MIDI Week Singles: Vampire Killer - Castlevania (NES)

This.

"Vampire Killer" from Castlevania on the Nintendo Entertainment System (1986).

Demon Castle Dracula Best

Record Label: Konami

Composer: Satoe Terashima (James Banana)

Game Developer: Konami

If any song is going to put me in the mood to kill vampires and other associated forms of undead or supernatural abominations, this song does it for me every time.  Sure there are a lot of other songs from the Castlevania series that I could have chosen today, but I had to go with what I feel is a quintessential song from such a long running series.

Satoe Terashima has done a phenomenal job with three tones creating a song 28 years old that still resonates with modern audiences.  I do not know if I would put this song up with with the "BackGround Music" from Super Mario Bros. or the "Overworld" theme from The Legend of Zelda, but for me it is equally recognizable and just as important.

I know that in later Castlevania games, especially on the DS, the "Vampire Killer" theme is used sparingly, typically near the end of the game and I am perfectly fine with that.  I take it as a reminder of where the game originated and is congratulating/thanking the player for playing through the new installment.  I have yet to finish any of the newer reboot games so I cannot comment if "Vampire Killer" is used by Óscar Araujo (the composer for the reboot series), but I would not be surprised to hear its motif used later in the game.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Kinda like Rogue-like. Like.

The rogue-like genre is one I first heard of maybe last year or so.  The name comes from an old PC or Arcade game called Rogue.   The Genre is marked by a couple features:  One is procedurally generated dungeons, which means that the dungeons are invented by an algorythm, not created by designers piece by piece.  So the levels are different every time you play.  The other thing is permadeath.  When you die, you die.  No continues. Tough shit. 

That second feature is not so popular.  In fact, for example, probably one of the most famous Rogue-like-likes from our time is Diablo.  But there wasn't permadeath until Diablo II, which was dubbed 'hardcore.'  I think Blizzard realized that they could sell more copies of the game if it wasn't quite so punishing. 

If you have any interest at all in the genre, I highly recommend checking out the IndieStatik Roguelike-primer by Dominic Tarason.  It's an article that breaks down the best games in the genre into entry level, intermediate and expert.  And then there's a final bit for genre bending games like FTL.  

From the list in the above article, the games that stand out for me are: Dwarf Fortress, Unreal World RPG and Roguelike Doom (the id software classic reimagined as a roguelike).  

A quote from the blurb on Dwarf Fortress:

"I can’t think of many other games where you can deliberately twist an embedded blade to cause pain, hoping to drive your foe into unconsciousness."

I just really like that quote.  Moving on.

An exciting new entry into the Rogue-like genre is a game called Rogue Legacy.  Rogue Legacy was featured in Extra Credits - 'games you may not have tried 6'.  And the guys over at the Experience Points podcast listed it as a game of the year in 2013. Frankly, it sounds like a great game.  I love the generational aspect; it's a cool idea  that when you die, the next playable character is from the next generation of your family, and inherits all the money you earned in your last play.  This is doubly cool, because it is a side scrolling, castle-dungeon game, with a basic story that your family has tried through the generations to invade this particular castle and destroy the evil within.  

Well, holy shit.  This is basically the entire Castlevania series boiled down into one game.  It seems to me that Konami only has one available choice:  Rip this idea off completely, and create a Castlevania Rogue Legacy-like in which generations of Belmonts try to bust through the castle to kill Dracula.  Probably they should use a procedurally generated castle to keep the game fresh when starting different legacies.  Also, Alucard should be a hidden character somehow.  Yes.  Do this. NOW.

-D


P.S. uh oh! looks like someone already beat you to it, Konami!  But come on, it's not too late to show them how it's really done!

Game Scores: Castlevania 64 (N64)

Since 1986, Castlevania has been a staple for great baroque-esque music despite have different composers in almost every game until Michiru Yamane came on board with the franchise in 1994 with Castlevania: Bloodlines.  1999's N64 release of Castlevania 64 was no different in the franchise however with regards to the composers.  This time around, Konami went with three composers, Masahiko Kimura (who later worked on Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow), Motoaki Furukawa (who had previously worked on Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood) and Mariko Egawa (whose only work on work in the Castlevania series would be this title).

I had been in love with the games and music of the Castlevania series since I first played and Castlevania 64 was no exception.  I remember on my first run through of the game, I chose the "Easy" difficulty which turned out to stop about halfway through the game  which then required me to restart on the normal difficulty setting to finish the game.  Although on my second pass through the game I did not receive the "good ending" until I re-replayed through the game again for a third time using Reinhardt Schneider, (I was never able to get past the Tower of Sorcery's disappearing platforms with Carrie Fernandez).

It wasn't until after I bought the soundtrack that I realized how good the music for Castlevania 64 was.  I obviously liked it enough to purchase the soundtrack, but listening to the music outside of the game environment is a different experience.  I remember after listening to the CD for the first time that I felt that I had listened to a film soundtrack.  While the CD did not contain all of the tracks and some of the incidental music that I had enjoyed in the game, there was so much music that I did like.

For the entirety of this review, I will not be able to say specifically which of the composers wrote which piece.  And being a Castlevania game, Castlevania 64 does reuse themes from previous games in the series and despite the fact that the staple "Vampire Killer" is not present anywhere on the soundtrack, I do not find that this detracts from the overall quality and enjoyment of the album.

The opening track is entitled Introduction/Opening or more majestically, "Sign of Blood Relationship," and also uses the theme from Castlevania: Bloodlines' "Bloodlines."  The song not only fits perfectly into the existing Castlevania universe, but is a great introduction into this Castlevania game.

That amazing violin solo in the second half of the piece was performed by Tomokuni Katayama, and even being surrounded by a MIDI score, the track sounds amazing.

The track "Lamented Rose" is both a beautiful yet ominous piece that really surprised me both in-game and upon hearing it in the soundtrack.  In the game, the music happens when your character enters a room and looks upon a flower vase and is confronted (I think) by the first vampire you meet in the game that isn't Count Dracula.  The scene plays out really well as a cut-scene, but we're focusing on music here.

One of my favorite tracks, both in-game as well as on the soundtrack is the "Dungeon - Main Theme."  Like a lot of the music from the game it is fairly subdued compared to other musical cues from the Castlevania franchise, but it works for this game and the world that was created.  The music creates the feeling that you need to keep plodding onward and that you may actually survive and not be turned into a vampire.

Lastly, I wanted to highlight one of the liturgical sounding songs, which almost seems required for a Castlevania game.  "Stairway to the Clouds" happens on your approach to Dracula's tower while going up flight after flight of stairs.  How many games can you think of that have something this dramatic, just to walk up a flight of stairs?

If any/all of these tracks have interested you into either playing Castlevania 64 on that N64 gathering dust in the garage or perhaps to pop on over to eBay to purchase the soundtrack, then you've made my Friday or whatever day it is that you are reading this.  Happy weekend.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

While Capturing the Stench of Devine

Demo Time: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (3DS)

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate was released for the Nintedo 3DS three days ago on March 5th, 2013.  I recently had a chance to play the demo, which was available through Nintendo's eShop.  After spending 37 minutes on a single play through of the demo, I feel like it did it's job.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect having only watched the trailer that was released during the 2012 E3 and while there wasn't a whole lot of game play footage, I was still very excited about a new Castlevania game.  The biggest downside for me though, was that this is a sequel to a Castlevania game that I have never played.  I'm assuming that the "Lords of Shadow" tagline will be present in all the subsequent re-boots that began in December 2010 with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow released exclusively on PS3 and XBox 360.  And as it turns out, the development company of the Castlevania reboot series is not specifically Konami, but Spain based MercurySteam, so kudos to them first off for not only creating a reboot of a Japanese standard, but apparently doing it successfully enough to warrant more than one game.

I still find it interesting and on some levels annoying that a series will have different games available only on certain systems.  Take this Castlevania series for example.  C:LoS was released on PS3 and 360, C:Los-MoF will only be released on the 3DS and later this year, C:LoS2 will be released on PS3, 360 and for the PC.  It's one thing for a series like Final Fantasy, which do not have connected storylines to have their games on different platforms, but for someone like me who likes continuing stories and to not have a system that a game is on, it just makes me sad.  And, at the moment, I'm not so hard up to play Lords of Shadow to go out and buy a PS3 or 360.

Anyway!  The Mirror of Fate demo, that's why we're here.  Upon downloading, the demo lets you know that you have 30 play-throughs, which is quite a lot when you consider that it took me 37 minutes to complete a single play-through.  There wasn't any lead in, intro or explanation as to who you were or what you were doing and where.  But let's be honest, you don't always need that in a Castlevania game.  The demo consisted of four areas and two boss type characters that reminded me a lot of the original NES Castlevania game: start outside of the castle, cross a drawbridge, go through a church, go underground then battle outside of the main castle.  There were skeletons throwing bones, knights wielding axes what I might suspect to be Flea Men although they didn't attack, but were just there. 

The music too seemed very Castlevania-y, although it didn't sound like Michiru Yamane, the frequently used composer for the Castlevania series.  The tone of the music was more "background" although it did a great job in setting a dark, semi-serious tone.  I can't think of the music though at the moment, meaning I wasn't memorable as "Vampire Killer," but that's that.   the composer for the games in the Lords of Shadow series has been Oscar Araujo and from what music is "available" in the demo, it fits very well.

The game play itself reminded me a lot of God of War, in that you had a basic whip attack, a slightly slower whip attack and when you combined those with the jump ability, you could perform different types of attacks.  For instance, when you jumped and power attacked, you would flip with your whip out and hit whatever it is that is under you mid jump; when you power attacked then jumped, you would spin in a circle creating a cyclone-like whip attack.  Other Castlevania-y type things that went on were using your whip Indiana Jones style to swing across gaps and special sub-weapons, which included in the demo was a boomerang-type blade reminiscent of something from Blade II.  That in mind, the demo played very much like any other Castlevania 2D side scrolling platformer, which while it is not entirely new or inventive, it is still fun and familiar with just enough new elements to keep the game interesting.

Now onto the 3D aspect of the game.  Overall, the 3Dness of the game was very well done and looked great, although there were some times when the 3D blurred a bit, possibly from the rotating camera and I wasn't properly adjusting, or I was just being too excited and kept moving the screen closer or farther away.  During both of the boss fights though, I turned the 3D slider "off" so that I could focus on trying to kill the creature and not dying.

All-in-all, the demo was a lot of fun and even though I died frequently figuring out the controls, the weapons, the enemies and such, it definitely got the point across and has made me eager to purchase the game, which is the whole point of demos being available.  Success on the Castlevania front from MercurySteam.  Good job all.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

This Music Makes Me Sad, But That's It's Job

Game Scores: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)

Composer: Pseudo-Check
Emulator Hour Review: Check
Music: Checking

The music, composed by whomever it was that actually did it, is very good, considering it came out of  an 1989 era NES music chip, although other note worthy games with great soundtracks were Mega Man 2 and Dragon Warrior (1989 being their North American release).

The three tracks that I want to highlight are the "Overworld," "Mini-Boss Battle" and the "Title" themes.

Overworld:

Aside from the title music, this is the first in game music you hear, but unless you're there to listen to the music, you're only going to hear snip its of it in the first level as you're mainly in the sewers and not above ground a lot until the third level.  It's a great little ditty that got stuck in my head when I first played the game.  I've always wanted to drive around town in a van with this blaring.  It doesn't have to be in New York or with three other dudes (mutated or not), just a van and this music, because that doesn't sound shady at all.  Although Conklederp has a pseudo-van, so we might have to make this happen.

Mini-Boss Battle:

I actually like this piece of music better than the "Main Boss" music.  There's just something more driving about it.  And even though the song itself is only 20 seconds long, I feel it's one of those songs that can be repeated indefinitely and I just don't care.  And I think it's an easy song to sing/hum/whistle.  However, due to Youtube not wanting to allow me to embed the video I want, I will then just have to link it here: TMNT Mini-Boss Battle Music

Title:

Just listen to that MIDI electric guitar wail!!  I've heard some people (youtube "let's plays" mostly) complain about the music not being directly related to the cartoon, but if the cartoon music had been anything like this intro music, damn that'd be hot.  But, like I said, there's a riff that sounds an awful lot like the main riff to Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy."  That's one of the reasons why I wanted to know who the composer was to see if I could find out if they were influenced by Queen to properly attribute that one riff during the beginning of both songs to Queen.

With all of that in mind, I leave you with only three of 15 sound clips and songs from Konami's (pain in the ass) 1989 release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  However, because I like all of you who read our blog, I leave you with the best cover of the music that I've found.  It's by the NESkimos off their album "NESkimo Bloodshed" and the track is simply titled, TMNT.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Now Go And Scoop Your Brains Back Up.

Who Dunnit?: Music from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)

First off, I'm referring to the 1989 NES game from Konami here.  And apparently, a guitar riff by Queen, but I'll get to that in the next post.  First, we'll go into a bit about the composer.

If you do a Google search for Keizo Nakamura, you'll find a great deal of seemingly mixed information.  The Video Game Music Database, which I will look at frequently for verification on early NES game composers, doesn't have anything for Keizo Nakamura before 1993, despite the fact that TMNT was released in 1989.  They do have a link to his Facebook profile though, whatever that ultimately means.  Another frequently reliable source, the Video Game Music Preservation Foundation has Keizo Nakamura's only credit as being Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game which came out in 1990.  Then there is a disclaimer that says Kiezo Nakamura is not to be confused with fellow Konami music composer Kozo Nakamura.

If you do a Google search of Kozo Nakamura, you'll find a great deal of seemingly mixed information.  Woah.  The VGMdb doesn't have anything for Kozo Nakamura before 1999.  The VGMPF does have Kozo Nakamura as the composer for TMNT (1989) as well as Monster in My Pocket (1992) and TMNT IV: Turtles in Time (1992).  

And now!, (now as in a week after initially writing this, parts of the TMNT article from VGMPF have been changed/updated) there has been a third name to enter the arena.  VGMPF now has it listed that Jun Funahashi composed half of the games music, but for as to who composed the other half of the music, "because it has been such a long time, he doesn't remember."

IMdb and Wikipedia both have Keizo listed as the composer while IMdb lists Kozo as the composer for TMNT IV and MiMP, but not TMNT.  I have not found anything else internet-wise regarding Jun Funahashi being the composer for TMNT, but that doens't mean that he didn't do it.  The game doesn't even have a credit sequence to tell us anything about the creators of the game.  VGMPF says/ previously said that "it has become known that Kozo Nakamura is responsible for the Ninja Turtles NES soundtrack," although that sentence has been since taken down and replaced with "The game lacks credits, but Jun Funahashi has confirmed that he composed half of the games music."

So who is the composer for the NES game TMNT that was released in 1989 by Konami?  Based on Jun Funahashi's statement, it was him and some other people, which could very well mean that Kozo Nakamura and/or Keizo Nakamura were associated with the game's music.  I've sent messages to Jun and Keizo two weeks and a month ago respectively and have not heard back from either, possibly for obvious reasons.  For the time being however, we'll have to settle and accept the information at hand and be thankful that at least there are some people who care.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Catasrophe

Emulator Hour ~ First Impressions: Castlevania: The Adventure

I first apologize for the overuse of colons in the title.  Well, there're only two, but even that seems like a lot for a single title.  Maybe not.  Now on with the show:

Until I started writing this article, I've apparently been saying the name of this game incorrectly.  I've always called it "The Castlevania Adventure" instead of it's official title, Castlevania: The Adventure.  This game came out in 1989, the same year of Gameboy's release and only four months after it's August release in North America.  Some of the games shortcomings could be attributed to the fact that companies were still figuring out both the software and what could be accomplished with the hardware.  I'm just speculating of course.  I can't say what Konami's limitations were with the 256/512 KB cartridge.  Just think on that for a second though.  An entire game contained in 256 - 512 KB of information.

All of that aside, the game plays very much like the original 1987 Casltevania on the NES.  You control a character, this time Christopher Belmont (Simon Belmont's ancestor) delves into Dracula's "gloomy castle on the outskirts of Transylvania."  The controls though, are a bit sluggish.  By "sluggish," I mean that it feels like Christopher is moving through mud, even if he isn't.  The enemies though (especially those fucking bats) have the agility of drunk five year old (the five year old is the neighbors dog, so it's probably legal).  

Like most Castlevania games, your main character starts out with a simple whip which can be upgraded with items (magically appearing from whipped candles) and turned into a ball and chain whip.  Unlike most Castlevania games though, the whip can be upgraded again and shoot fireballs.  I believe this is to make up for the fact that there are no sub-weapons (knife, axe, boomerang) as found in the previous two installments.

The game is made up of four stages, although I've yet to make it through the second stage.  I've been playing for only 41 minutes and there's one jump in the beginning of Stage 2 that is constantly screwing me over.  Which jump you ask? This one I reply:

Gameplay from jrdu44 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gympf3pQ5Q)

Now that at first glance doesn't look too hard, but like a lot of platformers, platforms like that usually mean that they'll fall once you step on them, which these ones do very well.  To note, that first candle produces a whip power up, but the power up will pass through the steps and unless the jump-whip-land on platform-jump are timed perfectly, you will fall and die.  To date (and as of 15 minutes ago), I cannot make the second jump off the platform onto the ledge leading to the rope.  I don't know how many times I've tried, but it's been a lot of failed attempts.  A very nice thing with this game is that while you start out with 3 lives, you do have infinite continues although the continue starts you back at the beginning of the stage.

No, I don't suck at video games, this game is just incredibly difficult.  And no, I don't base that off of this one (pain in the ass) jump.  The game is difficult, mostly because of the sludgey controls and the awkwardness of jumping.  Like a lot of early Nintendo games, this one is designed to be difficult, otherwise you could beat the whole game in a single 30 minute sitting.

I should also point out the music, which falls under the category of awesome Castlevania music.  The music was composed/programmed by Shigeru Fukutake, Norio Hanzawa and Hidehiro Funauchi.  The soundtrack is only made up of four songs, one for each stage; a track for when you fight a boss and two tracks for Dracula.  Presently, I've only heard two of the tracks in game, but having a "version" of the soundtrack on my computer, I've heard all the tracks quite a few times and they're all standard fare for a Castlevania game.

So my final recommendation for Castlevania: The Adventure, is that if you are a fan of the Castlevania series, you enjoy challenge and don't mind monochrome graphics and often times sludgey controls, shelling out $4.99 isn't a bad way to go.  Now if Konami and Nintendo would just release the rest of the Castlevania back catalogue, I'll be very happy to give them my money.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I'll Never Lie To You, And That's The Truth

Perusing The Electronic Gaming Store

Before I started today, I was a little stuck as to what to talk about.  Then I went to the bathroom and it came to me.  I really want to play Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.  I can't say why this thought popped in my head while I was standing above the toilet, but it did and that got me thinking.  Not only thinking about the Castlevania franchise, but about Nintendo's eShop on the 3DS and all the games that I would like to see in the shop that just aren't there.

My most recent eShop purchase was The Castlevania Adventure and I'll be doing a First Impression with it soon.  Those born after 1989 may not remember this Gameboy release, but when I saw it crop up in the eShop, I got really excited and purchased it.  I never played it in its original Gameboy release and this gave me the opportunity to put it with all the other Castlevania games that I have and can't beat; although that list isn't very long.  Right now I'm hoping that Nintendo and Konami will release the rest of the the Gameboy Castlevania's, of which there are a total of three: The Castlevania Adventure, Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge and Castlevania Legends.  The point is, Nintendo and Konami really should consider releasing not only these three Gameboy games, but also the three NES Castlevania games as well. I was really excited back in 2004 when the first game was released on Gameboy Advance and sad when they didn't continue to release the other two.  I am aware that all the NES Castlevanias were released via Wii's Virtual Console, but I don't have a Wii.  And besides, these games are perfectly suited for a 3DS eShop release.  Especially with Castlevania: Lord of Shadows: Mirror of Fate being released on the 3DS in early March.

Castlevania aside, there're a couple other games that are available via the eShop, one of them being Night Sky, which is somewhat of a simplistic puzzle game visually akin to LIMBO, but with a different color palette.  I've played Night Sky on my PC with keyboard controls but playing on the 3DS with a touch screen would be perfect.  In the game you're moving an orb through a level fraught with. . . well, pits.  It's a game that I'd really like to play on the 3DS, but since I'm cheap, I'm not ready to spend the $9.99 for a game that I already own on another platform.

On the other side of the price spectrum, is a game I just saw called Gunman Clive which is priced at a paltry $1.99.  Now, you could just look at the pictures from the game and be "meh'd," or you can watch the video and be "awe'd" and greatly amused:

What immediatly comes to my mind, is Elevator Action and Contra, and those two games together, sound like they'd be awesome.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Starring Clive Owen

On Post-rental gaming

Jack and I have been talking about the Konami code of late, and this discussion has brought up some nostalgia for me.  Now that I don't own a console system, most of the games I play now are by indie developers.  And while that's totally cool, hip, and even hip-ster, I realize that I miss the old days.  The days of video game rental.  That was a fantastic time.

I don't know about you, but for myself, and Jack too, we didn't just buy loads of games.  We couldn't afford it, and our parents certainly weren't going to do that for us, especially not with video game rental.  I played dozens of nes and snes games, but only owned about one - two dozen of each through the entirety of my owning those systems.  I chose to buy, with my meager paper route money, only the best, most guaranteed games.  This usually meant Squaresoft, or Nintendo, and sometimes a random game I rented that I loved, like Snake Rattle N Roll.  Which I think was Rare- the company, and the adjective.

But during the rental period, there were bunches of games that were good, even great, but just not enough to buy.  I loved being surrounded by games I would rate B- to B+.  And I remember growing familiar with the different publishers.  Rare, Hudson Soft, Enix, Konami, Capcom.  There were bunches more, but my memories are fading on the subject.  Each of these companies had a sort of personality that you grew to know.  When you picked up a Konami game, you had an idea of what you were getting into.  Capcom meant action - they probably had one of the most distinctive personality, and it seems to endure today, though I don't know where outside of Street Fighter games.

Back in the rentals, you could just browse through the games.  It was sweet.  There were games that I never bought, but I would rent multiple times.  Sometimes to beat, other times just because your family was going to the video rental store and you were NOT about to pass up a chance to rent a game, whether or not you had anything in mind.  Sure, I'll rent Megaman 2 again!  What the hell, let's try Adventure Island?  Hey, this game over here is by Konami, it's probably good.  Goddammit, is the Sword Master ever coming out?!

I wish sometimes for a modern rental system.  On the other hand, indie games often cost close to the same as a rental did.  Sometimes they're even free!  Games like Angry Birds, Super Crate Box and Realm of the Mad God are all totally fun and totally free, if a bit limited in scope.  Super Meat Boy, Braid and Bit.Trip.Runner have pretty high production values, don't cost much and are great fun.  I'm slowly building a new vocabulary of game publishers.  

And, then, of course, there's emulation.  Where-in any and all games for a past system are available, all at once.  But so far emulator production values have not been strong, and it doesn't feel the same.  I want to see an emulator, in which the Rom library is represented as game-boxes on a bookshelf.  I can click on the box and get a view of it, look at the pictures, read the description and then choose whether or not I want to play it.  That would be totally sweet.  Not the same, but a start.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that there is something about the experience of playing a game that exists outside of the screen and the controller.  This is something that is lost when playing games on my PC, irreplaceable using emulators, and I do miss it.