"And your big loser is..."                           

"Here to represent Castlevania Legions, since no one else from the game was invited, is the eternally tormented soul (and possibly a relative) ... Alutard!" 

         "Death is too good for you."

"Excuse me?"                                   

         "Go back from whence you came."

"You have chosen poorly, Alumart. Prepare for doom. Ho-hah! Parry, turn, STRIKE, spin, stab, snap, crackle, THRUST!"

         "..."

"Sorry it had to come to this. But fear not, for you've learned a valuable lesson that you will forever carry forth. Do unto others as I have shown you. It is your destiny.

Fare thee well, Master Liberian!"       

"Pop quiz. The preceding conversation was _______.

(A) Stupid
(B) Pointless
(C) Dopey
(D) Please end this show."

         "I'll have to go with 'D.' "

       "You and I wish. But, first, on to business."

 "Yes. We were talking about Castlevania Legends. Why would we do that?

Oh, right--the enemies. Well, I'll put it like this: If games like Super Castlevania IV and Rondo of Blood broke the mold and hit us with interesting, vibrant collections of enemy monsters, Legends kicked us below the belt and made us watch Al Gore family slideshows. What we call unadulterated mounds of unidentifiable fuzz, Legends calls 'enemies.' It's not that old favorites don't appear--it's that they're so boring, so ugly, and so uninteresting that we wish they didn't. Bone pillars, hunchbacks and fishmen never looked so bad. And whatever you call those floating, wavy things on the first stage, at least don't call them 'legible.' Legends also makes another cardinal sin when it tries to follow-up the Dracula X titles by introducing some of their notables-- the Spear Guards and the Sword Lords, who are clearly so bored that they sport offense that reads, 'Please destroy me so that I might escape from this four-colored hell!' The bosses look OK, but are they really bosses? Is there any designation? Why am I a blue Elvis impersonator? Just what the hell is going on here?

I can say no more. I've stayed awake through Dracula's worst reigns of expansive global terror, but no more of this can I take. Farewell--we will not meet again."

"Oh, but, Al, we might ne--

Nyeh! He's gone. And he was the most normal attendee, if that's possible. I guess I'm just afraid of who might show up next.

Well, we do have a 'next,' but it's nothing to fear. No--we have for you one of the more popular members of the Belmont family! Ladies and gentleman, our next speaker is the supreme vampire hunter and one-time master of our castle--join me in welcoming Richter Belmont!"

"Shhhhhhhhhhhh--not now! I'm watching the Castlevania World Series!"

       "Oh, really? What's going on at the moment?"

"It's the bottom of the ninth in game four. Our home team, the Wallachia Wicked, is up to bat with the Ottoman Orks leading 5-4. We need to win it here!"

       "This sounds most exciting."

"Damn this! We're down to our final out, and it's all up to Balloon Podriguez (B-Pod)! And here's the pitch...

He strikes out looking. UGH!

That's it--series over! I want B-Pod and Barry Bondage traded immediately for Ken Grizzly, Jr., and Guerrero the Impaler!"

"But your team is still up three games to one, and they did this by virtue of game-winning homeruns by Podriguez in games two and three..."

"It doesn't matter! He didn't come through when it counted.

Steingrabber better be on the phone right now talking trades!

'Pay'-pod sucks!"

"Now that's just silly talk. Sometimes teams just lose. You know how it is: You don't get the breaks and the other team does. Fatigue is a factor, too.

It's very difficult to win consistently in a sport where many of its microevents are random, you see."

"Idiot--know 'baseball.'

This is the most unclutch group of overpaid losers ever put together! No-no! I can't take this anymore! Season over! Time to retool! Tear down Dracul Park and put up a Benihana!

Podriguez is no MVC (Most Valuable Cretin)!"

"Perhaps you're overreacting. I mean, your team could just as easily win tomorrow and take home the prize!"

"They suck.

That's it! I am now, instead, officially a fan of the Veros Vagrants! There's a team with heart and grit! Mummy Ramirez and Nomore Garciaparra always come through!"

       "That team was contracted from the league this morning."

"...

That's it! I quit! Award show over! Life over!"

"Settle down there, Mr. Belmont.

Maybe you'd feel better about things if you were to give the nominees for the series' 'Worst Story'? Give it a go. Then, maybe, you'll forget your troubles and realize that there are things more important in life than guys hitting little white balls with big wooden sticks."

"What does professional wrestling have to do with this?"       

"Geh?! N-no... Forget it.

More simply: Let's move this thing along before it has to be redone in light of five newly announced sequels. Shall we?"

"If I must, then I must. $200,000,000 for a team that can't get the ball past the third-base alligator pit. What were they thinking?

Anyway: When a gamer plunks down $50-$60 (what Clammy Sosa gets for two practice swings, mind you) for a new game, he or she expects to extract maximum enjoyment from this new purchase. While the expectancy is great, it's not the developers' responsibility to overwhelm us with top-level drama as long as the game is well worth our time. Still, a good storyline never fails to provide to the project a little oomph and perhaps push it past the point of generic and into a league all its own. A game like, say, Final Fantasy II comes to mind as a game elevated by the sheer scope of its unfolding tale. That's an extreme case. And while the absence of an overarching storyline is hardly a huge detriment, in that regard, it does factor in to our wonderment as to whether or not the developers were even trying. With that in mind, we've selected from this series five such instances of non-creative or obtuse storytelling:

• Akumajou Dracula X68000: Dracula has been waiting one hundred years for a rematch. Where have I see this story before?
• Castlevania: Dracula has been waiting one hundred years for a rematch. There you go. At least Vampire Killer had some type of ending sequence.
• Castlevania: The Adventure: Here we have a storyline so ill-conceived that it wasn't even applied to the game until years later, when it became convenient.
• Haunted Castle: Dracula has kidnapped Simon Belmont's wife, because, I guess, he's been waiting one hundred years for a rematch. Nice try.
• Super Castlevania IV: Dracula has been waiting one hundred years for a rematch. Also, Dracula rises every 100 years, we think. Maybe. Sort of.