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Metroidvania Works #13: Castlevania II & Golvellius (Patreon)

Published:
2020-10-14 13:00:00
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

And now, your regularly scheduled Castlevania content. Yes, I've put together the Metroidvania Works schedule entirely with the aim of running a Castlevania-related episode for the public on the week of Halloween. It's a whole thing now... I don't know.

I've expanded the purview of the Metroidvania Works series to consistently include tangential action-RPG creations as a secondary topic in most episodes. This episode's is Golvellius.

My hope is that by the end of next year I'll have enough content to put together my first book for the series (the first of hopefully many). You can expect to see a Metroidvania Works once every five or six weeks going forward.

Files

Previews only

Castlevania II / Golvellius retrospective: ’Vania mania | Metroidvania Works #013

At last, the "metroidvania" concept begins to live up to its name. Metroid was on-point from the start, but Castlevania was slower to come around to the exploratory action-RPG concept. After the baby steps of the original Castlevania (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nealF8LlXxs) and Vampire Killer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoXEk_vegkc), Castlevania II felt like the first meaningful effort to turn the quest to stop Count Dracula into a proper adventure. It was also kind of a mess, but hey, like I said—baby steps. Also in this episode, Compile gives us another interesting twist on the action-RPG with Golvellius. It's not really a metroidvania, but that's OK. Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! And be sure to check out the Retronauts podcast (http://www.retronauts.com), where I (and many others!) tackle a much wider array of classic gaming topics each week.

Comments

Kyle Olson

I like the design of the intro bit, althoughthe compression on YouTube is getting to you. Your face is pretty artifacty. Compression algorithms don't like red because of the way the colors are sampled. Best to avoid this much red if you have normal compression

Jeremy Parish
>>45832772

Yes, that's why Virtual Boy Works was in B&W. It doesn't matter for quick framing sequences—they're not the point of this video.

Colbin Erdahl

I like the devil horn effect from the red lighting, excellent placement. Simon’s Quest is such a touchstone for me with MVworks. Something so nearly crystallized with the single continuous 2D “open world”. This was one of my few owned NES games as a kid, so I had no choice but to spend countless hours wandering, attempting to parse through the inscrutable info provided by the townspeople. This game sewed certain seeds in me that only blossomed with more complete games like Super Metroid, SotN, etc, and I often think back to SQ while playing more current MVs. I loved the day/night cycle, and especially the music. What really frustrates me with recent play-throughs, though, is the absolute anti-climax of Dracula (also the other 2 bosses). I think if Konami had kept this game in the oven for just a month or two, it would have turned out as more of a complete game, and might today be one of the absolute must-plays of the NES. As it stands, I don’t know if I can recommend it to modern players for more than an hour or so.