Castlevania

The Good
Soundtrack is catchy. Nice tribute to classic horror icons in pop culture.

The Bad
Stiff controls which are a problem when you jump and walk up or down stairs. Very difficult which punishes players for dying which results in losing your upgraded whip, sub weapons, and hearts. Every time an enemy hits you, you fall back which can lead to deaths. Graphics have not aged well with some rooms even having stairs midair above Simon not connected to the floor or ceiling. No save feature on the NES version unless you play on an emulator which you can use save states.

The Bottom Line
I can see why people like the first Castlevania, but the high difficulty affected my enjoyment on this game.

The Good
More of an action game, this is the game that made me as a kid, want to go out and buy a bullwhip. And I did, thats no joke. I was in love with this game from the time it was released in the coin-op version. It later became my first NES game I purchased.

You start out at the castle gates and work your way through the levels until you are finally at the top of the castle where the vampire is waiting. The levels all end with a mini-boss. Some pretty cool weapons can be found along the way including a stop watch that stops time. The mini-bosses are pretty fun to fight which were a big black bat, Medusa, Two Mummies, Frankenstein & Hunchback, The Grim Reaper and then the final boss is the Vampire. There might have been one more but they're pretty fun to kill.

The difficulty was enough to give you plenty of game play time, it took me awhile to be able to win the game. Pretty good "Translyvanian" kind of music, perfect for the haunted castle theme.

The Bad
Controlling your guy was pretty sluggish and difficult.

Everytime you get hit, you fly backwards which can be extremely annoying when you are standing on ledges fighting off enemies. Actually, it was annoying at any point in time.

There was also no way to save, one could argue the game wasn't long enough to need a save method. I think it might have been. There were continues though.

The Bottom Line
Some pretty sweet whip crackin' action, definitely one of the classics of the 8bit era and definitely my favorite series from Konami.

The Good
Ah, the game that kicked off the whole Castlevania franchise. This true classic remains as fun today and it was when it was first released.

I really liked the unlimited continues, and the fact that when you got to the final showdown with the Count, and failed, the game would start you just down the stairs from the Count's chamber. This is particularly advantageous since the first time I ever met the Count, it took me the better part of an entire day of trial and error to beat him.

I enjoy the fact that Castlevania plays like an encyclopedia of classic monsters and horror movie adversaries: You have your basic ghosts, ghouls, zombies, and bats. There are the fish monsters, Medusa heads, hunchbacks, Frankenstein monsters, and unkillable skeleton warriors. Even the Grim Reaper makes an appearance pulling sentry duty for the big Drac-man.

It's amazing to play this game and appreciate how well all of the best gameplay elements came together. Not only were the graphics top-tier, they were incredibly well-designed and consistent. At the start of the game, you scan Dracula's castle, including the tower that you must eventually hike up to. During level 3, you hike across a long bridge and you see the tower again in the background. I just think touches like that are genius in graphical design.

The tunes are all classic, which explains why they seem to be re-used in every subsequent Castlevania game. Hey, don't mess with success!

The Bad
Hunchbacks and floating Medusa heads. I did not like the hunchbacks or floating Medusa heads in this game. They had an alarming tendency to knock you around at the least opportune times.

Simon has also been rather difficult to control during his NES adventures. He's very slow and clunky, has no jump control, and his whip only goes in one direction (forward). At the very least, the designers took this into account and programmed the game's enemies and challenges accordingly.

And I was always frustrated that using the boomerang weapon depleted hard-earned heart points. The thing comes back to you, right? So you should receive some kind of reimbursement on your heart points. It only seems fair.

The Bottom Line
Experience the creepy glory of the original Castlevania.