Castlevania II / Golvellius retrospective: ’Vania mania | Metroidvania Works #013

At last, the "metroidvania" concept begins to live up to its name. Metroid was on-point from the start, but Castlevania was slower to come around to the exploratory action-RPG concept. After the baby steps of the original Castlevania (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nealF8LlXxs) and Vampire Killer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoXEk_vegkc), Castlevania II felt like the first meaningful effort to turn the quest to stop Count Dracula into a proper adventure. It was also kind of a mess, but hey, like I said—baby steps. Also in this episode, Compile gives us another interesting twist on the action-RPG with Golvellius. It's not really a metroidvania, but that's OK. Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! And be sure to check out the Retronauts podcast (http://www.retronauts.com), where I (and many others!) tackle a much wider array of classic gaming topics each week.