Despite being a series I have great fondness for, I have not thought about Castlevania much recently. But Netflix put out a four episode animated adaptation on its streaming service and I felt I had to give it a go. Turns out, I liked it. Also turns out that it just so happened to be what I needed to kickstart my desire to play some of it.

I’ve had the NES Classic sitting hooked up to my television for a while but haven’t played anything on it since I beat Final Fantasy a little while back. So, system booted up and away I went to take on Dracula and the rest of the Universal staple of movie monsters evidently. I’ve played Castlevania before. In fact I beat it a few times as a kid and honestly, I didn’t remember Frankenstein and The Mummy being in this game.

You know what else I didn’t remember about Castlevania? How darn hard it is. As I said, I beat this game as a kid but coming at it today was a shock to my aged dexterity and my patience. Mostly my patience.

You see, as a kid I had only a few games in my collection. And so, I spent a lot of time playing the same games over and over again. I knew them inside and out. With the wealth of games that come out weekly, and my desire to play many of those releases, I rarely have time to devote the type of time needed to impart them on my memories (both muscle and mental).

So… I think Castlevania is hard now. And I’m not going to lie, if the NES Classic did not have the ability to create save states, I don’t think I would have pushed very far in the game and I certainly would have quit at Death because really? Screw that guy.

Yes, I save scammed my way through the game. And I’m not ashamed of it either. Judge me all you want. Maybe I cheated myself a bit by playing it that way but I still felt accomplished after taking down Dracula.

Overall, I think Castlevania is a fun, challenging action-platformer (even the way I played it). Visually it has a solid cohesive style that fits the setting and is pretty detailed for an early 8-bit game. The color palette is super fitting and the environments are nice and diverse. But what what stood out for me the most when I played it years ago on the NES and now again on the NES Classic is the soundtrack. The music is some of the best of the era.

So aesthetically, the game is still a gem. But how does it play? Well, not nearly as well as I remember. Simon is clunky to control. He’s slow and plodding, jumps like a bunny and drops like a boulder, and often needs a seeing eye dog to help him up a flight of the flimsy stairs Dracula has installed in his castle. Much of the platforming in Castlevania requires perfection and if you miss a jump by a pixel you’ll go tumbling to your doom. Sometimes even through those aforementioned flimsy stairs.

The necessary precision isn’t a turn off but it can become frustrating as the game wears on, especially in the later levels where perfection is necessary in every aspect so that you can survive with enough health to reach the boss.

I can’t say I love Castlevania’s bosses. In fact, I’m pretty sure I outright hate Death and his spinning scythes. But there is something to be said about a solidly structured level and a mechanically diverse boss fight that tests your skills of which most of Castlevania succeeds at.

Having finished it, I feel I’m ready to take on another childhood favorite, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest. This Sunday will certainly be seeing more Coffee and Castlevania.

I played Castlevania for the first time on an NES emulator about 30 years after its initial American release. Overall, I knew very little about the Castlevania series going into this, but there were a few basic things I was aware of that I had read in various forums/discussions and articles. Things like: Dracula is the central antagonist of the series, Symphony of the Night is the "must play" entry, and the series was a major inspiration of the aptly named "MetroidVania" style. Knowing this brief (and undetailed) background of the series, and appreciating its importance in the history of gaming, I decided to experience the beginnings of Castlevania for myself.

THE GOOD

• The castle environments look fantastic. The color palette really helps various parts of the environment (as well as enemies) stand out, and each different area feels unique. For a game that is 30 years old, it really holds up, all things considered.
• The difficulty curve is pretty fair. Things start off very easy, allowing you to start enjoying whipping monsters almost immediately (and I did enjoy it), and the difficulty ramps up at a balanced pace for the most part (more on this later).
• Killer 8-bit tunes

THE BAD

• Being 30 years old, the controls seem a bit clunky. My biggest issue stemmed from the fact that you cannot change direction mid jump or do anything other than jump straight up once the jump was started. I found navigating the stairs to be a bit of a pain sometimes as well, especially in some of the later levels where there are multiple enemies.
• Starting at around Stage 14, this game gets really hard, really fast. By the end, I could not help but abuse save states, without which I can say with 100% certainty, I would not have been able to finish this game.
• The game is actually rather short, especially considering you can get through the first two thirds of the game in around 2 hours (or less) without much trouble.
• Light on story, though this is to be somewhat expected from a game of its era; it was probably explained entirely in the game's manual. If it were not for Wikipedia, I would not actually know who I was, what I was doing, or why I was doing it.

THE UGLY

THESE MOTHERFUCKERS. So. Damn. Frustrating.

OVERALL

I'd say Castlevania is a 5.5/10 for me. I was actually pleasantly surprised with this game, and found it to be quite fun for the most part. However, it is usually tough for me to rate older games like this very highly, as they lack many of the modern day gaming conventions I have grown accustomed to. And the game definitely feels old given how it controls. Definitely worth a try if you are curious about the origins of the series, or enjoy games from this era.

I don't think I ever played this "back in the day," but I still generally knew what to expect by reputation from this series origin: punishing difficulty, simplistic-but-clunky controls, and an experience that would be on the short end, assuming you are able to overcome its many challenges relatively quickly. I was pleasantly surprised to find that while all those reservations were basically true, this was a weirdly super fun and enthralling experience and I did in fact blast through it in one sitting. I played the version available in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection on Steam, though other than the ability to use save states and the like, as far as I know, it's a close recreation of the original game.

As an NES-era title, the game has a fairly simplistic control scheme. You can move left and right, duck, jump, whip, and use sub-weapons. That's about it. The jumping itself takes a lot of getting used to coming from experience with more recent games' controls as the game requires you to be pressing the direction of your jump before pressing the jump button. This sounds intuitive, but it's very particular about this and if you are a split second late, you will just jump straight up, which feels very unnatural playing it today, though I did eventually get used to it. But the variation on this simple control scheme and how it can fit a number of enemy types and platforming patterns worked pretty well. There are a surprisingly decent number of different enemies and bosses that fit this style fairly well (other than the last two bosses which basically abuse your limitations).

Though the "metroidvania" genre is in part named for this series, this first game is a very linear sidescrolling experience with no backtracking or other hallmarks of that genre, which only peeked in and out of the early games in the series. Instead, this game consists entirely of six relatively short levels involving several screens of horizontal and/or vertical progression before leading to the level boss. You have a set number of lives, but thankfully, the game will start you back at checkpoints in the level until you're out of lives, at which point you only start back at the beginning of the level, not a full Game Over. This brevity is why the game has such variable playtime length. If you are really good at the game such that you never die, I imagine the game is easily completed in 15-30 minutes. But it is assumed you will die, a lot.

Which comes to the game's difficulty, which I have mixed feelings on. The first four levels I found to be a really good balance and were a lot of the reason I felt so compelled to keep going. It felt like just the right mix of "I'm not breezing through this, but I am not dying so hopelessly and constantly that I'm getting frustrated." That part of the game I found really fantastic, even playing it in 2024 and recognizing how much of the clunky controls were to blame for how hard the enemies were to avoid. The last two levels however more famously call back to this era's arcade game roots where the goal was to murder the player ruthlessly to force more coins into the machine. Though the context is different, the massive ramp in difficulty is really obvious once level five hits. The last levels themselves are super tough, but the boss of level five, Death, feels built to abuse all the limitations you have with the simplistic controls and screen layout, making for a fight that is challenging in all the worst ways. There are few places to hide and the constant spamming flying attacks that ignore terrain feel designed to frustrate and kill anyone who hasn't practiced a ton. And once you're out of lives, you're going to have to replay the level. I used no save states at all until level five and at that point I legitimately started laughing aloud at how crazy tough the game suddenly was and felt no shame in starting to use them quite a lot. I still tried to beat the bosses without saving mid-fight, but it was frighteningly still quite difficult even with them. I personally found the end boss easier than the 5th boss, though mainly only because of the more predictable and avoidable attack pattern. While the difficulty spike was annoying and a big part of my marks against the game, I think it says a lot that—at least with save state capabilities in my pocket—it didn't ruin my experience.

All in all, I'm not sure I'd highly recommend this game to the modern gamer. It is interesting and surprisingly deep despite its simplicity and brevity. It also looks nice for its time and has a fantastic soundtrack that lives up to the series' reputation for excellent music. But the disorienting and frustrating difficulty spike does still knock against the game, especially being a good 1/3 of the game's content. Though I will also note, I'm sure there are those gamers more try-hard than I who might really appreciate the satisfaction of overcoming even those ridiculous parts of the game without relying on save states. However, at least for the average gamer, I would recommend trying Castlevania only with a few pointed caveats.

I was honestly surprised by how well this holds up. The graphics are great by NES standard - there is a lot of colorful imagery that doesn’t repeat too much - and the music is catchy and memorable. These combine perfectly to create an incredible dark fantasy atmosphere that leaves just enough to the player’s imagination to make the game feel maybe the most epic of any 8 bit game I’ve played.

The controls, however, are unforgiving, with a rigid jump and some oddly archaic stair climbing. The stiff controls, combined with insane knockback, and hard enemy design in general, might have been bearable today, but when mixed with the game’s ridiculous penalties for losing a life (necessary whip upgrades and secondary weapons along with ammo are taken away upon death) the game is just too difficult to enjoy without using save states.

I knew the game would be difficult going in, and tried to use save states sparingly, only at the beginning of a section when possible. But where I might have gotten bored doing this and wanted to quit with another game, Castlevania gave me enough to want to continue playing through to the end. A damn good NES experience.

Preliminary: Welp, the day has come. Konami games like the Goonies for MSX and Castlevania for NES is what got me down this rabbithole of chronology project. I was so surprised by how much I loved them. Like I did with the first Zelda, I would have just done a brief playtest to confirm my stellar review of the NES version. But as I have been learning, there are often quite a few differences between FDS and NES versions of games, like with Dragon Warrior (which I recently replayed and don't regret). After all, if a game truly deserves a 5, I should be willing to replay it! That's critical to the Attachment rating after all. Anyway, I can justify not fully replaying the first Zelda since that only got a 4, but this, with me giving 10s even... I gotta replay it ha.

Look: 9/10 On the 4th stage I was wondering why I raved so much about the Look in my last review. By no means is it bad but a 9? Hmmm. Maybe it's just cuz it set the precedent I so loved, or because I only knew of like Super Mario and Metroid for this era, so couldn't compare it to the excellent look of Adventure Island or, heck, the arcade games of its time. But it does still have a great quality to it and I love the intro screen and that someone finally really did a horror-themed action platformer. Oh and I do really like the UI and the map-between-areas segments. And yea more and more I'm seeing why I loved it, the mossy stone backgrounds, the classic Dracula castle look in the background, etc.

Sound: 9/10 Now that I play with sound on (tho I still don't include it in scores if it inhibits a higher score), this is way happier and more hero-y sounding than expected! I expected, like, Halloween vibes lol. This stage not only had the first great Look that I noticed this playthrough but also had a great jam

And then jam after jam after that! Stage 13 jingle was great. Maybe it just took time to adjust to expecting scary music and getting epic hypey music ha. Sad I used to play without music on in games smh, tho I do miss getting through comedy shows and movies in the background :-p

Play: 10/10 Funny reading in my original review how I didn't care for Metroid or Metroidvanias. That was purely based on when I was a kid. I definitely enjoyed properly playing Metroid a few weeks ago. (Plus, based on my review, it seems this one is very straightforward. It must be the 2nd one I know better that added the Metroidvania aspects.)

Hmmm, I had read that you start with 5 Hearts on the FDS version since you don't have an Easy mode, but I seem to have started with 19? This is supposedly the original 1986 version. Ahhh, it's all coming back to me fast. You accumulate those hearts from the big hearts; you get secondary weapons as displayed in the top but you wanna keep the good ones so not always worth getting every item; no need really for a guide maybe a map at most; the stairs mechanic is... not so good; the whip hits mostly at the end but is mostly usable; and so on. Now that I know the game in its context, the jump mechanic where you can't move mid-jump is quite disappointing, same with some other clunky controls with movement. But it's quite quick to learn those quirks and it's forgivable since it's a console game, not an arcade game. I was whipping in no time!

The collision masks for your character and the spike obstacles are not great haha. And then I lost my Boomerang from that :( Boo. But omg yes! How could I forget?! You can whip away enemy projectiles! Lovvvvve that in games. Allows for last-second saves, as it should be. And now that I'm back with my Cross/Boomerang, and with a Triple Shot no less, I'm back loving it lol. Love how much Bone Dragons drop despite the fact I wreck em before they even get a shot in :) I know Holy Water is better against Death but... I love the Boomerang/Cross soooo

While I'm grateful they made the time limits so long for levels, still silly they even had em. Never a fan of time limits in games, maybe just keep track of time for extra points. But like, if you're gonna have hidden items in blocks and want us to explore/try things, don't add a time limit! That being said, time never became a concern for me (tho I had a map telling me where my Pot Roast or Cross was haha)

Oooo I just read now that there are some secret bonuses and 1-ups exclusive to the Second Quest. Cool they didn't just increase the damage done by enemies and threw more in. Despite the flaws, I'm still giving this a 10 because, well, I'm obviously hooked to the gameplay despite the bad stair mechanic and jump mechanic.

Feel: 10/10 Kinda funny how it basically spoonfeeds you the Whip upgrades at the start of the game :-p (over time, I learned that's to rebuild your Whip on any beginning of an area) I do wish it were a bit clearer whether your whip is upgraded but that's petty boots.

Ahhhh I'm getting the same feeling as last time. It's just downright fun! That first boss is quite darn easy with the Axe upgrade right there, but that's not a complaint: too many games from this era were obsessed with making game hard from the beginning to the point of being outright not fun. This remembered to make it fun, and plus it has a Second Quest for those masochists. (And sure enough, the 4th stage, the stage after the first boss that is, added quite a bit more challenge. As a difficulty curve should work.)

Wow, I instantly remembered this situation with the Bone Tower to the left and the guy who gets back up to the right but you're on the clunky stairs.

Frustrating, albeit decidedly intentional, setup there. Reminds me of a part in Ghosts n Goblins but the beauty here is, there's a way to survivvvvve. Plus a Pot Roast coming up anyway haha. Such a well designed game.

Attachment: 10/10 Well, my cousin always instilled a love for this game series, plus the Netflix series we love, and playing it a couple years ago got me down the chronology rabbithole. So this game holds a lot of attachment for me, even if I only had access to the 2nd game when young.

I wasn't kidding in my other review--this game really does move quickly! Already finished the 4th stage and had my favorite combination--the Cross (I call it boomerang ha) and a Double Shot. I wish the Double/Triple Shots carried over, same with the Hearts, but so be it. It's well-designed enough to make that work. It's like you're building up your character for each upcoming boss and thus can plan accordingly once you know the boss/game.

You can tell you're really enjoying a game when you go for the power-ups on the map that you would have wanted even though you already have, say, Triple Shot :-p Cuz you just got so re-used to the control quirks and the whip/weapon mechanics that you wanted to explore. Now whether or not I'll ever feel up to the Second Quest... that I'm unsure about. I like games for fun, not for high difficulty. But it's cool they included that as an option for gamers who like that.

Pro-tip: you can smack away even Dracula's fireball projectiles! Supppperrrrr helpful for the first form. And tada, his head went flying off lol I love that. Time for the final phase! I may not be considering doing the Second Quest but the fact I kinda wanna do a speedrun of the whole game after this, seeing if I can do it without savestating at the start of each area (meaning, I savestated after each boss but barely had to use it) just to see if my skills have improved, says a lot!

Nice that it has a true ending. A bit harsh it then just starts right back after thanking you for playing. Let's see what I think of this Second Quest thing :-p Well, before I get too far let me screenshot approximately what I had for Score etc

So um... I got in a completely crazy fervor, thinking like I'm super used to the quirky controls right now let's go for it.. and um... I'm approaching Death and haven't DIED ONCE. I feel really proud of myself and good at this game, which I don't think often in games especially ones I didn't play a lot as a kid. Death was a really hard boss the first time and sure enough, is so brutal this time. Finally died for the first time. Not sure if I will press through now that I have my Triple Shoot Boomerang taken ha. But says a lot I even tried Second Quest, let alone got that far, and enjoyed myself that much doing it.

(Oh, I see that the Holy Water method makes Death very easy.... welp, I died. Let's see if I can get some Holy Water lol). Forgiving death mechanics when it comes to how far you go back, tho I suppose not so forgiving with depleting your Energy/Hearts and reverting back to basic Whip and losing any power-ups. Now that I did the Second Quest, but using savestates to preserve my power-ups (except when I realized a Holy Water would be better haha), I really want to try this again some day where I play it completely traditionally. No savestates whatsoever even when down to 1 life, so be it the game is short enough. This game, despite having some clunky controls and basic jump mechanic etc, truly is special for how it attaches itself to me every time I play through it ha. When I replay this again, this could very well move up to the Ultimates status that only games I've played since childhood are on. Would be the first non-childhood game to do so. (oh wait, apparently Moon Patrol made the cut too). At last, palms sweaty, after reloading the savestate with my Cross and Triple Shot like a million times lol,

Well, holy crap, much like the messy Moon Patrol review, with a similarly beloved nature, here I am... playing through this again for a third time. This time, no savestates, no map references, just pure getting to know the levels. Thank goodness for that very forgiving Continue feature. I'll end the review here because like, this is going to become a novel soon. This is truly one of the greatest games of all time though. (Lol just had one of the bone throwing skeletons jump to his death. woopsie AI. and the music has only grown on me, instead of getting annoying). I got the Mummies boss and decided to call it quits for now, but I know I will return to this playthrough (probly tomorrow or later tonight lol). With a Continue function, no reason not to. What an amazing game.

Completion: Second Quest done, 304, 280 Score. Also to Stage 9 on the next playthrough Playtime: 2h 30m (including all the above, I believe it was about an hour for the original finish)

So I just beat Castlevania and it was... more chill than I thought!

I've tried beating this game plenty of times, once every couple of years, usually on a different system, in a different format, but at its core it's still the same game.

Still the same tricky, frustrating experience you love every minute of when it's in the immediate past. Honestly, it's been a while since I've had that feeling of legitimate challenge. When a single hallway feels like the longest hallway in existence because it demands precision and stamina you're just not used to having or being expected of you. It's good! It's a really good feeling, well except for the flea men, no one's got love for the flea men. Still it's NES hard, and while I don't think every game HAS to be this tough, the game's like taking your last rep, you can't wait to be done but as soon as you go for your rest break, you just can't wait to do it all over again.

Perhaps the reason I actually stuck with the game long enough to finish it this time was because I realised that the cross/boomerang is basically all you need. Sure the other subweapons have their place, but why cut the boomerang party short? This thing actively mocks later bosses like Death and Dracula.

There was another discovery that helped me beat this game, it'll probably help me beat a lot of games - I was listening to podcasts! It's something I used to do a lot when grinding for shinies in Pokemon, turns out grinding in any game is improved by some accompanying podcasts, at least for me. Repetitive experiences like replaying a tough section of a game or boss sequence can feel a bit isolating when all you're taking in is the same sounds, the same visuals, the same menu navigation. Having something like a podcast or soundtrack to listen to pulls me out of that. I don't burn out, I don't wander in my thoughts, I don't become cripplingly aware how many game overs I've racked up, I just, well... grind! It opens up a lot of possibilities for me when it comes to playing hard games or even just long games.

In the past month I've managed to 100% three Mario's and beat the original Castlevania in a sitting. What is happening to me? This feels great! Maybe just maybe I've found my groove for finally beating games on the regular. It's not like I sat down with the intention of beating Castlevania, and then before I knew it, the end screen was glowing like the sunrise outside my window.

Backlog, you better watch yourself! If the flea men couldn't stop me, nothing will!

History:
My introduction to Castlevania was actually on the SNES with Super Castlevania IV, and I've been hooked on the series ever since. That said, I've never actually played the NES versions.

Expectations:
I feel like it's been a while since I've beaten a game on this list, so I'm hoping to be able to with this one despite the fact that its difficulty precedes it.

Night 1:

This. This is a fun game. I mean I knew from the start that it would be, but it's nice to have that confirmation. I gleefully whipped, stabbed and sliced my way through the first level of the game, soaking in that amazing music and axing the first boss in no time.

So much for sleep... The first stage was obviously the warm up as the second proved much more difficult. Not that it was particularly difficult, just more so than the first! I picked up the Cross weapon early on here which made the stage easier than it otherwise would have been, and while it did manage to infect me with chronic nightmares the second boss fell easily.

And here we are at Stage 3. Clearly the game knew I was having too much and decided to teach me a lesson... I'm not saying I'm not having fun anymore, just that I'm apparently expected to be paying attention now! I couldn't clear the third level tonight. Too tired, bit of a headache, but I am looking forward to playing more tomorrow!

Night 2:

Tonight involved a lot of resetting. I've found that I can't beat the third stage without the Cross from the second stage, and so I reset, and I reset, and I reset, until I could finally start making it to those mummies without incurring a single death!

I was able to kill (re-kill?) those bandaged bastards and progress to the next stage. This underground water level was... fun... Now that I didn't need the Cross I could gameover repeatedly and lose only my score and pride. And I did... I must have spent about 30 minutes and a dinner break just trying to get through this first room! Once I did, the Frankenstein's Monster boss was pretty easy, and it was on to the next...

Seriously, just screw this game. I spent more time in this level in the face-down-ass-up position than a... never mind. This level's hard. After dying several times I did finally start to get the patterns down, making it to the Pre-Death Hallway of Doom a few times. Actually the hallway wasn't as bad as I'd been told, but it was still pretty bad. Knowing that monsters taking damage from Holy Water helped immensely.

Death himself, on the other hand, was exactly as hard as I've been told. After a couple attempts it was time to check in for the night.

Night 3:

Night 3 and the game is still really fun. I realize after reading over last night's post that I may have implied I'm not having fun. I am having fun.

I'm still stuck at the same point I was last night, but I can reach that point much more gracefully now. I'm finding my biggest enemy in the game isn't skeletons or bats, but accidentally picking up the wrong weapon! I've gotten to the point where if I accidentally grab the Dagger after getting the Cross in Stage 2, I just reset. Same with losing the Holy Water in Stage 4 for Frankenstein.

I think I'll give this game an extra night.

Night 4:

I spent my entire morning trying to progress through this game...

...It didn't go great. The good news is that I can consistently reach Death now AND do it with triple Holy Water and full or mostly full health. The bad news is... well... Death.

I tried several times, clearing up to this point. I must have said at least twenty times "Okay, this will be my last attempt!". When I looked up it was noon. I just could not get that Holy Water lock down, and once he starts moving, it's basically over.

Well I tried.

Liked:
The game in general mostly, it was great! The music wasn't quite up the standard it hit around Super Castlevania IV or Symphony of the Night, but it was good, and a few of the stages had memorable tracks. The controls were tight enough, and I never felt like the engine was cheating me. Deaths mostly felt like my fault. The game was just overall very fun, looked good too. I liked seeing the origins of all the monsters I'd be killing in future games.

Disliked:
The sub-weapon system was frustrating. Accidentally picked up a dagger? Reset. I forced me to take things slower than I felt I should have had to, but it's overall a minor complaint. As was the case with most games back then, the collision detection was occasionally not quite on point, making a few deaths feel cheap.

Play it Again?
Yep! One day I'll get Death down and call this one cleared.

Personal Score:

Amazed at how well this holds up. If you know anything about early Castlevania then you already know what to expect in terms of atmosphere and difficulty. Accept it, embrace it, and you may find that the game isn't as hard as you think anymore.

That's partly due to the internet and, depending on how you play, partly due to save states. Personally I did not abuse save states in my playthrough, only saving at points where I could continue if I lost all my lives, and while I still found the game very challenging, at no point did I throw my hands up in knockback-induced agony, wondering if I would ever get good enough to beat Dracula.

I died a lot, sure, but once you recognize that the game expects you to try to find and keep the holy water, the challenge gets spread out over the course of the stage rather than spiking right at the end. For example, instead of bashing my head against the Grim Reaper trying to outmaneuver his attacks, I was striving to get a good enough run through the rooms before him to ensure that he was a cakewalk.

Castlevania is fun as hell and a perfect way to get you in the mood for Halloween. I will most likely be replaying parts of it over the course of spooky season because it's just that fun. Take it from someone that almost never replays games this soon after beating them, this is a classic that everyone should try.