Third Game Boy episode after The Adventure and Belmont’s Revenge, Castlevania Legends is a non-canonical episode following the tribulations of young Sonia Belmont, the first vampire hunter of her clan and first nemesis of Count Dracula. Archivists of the franchise will notice that this scenario has become obsolete since Lament of Innocence on PS2, today considered to be the true origin story of the whipping clan by Konami. Quite classic in shape, Castlevania Legends takes all the key mechanics of the franchise with a little eccentricity: Sonia’s “Burning Mode”, which makes her temporarily invincible and overpowered for 10 seconds. Alas, this does not prevent him from wallowing in the multiple bottomless pits lining Transylvania. For the record, Sonia Belmont should have returned in the canceled Dreamcast episode Castlevania: Resurrection. Ironic title whose euthanasia condemned the matriarch to collective oblivion.
Satanism for the kidz’
On the NES side, the Nintendo Switch Online catalog receives an old project from Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, the very little known Devil World. Tamagon, a little green dragon with the furious air of Bubble Bobble, breaks into the Evil One’s home to burn his behind. But as fate would have it, the devil lives in a pseudo-Pac-Man maze, and he can control its limits at will. Tamagon must recover bibles casually left in the corridors to defend himself against the creatures roaming the labyrinth. Perhaps fans of Super Smash Bros. do they already know Devil World : his bluish and plump Satan is present as a Help Trophy manipulating the edges of the screen to annoy the players since the Brawl episode. Miyamoto and Tezuka had attempted to publish this cartridge in the United States, but the president of the American branch Minoru Arakawa had explained to them that the concept would not go down well with the local puritans. Hence the relative anonymity of the game.
Another project long confined to the Japanese archipelago, The Mysterious Murasame Castle (Nazo no Murasamejô for short). Samurai Takamaru must conquer five castles using his katana and shurikens to repel a strange alien threat corrupting the local lords. Although relatively unknown, Murasame Castle remains a Nintendo classic popping up here and there, with a dedicated mini-game in Nintendo Land or an Help Trophy in Super Smash Bros. 3DS / Wii U. Takamaru could also have joined this last game as a playable character; unfortunately, Masahiro Sakurai ended up feeling that he was not recognizable enough outside of Japan. Finally, know that Suda51 is an inveterate fan of Murasame Castle and that he would like to remake it in his style.
All this beautiful world is now available to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers.