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Posted on: October 12, 2008
Filed under: Virtually Overlooked
The latest character to be added to the roster of Konami's questionable Castlevania: Judgment is Eric Lecarde, who appears in IGA's 3D fighter/brawler/potential abomination in the form of a little girl -- at least, that's what seems to be the intention with Takeshi Obata's character design. Eric has made few appearances in Castlevania, especially compared to his Judgment cohorts Simon, Alucard, and, of course, Dracula. He appeared in Portrait of Ruin as a gruff ghost who helped the vampire hunters by standing in one room and doling out quests.
To Judgment players, he may just be some guy with a spear, but his history of being just some guy with a spear dates back to 1994, when he appeared as the spear guy in the Genesis exclusive Castlevania: Bloodlines.
Lecarde was one of 2 playable characters in the video game, along with John Morris, an attempt to shoehorn Bram Stoker's Dracula universe into the horror melange that was pre-goth Castlevania. Morris was the traditional whipster, with the Super Castlevania IV-style ability to swing from objects with his whip. Eric could super-jump with his spear, pole-vault style.
Despite the different look and the borrowed history, Bloodlines is still completely classic Castlevania -- one of the last ones before Symphony of the Night slashed and burned the series of old, resurrecting it as Super Metroid in a cloak. I would never suggest that the current variety of Castlevania is in any way bad, but the only negative effect it had was that it signaled the end of a series of extremely difficult linear action video games.
Bloodlines may have been overlooked by a lot of people who would have liked it due to platform loyalty. Due in part to the cost of owning multiple systems, as well as the aforementioned PR-fueled rivalry between Sega and Nintendo, many of the people who love Castlevania the most went Nintendo-only in the 16-bit generation, missing the jump to the Sega platform.
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