Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness

A strange sequel to Castlevania 64 that for some reason was rushed out just months later looking and feeling nearly identical, even reusing a lot of the same levels and environments. It's the same mix of janky combat and platforming as before, and the addition of two new characters does very little to make things feel fresh. An annoying and disappointing experience.

Released only a few months after Castlevania, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness occupies an unusual space for a video game. Rather than being an entirely new game or even a director's cut of the earlier game, it is more along the lines of being a remix. After Castlevania 64 was received somewhat harshly by fans, it's clear that Konami wanted to right the wrongs that were done in that game, while giving people who played that enough reason to play again. Truthfully, though, it's such a similar experience to Castlevania that you could basically read my review of that game and apply most of what I had said there here, as well, so my review of Legacy of Darkness will focus mostly on the differences.

To start with, while Castlevania only had two playable characters, Legacy of Darkness ups the ante to a total of four. Carrie and Reinhardt from the original game return, but they must be unlocked by completing the quests of the new characters, and their re-appearance is mostly an afterthought. The primary character here is now a werewolf named Cornell, which was a departure from the type of protagonists that this series had usually featured. Cornell's story is set several years prior to the events of the original game, and while his story features some familiar settings from the first game, roughly half of his stages are entirely new, and even the ones that have been reused feature somewhat different progression, usually with different puzzles. If that weren't enough, there is also a unique quest for the other new character, Henry, in which he must rescue various children from Dracula's castle. The Tower of Ruins is an interesting stage that almost feels like a 3D Metroidvania game, but otherwise, the new stages are largely similar to what was featured before. The other difference to note here is that the game is made somewhat easier by the inclusion of additional white jewels that save the player's progress.

Along with the new characters and stages, some of the gameplay mechanics have been tweaked. One major issue with the first game was it's unusual and hard to understand camera mechanics. Legacy of Darkness simplifies things by reducing the camera modes from 3 to 2, action and battle modes, and occasionally mandating an "Auto-Camera" mode where the player has no control over the camera. Despite being simpler, the camera still does not always work in the player's favor, and it can't really be called an improvement. In addition, Cornell has the ability to transform from his human form into his manbeast form, but this honestly doesn't change the gameplay much, and I rarely found it to be practical or necessary, so playing as Cornell was not so different as playing as Reinhardt. Likewise, Henry utilizes ranged pistol shots as his primary attack, and it's not so different from using Carrie's homing spells.

Besides changes to the design and gameplay, Konami attempted to enhance the presentation here. If the expansion pak is installed in your N64, the game will give you the option between a high or low resolution mode. While that sounds nice in theory, there isn't much noticeable difference in how the game looks and the performance suffers somewhat, so it would be inadvisable to use high resolution mode if an inconsistent frame rate will bother you. There have also been many changes to the soundtrack of the original game. Although the soundtrack to that game wasn't bad, many fans lamented that it was too atmospheric and didn't closely enough resemble the types of music that the series was known for, and Legacy of Darkness brings back several more classic themes and features some livelier new tracks than what was heard in the original game. While it isn't my favorite "Castlevania" soundtrack, it is definitely an improvement over the earlier N64 game.

While Legacy of Darkness certainly offers a different experience from Castlevania 64, it's hard to really say that it improves on that game. The new characters don't substantially change the way the game is played, and while the mechanics have been tweaked, Konami's team failed to address that the jumping is difficult to control, which is unfortunate given that so much of the new content focuses on platforming. Overall, I would say that people who enjoyed the original game, such as myself, will also like this one. Both are good, but not great. For those who didn't like the first game, Konami's attempts to improve the experience are unlikely to impress.