Michael Golgevit & Olivier Rabat - Castleween (2002)
Composer: Michael Golgevit & Olivier Rabat
Console: PS2
Game Release Date: 2002
Bootleg Release Date: 2020-07-10
Ripper: SnowBlue
Runtime: 49:44, 25 Tracks
Here's a fun one. This soundtrack is from the relatively obscure 2002 PS2 / GCN game Castleween / Spirits & Spells. It was called Castleween in EU and JP regions and Spirits & Spells in NA. Not only is Castleween a better name but it is also way more searchable than Spirits & Spells. The game was developed by french video game developer Kalisto Entertainment. Kalisto is known for....not much actually. Nightmare Creatures and Fury of the Furries but neither game is that popular. Nightmare Creatures looks cool enough though. I may give that a try one day.
This was their last game before the company declared bankruptcy and fell apart. They were working on an MMO before they imploded based on the Highlander series.
It's a 3D platformer where you alternate between Greg and Alicia. Greg has the power of the devil and can survive standing in open flames and has various fire-based powers and wields a pitchfork. I also love that he is ignored by the devils. Alicia has the power of the witches and can cast spells, shrink herself and can walk on ice (Greg instantly dies upon touching ice for some reason...?). Witches will also ignore Alicia for a time.
The story goes that a group of children were out trick-or-treating when they came upon a large mansion. They had heard it had the most treats out of them all. As they climbed the hill to it, two of the children, Greg and Alicia were arguing and started lagging behind. The rest of the group continued on with them behind. When Greg and Alicia made it up they found the mansion open. Inside they found all their friends petrified by a mysterious figure called the Boogeyman. The kids run away to the edge of the property. They come into contact with a goblin, called Goblin and some guy called Jack (never explained afaik, I guess it's Satan). Goblin reveals they are in the world of the dead and they need to save their friends. Also, because it's the world of the dead only one of the kids can be out at a time.
The two kids must now traverse 25(?, i forgot the exact number) levels to save all their friends and defeat the the Boogeyman and whoever controls him.
The gameplay is...not that good. The game is glitchy, some of the platforming is bad, characters slide all over the place, getting stuff like the longjump to work is hard, you have a limited number of times to switch characters meaning you can get stuck in places, attacking doesn't work sometimes resulting in death and some minor other things. A ton of levels repeat as well with minor differences like snowfall in one. It's not exactly explained why we keep redoing levels? I guess Greg and Alicia just keep teleporting back to the start of the game after each advance in the story.
I thought it was okay. I found the story really interesting at how apocalyptic it gets. I didn't technically finish the game because it would freeze on entering the final boss level. I must have had a bad copy. They left the ending open so a Castleween 2 could be developed but with Kalisto's bankruptcy any plans never saw the light of day. Castleween is not a game I would replay without save states.
The games credits listed Michael Golgevit & Olivier Rabat as the composers. Both are french composers who have done various work for films and video games. The games music is pretty standard cinematic classical with a slight halloween tinge. Some tracks like BOOK, have a downright fantasy sound to them while others like 7_C3R have a more mischievous sound to it and could easily be have made by Danny Elfman. 260MUSIQ is straight up dark ambient. I personally found the soundtrack the second best thing of the game (just behind the story) but was leagues ahead of the gameplay. The music was also mixed way too loud in the game so I had no choice but to really take it while playing.
This rip is from the PS2 version of the game. I don't believe there are any differences between the PS2 version and Gamecube version. The game was also released as a GBA game but it has a very different gameplay style. It's a 2D sidescroller. It's also more depressing? In a way. You can actually miss catching your friends souls leaving them stuck in eternal damnation I guess. At least in the PS2 version you're not allowed to miss them. The soundtrack for the GBA copy would be a different rip entirely. I didn't like it that much though. Don't expect me to rip that one.
I had ripped it after I beaten the game so I had to go with what I remember for the song titles. This is why a bunch of them have nonsensical titles. I didn't change them from what they were listed as in the games files. I also extended a handful of tracks at the end because they were only 20-50 seconds long. If anyone wants to take a stab at titling the tracks, by all means please do and I will update it. I don't recall some of them even appearing in the game. Quality is 320kbps. WAV files are included as well.
The cover is adapter from the Japanese release of the game. It has a much better cover than the terrible 3D modeling on the EU and NA versions. Alicia looks horrible on the EU version.
I've also included some bonus things in the rip. In the archive you will find some alternate covers, the original WAV files from the PS2 disc, an advertisement for the game and some other regional covers.
Download: aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56L2ZpbGUvQ1F3QXpJYWEjUzZhaW9hRkdmSFMydTBFNFRzbjBPZ0puSmxHNDF0bDZtVzhLUkRHNGhYSQ==
p@ss: spiritsspells
Comments
Post a Comment