we've already covered. It's a tightrope.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this video. We're going into the waterway next, which might be a slightly NSFW.

Ok, We Can Get to Dawn of Sorrow Some More

Yesterday was hectic and weird, as I'm sure it was for a lot of people just coming back from a holiday break, so let me expand a little bit on Dawn of Sorrow.

First, let me say that, honestly, there isn't that much to say about the game as a whole. It does everything that its predecessor, Aria of Sorrow, had done, just a little more of it. In fact, you could say that it's classic sequelitis: the second game looks better, plays similarly, and shoehorns in unnecessary added story and play mechanics. Perhaps playing the first right after the second did this game fewer favors than it probably should have, and that's fine. There were enough years in between one game and the next that it didn't feel like a redundancy ten years ago when I first played it. But in the here and now, Dawn of Sorrow took a great game and stuffed it so full of junk food that it came out covered with pimples. There. That's a weird analogy for you.

In the continuum so far, we have Circle of the Moon, which I haven't played in a few years and have been purposely avoiding for this exercise, but I still think is a pretty good game. Harmony of Dissonance came after, and it felt too much like Iga's team shuffled in and said, "let's do that last game, but better," and it sort of wasn't. Then they hunkered down, came up with a nifty system to keep people playing during their commutes, and made Aria of Sorrow, which turned out to be a light, fun tear through the formula with a hefty grind involved. In scope of that, Dawn of Sorrow almost feels like the Harmony of Dissonance to Aria's Circle of the Moon. The team went back in, found that they wanted to do the same game over again but better, and made something that wound up feeling bland in the end.

Here's where I defend it a little, though: Dawn of Sorrow through a certain lens is kind of a cynical game. From what I've read on Wikipedia, Aria of Sorrow didn't sell up to expectations, which is a shame. A lot of work went into the design of that game, and I think it shows by the sheer craftsmanship of the characters and backgrounds and how much time and effort must have went into designing the Tactical Soul system. I get that the team --and maybe Iga specifically-- probably took a good long look at the systems specifically and said, "no, guys. This was too much to just give up on," and went to work finding ways to expand on what they had instead of tossing out the baby with the bathwater (as most of the other games had done successively). By this time, the Castlevania franchise was starting to fall into some shaky times. The 3D console games didn't set the world on fire, and the handheld releases were starting to feel more esoteric with further complex entries. The DS, only a year old when Dawn of Sorrow was released, was finding an audience with both younger crowds and a wider demographic than both its predecessors and its console competitors, so they knew that adjustments had to have been made. In that respect, what DoS does make a lot of sense.

So the character art changed. It kind of bounced off of me at the time, but it's fine now that we're ten years removed. And, again, I get it; the moody, ethereal style of the Ayami Kojima key art and box covers don't really appeal to a much younger set, and might scare off parents stumbling through a GameStop. The Tactical Soul system, even though we had already seen it before, fed into the "catch 'em all" mechanic du jour that handheld games had adopted in a post-Pokemon world. Maybe, they thought, the second time was the charm. It's possible, even, that Iga and his teams knew that producing console Castlevania games was too resource intensive, and they went back to the well with the castle and system design from Aria to keep things fast and cheap. He's even said himself over the years that he had a rep for getting his games done on time and under budget, and anyone that's followed the games industry over the past decade or so knows that reusing assets and design plans is the number one method of saving a buck.

What this all comes back around to, like every Castlevania game I've been looking at in granular detail lately, is context. Iga only produced two more games for handhelds after this, and a multiplayer cash-in game that was nothing but reused art made on the budget of whatever you probably have in your pocket right now. The series was not only falling into a rut, but its chief architect was slowly being shuffled along away from a franchise he had a hand in saving. The DS entries had the good fortune of being released on one of the most successful dedicated video game machines ever produced, but it looks like even Igarashi was starting to see the writing on the wall. I'm starting to think that the next game, Portrait of Ruin, was something of a response to all of this, but that's getting ahead of ourselves. I have to go through that with a finer-toothed comb.