Set eight years before the events of Castlevania 64, Legacy of Darkness is a prequel to the first N64 Castlevania, featuring a ‘man-beast’ called Cornell who is trying to save his sister, Ada, from being used as a sacrifice to resurrect Dracula.

The game is set in 1844 and begins with Cornell arriving at his home village, only to discover that it’s been burnt to the ground by Dracula’s skeleton army. He finds Ada’s pendant on the ground and follows her scent to Dracula’s castle.

Cornell is agile and fires auto-aiming magical bolts out of his hands. The gameplay in Legacy of Darkness is more or less the same as seen in Castlevania 64 – there’s lots of platforming, climbing, dodging and real-time combat with a wide variety of enemies and bosses. Day and night cycles again play a significant role in the game, with Sun and Moon cards used to jump forward in time should you need to.

The story begins with Cornell being ferried onto a ghostly-looking sailing ship by his old friend, Death. He fights his way through the ship, survives a shipwreck, then arrives at The Forest of Silence (after a surprise boss battle with a large sea serpent), which for those who’ve played Castlevania 64 will be familiar because it’s where that game started off.

Legacy of Darkness uses a mixture of all-new levels and redesigned parts from Castlevania 64. If you’ve already played the previous game before then you’ll probably remember the layout of the villa and parts of the castle, but there are some significant differences, so it’s more than just a ‘re-hash’ of the first game. Some might be disappointed that it’s not completely different, but I don’t think that it’s anything that should put you off playing Legacy of Darkness. Even though the layout of some locations are the same as in the first game, all of the puzzles, items, enemies and situations are different, so it requires a different approach.

On your first playthrough there’s a side quest in which you must rescue a young boy called Henry, and after you complete the game once you can then play the game again – as Henry – but with a new set of levels and new bosses. Completing Henry’s quest will then unlock Reinhardt and Carrie (the two protagonists from Castlevania 64), so you can play through the game as them. Each of the four playable character’s paths through the game are different.

Legacy of Darkness takes advantage of the N64 Expansion Pak, if you have it plugged-in (or activated in your emulator), and the extra memory allows for higher-resolution textures and graphics. I did compare high and low resolution modes and couldn’t see much of a difference, although there is definitely something happening because the aspect ratio of the screen changes slightly. If you know exactly what this resolution change actually does: please leave a comment below.

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness is a somewhat odd release on the N64 – especially with it being released the same year as Castlevania 64. While it isn’t a completely different game to its predecessor, it does have a fair bit going for it and is reasonably fun to play. At times it seems more like a Resident Evil clone than a Castlevania game, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Overall, Legacy of Darkness is worth playing (or even owning) if you’re an N64 or Castlevania fan. And if you were to only play/buy one of the two N64 Castlevania games then I’d probably suggest this one. That said: it is worth playing both as they compliment each other, and also having knowledge of the first game while playing the second is an advantage. And not only does it have skeletons on motorbikes again, but it has two skeletons on a motorbike and a sidecar, firing guns at you! 😀

More: Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness on Wikipedia