Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness

About Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness (1999) is Konami's expanded prequel to Castlevania 64, starring the man-beast Cornell as he races to save his sister from being sacrificed to Dracula.

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness in Depth

In 1844 the man-beast Cornell returns home to find his village burned by Dracula's minions and his adoptive sister Ada taken to be sacrificed to resurrect the Count. Finding her pendant in a doorway, he follows her scent to Dracula's castle. On the way he reaches the Oldrey estate, where Gilles de Rais and Actrise have turned J.A. Oldrey into a vampire, and at his wife Mary's request Cornell guides their son Henry to safety. His rival, the man-beast Ortega, has allied with Dracula to finally beat him, becoming a chimera-like creature. Cornell defeats Dracula and saves Ada, but only by sacrificing his man-wolf powers, which were the dark lord's true aim.

It revises the first N64 game with improved graphics, extra villains and altered levels. Cornell's new story is the main focus, through new levels and redesigned ones navigated in new ways. Finishing it unlocks Henry's quest, set later in his life as he returns to Castlevania to rescue kidnapped children, and Carrie's and Reinhardt's original quests are unlockable bonuses. The platforming and survival horror elements remain: crumbling and invisible platforms, caged and timed fights, vampires whose bite leaves heroes in a "vamp" state, a hedge maze where Cornell must guide Henry while unbeatable enemies give chase, and a nerve-racking delivery of volatile "magic nitro" through the Castle Center, where a single fall or hit means death.

Making Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness

Konami developed it as a continuation of its first attempt at a 3D Castlevania, released earlier in 1999, restoring Cornell, who had been dropped from that game. Reception was mixed. NextGen's Blake Fischer found it merely "satisfactory" and hoped the Dreamcast game would be better, while GamePro's The Freshman called it "basically what the N64's Castlevania was meant to be... more of a remake than a sequel", and another GamePro reviewer felt that although it was bigger, it shared the original's problems.