Castlevania
Description official descriptions
Every hundred years, the dark vampire known as Dracula resurrects and terrorizes the land. A vampire hunter named Simon Belmont bravely ventures into the Count's mansion in order to defeat him. Along the way he'll have to defeat skeletons, bats, fishmen, medusa heads and other evil creatures.
Castlevania is a side-scrolling platform action game. The player takes the role of Simon Belmont, who is able to jump and crack his whip directly in front of him. Power-ups can be obtained by defeating enemies or by whipping candles that appear in the castle. One such power-up increases the power and length of Simon's whip. Different weapons can be gathered which consume hearts when used, these hearts can also be collected from monsters and candles. Additionally, some walls will hide secrets such as the health-restorative turkey or the Double and Triple shot abilities for the weapons Simon has collected. At the end of each section of the castle is a boss, which must be defeated. Progression through the castle eventually leads to a confrontation with Count Dracula himself.
Spellings
- ć¢ć¼ć±ć¼ćć¢ć¼ć«ć¤ćć¹ VS. ćć£ćć¹ć«ć“ć”ćć¢ - Japanese Nintendo Switch / PS4 spelling
- ęŖéåćć©ćć„ć© - Japanese spelling
Groups +
Screenshots
Promos
Credits (NES version)
17 People
Produced By |
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Directed By |
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Screenplay by |
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Music by |
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Dracula |
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Death |
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Frankenstein |
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Mummy Man |
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Medusa |
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Vampire Bat |
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Hunch Back |
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Fish Man |
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Armor |
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Skeleton |
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Zombie |
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The Hero |
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Reviews
Critics
Average score: 78% (based on 45 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 236 ratings with 10 reviews)
An okay, if a somewhat shoddy conversion
The Good
Once you survive the not so pleasant first impressions, you have to realize there is nothing majorly wrong with it, and it's actually quite playable.
Technical wise, it works well. It has smooth scrolling and movements, good sprite action, manageable joystick controls, and simultaneous musics and sound effects. Also included a savegame feature which allows to record your progress onto the floppy at checkpoints - this comes very handy!
The Bad
The graphics and sound quality is the biggest let down of this conversion. The contrast is aching if you come to here straight after looking at the NES version. The graphics is very blocky. The music sounds raw. It could be so much better. They tried too hard to copy the Nintendo-ness instead of adapt it to the quirks of the system.
Other things to complain about like sprite flickering when the screen is crowded, 1 button joystick controls, respawning enemies, disk read/write is slow, no possibility to load the saved game unless you are at the title screen and such.
The difficulty can get sadistic! And falling back when getting hurt feature is a pain the every organ.
The Bottom Line
The original Castlevania still shines thru. The backgrounds are not dull, they make the place "alive" as much as they can. There is a good sense of progress. Beside bashing monsters, there is a looting system, upgrades to your whip, and different secondary weapons, which also may appear randomly from some slain enemies. The foes are memorable and each require different tactics. Extremely tight level design with some random hazards too. Secrets. Thrilling music. The intro and outro animation also stayed intact.
Commodore 64 · by 1xWertzui (1135) · 2017
This port could have been much better...
The Good
This game did have its positives, first and foremost, the graphics. They are very good (as you can see in the screenshots section). The bosses look more weird than normal ports (NES for example.).
The Bad
The big problem with this game is the controls. Your attack is delayed by a second which means you're easy bait for enemies. Also Simon looks a bit to macho looking in this port.
The Bottom Line
This game isn't that bad but could be better. It's fun to see the graphics though.
Amiga · by powerstone05 (344) · 2007
Just leave it to Simon Belmont, vampire hunter!
The Good
Iām just going to put this out there so you know exactly where I stand: I love Castlevania. I donāt mean the series, as I havenāt played many of the titles. Iām referring to the original Castlevania. It sits quite high on my favourite games on the NES list, though I donāt keep track, so I canāt say how high exactly. Iām not really sure what it is about the game, I just get sucked into it. Itās an impressively designed game, especially when you take the date it was released into account.
Castlevania, at its core, is a simple side-scrolling action game. You play as Simon Belmont, descendant of a long line of vampire hunters, who must enter Castlevania, armed only with a whip, to defeat Dracula. Along the way, you face off against a large variety of classic movie monsters. You power up, you defeat waves of lesser enemies, you beat the boss, and then you move onto the next level. Itās nothing unique or overly creative, but it doesnāt have to be. It does what it does so well, and above all else itās extremely fun.
For an NES game that came out in 1986, Castlevania has excellent graphics. Even more impressive is its outstanding atmosphere, something that is understandably difficult to pull off on the NESās limited hardware. The gameās stages are all wonderfully well done. Iām especially a fan of the third levelās skylines and crumbling walls. Itās especially surprising how well the gameās huge variety of levels flow together. If the boss battles werenāt there to bookend each level, they would connect and transition in a way that is very unusual for the console.
Castlevaniaās music is some of the best on the NES. Many of the songs are real standouts. The song that plays over the third level is especially catchy and I found myself humming along and tapping my foot to it, as corny as that sounds. The soundtrack does a lot to compliment the gameplay too, as it makes it easier to get into the role of the heroic Simon Belmont as he trudges along. This is probably the reason that many of the later Castlevania games feature remixed versions of these songs. Itās really quite impressive.
Castlevania also features that very specific NES brand of difficulty. The kind of difficulty that is more often found in the Ninja Gaiden and Mega Man series. Not unfair, per se, but very, very challenging. It can certainly be frustrating when you find yourself killed instantly simply because you were unable to avoid a medusa head while standing on a ledge. When frustration builds, Castlevania starts to feel cheap. A number of times I found myself cussing at the screen, confounded by my life being whittled away by a hunchback who I just couldnāt seem to land a blow on. Donāt be surprised if you wind up trying to break your controller, but remember that if you do manage to beat Dracula at the end of the game, victory will taste all the sweeter.
The Bad
Simon Belmont moves very stiffly, itās like he suffers from arthritis. The only pace he can move at throughout the entire game is a slow march. Once he jumps, there is no correcting his course. Stairs are fickle things, once you start up them, you can only get off at the top or bottom. Yet, I wouldnāt have it any other way. Maybe itās just me, but I love how Castlevania controls. I think it complements the feel of the game, once you get used to it. It really helps me feel like Iām single-mindedly trudging through the waves of baddies, with no thought of failure in my head. Though, maybe Iām just strange like that. You might just find it feels stiff.
Castlevania has a big reliance on pattern enemies. Youāve probably heard of them: bats, medusa heads, and hunchbacks. Theyāre mostly nuisances, but theyāre big nuisances. Simon also has this strange habit of leaping back a few feet every time heās hit. This can lead to a lot of frustration when one moment youāre standing on a ledge with full health, and the next, youāre plummeting to an instant death because you got hit from above by a hunchback. I have to once again say that I feel this adds to the feel of the game. A lot of tense moments are created from the knowledge that at any moment, one of the games easily defeated pattern enemies could zoom in from the side of the screen and kill you in a single hit. However, you may just find it frustrating.
Boss battles are also a minor weak point of the game. There is a large variety of them, and they are all very different, but thereās little strategy involved in defeating them. Many can be vanquished quite easily using holy water. Some of them just require a lot of whipping at the right time. On top of that, a few of them are outrageously cheap. Death, for instance, spawns a room full of homing scythes that deal massive damage. Dracula himself is less cheap, but he does require a great deal of practice to finally overcome.
Lastly and least of all, I hate the secondary item system in this game. More than once I found myself nearing a boss battle with level three holy water in my inventory. I break a candle and what should land on me? A throwing dagger, which instantly replaces my upgraded holy water. I really wish secondary items would stack and could be selected, or at the very least you had an option not to pick it up. Itās very frustrating when something that youāve been cultivating for an entire level gets replaced by an item you didnāt want, and indeed never intended to pick up. Of course, being careful about what you pick up is always an option.
The Bottom Line
Castlevania is a remarkable game. All the polish that has gone into it shines brightly, and itās hard not to be charmed by it. Almost everything in the game is completely standout. Itās challenging, atmospheric, and well designed. Sure, the storyline is barely there, but such was the case in most NES games. As I said earlier, I love Castlevania, and it is among my favourite titles for the NES. That said, I havenāt spent a lot of time with the third game in the series, but I plan to. For all I know, Iāll enjoy that one more. Also, I havenāt played a single port of Castlevania, so for all I know, thereās a more definitive version out there. In any case, in my experience, Castlevania is an AMAZING game, and I recommend it to anyone who owns an NES. Incidentally, Simon Belmont was my favourite character in the cartoon, Captain N: The Game Master. Though, they did take a lot of liberties with his character.
NES · by Adzuken (836) · 2009
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
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Also released May 2019, part of Anniversary Collection, including a Windows version | Andrew Fisher (697) | Jun 23, 2023 |
Trivia
Game Boy Advance version
The Game Boy Advance version of the game has some different names for certain items and characters. For instance: * Count Dracula is now simply called "The Count". * The Holy Water item called "Fire Bomb" in the manual. * The Vampire Killer (Simon's whip) is now called a "Magic Whip". * Even though the game takes place in Transylvania, there is no mention of this anywhere in the game or the manual. * There is also no mention of the hero's name, Simon Belmont.
Remake
This game was remade a decade after, but this time for PSX, known as Castlevania Chronicles.
References
Beat the game once and head to the second part of level two. Climb the stairs, get to the top of the screen and jump on the first moving platform. A blinking treasure will come out of the ground. If you examine it closely, it's a Moai head! Devoted Konami fans will recognize this Easter Island statue from the Gradius series, which seems to be obsessed with them for some odd reason.
Translations
Akumajo Dracula means "Demon Castle of Dracula".
Unused sprites
There are a number of unused sprites found in the NES Castlevania ROM, most notably a cross, a cupcake, and a love letter, and a basket with kittens inside(?!).
Version differences
The Famicom version has an optional easy mode which is neither present in the original Disk System release nor the international releases. It features several differences in game balance, for example no knockback and less received damage.
Awards
- Game Informer
- August 20012 (Issue #100) ā #48 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll
Information also contributed by CaptainCanuck, Foxhack and MAT
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Related Sites +
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Castlevania Dungeon
Fansite dedicated to everything and anything Castlevania -
Classic NES Series for the Game Boy Advance
Covers the line-up of the new Game Boy Advance series of NES Classics. -
History of Castlevania
Comprehensive info on all the Castlevania series from its beginnings -
OC ReMix Game Profile
Fan remixes of music from Castlevania, including the album "Sonata of the Damned". -
Video review of the Castlevania series (WARNING: Language)
The Angry Video Game Nerd, James Rolfe, reviews games in the Castlevania series. Part 1 is entirely devoted to the first Castlevania on NES.
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Luiz Pacheco.
NES added by PCGamer77. Arcade added by Michael Cassidy. Nintendo 3DS added by CrankyStorming. Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 added by Kam1Kaz3NL77. J2ME added by chirinea. Wii U added by is_that_rain_or_tears. Game Boy Advance, Wii added by gamewarrior. Commodore 64, Amiga added by Katakis | ć«ćæćć¹.
Additional contributors: Terok Nor, PCGamer77, Satoshi Kunsai, Jeanne, Guy Chapman, chirinea, monkeyislandgirl, LepricahnsGold, Zaibatsu, Patrick Bregger, Thomas Thompson, Rik Hideto.
Game added July 23, 2001. Last modified June 1, 2024.