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Discovering Castlevania 64
Anyway, I’m going for Normal
difficulty and the game presents
a choice of two characters:
Reinhardt and Carrie. I have
no idea who either of these
characters are so I go with
Reinhardt as he has the
funnier name. What follows is
a hilariously clichéd text scroll
which explains that Reinhardt
is the heir to the Belmont clan
and basically he has to go fight
monsters because he just sort of
does. Alrighty.
The actual game starts with
Reinhardt looking manly (or
as manly as a pile of cubes
rendered by the N64 will allow)
in a bit of random wasteland
outside the castle that seems to

have no visible entrances to it
whatsoever. The only reasonable
explanation for this is Reinhardt
went straight to the castle, got
spooked and ran away like a little

player. It’s that special kind of
bad that’s a little difficult to
explain, but while the camera
follows you around reasonably
well enough while wandering

"There only seems
to be one sound
effect for walking"
girl into the woods to calm down
and this is where the game starts.
Either that or the level design is a
bit uninspired.
A cutscene triggers and Reinhardt
gets into his first fight with a
bunch of generic skeletons, and
it’s already apparent this game’s
camera isn’t going to be a team

about, when action kicks off it’s
never where you want it and
it’s like the enemies are coming
out of the screen towards the
character.
Also, this may be a weird thing to
mention, but there only seems to
be one sound effect for walking
which is way too loud and plays
on every step. This might
just be because there’s no
music yet, but if I’m getting
annoyed by something like
that this early it’s probably
going to be a real problem
later.

Another
10
Minutes Later
I got stuck briefly as there’s a
huge gate blocking the only
path and it’s not really clear
what you have to do to get
past it. Being a dumb gamer
I tried just hitting it with my
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 Edition

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