"Since I'm such a big fan of losers, I present to you their ilk..."  

"And here to actually give an effort, our award acceptee--uh ... guy from Castlevania: The Adventure!"

"It's 'Christopher.' 'Christopher!' This is not hard to remember: Kris-tow-furr. Krisssss-towwww-furrrr! Please get it right--I deserve at least that."

    "We're very sorry, Chris Towferr--it won't happen again."

"If I weren't too old and too injured from missing the same jump forty times in a row, I'd give you something to quip about, old man.

Now why am I here again?"

"Well, Towferr, you were going to tell us why you weren't enamored with the storyline of Castlevania: The Adventure.

Forgetful, are we?"

"Keep it up--I'm gonna knock you out. Just wait.

All right, then. Let's talk storylines:

Castlevania: The Adventure is an odd creature; as an early entry into the Game Boy library, it came to us without much in the way of backdrop. No hero names, no defined timeline, no connection to past games--nothing. In other words: Its creators (or, more likely, its localization team) were too cheap to even tack on the last-minute motif of 'Dracula has been waiting for you' or even 'Dracula is back, and this time, it's personal!' Rather, the game had no real place in the lineage until two years later, when it became convenient to provide it lore in light of an imminent sequel--Belmont's Revenge. Until then, Konami made no real correction when people obliviously dubbed the hero 'Simon,' as they always do, and it probably didn't even care. Then they say, 'No wait--that's Christopher Belmont, you see' and expect us to give it a pass.

So the game doesn't even have its own real story, which is inexplicable when you consider the already fragile nature of the series' continuity. And they wonder why no one knows what the hell is going on in these games. It's not unforgivable, no--but it is a sure sign of laziness on the part of some group, and such sloppiness is the reason why no one can actually identify me! Life is so unfair."

"I can understand your pain. I mean, when it comes to having no defined role, ol' Libby here just fits the bill. I'm in a library, and I host the occasional event. The most exciting event of my life involved turning my chair around to face the wall.

Oh, well. At least I'm not you, whoever you are. No offense."

(Sob)                                                                    

"I agree.

Now, for those of you still conscious, we welcome our next speaker for this evening. Her magic is great. Her link to nature is astonishing. Her legacy indelible. You've got it, folks--please help me in welcoming the lovely Maria Renard, whose accomplishments throughout this fine series are indeed broad!"

"Did you just call me a 'broad'?"                                       

"Oh, no, ma'am--I was just commenting on the weight of your many impactful moments."

"So you're saying I'm fat?"                                       

"No, no, no! I would never say these awful things about a beautiful woman such as yourself. You are very slender, my dear, and curvy in a way that men dream about!"

"So you're saying I have a squiggly nose?"                         

    "Oh, dear--I'm getting myself in quite the pickle."

"Oh, so that's it--I should be eating pickles, huh? I'm pregnant and belong in the kitchen, right?"

    "I never said that."

"You know, just because I'm separated from Al doesn't mean that I can't put in a bad word. And another thing--"

"Oh, that's right--it didn't work out between you two. What happened?"

"He never called or flew me anywhere, so I threw him out of the castle after a big argument. Well, it was mainly me arguing, but he got in his share of stares.

There were days he wouldn't even come home. Could you believe that he went out of his way to avoid me?"

            "I can't imagine why."

"Are you saying I'm 'pushy'--that it was me who was the problem? I see now: It's my fault that the dragon kept laying eggs on his head during our most intimate moments. Sure, the bird perch over the bed was a bad idea, but is that any reason to continually sleep in mist form? Really.

Why don't you just come out and say it?"   

"Still, he was an excellent provider. I mean, you had every luxury in the world!"

"He couldn't provide anything. Just look at the quality of these eyelid implants--he didn't even check to see if the doctor was certified! And don't even mention the claw that now grows out of my forehead.

I gave him the best three days of my life, and what's my reward? He leaves me for that 8-bit floozy. And you think I'm 'bitter' about it? Think again, buster!"

"Everyone's so angry today. Maybe the worst of 'Castlevania' in kind brings out the worst in all of us? This wouldn't explain the first half of the show, so never mind.

Look--I'm sure everything will work out. If not, you could always get a job picking nails out of overpasses."

"Maybe you're right."                                                

 "Who knows? You could always use the ol' honker to curl ribbon."

"Don't push it."                                                              

"For now, do what you do best: Make grand this listing of the 'Worst Stage Design'!"

"So I'm fat?"                                                              

                "I will not say another word."

"You'd better not. Another word out of you and I'll have so many monkeys swarm your library at once that you'll think there's a launch of a new PlayStation product.

So they dragged me out of the castle, right when Dr. Phil is talking about obsessive-compulsive disorder and people who make giant lists of inanimate video game habitants, to talk about the very worst in stage design? I think it's quite simple: Back in the day, people who made video games were sadists. Oh, yes--while you were falling into a gap, to your death, for the eleventh time after being nipped by that perfectly placed raven, they were in a room somewhere in Japan, at a roundtable, laughing maniacally into the camera of life. Forget conventionality--these diseased few would torture us with the aforementioned enemy placement, boring means of platforming, no application of fun ideas, or very flawed execution of what may have been good ideas under more competent conditions. Whatever the case, the creators of the following five games probably don't like us too much:

• Castlevania 64: For its miscalculated approach to 3D with poorly-thought-out platforming, boring ideas like 'switch-hitting,' and a nightmarish camera system.
• Castlevania: The Adventure: For hitting us with a slow-motion world decorated with so much cluster while in our command is a hero who can do so very little.
• Castlevania Legends: For overly long stages filled with generic pitfalls, with Adventure's lack of flow, and with platforming styled for the depraved.
• Castlevania: Dracula X: For truncated level design that is both incoherent and maddening--zigzag platforming has never been this sloppily misapplied.
• Castlevania: Curse of Darkness: For its complete overuse of one similar-looking hall/corridor/cave after another, wherein one environment can't be distinguished from another; useless split paths; and torrid loading times .