Like a stake through the heart!

I know I just got through arguing that fans of things need to ratchet it down when it comes to creative decisions we don't like. Like, we, as nerds, would all just live longer if we didn't take every deviation from our expectations as an unforgivable and personal affront. But allow me to completely contradict myself. Because this. Yeah, I hope you kept that nerd belt buckled because I'm about to go off on my other nerddom: video games.

Pictured: Sports fans loosing their shit over their fandom. And
before you argue that it's not the same thing, remember that with
video gaming we at least have a hand in the outcome.

To be pedantic about it, Frankenstein was
 the scientist, while Frankenstien's public
domain monster is a level 8 boss fight.

Specifically Castlevania. Because you almost certainly didn't click on the link, I'll sum up. After years of exactly nothing from the good people at Konami, out of nowhere they just announced that a new Castlevania game is coming. Holy shit, right? Castlevania, for those who don't give a shit about this most glorious of sedentary hobbies, is a series of side-scrolling action games from the late 80's and early 90's in which you play a guy with a whip who sets out to murder Dracula and his horde of similar to, but legally distant from, Universal Studios monsters. It might not sound sophisticated, but keep in mind the technological limitations of the time and the fact that the internet wasn't an option.

The first few entries were pretty straight forward action games with the exception of Castlevania II which was more of grey plastic slab of frustration designed to get you to call the Nintendo Powerline. For just $1.50 per minute, some teen with a way better summer job that you ever had would walk you through the inscrutable translation errors that made the game functionally impossible to complete.

"Stuck on a totally bogus level and can't solve your game tape?
Call the tubular dudes at the Nintendo Powerline. It's radical!"

-Some kid, and yes, everyone

talked like that back then

"Blah! I've come to prey
on your gambling addition!"

Anyway the series evolved over the years to incorporate RPG elements hitting a high point with Symphony of the Night before looping back into action with a bunch of not-so-great 3-D sequels that were little more than thinly veiled God of War knock-offs and-well, you don't care about this. All you need to know is that Konami has sort of given up on the series and video games in general. The last few years they've mostly just been making pachinko machines, some of them Castlevania-themed. So the announcement of a new, actual Castlevania game gave us fans a brief glimmer of hope that after letting the series go dormant for years, and only milking it for Japanese casinos, that Konami would be making a triumphant return to a fan favorite. But then we went on to read the part about how it's going to be a shitty iPhone game instead.

The app store has 11,000 mobile
games. Average price: $.49. What
are the odds there are any good ones?

I know I'm judging a game that was announced yesterday and all I have to go on at the moment is a couple screen shots but I don't think I'm over-reacting when I say that it's going to be terrible and Konami has kicked 10 year old me in the face. Ok, that might be a touch overly dramatic, but this really is kind of disappointing. From the screen shots we can see that it is a side-scroller and that's good, but it's also somehow multi player which is weird for a Castlevania game. But my biggest concern is that it's a mobile game and IOS games are and I don't think this is unfair, universally garbage.

iPhones are small, glass and easily
 thrown, so is this really a good fit?

Maybe I'm a game snob, or maybe I'm like old people who complain that movies where better when they were in black and white and didn't have any swears, but touch screen gaming is imprecise and floaty. The interface, or feel of a game is a super important part of the experience. This is particularly true with action games where poor controls can often mean the difference between challenging and fuckthisfuckinggame.

Sure, Konami might have scaled the challenge to something more compatible with the vague finger swipes that constitute touch controls, but then what makes it Castlevania-y? At some point they might as well make just another pachinko machine.

It kind of looks like Castlevania, but wait until
you're looking at it through a film of finger smudge
and frustration-related spider-web cracks.