Castlevania Legends is legendarily unloved

destructoid.com:

Castlevania is a series so sprawling with so many high peaks that the low valleys kind of really stand out. Except I’ve learned that the valleys aren’t always that deep. You can usually, at least, see the peeks from games like Castlevania Judgement and Castlevania 64. I’ve yet to find a Castlevania title without some merit, even if there are a few that don’t exactly crack my whip. I honestly think that 2010’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow might be the nadir for me, because I found it to be just so stiflingly boring. I don’t even want to know what the sequel is like.

Castlevania Legends is one that I’ve heard excluded at best and derided at worst. On paper, it has one thing that I’ve wished for in a Castlevania title: a lady-Belmont, but I’m told that it’s terrible, mostly by Koji Igarashi who helmed the series for more than a decade. In Nintendo Power Issue 230 (July 2008), Igarashi referred to Castlevania Legends as an embarrassment. That’s pretty harsh, and it was enough to put me off even trying it until now.

It’s not great, but if I ever referred to a game as an “embarrassment,” I’d make damned sure I was driving the stake into the right place.

Castlevania Legends has you stepping into the thigh-high boots of Sonia Belmont. In the same Nintendo Power that Koji Igarashi called the game an embarrassment, he also confidently said that Shanoa of Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia was the series’ first main female protagonist. I keep bringing his comments up because I just can’t believe the brash confidence in this guy.

You can tell Sonia is supposed to be a lady because of her butt. My husband looked over my shoulder while I was playing it and recognized her outward gender while she was climbing a rope because of the way her