Game Series That Are Best 2D (or 3D)

[SKELTON S. SKELETON]

It's weird to me that Castlevania is so hard to attempt through 3D. Like: People for a while during the PS2/PS1 era were waiting in awe like with the right kind of approach and the right uh, auteur (i guess?) attached that the game could have a successful outing as an actual 3D game.

Maybe the reason is the things we ascribe to Castlevania aren't really 'castlevania' at all. I don't consider Lords of Shadows to be a very good game and it's basically castlevania in name only, but, when you examine the 2D titles closely you see a lot of things that aren't really hard to pull off that all. I mean - most of them would later come to fruition exactly translated in terms of mood and atmosphere into Dark Souls.

The reason I think though, is there's an inexorable goofiness and charm in the 2D castlevanias that hasn't been present in the incredibly self-serious and self important 3D games, whether we're talking the weird arthurian romance subplot of Lament of Innocence or Curse of Darkness taking place after one of the most important games in the series mechnical canon but drawing almost nothing from that entry stylistically or in terms of storytelling!

But if you look at even Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, it's a game where the developers (and u can tell this) were given tons of leeway to just dick around and put whatever they wanted in the game. From Alucard being able to sit down to the entirety of the inverted castle being a thing.The 3D games dont' really have any of that real sense of goof or charm, and have instead fallen back on what is expected of a Gothic Action Game.

It even comes through in the soundtrack. One of the best things I ever saw written about how much of a failure as a game Lords of Shadow is is in regards to music. Where classic Castlevania drew from jazz, soprano, opera, sonata, rock & roll and even the blues, giving the games their own inherent style and character, Lords of Shadow fell back on generic hollywood orchestra and gave us what was expected from that kind of game, and honestly: what's expected is usually what is cliche or trite.