Game Anatomy: The Back Dash

I think it’s pretty well established that I like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.  It’s not an exaggeration to say that it’s my favorite game of all time.

Like, that’s some of the best art in gaming right there

The thing about Symphony of the Night is that, when it’s discussed, it’s just sort of described as this nebulous “good,” mostly because that’s a pretty good way to describe it.  There’s so little to actually criticize, that it’s kind of hard to discuss what’s good about it.  It also managed to kind of half create the Metroidvania platformer subgenre by refining a lot of the good ideas from Super Metroid (the number of words in that last clause that are red underlined…) while also making the map a little bit more accessible, if a little less complex.  However, I feel like this is something of a disservice, because there are a lot of things that Symphony of the Night does so well, and one of them is the game’s first real defensive maneuver: the back dash.

One of the many comparisons people make today in gaming is Castlevania to Dark Souls, which is something I’ve done myself, and while I think that’s a broadly true statement, there is one big thing that Dark Souls has that the old school Castlevanias don’t, and that’s defense.  Dark Souls is really big on defense, but Castlevania’s only defensive move is to get out of the way.  In a lot of the ways, Simon and Trevor are relentless in their offense, but Alucard does something different, and that’s slide out of the way.

At first, it seems kind of useless, and even later in the game, once the player gets a handle on how it works, it does kind of seem situational, especially in normal combat.  It’s fast, yes, but it’s also a bit awkward to use.  It’s on the Triangle button (or Y if you’re playing it on the X-Box), which is a weird place for a dodge button, and, like I said before, dodging isn’t really a Castlevania thing.  At least, dodging in something that is different from jumping out of the way.  It’s a weird thing.  However, after a little bit, and the player gets a good handle on what the back dash can do, it’s extremely powerful, and is kind of the linchpin on which a lot of the boss battles are based.

Sure, you can get through a lot of the game without bothering to back dash, but it also means the game is a lot harder.  The game adds a lot of thrusts and stabs that have a kind of awkward range, just slightly too long to really get out of the way, but is the perfect distance for a double back dash.  These attacks often have enough of a warm up to see and allow Alucard to get out of the way, and there’s enough of a delay between them that Alucard can close the distance and get in enough damage to either seriously hurt them, or, in the case of a normal enemy outright kill them.

Most enemy animations are actually based around this kind of movement, or, at least a lot of the new ones that were created for this game.  There are a lot of enemies that have their classic attack patterns, which don’t take the back dash, or any of Alucard’s enhanced movement abilities, into account, but for pretty much every boss (except God damn Beelzebub) and most of the new monsters, all of their animations, attacks and movements are created around this movement and what it does is create a much more dynamic combat system, which the rest of the 2D Castlevania games follow.  Even Harmony of Dissonance, which also tries to add a Mega Man X style forward dash, but that was a bad idea, since the dashes are meant to be defensive, not a travel option.

The back dash looks really cool, and it does something else that’s really important.  It plays up just how powerful and supernatural Alucard is.  Alucard moves better than any Castlevania protagonist, except possibly Soma (and, well, there’s a reason for that), and the back dash is the first example that he’s faster and more agile than any Belmont.  Sure, the Jump Stone and Gravity Boots will eventually expand on this, but there’s a reason you don’t start with those.  The game wants to show just how bad ass Alucard is if he can dodge a sword strike like it’s just no thing, cape fluttering behind him, just like in one of my Japanese animes (sorry.  I may have been playing Metal Gear again).  Alucard can’t have everything at the beginning, since the game is built on RPG mechanics (I can see why some people might dislike this, however, and I can kind of agree with them), but the game does need something to show just how fast and crazy his movements are right at the beginning, especially since the game is sort of based around it.

There are a lot of reasons why this game works so well, but I’ve always felt the back dash was sort of the unsung hero of it.  It’s not the most important element, but it is pretty close, and it’s filtered all throughout the game.  Kind of like how the entire castle is designed so you can walk on the floor and the ceiling, and it’s a different, but similar experience.  What I’m getting at, I think, is that Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is a very, very smart game.