Gross Football Lunch – Week 10, 2024 NFL Season

(Note from the Editor’s Desk: Hi everybody! I needed a week off from writing about food, so enjoy this crossover post from CRPG Corner! If you need me to tell you what comestibles to destroy yourself with this weekend, might I recommend a good old-fashioned Italian sub?)

CastleVania Advance Collection is Ruining My Life

Here is a strange and heretofore unexamined tension within my beliefs. I do try my level best not to be like this, but sometimes I get lazy and write off entire swaths of arts and entertainment that I should find interesting for bizarre, overly-principled or otherwise intellectually lazy reasons. In this case, I had for many years lamented the fact that every game in the CastleVania series had followed in the footsteps of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, despite the fact that Symphony of the Night is one my very favorite games of all time. I got into the series because of its earlier, linear installments, and while a well-made MetroidVania is a good thing for a video game to be, it’s no substitute for exhilirating, white-knuckle intensity.

I had spent over two decades with this unfortunate bias until about a month ago, when I picked up the CastleVania Advance Collection on Switch. Containing all three of the CastleVania games released on the GameBoy Advance – all of which follow the MetroidVania template – this collection has shown me both the error of my ways and the supreme majesty that the series achieved during this period. All three of these games absolutely whip ass, and I loved my time catching up with them.

That said, the first of these games to be released chronologically is also the best. CastleVania: Circle of the Moon stands out for a few reasons, but the most important of these is that it is actually hard. MetroidVanias are often like RPGs in that the increase in player power can often make the later portions of the game a bit too easy. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – again, I love Symphony of the Night even though I never found it all that tough – but the name CastleVania means something to those of us who wasted our youths wearing our thumbs raw and throwing our controllers in rage seconds before resetting and trying again.

I don’t want to scare any potential players away from Circle of the Moon. This is an approachable and entirely beatable game. It’s harder than many games in this style, but isn’t nearly as difficult as Castlevanias I or III. But I found that getting through its toughest sections and its hardest boss fights required real work, meaning that I felt a real sense of accomplishment once I had done so. Circle of the Moon also does a great job of gently guiding the player in the direction they are meant to go without leaving the player stumped or dragging them by the hand from area to area. If you’re willing to explore thoroughly and check your map frequently, you’ll be able to figure out where to go and what to look for. It’s a gorgeous game with a great soundtrack, to boot. No game is perfect, but Circle of the Moon comes damn close.

CastleVania: Harmony of Dissonance is a fine game in its own right, but also the weakest of the three. Circle of the Moon owes a great deal to Symphony of the Night, but it feels like its own game with its own vibe throughout. Harmony of Dissonance, by contrast, nakedly wants to be Symphony of the Night, for better and for worse. Many of the sprites, textures, and animations are GameBoy Advance versions of their Symphony counterparts. Some of the areas, enemies, and boss fights feel rehashed from Symphony of the Night and/or Circle of the Moon. To top it all off, the gameplay of Harmony hinges around a structural conceit – one I’ve decided not to spoil, just in case – that is nothing more than a tweak to the central structural conceit of Symphony of the Night.

Granted, this tweak is significant enough that it does provide a unique experience, even for people like me who have played through Symphony of the Night countless times. Without giving too much away, I found navigation in Harmony of Dissonance to be delightfully confusing, and the game’s consistent ability to make me second guess my exploration and navigation decisions was one of the game’s greatest strengths. Its mazes and puzzles require both intuitive thought and attention to detail.

But even though Harmony of Dissonance left me plenty confused at times, I never felt challenged. Harmony of Dissonance is a dreadfully easy game, and this was my least favorite thing about it. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad for a game to be derivative; like a good book, movie, or TV show, a good video game shows its players what they must do to advance, and mimicry can be a very effective way for a game to communicate its intentions. As such, I don’t take much issue with Harmony for running back ideas from previous games. Being too easy isn’t necessarily a flaw, either, but in this case I only felt so much accomplishment for getting through the game. Harmony of Dissonance is well worth your time (and may be a better starting point than Circle of the Moon if you’re unfamiliar with this style of game), but it remains the least of the three.

Aria of Sorrow is the third and final MetroidVania style game in the collection*, and while it is better than Harmony of Dissonance, it is also less interesting. Aria‘s principal gimmick is that sometimes when the player kills an enemy, the player learns a special ability from that enemy. Most of these special abilities are offensive in nature, but there are also ability-boosting and mobility-increasing abilities to find as well. It’s a neat idea but also a frustrating one; because ability drops are a function of chance, there is no guarantee the player will find the ability or abilities that will help them get through the game the most. It promises the player a great deal of freedom for customizing their build and their play style, but mostly offers limitations.

(*CastleVania Advance Collection also contains Dracula X, one of the last CastleVania titles released in the series original, linear action platforming style. It isn’t a bad game per se, but it is easily my least favorite of the series’ classic period, and a good argument that maybe it was time for the series to move on. The player’s speed and abilities are poorly balanced against the enemies, bosses, and levels. Movement is entirely too slow and clunky; the NES CastleVania titles made slow, clunky movement their calling card, but the games were much better designed around this movement. Dracula X plays the notes of classic CastleVania, but not the music. I urge you to play the rest of CastleVania Advance Collection, but you’re better off skipping Dracula X.)

Again, these limitations aren’t inherently bad; I enjoyed experimenting with the abilities I had, and finding useful combinations of abilities within limited sets of options. But it also made the game more annoying to navigate at times. If I found myself struggling, either with exploration or with combat, it became all too easy to wonder if it was because I was supposed to be doing something else or if I simply lacked an ability that I would need to backtrack and find. Trying to acquire a specific ability is a chore, as it requires killing the same type of enemy over and over until the game deigns to grace you with good luck.

That said, the game does a good job of making every truly mandatory ability mandatory to acquire, as well. Getting a random ability drop is never strictly required. Sometimes it’s required to access optional areas, but even in those rare cases there’s more than one ability that can grant this access. My complaints with the ability system are nitpicks; Aria of Sorrow is an incredibly polished game that does just about everything right. If you told me you preferred Aria of Sorrow to Circle of the Moon, I wouldn’t fight you over it.

CastleVania Advance Collection is a wonderful compilation of three great games, and the perfect way to catch up with these classics if you’re a schmuck like me who missed them the first time around. Highest recommendation!

Week 10 NFL Confidence Pool

Enjoy the games, everybody!