Castlevania (1986)

The stairs are among the hardest adversary in this game... the jank around trying to move up or down them and getting attacked by enemies is frustrating to say the least. I'm glad later developers had the sense to make stairs act like solid objects/platforms.

A simple but fun reference to classic horror featuring a stand-out performance by the great Christopher Bee. Earlier levels feel pretty fair. The first real difficulty spike for me was the hunchback and Frankenstein's monster boss. That little bastard zipped all around the arena like a crack head while shooting fireballs at me... It kind of boiled down to luck for me to kill this boss.

This game is tough as nails and not always in a fair way, like the early levels. It will bombard you with bullet hells on screen but not give you the mobility or move set to properly deal with it. The last two stages are just plain mean in design. To fight the Grim Reaper is a grueling gauntlet. A long hallway with two knights who throw boomerangs and droves of flying medusa heads. You need to transcend your own humanity to make it through that section without taking a hit... then the finally clincher is the boss who spawns constant tracking boomerangs randomly around the arena... very reasonable if you gave up here. Then Dracula is a long endurance fight that you need to play perfectly to survive. His moves are mostly dodge-able in phase one, but he will sometimes spawn right on top of you giving you very little time to react, if any. Phase 2 I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to avoid damage when reaching the edge of the screen. It seems like he always jumped in a way making it impossible to avoid damage. O well. It was satisfying beating him.

It is a challenge to beat, but felt worth it. Though it definitely isn't for everyone.

Castlevania is an iconic and groundbreaking game plagued by poor controls and unfair deaths. In the countless video essays about difficult games, you often hear the defense, "this game is tough, but fair." I think this is a good metric for difficult games, but can sometimes feel too subjective. I assume many bullet hell games are tough but fair, although I cannot seem to beat a single one. Shooters as well. I cannot for the life of me understand how to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but I assume that it is tough but fair to many who play.

Castlevania, however, is objectively tough and unfair. About four-fifths of this game is pretty well balanced as long as you are willing to grind it out and memorize the patterns. The last bit, however, is just cruel. The stage leading up to the fight with Death is truly the most fucked up level in a game that I can remember. Simon's slow walking speed (despite his famously beefy thighs) and uncontrollable jump require the player to pay extremely close attention to enemies and projectiles as there is zero room for error in dodging them. I believe many situations in this game actually requires frame-perfect inputs. Damage boosting through segments is typically not an option.

There's great joy in mastering difficult segments of games, living it up when you know you're getting it just right, but I found that those moments were few and far between while playing this. I also must admit that I used save states at a couple points so that I could retry difficult segments or bosses when I had managed to reach them with full health or a certain subweapon. Otherwise, this game just takes too much time to master, and there are some RNG elements that are extremely frustrating.

All that being said, the graphics, enemies, level design, music, bosses, and pretty much everything else are fantastic for1986 and this is definitely an NES highlight. This laid a serious amount of groundwork for both the horror and action genre, so i think it is worth visiting if you are a fan of games like Dark Souls, Devil May Cry, Dead Cellsor pretty much anything that has medieval or horror settings. A lot of it started here.

I'll give the last word of this review to my buddy, James:

Castlevania is an NES classic that's worth a look today, not only as a historical artifact, but as a game that can be pretty cool and fun. I enjoyed quite a few parts from a gameplay perspective, and the boss designs inspired by classic horror monsters are also a highlight. Unfortunately, along with the good comes a lot of bad, making for a game that's frustrating to enjoy.

As awkward and outdated as some parts of the gameplay can feel, many of the stages are enjoyable challenges. The gameplay and level design never let you get too comfortable with approaching them the same way. Some spots demand a very deliberate approach, letting enemies come to you and methodically clearing the area. Others reward a high-risk style, getting right in enemies' faces, whipping projectiles out of the air, or just sprinting for the exit. It's fun assessing each situation and coming up with a plan to make it through during these easier parts.

Death comes increasingly often and abruptly toward the end of the game, whether from obscenely hard-hitting enemies or the ease of falling to your doom. The amount of physical progress you lose upon death felt reasonable until I reached these later parts. Losing upgrades and sub-weapons as well as the physical progress feels pretty bad when it can happen that often in ways that can feel unfair. Health refills are rare and hidden in obscure places, so sometimes you're just doomed even if you do survive a tough part. It's hard not to feel that the brutal difficulty is making up for how short the game otherwise is.

I never would have had the patience to complete this game without save states, but I am at least glad that I saw all it has to offer. In the past I've only made it 5 or 6 levels in at most. As someone who's not really a fan of the NES era, this at least was one of the more enjoyable titles for me from that system.

Great action-platformer with a fantastic setting, stellar soundtrack and memorable atmosphere. Although Simon Belmont suffers from an underwhelming mobility, the game is designed around that limitation. I also really like how the design abides to the principle of introducing enemies and hazards in a somewhat safe environment before upping the ante with harder challenges including these elements. The difficulty is high, but in my opinion never unfair except for two instances.

Those two instances are the boss battles against Death and most of all the second phase of Dracula. I was able to beat Death with three different weapons with the abuse of save states to train, but without that ability you will have to go through a very difficulty game segment to try your chances again. Dracula’s second phase is just bad game design. The only reliable way I could beat it was by abusing holy water.

Despite these flaws, I greatly enjoyed this first entry into the series and actually managed to beat it from beginning to end without save states as check points. Let’s see if Castlevania III is as manageable...

With a flick of his wrist and a crack of his whip, Simon vanquishes the darkness !

Man, what a true classic, no wonder it's one of the nes's most popular games, this game is great.

The music and the graphics really nail the european horror feel and the difficult controls makes you feel like you're in one. You have to plan every jump, every axe throw, every crack of your mighty whip if you don't want to fall in your enemies's bloodthirsty maws.

The fact that you have to commit so much to your movements really makes you feel helpless when you miss the mark but also awesome when you manage to string together that perfect combo of dodge, jump and attack.

3.9 out of 5, would defeat Dracula again !... And again... And again... And- okay this guy seriously needs to get a hobby or something.

(Ps :Hey, remember Simon's emo phease ? Yeah, i think i like him better as a Big Barbarian Bro.)

I did actually beat this game, credits and all.

I heavily abused save-states to accomplish it. There is a hard mode after you finish the game, so I suppose I can sadly say I have not 100% finished the game even with save states.

I think two other challenges would be to finish the game with 1 save state per stage, and then, to finish the game without save states. I am not sure I am up for the task. It was a fun game and I am glad I played it, but it sure was tough!