Nearly every essential Castlevania game is now on PC, with one glaring exception
It took nearly three years after Konami brought the Castlevania Advance Collection to PC for it to bundle up the next set of games in the series, originally released on the DS in the late 2000s, and port them to PC. But what's a few years in the life of Dracula? He only wakes up to throw a party in his castle once a century or two, so the wait for Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia barely counts as a power nap for ol' Vlad Tepes.
But I'm glad to see those games join the Game Boy Advance 'vanias as well as the Anniversary Collection on Steam, because that's 16 classic 2D Castlevanias total now easily playable on PC. What more could we ask for, really?
Well, there is that one game. A pretty obvious omission, given how much of Konami's back catalog is now available on Steam. Opinions on it are practically unanimous: Everyone knows just how good it is. After today's launch of the Dominus Collection, I think everyone who cares about Castlevania is thinking the same thing:
Where the heck is our Castlevania Judgment port, Konami?
Yes, I'm talking about the 3D fighting game released for the Nintendo Wii in 2008—the one with waggle controls for whip attacks and a story mode that our colleagues at GamesRadar once called "not in any way fun to play" in a 1.5 star review. Who could forget a game that made GameSpot declare, "fans of the franchise, fighting, or fun will find nothing of value in this sloppy cash-in?" Sounds like a must for the old Steam library to me!
You didn't think I was talking about some other game, did you? I mean, what else of note is missing? Do I think it's madness that Konami ported Symphony of the Night, the most celebrated game in the series, to the PlayStation 4 in 2018 but never brought it to PC?
Do I think it's leaving serious money on the table by not creating a modern PC version of co-op Castlevania-meets-Diablo riff Harmony of Despair, which has been stuck on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for more than a decade?
Do I think it's borderline criminal that Konami included the not-nearly-as-good hack job port of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, Dracula X, in the Advance Collection, but didn't include Rondo of Blood itself? Am I mad? No; do not tell anyone that I'm mad.
I just want Konami to know that, yeah, those DS games are great—Dawn of Sorrow, in particular, is my personal favorite Castlevania. I'm just disappointed, is all. About the wait for Castlevania Judgment, specifically, and not about any of that other stuff.