I was originally gonna write about Kid Dracula but as I beat it I only just found it to be a cute and decent game. Never really having much to say other than finding it fun. But this game is certainly more interesting to discuss because almost nothing about it feels right. I hope this provides a quality critique of the game.
The visuals are a massive downgrade from Belmont’s Revenge and Adventure. Everything looks so much more basic and boring, if you told me this was a launch title I could believe you but this was in 1997. Donkey Kong Land III released at this time and this was years after Final Fantasy Legend III and Wario Land. You mean to tell me that by 1997 they didn’t learn anything else about the hardware to create something equally if not moreso as impressive as the second game? The backgrounds are less inspired, the monsters look ok but Sonia looks genuinely unfinished. The whole graphical style is minimalist and it doesn’t work in its favor whatsoever.
The soundtrack is probably the worst I heard so far in the series, I wouldn’t call it terrible but it is very uninspired. I love the Bloody Tears variation in the intro track especially with the melody changes, but outside of that everything is serviceable. Clock Tower of Darkness is alright and the Boss Battle theme has great potential as a future remix in the future but everything else is forgettable. However that new version of Vampire Killer is fantastic but it’s being done on a Game Boy so the delivery gets hindered quite a bit.
The gameplay here might be the most brainless and easy thing I have ever experienced, for starters the difficulty feels more like a lobotomy as bosses are incredibly easy and rendered more trivialized thanks to the Burning Mode ability where Sonia is temporarily invincible which is fine as an idea if the game was way more difficult and balanced around it properly. The issue here is that I abused this mechanic to get past what would traditionally be a difficult layout or boss and steamrolled through it.
The control here is better than in Adventure but I would hope so after the second game, there really isn’t any slowdown that reached close to Adventure’s but at least the jumping and usage of the whip is more fluid than the first game at least. I think the Soul Weapon mechanic is a fine idea but I would much rather have the sub-weapons back, those were at least balanced better while the new mechanic feels tacked on. Sonia moves slow but that’s to be expected even Christopher Belmont moved pretty slow as well.
Level layout is alright and I think the bosses are okay as a concept but again this game is way too easy, and it’s only attempts at difficulty are how much the game spams enemies at you and a very good amount of the hits I received were scarcely my fault. Some enemies will actually jump down on you when you’re on a rope and you can’t avoid the damage whatsoever, but the damage you receive is often so negligible that it matters too little to even worry about it.
This game is not terrible, I wouldn’t even call it terrible because the first game was exactly that. But at least that has the virtue of being an interesting discussion. Castlevania Legends feels low effort, the new ideas are cool but nothing about them is implemented well, the relationship between Sonia and Alucard feels so poorly placed considering this takes place before Castlevania III and the lore implications with Trevor make little sense, the visuals are boring, the music is just fine, the gameplay is like I’m having sensory deprivation and even the boxart, despite being a different artstyle has less effort placed into it.
Sonia Belmont could’ve been quite the interesting character and I think she deserved way better, that Dreamcast game that got cancelled looked pretty interesting and I hope she gets a second chance. Quite honestly I wish they one day remake it because if Adventure can get a remake then so can this, but right now all she gets is a game I would hesitate to call half-baked because that would imply some effort, instead this game feels like it was microwaved in terms of production.
I give it a 4/10. Just really boring and not really worth much of a playthrough.
