What a Wonderful Night to Have a Curse
My favorite Castlevania game – and the one that I played the most – was probably Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the PlayStation. But it wasn’t the one that had the biggest impact on me. Too much of me was already fully formed by the time Symphony of the Night came along. No, that big formative impact came from Castlevania III, subtitled Dracula’s Curse, for the NES.
I received a copy for my birthday the year it came out in North America (so, 1990). Though I had played Castlevania games before, it was the first one I ever owned and, when I think of Castlevania, it’s still the one I think of the most. The same is obviously true of Jonathan Raab.
Vampyrvania, designed and written by Raab and with all-new illustrations by Peter Lazarski, is an obvious attempt at translating the Castlevania franchise as a whole into a combat-heavy, rules-lite tabletop RPG.
This is apparent in everything from the video game art style to the layout of the books themselves, which are bound horizontally to resemble old NES instruction booklets. But if Vampyrvania takes cues from throughout the Castlevania franchise (the inspiration for the “Legion Sphere,” for example, comes from Symphony of the Night), Dracula’s Curse is its most frequent touchstone.
You can find Casltevania III in everything from Vampyrvania’s archetypes – which mirror the fearless vampire killer and his various helpers from Dracula’s Curse – to the nature of the game’s magic to the look and feel of its subweapons.
At launch, Vampyrvania is accompanied by one expansion “stage,” The Clock Tower, a staple of Castlevania games since the inception of the series. But the hints of “greater horrors ahead” to be found at the back of the book also suggests further influence from Castlevania III in the form of a “ghostly galleon,” public domain equivalent of that game’s “Haunted Ship of Fools.”
Of course, Vampyrvania is more than just a clever, nostalgic evocation of a game we’ve all already played before. It reflects the style and the obsessions of its creators. Longtime readers will be familiar with my affection for the writings of Jonathan Raab, who has made a career out of repurposing modest ghoulishness and gothic nonsense into biting political commentary. Among his many hats, he is one of the most reliable modern champions of a creaky sort of overwrought gothic atmosphere that too many contemporary writers eschew as old fashioned or only trot out as camp.
Peter Lazarski, meanwhile, is perhaps best known online as the creator of the classic 8-bit throwback platformer Halloween Forever. Which is to say that they are both creators after my own heart, and the perfect folks to bring something like Vampyrvania to life.
The art is the first thing that you’ll notice about Vampyrvania, in fact. From the logo on down, it evokes the aesthetics of the Castlevania franchise perfectly, while still maintaining Lazarski’s unique style, and it’s a delight to see his take on everything from familiar characters to recurring foes. The border which accompanies the “Introductory Rites” section of the core book is a particular treasure.
It would be easy to assume that some of Raab’s writing style might be lost to the technical nature of something like an RPG rulebook, and to some extent that is true, but Raab is very much still here. “The minds of the ruling class are infected by devils,” say those aforementioned Introductory Rites, “driving them to ever greater acts of oppression and depravity.”
Similarly, the way that enemies are listed not only reflects the style of in-game Castlevania bestiaries but also allows Raab some freedom to flex. The Leaper Goblin, for instance, is described as “a weird little freak,” while the Clock Tower expansion adds narrative encounters that showcase Raab’s talent for repurposing familiar gothic tropes in new ways.
Ultimately, though, much of the creativity in Vampyrvania comes from how faithfully it translates an 8-bit video game platformer into the very different realm of the tabletop RPG. Everything is here, from subweapons powered by hearts to breakable blocks containing “wall meat.” And all of it is rendered in ways that should be quick to pick up and play for newcomers, and familiar to anyone who has ever experienced a classic Castlevania game.
At the time of this writing, I have only read through Vampyrvania, not actually played a game of it. And, given how sporadically I actually manage to play roleplaying games, perhaps I never will, But that’s fine. Collecting games is, as others have said before, its own hobby, and the joy that comes from reading through Vampyrvania – or even just looking at it – is well worth the very modest cover price.
