A playthrough of Konami's 2009 action-platformer for the Nintendo Wii, Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth.
In this video, I play through the game twice, each time taking different routes through the stages. The first, beginning at 0:45, is played on normal with "normal" controls. The second, beginning at 54:53, is played on hard with "classic" controls.
Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth is a reimagining of Castlevania: The Adventure ( • Castlevania: The Adven... ), originally released on the Game Boy in 1989. It is also the final game in Konami's ReBirth trilogy, a WiiWare-exclusive line-up of retro-style sequels for the company's most popular franchises of the late 1980s
Like the Gradius and Contra ReBirth games, Castlevania is a thoroughly solid and faithful tribute the series. It was developed by M2 with Koji Igarashi in the role of producer, and the soundtrack was handled by Manabu Namiki (an insanely prolific game composer - just look him up!). There was quite a bit of talent behind the game, and it shows in the quality of the final product.
One of Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth's biggest draws is its aesthetic. Stylistically, it aims for the look and feel of the 16-bit era, and though the number of colors and sprites being tossed around far exceeds what would've been possible on SNES or Genesis hardware, the highly detailed, low-rez graphics and the synthed-out soundtrack make it a dead ringer for an arcade release circa 1990.
The music is a remixed collection of classic Castlevania tracks, and the heavily layered FM horns and organs blaring over crunchy orchestra hit, guitar, and drum samples hit with the same level of toe-tapping bombast as Konami's eargasms of yesteryear - games like TMNT, Sunset Riders, and Super Contra.
The gameplay also nails the mark dead on. Being based on the original Castlevania: The Adventure, the mechanics are slightly different from the arcade and console games, but it all feels comfortably familiar. The game still casts you as OG Christopher Belmont, a dude who climbs ropes and destroys eyeball boulders with a fire-flinging whip, but it also incorporates elements from the later 16-bit games, like its subweapon selection, locked doors, and stages that feature multiple paths.
And, for the true purists, there's an option to toggle between two control styles: "normal" gives you the same level of flexibility as you'll find in the 90s console CV games, while "classic" reverts to the super rigid NES-style controls. Between the control and difficulty options, the game caters to both newbs and pros alike, and the hidden paths and unlockables give it quite a lot of replayability.
I really, really liked Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth. It's an excellent game that stands far above most throwbacks of its type, and it feels like a long-lost Konami game that someone unearthed two decades after the fact. It's awesome.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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