Castlevania Resurrection

The powers of light summon Sonia Belmont; legendary Belmont heroine drawn from the past.

NA release: N/A
JP release: N/A
EU release: N/A
Developer: Konami of America
Publisher: Konami
N64 Magazine Review: N/A
Platforms: Dreamcast
Version Played: Dreamcast

The Dreamcast is a very interesting console. It kicked off a new generation of consoles while the Nintendo 64 was still quite young, yet failed to capture an audience outside of Japan. It didn’t help that Sega were fumbling with other projects – the 32X and Saturn really weren’t that old when the Dreamcast was out, so people were concerned about the longevity. Sega did manage to attract a lot of Japanese developers to the platform, with Konami getting their American division to work on a new Castlevania, called Resurrection.

To focus on the power of the console (and partly due to Symphony of the Night not performing well), the game would focus on impressive 3D graphics. But Konami decided that their American developers could handle it. The developers had only made sports games before, and had no experience with 3D action platformers. The artists also couldn’t decide on what direction to go with it. There wasn’t a lot to show after two years and, with Dreamcast sales dwindling, the project was cancelled.

The story was going to involve Sonia Belmont, from Castlevania Legends. She is resurrected and doesn’t know why, with Dracula also returning alongside a new villain called the Countess. The “powers of light” also bring Victor Belmont, who refused to take on Dracula in the 19th century, back in time to redeem himself. Sounds like an interesting premise, but we’ll never see more of it. A very early demo was made to show people prior to E3 1999, and this managed to leak. It has a few levels you can walk around in and a few enemies to combat.

It feels like they took N64 Castlevania as a starting point. The camera has multiple modes (all bad) and you have a whip alongside a shorter range weapon, in this case a small axe. As the Dreamcast has fewer buttons, there’s only one attack button and Sonia automatically uses the axe if you’re up close to enemies. The demo has a few areas which you can swap between in a menu (doors aren’t working) and, as you’d expect from such an early demo, it feels quite wonky.

For the time, the levels do look really nice, and it shows some quite varied parts of the castle. The enemies are really annoying and there’s just a ton of them placed randomly. I get wanting to show off enemies, but these are a bit much, especially when the combat doesn’t even work (again, this is a very early prototype). It’s a shame that the series didn’t perform well on either the PS1, N64 or Dreamcast, but Konami’s luck would change with the Game Boy Advance.