Repository navigation
2. General analysis
Vampire killer belongs to the plataform action genere like most of the games from the castlevania series. The plataform genere was born around 1980 with the launch of Space Panic and Donkey Kong and englobes a wide range of games nowadays. This genere quikly increased in popularity since the arcade age and later on many games of this genere started implementing scrolling graphics that improved over time. At this time (arround 1985) Super Mario Bros was released and it became the archtype for this videogame genere.
------- Space Panic ----------------- Donkey Kong -------
The main premise of this kind of games consists in runing, walking or climbing through a series of stages wich contain enemies to fight, obstacles and objects wich the player will have to collect, in most cases to complete the level and progress in the game. This type of games are usually displayed in a 2D horizontal view (The Legend of Zelda) and in the most recent games 2.5D horizontal view (New Super Mario Bros U) is also common. It is also considered an action game due to the emphasize of the reaction time needed to face the enemies and diferent bosses in the game.
------------- The Legend of Zelda ----------------------- New Super Mario Bros U -------------
Vampire killer is the second game of the castlevania series wich consists of 28 games that are fairly similar like Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood or Castlevania Chronicle. Other games outside the saga like Super Metroid and ori have similar mechanics and share the 2D horizontal view charateristic of plataformers.
Super Metroid If we take a look at this game we can notice how the mechanics and level distrybution are fairly similar to the ones in vampire killer. In Supermetroid the player (Samus Aran) moves through several levels with a wider range of weapons and artifacts such as the canon and the suit. There are also several objects that allow the player to upgrade the armour and gain special boosts just like in vampire killer. Both games also present the game layout in single screen mode so there are small transitions to change from one scenario to another once the player reaches the end of the scene. The level structure is also fairly similar as both games consist of consecutive linear levels with diferent bosses at the end of each level and one final boss at the end of the last level and end of the game. As we can see this game used many of the main mechanics used in castlevania but upgrading a few of them and adding more options for the player.
Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood This other game from the same series as Vampire Killer also shares many of the main characteristics of Vampire Killer. It continues to use the clasic 2D side view but this time being a scroller type display. The players movement set is the same as in the previous game and the game is also organized by levels with corresponding boss fights. However this game is the first in the franchise to incorporate an acount system to allow the players to save the play and it also included more elaborated cinematics.
-------- Castlevania: Rondo of Blood --------------------- Super Metroid --------
The original NES (Famicon in Japan) version and the GBA port all together sold about 1.56 million units and it was a well received game of the castlevania series as well as establishing the foundation for the next upcoming games of the saga and the metroidvania genere standards. Although it tried to innovate and include new things to the saga the game also had many flaws. The non linear structure of the game that made the players search in loops for the necesary keys to pass each level and the lack of a smooth scrolling system to transition between levels is what made the game fall a bit behind of other games in the series. But at the time of its launch it was a rather well received game by the public.
This version we are recreating was released for the MSX-2 computer wich was a later version of the MSX 8 bit microprocesor. This computer standard was a great succest in Europe but it had almost no impact on America. This home computer had a Z80 microprocesor wich had a single integrated circuit and this reduced the processing cost of the computer. This procesor was also used in the first Gameboy consoles. The MSX-2 also had a cartridge compartment and a ceste reproductor to load games and it had one output to conect to a color or green monochrome monitor.
--------------- MSX computer -------------------------------- Zilog Z80A microprocesor ---------------
CPU
-
Procesor: Zilog Z80A wich worked at 3,58 MHz. It was the same procesor that other popular home computers such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC used.
-
Video procesor: Yamaha V9938 (MSX-Video) compatible with all MSX video modes. It has a video frequency output of 15 KHZ, 32 or 16 colors, a horizontal resolution of 256 or 512 and vertical resolution from 192 to 424. The color palet was RGB with 256 colors.
-
Sound chip: Yamaha YM2149 (PSG). Worked with 16 registers of 8 bits each one and a bus of 8 bits. 6 of those registers were used to store the tones and 2 registers to save the output tone, allowing to have up to 4096 diferent tones.
Memory
-
ROM: 48KB storage
-
Extended BIOS (32 KB)
-
MSX BASIC (16 KB) v2.0 or the v2.1 was the programing language used for the MSX-2 coputer. It is a version of the clasic Microsoft Standard Basic language.
-
DiskROM (16 KB) and MSX-Audio BIOS (32 KB) both components optional to enchance machine performance.
-
-
RAM: 128 KB in Europe and 64 KB in Japan (up to 512KB in exceptional cases)
-
Maped memory: 1 slot (4MB)
-
Disc space: 3,5"
Vampire killer was released by Konami for the MSX-2 computer in the 1986. Konami is a company from the videogame and entertainement industry that was founded in 1969. The company main products are toys, card games, videogames, anime series and slot machines though it greatly stands out in the videogame industry owning many succesful sagas like Castlevania, Contra, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill and DanceDance Revolution. Yoshinobu Nakama, Hiro Matsuda and Shokichi Ishihara all together with Kaguemasa Kozuki, who is still the current CEO of konami) were the founders of the company. Konamy started in the game industry by producing arcade machines for games like Frogger and Scrambler. Vampire Killer and the Castlevania series has been one of Konamis great hits, even more so after the company started launching the games for the NES in America.
Vampire Killer is a parallel version of the original one (Castlevania) wich was first launched only in japan for the Famicon Disk System. A month later, that game was released in Europe under another name without the Castlevania brand. The Castlevania name only came back when the franchise started releasing the titles in America for the NES.
------------------------ Famicom Castlevania cartridge compared to the MSX-2 Vampire Killer Cartridge ------------------------