Castlevania Adventure: Rebirth (Wiiware, 2009)

 

This is a hidden gem in every sense of the phrase. And I mean completely hidden, because you can't even play it anymore on the actual hardware unless you already got it back in the day. It's a download-only Wii game on a service that you can't access now. Which is nuts, because it's a great game that deserves to be reborn (incidentally) in a modern compilation or something.

This is supposed to be a remake of Castlevania Adventure on the Game Boy, but it really isn't. I mean it handles the same and has the same three tiers of whip strength, but other than that it's notably different. Probably the most different-from-original remake I've ever played that still called itself a remake. At least FFVII Remake followed the same story beats. This one has six stages instead of four and most of the bosses are changed. Well, considering Castlevania Adventure is probably the worst game in the series, it really needed a Rebirth, so let's do this.

Christopher Belmont is the the main dude here, as in Castlevania Adventure. And...it's about the only thing the game takes from the original. Well, at least Mr. Christopher got one more chance to shine.

This game transpires over six levels. Sixth level is just a boss fight, so really it's five levels. Still, they got past the four that Castlevania Adventure was stuck with, and finally met the promise of the Game Boy Player's Guide saying there were five levels.

Right off the bat (heh), this has very little to do with CA. Even the enemies are mostly different, though the rolling eyeballs are here. The whip is very nice here, with a sweet glow.

Power it up to chain whip, and you also get some chain rattling sounds when swinging it around. This is very cool.

Gargoyle miniboss! This was actually the first boss fight in Castlevania Legends so kind of odd that they dropped it in here.

The eyeball foes return, and they're everywhere in this game. Probably the most memorable thing from CA so I'm not surprised to see them here.

Oh. Uh, there's more of 'em. They spawn infinitely.

Alright this is getting kind of out of hand, time for a tactical retreat.

...right into the Boss Eyeball. This thing bounces all over the place like a maniac while more infinite eyeballs spawn.

Stage 2 has really, really good music. Hold on, lemme pull that up.

This series has some great music. Would have been hugely into it as a kid if I'd known. I remember telling people at school that video game music could be incredible, and having adults not believe it. Well who's laughing now, teachers!

A lot of the areas in this game have multiple routes you can take, and the extra routes tend to lead to either a few powerups or nothing at all. It's very similar design to the 3 Game Boy games.

Nice shading in the underground waterway levels. All in all, this is an impressive game for a budget Wiiware title. For this series, it's middle-of-the-road. Nowhere near the better games in the series, and way above the bad games in the series.

A statue of... the world's sexiest harpy?

Stage 2 ends with this freakishly thin man as a boss. The stages are so long that they may as well have split them up by their halfway bosses and had the game be nine stages. Would have been much more playable that way from a checkpoint/game over perspective too.

Swinging blades are such vintage 'Vania.

This thing was in Symphony of the Night and it's fun to blast it with axes that take out all the rotating weapons.

Not even sure what's going on here, but some of these levels have a "B-Team design" vibe. There's no real logical way to take on some of these rooms.

Cool miniboss here that fires waves of bats as projectiles.

Another Symphony of the Night enemy, giant ghost skulls. For a 2009 game, the influence of Symphony is all over the place.

Giant rock golem is the next boss, and it's no problem at all with throwing axes to arc upwards.

Stage 5 is the Clock Tower, but it isn't much of a tower. Actually, this game is almost entirely horizontal. It's weird how almost-nonexistent vertical sections are. Come to think of it, this game doesn't have any ropes or climbing either. That's right, NO ROPES. The game is feeling a little bare-bones right about now, which is understandable considering at the end of the day it's a low-priced Wiiware title.

Stage 5 miniboss is this hulking menace who fires dark energy blasts. This stage just goes on and on.

For some reason I really like jumping between these swinging pendulums. Stage 5 is easily the longest and toughest thing in this game, and took me as long as the rest of the game combined. Still not sure why they didn't break the game up into smaller stages. Could have easily gotten like 10-12 stages out of this game instead of five and a quarter.

Death is the penultimate boss as usual, and they went All In with making this fight look awesome.

He's got a couple of attack patterns, starting with small scythes and moving on to...

...one big scythe that he gouges the air with. Throwing axes, again, work super well here. In general the axe is the only sub-weapon worth using in this game. The holy water is pretty useless in comparison and has taken some serious nerfs since the early series.

Stage 6 is just the final fight with Dracula, plus the iconic stairway going up to him.

Finally, Dracula. As I'm just now realizing how completely formulaic this series is. It's almost as formulaic as Mega Man. However, much like Mega Man, it's okay.

He does the usual pattern of teleporting around and throwing triple fireballs.

Unfortunately for him, I've dealt with this very attack pattern...like ten times now.

He's got a second form, and it's this freakish fireball-spitting Super Shredder of bats.

However, he only has two attacks and both are pretty simple to dodge, so this ends up being one of the easier final battles in the series.

Finishing the game unlocks "Classic Mode", which is the same game except you can't control your jumps in midair and you get knocked back further. So basically it reverts it to NES-style. It's one of the worst game-completion bonuses ever. Unlocking a hard mode is one thing, but here it's just unlocking a "plays worse mode" and kicking you in the pants.

So that's it for the third and final game with Christopher. It's a worthwhile member of the series and worth playing, even if the controls and levels are very similar to what you'd get on the Game Boy games. I wouldn't say this stacks up with the top games in the series, but for what it was it was fine. Good that the Wii system got one 2D 'Vania. Unfortunate that this hasn't made it onto any of the series compilations since. That's kinda inexplicable too, as this would be the perfect thing to drop into one of the more recent compilations. And how about a console compilation of the three DS Symphony-likes, to make my life a bit easier?

I've got five more 'Vanias to cover. Some will be for Halloween but I'm going to do some now as well.

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