Drac's back, and this time he wants to stay!
"Courage, don't leave me."
— Reinhardt Schneider
Castlevania (Japanese: Akumajō Dorakyura Mokushiroku, "Demon Castle Dracula Apocalypse"), commonly referred to as Castlevania 64, is the first 3D entry in the Castlevania franchise. It was later given an Updated Re-release on the same console, known as Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, which added a new intro level, somewhat expanded and remixed existing levels, and improved upon the controls. Castlevania 64 debuted on January 26, 1999 in the USA and shortly thereafter was released in the other regions.
Both the original and Legacy of Darkness chronicle the adventures of Reinhardt Schneider, a member of a Belmont branch family who inherited the Vampire Killer, and Carrie Fernandez, related to the Belnades clan, as they enter Dracula's castle to take the vampire out.
Most players think the games poorly handled their Video Game 3D Leaps, especially in light of the 2D critical darling, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Koji Igarashi, himself, effectively struck them from his official canon at the same time he disowned Castlevania Legends, but he seems to have warmed up to them significantly in later years — they were both included in the more recent publications of the CV timelines (though minus the descriptions), and Legacy of Darkness star Cornell has roles in both Judgment and Lords of Shadow. All four protagonists — Reinhardt, Carrie, Cornell, and Henry Oldrey — were also included as playable characters in Vampire Survivors.
Castlevania 64 provides examples of:
- Action Bomb: Blue Skeletons are ignited to explode, and they chase the player characters relentlessly to hurt them.
- Affably Evil: The demon shopkeeper Renon to a tee. Even as he's about to transform into a One-Winged Angel if you spent too much money on using his services.
- Anachronism Stew:
- Skeletons on motorcycles... in the 19th century (the earliest prototypes were created in 1885, but even that is later than this game takes place). And some of them have a buddy in a sidecar wielding a machinegun!
- The Castle Center has models of many things not invented until way after 1852. Could Dracula know the future of mankind?
- The Tower of Science, with its giant formaldehyde canisters, futuristic motif, electric shock currents and guard robots with infrared beams and machine guns.
- The Room of Inventions which has a radio, a zeppelin (model), and other assorted bits of Schizo Tech.
- And let's not get started on the robotic chainsaw-wielding Frankenstein's monster in the hedge maze.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: Malus forces a marriage proposal upon Carrie in the bad ending, making the young witch very uncomfortable with how sudden it is. Eventually at his insistence she concedes to think about it when they're older. Malus smirks that a binding contract has now been made.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Finding certain items give an extra outfit to Reinhardt and Carrie. They are Shout Outs to previous games, letting them dress as Simon Belmont and Maria Renard, respectively.
- Another Side, Another Story: Sections of the game are different for each character, with their own levels and recurring characters.
- An Arm and a Leg: King Skeleton loses three of his limbs (first his free arm and then his legs) as he comes closer to defeat. Likewise, if you attack the Behemoth's hind legs enough, they explode, causing it to stagger in pain, making it easy for you to finish it off.
- Badass Family: Both Reinhardt and Carrie come from badass clans. Carrie is the scion of the Fernandez (previously Belnades) clan, a family of powerful sorceresses who use magic to fight, and of course, Reinhardt descends (although indirectly, hence his last name) from the Belmont clan, the most powerful Vampire Hunters around, giving him the right and power to safely wield the sacred whip, Vampire Killer.
- Boss Bonanza: Some areas of this game play this, such as the Forest of Silence and the Castle Keep, but the noteworthy one is the Duel Tower. Four areas in this tower force you to duel a mini-boss, and two of them are bosses confronted in the forest, the Werewolf and Weretiger.
- Boss-Only Level:
- The Room of Clocks segment only consists of a clock room with items, a Save Crystal, Renon's contract, and an elevator; that elevator will take the player character to the Climax Boss fight against their personal nemesis (Death for Reinhardt, and Actrise for Carrie). After completing the fight and returning, a door will open that goes to the last platforming area, the Clock Tower.
- This is also the case with the Castle Keep to close the game, as you can find a hidden Health Kit item, but otherwise, you have a Boss Bonanza with up to 4 fights (one of these fights, if triggered, will cause you to miss out on two other fights, which are both with the True Final Boss), and this includes a Sequential Boss to end the game.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Certain bosses are characters with a just cause turned into vampires, including the Fernandez warrior and Charlie Vincent in the path to the bad ending.
- Broad Strokes: It is debated whether these games are part of IGA's official timeline. IGA, in a 2008 interview with Nintendo Power magazine (covering Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia), considers these games side stories and not part of his timeline, as they're unmentioned on the Japanese timeline (updated as of 2007's The Dracula X Chronicles), though they were shown in the timeline that came with pre-ordered copies of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, minus the descriptions.
- Checkpoint Starvation: The Duel Tower in the original game has zero Save Crystals, but it does have four werebosses note and a bunch of jumps and hangings over a giant acid pool, including two long jumps between the last mini-boss, the Weretiger rematch, and the stage exit; the next area has a Save Crystal right at the entrance. Fail at any point in this tower, and you're sent back to the Castle Center elevator and have to start the tower all over.
- Childhood Marriage Promise: Under a pretension of Puppy Love, Malus pesters Carrie to marry him in her bad ending. After she accepts, he ominously says, "Now we have a binding contract..."
- Creepy Child: Malus, who, after being seemingly escorted out of the castle, is suddenly back with worrisome dialogue. He's actually Dracula himself, reincarnated in a younger body.
- Deal with the Devil: Buy too much stuff from Renon and you'll have to fight him later when he comes to collect his "payment" i.e. your soul. But there's nothing to stop you kicking the demon's ass rendering the contract null and void.
- Dem Bones: Very first enemy to be fought, they are later shown to be led by King Skeleton who can call them to his side at a whim.
- Determinator: The enemy AI in this game are all this. They will never stop pursuing you no matter what. They'll even jump past obstacles to get at you.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: In the intro to the game, Malus plays a haunting song on his violin. The song is actually a Dark Reprise of "Opposing Bloodlines" from Rondo of Blood, with a slower tempo.
- Disappointed by the Motive: Actrise tells Carrie Fernandez, right before their fight, about the time she slew her own child in order to gain immortality; Carrie quickly responds by calling it pathetic in contrast to her (Carrie's) stepmother making a sacrifice to save her stepchild's life.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Used on two different occasions during the game. The first example is the Behemoth encountered in the Castle Center, which uses the same battle theme as the final boss (there's one more boss just after it that also counts, and who it is depends on who you're playing as, but on the Easy mode, after defeating both bosses and taking an elevator out of the Center, the game cuts off; you have to be playing on Normal to continue past them). The second is Dracula's Servant atop the final stage, which has a unique battle theme to himself.
- Dramatic Thunder: A lightning bolt strikes in the background just as Actrise reveals that she killed her own child to further her goals.
- Dual Boss:
- At the top of the first tower in the outer wall, you'll run into a pair of serpent dragon heads covering the portcullis controls. They initially breathe small puffs of flame, but after doing enough damage to one, it sheds its skin, Turns Red, and starts breathing giant plumes of fire. You must kill both of them to reach the controls, raise the first portcullis, and leave the room.
- At the end of the Villa, you'll meet not one, but two souped up vampires, who must be killed in succession to escape and move on.
- Early-Bird Boss: Skeleton King, thanks to appearing before the player gets the hang of the controls.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: If played on Easy, the game ends after the Behemoth boss battle in the Castle Center.
- Expy: Charlie Vincent, an elderly, knowledgeable and a bit too proud Vampire Hunter is, in this game, an expy of Abraham Van Helsing, the character in Bram Stoker's Dracula novel, the elderly professor who holds all the knowledge about Dracula and the supernatural that the heroes need to defeat the Count. Likewise, Charlie's knowledge serves to prevent Reinhardt and Carrie from being deceived by Dracula in the good ending.
- Fast-Forward Mechanic: The Sun and Moon cards can be used to advance the current time so you can (among other things) have certain timed encounters and battle vampires during the day when they're weaker. However, you're actually going to want to be frugal with the cards and only use them when you're more or less forced to; using about four will force Reinhardt or Carrie to fight a vampire-turned Charlie Vincent just before Dracula's Servant, and because of Vincent's role in the endgame, if this happens, then it's No Final Boss for You since the game will end prematurely after Dracula's Servant is killed with the real Dracula surviving.
- Flunky Boss: King Skeleton summons common skeleton enemies to its aid by bashing the ground with its bone-club.
- For Doom the Bell Tolls: When you open the second gate to the castle, the clock tower bells begin to ring. Then the camera pans up...and Dracula is seen hovering in the sky. He then threatens you with a painful death, indulges in an Evil Laugh, and vanishes.
- Four Is Death: There are four mini-bosses in the Duel Tower, which has a semi-Asian feel to it.
- Frankenstein's Monster: The gardener of the Villa's maze garden. Taking a page from Ash Williams, his right hand is replaced by a chainsaw.
- Garden of Evil:
- While the surrounding garden of the Villa doesn't have any evil plantlife, it does have its guardians to make up for that slight.
- There's also the garden of white roses, which are periodically watered with blood.
- Good Wings, Evil Wings:
- In the evil side of things, Death has a pair of black wings to fly around.
- In the path to the good ending, Malus approaches the player on a winged horse. It would be suspicious enough by itself, but the horse has bat wings.
- Guide Dang It!:
- The game doesn't really tell you that the ending is in fact impacted by how much time you took to get there.
- Most of the secrets require the player to locate insanely-placed invisible platforms that are usually exactly halfway between the nearest savepoints and / or right before the end of the level. There is never any indication of the platform's position, and one even has a gap deliberately placed right before the nearest visible platform to kill you on the way back.
- Happily Adopted: Carrie mentions that she was raised by a loving and caring step-mother who ultimately sacrificed herself to save her, to contrast the villainous Actrise who just casually claimed she slew her own biological child as the first of 100 child sacrifices to resurrect Dracula.
- He Who Fights Monsters: The vampire hunter Charles Vincent warns you against trying to defeat Dracula in his place. Take too long, and he himself will be vampirized. Win quickly enough, and he'll come through for you when you need it.
- Hedge Maze: The villa stage has a nasty hedge maze you have to run through while being chased by its Frankenstein's gardener (who has a chainsaw) and his two stone dogs, who can stun you by just biting you. Of course, you only have to explore about an eighth of the maze and, if you know where to go, will likely get through before the chain-saw monster and his pals even show up (at least on the last trip through the maze; having to follow Malus through it earlier will force you to deal with the deranged inhabitants on your way through). However, they cannot be killed permanently; you can knock them down for a second, but you run the risk of getting carved up by the other enemies. You'll want to save before entering the maze.
- Heroic Build: Reinhardt is built like a Tank. He has massive arms and shoulders, which he accentuates wearing some huge pauldrons. He stands alongside Simon as being one of the strongest-looking Belmonts, particularly considering the Bishonen style later taken by the series.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Both Reinhardt and Carrie are hopelessly and repeatedly deceived by Dracula's reincarnated form Malus. Without completing the game fast enough to ensure the lesser vampire hunter Vincent aids them, the bad ending is assured.
- In-Universe Game Clock: The game has a day/night cycle, which affects some enemies.
- Intimidating Revenue Service: Renon starts out as a demon shopkeeper; you can use his contract to summon him if you should happen to find it lying around for a Dungeon Shop, and purchase any supplies you need. Just before the final boss, he shows up to let you know you won't see him ever again, but how the story plays out depends on your spending habits; if you were thrifty, he tells you a war is brewing elsewhere, which will give better profit margins than selling chicken drumsticks to a single adventurer. If you spent more than 30,000 gold, he reveals that there was some fine print in the contract that your character could not read because it was written in a demonic language; specifically, there's a tax on his services that he has to collect now, and that tax is your soul! Cue fighting for your very life.
- Jump Scare: Two particularly nasty ones happen with vampires posing as villagers. One in the Villa, and the Crypt. The first one in right in your face as he transforms when a lack of reflection gives his disguise away. The second happens when a poor dead maiden suddenly transforms into a grinning vampire.
- Kick the Dog:
- Actrise forces Carrie to fight her vampirized cousin.
- Reinhardt being forced to attack Rosa counts as this.
- Kid Hero: Carrie is 12 years old.
- Knight in Shining Armor: Reinhardt is always wearing armor in all his costumes. He is wearing a Bronze breastplate under his vest (and some massive bronze Pauldrons), and in his alternate costume, he wears none other than Simon Belmont's very own suit of Red armor. Even in Legacy of Darkness, he sports a suit of armor complete with his trademark huge Pauldrons, in natural Steel color this time.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Malus is actually Dracula reborn, the one you fight in the Castle Keep is just an impostor.
- Little Miss Badass: Two words: Carrie Fernandez. She is only 12 years old yet fights all manner of monsters, Vampires and assorted abominations with the intention of killing Dracula by her lonesome self. When asked to switch sides by Actrise, she has this to say: "I will destroy Dracula! Oppose me and I must kill you too."
- Lizard Folk:
- Lizardmen armed with tridents, dual weapons, and swords and shields are an encounter in the Underground Waterway and inside Dracula's castle.
- You also come across Heinrich Meyer, a merchant who was turned into a lizardman when he came to the castle looking for a good deal. He helps the player by giving information regarding the upcoming nitro and mandragora business, and handing out a key.
- Love Redeems: The vampire Rosa appears in everyone's plot, but it is Reinhardt who comes to know her, stops her Suicide by Sunlight attempt, and refuses to kill her in battle later. She eventually sacrifices herself to save him from Death, and she is reborn as a human at the end.
- Mini-Boss: You'll run into several of these in the game, including the Weretiger who jumps in to throttle you just after you open the first gate in the Forest of Silence. You can face him and three other were-creatures in the Duel Tower as well.
- Multiple Endings: There's a bad and good ending, and getting them depends on how fast you make your way through the castle.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Malus, whose name means "evil" in Latin. Then there's his real name, Dracula (Romanian for "dragon").
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The previously-mentioned motorcyclist skeletons.
- Nitro Express: Carrying the nitro causes the player to explode from enemy attacks, attempts at jumping, or falling, forcing the player into various Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence situations.
- No Final Boss for You: If you spend too much time fiddling around in the game, Charlie Vincent, who you meet in the Villa, will get turned into a vampire (this can be hard to do normally, but abusing the Sun and Moon cards will result in this happening). Charlie will then stop you one room before you reach Dracula's Crypt and force you to fight him, and he dies at the end of the fight (it's possible to fight both him and Renon if you were also a heavy spender at Renon's shop). Should this fight take place, you'll only fight the first form of the Final Boss, Dracula's Servant, and the game will end with the real Dracula, Malus, surviving and, for Reinhardt, Rosa does not come back to life and is essentially sentenced to Hell.
- No Hero Discount: Justified. Renon is a demon, and he has no reason to care about saving the world from vampires. As long there is profit to be made, he is content.
- No Name Given: The Fernandez Warrior that Carrie fights is never named.
- Non-Standard Game Over: If the player is infected with vampirism from a bite and fails to cure it in time, Reinhardt or Carrie will clutch their head before transforming into a vampire themselves, complete with fangs and a bestial expression.
- No Shirt, Long Jacket: Malus's outfit when he turns into an adult. An adult Dracula, that is.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The Room of Clocks. Its soundtrack is made of ticking noises and it has Suspicious Video-Game Generosity for... nothing at all.
- Ominous Latin Chanting:
- The game's version of "Dance of Illusions" has a (synthesized) choir as part of the music.
- There is also a track called "Stairway to the Clouds", that plays before entering the Castle Keep. It is made of nothing but an ominous male choir and bells.
- One-Winged Angel: Dracula's final form, which has the upper body of a demon/dragon and the lower body of a centipede.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: The Spider Centaurs have an attractive anime-style woman as their upper half and a Giant Spider lower half.
- Our Vampires Are Different: The N64 games are the first games (and still one of the few) in the franchise to have vampires as common Mooks, and vampirism is even a status effect. If you contract it and it's not healed in time, you get a Nonstandard Game Over after watching your character sprout an angry face and fangs.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: Alongside with the standard werewolf, Duel Tower also features a werejaguar, a weretiger and a werebull.
- Product Delivery Ordeal: You're tasked with fetching a flask of nitroglycerin to blow open a crack in a wall, which requires you to go to the laboratory and back. Jumping or getting hit sets off the explosive, requiring you to not only be extremely careful but choose your route very carefully.
- Puppy Love: In Carrie's bad ending, Malus convinces her to promise to marry him...
- Read the Fine Print: Renon put a special clause into his contract with you- spend more than 30,000 gold and your soul is forfeit- but put it in a demonic script that humans can't read.
- Schrödinger's Player Character: Reinhardt and Carrie go to Dracula's castle in the year 1852 for their respective missions, but they never encounter one another.
- See You in Hell: Upon defeat, Death angrily tells Reinhardt that he'll be waiting him in Hell, and "keep a warm place" for him.
- Sequential Boss:
- At the top of the first tower in the castle walls (the second area), you'll find two dragons guarding the gate controls. After doing enough damage, they'll explosively shed skin and start really breathing fire on you.
- For Reinhardt and Carrie, if you're able to meet the requirements to face the True Final Boss, then you'll get a succession of three boss fights against Dracula, with a running down a crumbling staircase segment before the second phase. In order, they are: the fake Dracula, who you will fight regardless, the younger Dracula, aka, an adult Malus, then Demon Dragon Centipede Dracula. In Cornell's story, you'll face the first of these, then immediately proceed to a second fight against a golem Dracula.
- Shamu Fu: Death can cast a spell that throws a giant demonic fish at you. So can Renon, if you have to fight him.
- Shout-Out:
- Renon is a very obvious shout out to actor Jean Reno, Carrie's name is in all likelihood a reference to the Stephen King novel "Carrie" about a young girl with telekinetic powers and Charlie Vincent is a homage to both Abraham Van Helsing from the original Dracula novel by Bram Stoken and to actor Vincent Price, who was renowned for his roles in horror movies. Finally, the Gardener is not only an obvious reference to Frankenstein, but his chainsaw-for-a-hand gimmick is a nod to Ash Williams from Evil Dead.
- In perhaps one of the most obscure shout outs ever on the series, the first name of Castlevania 64's Belmont is Reinhardt, and the person who introduced actor Max Schrecks to director F.W. Murnau (of Nosferatu fame)? Max Reinhardt.
- Shows Damage: King Skeleton and Behemoth lose pieces of themselves as they lose health.
- Spider People: Arachnes, women whose lower body is that of a Giant Spider. The spider still has its own head, giving the creature two mouths.
- Status Effects: Two:
- Poison: A Damage Over Time effect that continuously removes small amounts of health until an antidote is used.
- Vampire: A Time-Delayed Death (or rather, Undeath), which disables the main weapon and the use of food health items, and if not cured within a set in-game time, results in the player turning into a vampire.
- Stock Sound Effects: Every metal gate in the game seems to suffer from The Creaky Metal Door syndrome.
- Storybook Opening: The game starts with the book already open on a page holding the file select menu. Starting a new game results in your signature appearing on the document, and the pages flipping backwards to reveal it's a copy of the Necronomicon.
- Super Drowning Skills: Handwaved by the protagonists by having them remark that the water has been 'poisoned' by the evil of the castle. The steam that rises whenever you fall in seems to suggest a more malicious chemical at work, though.
- True Final Boss: Malus is the real Dracula, and if you make it to the final area of the game, Castle Keep, and do not fight Charlie Vincent (that fight is triggered by spending too long in the game and/or using too many Sun/Moon cards), you'll encounter him on your way out of Dracula's Crypt. Following a falling staircase montage and an elevator ride to the roof of the Clock Tower, Malus will turn into a young Dracula and you'll fight him in a modified version of the false Dracula fight. If you survive, Vincent will appear and use Holy Water on Malus, and then you're taken to face a dragon/centipede version of Dracula, which is the official Final Boss of the game, with the good ending playing if you win).
- Turns Red: The serpent dragons encountered halfway through the second area of the game start off breathing puffs of blue fire, but once you've done enough damage, they shed skin and start really laying it on with the flame.
- Undead Servant: Two of the opponents to be found in Dracula's castle are undead butlers and maids. Like vampires, they need to drink blood, which they get from biting the player characters. They are sometimes encountered with Lesser Vampire Maidens, who are female victims of their bite.
- Undeathly Pallor: All of the vampires have really pale skin. So do Reinhardt and Carrie when afflicted with Vamp status.
- Unholy Matrimony: In Carrie's bad ending, Malus/Dracula tricks her into accepting a presumably soul-binding marriage proposal.
- Video Game Sliding: Carrie and Reinhardt can both enter a slide while dashing. This can damage enemies, but you have to get the timing just right.
- Villain Ball: In the good endings, the player doesn't catch on to the ruse that the Dracula that they just defeated was just an impostor until Malus reveals himself to be the real Dracula, for no other reason than to give the player a True Final Boss.
- War for Fun and Profit: In the final, non-confrontational (if you played your cards right by not paying too much for his items and invoking the hidden clause in his contract concerning your soul) encounter with Renon, he states he is needed elsewhere, since an impending global war is about to break out, and it is going to open wonderful business opportunities. note
- What Happened to the Mouse?: In the path to the good ending, Vincent appears to dose Dracula, who has again assumed the shape of young Malus to trick the player character, with holy water. After the ensuing True Final Boss fight, he disappears from the game.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve:
- If a vampire succeeds in biting you, you will become a vampire. If you don't receive a cure by midnight, you will succumb to the urge and lose the game.
- Outside the Villa, there's a hexagonal stone in a fountain. If your character stands on the stone at midnight, you will be raised up into a hidden area where you can obtain a variety of useful items.
- Wicked Witch: Actrise, who is willing to slaughter children in order to gain her goals.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: The demon shopkeeper Renon drops his Affably Evil act and screams this if you use his services once too often.