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
- アーケードアーカイブス VS. キャッスルヴァニア - Japanese Nintendo Switch / PS4 spelling
- 悪魔城ドラキュラ - 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 235 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
The Good
Ahh, the 80's - when we wanted our games to HURT us. Make us bleed and sweat and cry and throw the controller across the room. No saving every five seconds, no health packs around every corner, a great early-generation platformer like CASTLEVANIA punished failure, clumsiness, inattentiveness, hell, they even punished SUCCESS by ratcheting up the difficulty yet another agonizing notch every step you progressed. And here you've got six levels of beautiful raggedy-Gothic 8-Bit visuals and palm-sweating jumps, capped by boss fights that demanded the best (at the time) in pattern recognition and twitch-timing. The continues, sending you to the beginning of the level, gave you just enough reason to hope you could learn from your mistakes and take that boss down this time. But you had to earn your way back.
The CASTLEVANIA franchise has always thrived on theatrical atmosphere, colorful monsters, and stirring musical themes - and that formula arrived here fully intact. Given how few colors and patterns the designers had to work with, the pacing and foreboding sense of place they managed to coax out of the old Famicom is a marvel, one that pointed the way towards a more mature breed of gaming.
The Bad
The clunky controls have been voluminously documented in more comprehensive forums than this, and the Medusas and Hunchbacks put up a good fight against the birds from NINJA GAIDEN as "Most Annoying 80's Game Scrub Monster Ever". But you could argue that without these agonies, the triumph wouldn't taste so sweet.
The Bottom Line
The doesn't-need-to-be-humble start to one of the greatest franchises in video games, and a masterful artifact of the time when platform games were designed to take on in one brutal sitting.
NES · by TheoryOfChaos (23) · 2006
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
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) – #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 +
Contribute
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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. Amiga, Commodore 64 added by Katakis | カタキス.
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 March 3, 2024.