Castlevania - Elegy of the Curse

Castlevania: Elegy of the Curse - by Richterw



First Thoughts:
I absolutely love the idea behind this game. If Castlevania 1 had the fighting perspective of games like "Bad Dudes" and "Double Dragon", you would have this game. That being said, this game is very hard and I was only able to make it as far as a room full of medusa heads. Being able to see the game behind the editor however, I discovered that this game also covers Castlevania 2 as well, and even goes as far as to include the towns, a full map of the area, and npcs that talk to you in good english!



Story:
Dracula has once again returned to Transylvania. The people cry out for a hero and it's up to Simon Belmont to defeat him and rid the world of evil. This is the exact same story from the original games, as this is a remake made in RPG MAKER 2003, with the perspectives altered.



Game Play:
This is where the game gets interesting. Simon can move around in the UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT directions. You can press the action button to use your whip, but it is unseen unless you are actually hitting something. At the beginning of the game you can destroy these large pillars as practice. If you last moved UP, then your attack will target what is directly above you. Simon's character sprite still faces right or left however. Simon's whip is fairly short, only targeting objects or monsters 1 tile away from you in each direction.

In Elegy of the Curse, Simon doesn't jump as a player action. But he will jump across gaps between platforms automatically. He'll also climb up and down stair automatically as well, but be sure to make sure there are no enemies on it, or he'll walk right into them.

Simon has 60HP throughout the entire game. Enemies that hit you take away 5HP so you can take 12 hits before you die. You can try hit and run tactics on the enemies, but if you let an enemy get close to you for even a second, you will be hit. This is hard because you whips length is only one tile. You CAN save your game anytime, so it is possible to save scum to keep your health up.

Instead of finding health items in walls, you can buy them from a guys in blue robes sitting on the ground in various places. Pork Chops cost 50GP and restore about 9HP to you. Roast Chicken sells for 100GP and gives you back 24HP (a much better deal!)

Sometimes you'll get to the end of a segment, but the door won't open. That's because you need to find the Key first. It's usually easy to find, but doesn't usually appear until you have walked past a certain point on the stage. No biggie, go back and get the key and then you can proceed.

As I mentioned previously. I didn't get too far in Elegy of the Curse, the Medusa heads are as much a pain in this game as they were in the original Castlevania, if not MORE so. My journey ended here, but looking ahead at what was further up in the maps, it would take a better player than I to make it to the end without cheating in some way!



Graphics and Music:
The graphics are ripped straight out of Castlevania 1 and Castlevania 2. With some nice perspective alterations. The mapping is very decent and looks as much like the originals as possible. The only thing that looks skewed to me are the stairs going up left to right. The stairs going down left to right look better. The music too was taken from the games and I loved hearing these old tunes again. The theme of the very first stage, "Vampire Killer", has an audible POP when the loop ends, at least it did on my PC anyway.

Overall:
Elegy of the Curse is a very interesting and different take on Castlevania. I would definitely like to go back and see the rest of the stages, even if I have to give myself 999 health to do it. I highly recommend playing this game if you're a fan of Castlevania. Just get ready to save a lot and keep trying!

I have some thoughts for the developer, please take these with a grain of salt as others might feel differently: