The Castlevania series is often regarded as one of the finest staples of gaming, ranked alongside greats such as Megaman, Sonic, Mario and Zelda by enthusiast gamers. The series does not have the mass market appeal of franchises like the GTA and Zelda series, but it’s loyal fan following has given it’s fair share of sales over the last few years.
For those of you who have played through the series, this thread would probably best serve as a trip through times of yore, and for the unfortunate who have not played any of them…. This is t3h gaming history lesson for j00.
The underlying theme of the series is the eternal battle between Count Vlad III of Wallachia(Dracula), and the legendary Belmont family who set out to put an end to him.
1986
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Konami releases Akumajo Dracula in Japan, an action plattformer for the Nintendo Famicom system. This game involves Simon Belmont and his battle against Dracula.
This game is the original NES Castlevania.
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Exactly a month later Vampire Killer is released in Japan by Konami for the MSX-2 system. This game plays very similar to Akumajo Dracula, except it contains terrible adventure elements that completely ruin the game. Most of them are fetch quests involving you finding keys to open doors.
This game never made it to the States.
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Many believe that this is the first game in the series, but these interviews say otherwise.
http://homepage1.nifty.com/sugimo/dracula/series.htm
http://homepage1.nifty.com/sugimo/dracula/staff.htm
1987
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Akumajo Dracula is brought over to the domestic market as Castlevania. This game was released at a time when the market for NES plattformers was extremely saturated, and did remarkably well to become a mainstream hit.
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The basic premise wasn’t all that unique, it played similar to your typical hack’n’ slash NES side scroller. Castlevania was based upon many of the underlying principles that made various other Konami games such as Life Force, Rush and Attack, and Contra so popular back in the day. Simple and to the point, these games were very hard nuts to crack. They provided some of the stiffest gaming challenges, while always being fair and fun to play. All most every death was your own personal shortcoming, not shoddy design on part of the designers.
There was an 2 player arcade port of this game called Vs Castlevania. It was also ported(?) to the Nintendo Playchoice 10 hardware. And there were DOS and C64 versions also.
1988
Castlevania 2: Simons Quest~NES
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The first Vania had Simon Belmont ripping a new one with his legendary whip. Unbeknownst to the former, Dracula had placed a curse on him after his defeat. Simon was to die a slow painful death due to this, and the only way to cure it was to gather all of Dracula’s body parts and burn them. The twist here was that Drac’s followers had scattered them all of the Transylvanian country side and Simon had to race against time to obtain them.
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This game was a side scrolling action RPG ala Zelda II. The basic battle engine was the same as the first game, but it now had you exploring parts of the Transylvanian countryside replete with areas such as towns, cemeteries, haunted mansions, and forests. Castlevania 2 does a remarkable job of replicating the intangible feeling of adventure that is a staple of other greats of the action RPG genre(Zelda, Landstalker,etc).
Overall, it’s my favorite Vania for the NES and the second best action RPG in it’s era after Wonderboy 3: Dragons Trap.
Haunted Castle~ARC
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One of the more esoteric games in the series, Haunted Castle is another arcade Castlevania.
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HC, is easily one of the hardest games of all time. There isn’t a second for respite in this game. The constant barrage of bats, zombies, and obnoxious bricks flying off walls will make the most accomplished gamer cry.
Unfortunately, a lot of this difficulty does not equate to fun, as a lot of this games challenge is based off cheapness and shoddy level design. I really used to loathe this game when I first played it, but now as I’ve become better at it…. I think it a’ight.;)
1989
Konami Wai Wai World~NES
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Parody of Konami’s classic series. It isn’t the deepest game ever, but it’s decent fun if you have enjoyed other games in the series. Kinda reminds me of Decap Attack for the Genesis.
You control Konami Man and Konami Girl on their mission to rescue kidnapped Konami characters. The Castlevania level in this game is pretty neat.
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Konami never brought this one to the domestic market.=\
Castlevania: Adventure-Game Boy
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Vanias first appearance on a portable. This is game is putrid. Massive amounts of slowdown, and plattforming that requires you take to make pixel perfect jumps ruin this one.
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1990
Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse-NES
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Dracula is resurrected by a group of his followers, and Romania’s only hope is to ask for the Belmont family to vanquish the count. Trevor Belmont sets out to put an end to Dracula whilst teaming with Grant DaNasty(dinisti), Sypha Belnades, and the counts estranged son, Alucard.
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CV3 is pretty much the original game on steroids, with a few new features such as branching paths and alternate characters.
Released in the same year as Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden 2 this game is often in contention with the former for the crown of NES action gaming.
1991
Super Castlevania 4-SNES
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The 16 bit era was generally better than it’s preceding era in almost every way. The fact that the games were on infinitely superior hardware, and that many developers had more than their fair share of experience in the art of level design meant that almost every major franchise had vastly improved. For the aforementioned reasons, Super Castlevania 4 was leaps and bounds above its predecessors.
http://www.classicgaming.com/castlevania/scv-8.gif
As many of you may know, several of the staffers behind this game went on to form Gamefan worship material….Treasure. I don’t want to go far off topic, but several parallels can be drawn between this games design and many of Treasure’s products. Their main focus has always been the rich play mechanics of their games, and they are not very particular about how levels are laid out. I don’t know about the latter, but SCV4 easily had the best play mechanics in its series with Simons limp whip and the various ways it could be used.
Castlevania 2: Belmonts Revenge-Game Boy
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Another portable Castlevania. It plays just like the original NES game, just slightly watered down for the Game Boy.
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Wai Wai World 2-NES
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The second Wai Wai world game opts for a more adventure oriented approach.
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The Parseley Castle is under attack and you get to control various Konami characters such as the Contra dude, Goemon, and Simon Blemont to save the day. You get to play through levels from each of the heroes games.
Kid Dracula-NES
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Another parody game. You get to control the young count of Castlevania ripping through cutesy Vania-ish environments, fighting younger incarnations of the Vania crew. It isn’t quite as good as Super Mario Bros or Megaman but it still happens to be an awful lot of fun for a NES plattformer.
http://www.classicgaming.com/castlevania/s-kdrac1.gif
Unfortunately, the NES version never made it to the domestic market.
1993
Dracula X: Rondo of the Blood-Turbo Duo
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Konami’s honeymoon with Nintendo was over, and the latest game of their venerated series was to hit NEC’s PC Engine Super CD Rom/ Turbo Duo.
The best way to describe this would be….. it’s a cross between Symphony of the Night and Castlevania 3. The more you play it, the more you will appreciate the genius of it’s level design. It’s essentially SoTN’s genius concentrated into the the smaller, action oriented levels of the previous games in the series.
http://www.classicgaming.com/castlevania/dracx-1.gif
The painstaking attention to detail that this game has is particularly remarkable. Whether it’s the little rodents dashing across the floor, or that snipers methodically reloading their rifles, or the fact that there the state of battles can change the psychology of boss fights, the myriad of details will never fail to impress you.
Terrible marketing on NEC/TTI’s part led to the failure of their format, and games like this one…. Along with dozens of others never made it to the states.
Akumajo Dracula-SHARP X68000
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It was a remake of the original for the Sharp X68000. Castlevania Chronicles for the PSOne is a remake of this game.;)
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If you’re wondering, the X68000 is the Japanese equivalent to the Amiga. Games like River City Ransom, Granada, and Undead Line are all available on it, and these versions are often better than the console ports. And I also believe that the X68000 was also the initial home of Cho Ren Sha, one of the finest shooting games of all time.
Kid Dracula-Game Boy
A slightly remixed version of the NES game.This time it made it to the States.
1994
Castlevania: Bloodlines-Genesis
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After screaming Nintendon’t hundreds of times, Sega finally got their own Castlevania.
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Bloodlines plot was an attempt to merge the greater Vania plot with [i]Bram Stokers Dracula[i/]. Taking place in 1914, many of the locations like the munitions factory were very un Vania like. This game also marked the debut of Michiru Yamane, composer for SoTN.
It’s not as good as Castlevania 4, but it’s another solid entry in the series which I believe plays better than the NES games.
1995
Castlevania: Dracula X-SNES
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A remake of the PCE Drac X of sorts…. This game has the same hero as its progenitor, but the levels are significantly different.
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The main problem I have with this game is its level design. Most of us have never noticed, but the original Drac X never gave you a second or two of invincibility after you got hit by enemies. The levels were so meticulously laid out that you would never notice this. However, this game always has you ricocheting from one enemy to another, giving you all of those cheap deaths.
All in all, it’s still a good game…. But it’s a disappointment given the quality of the original.
Dracula X-32X
Another remake of Dracula X. Not much is known about this game apart from the fact that it featured Richter, Maria and Richters Rival.
http://www.boomspeed.com/zenogaga/32X.jpg
This game rests alongside games like Aliens vs Predators, Virtua Hamster, Darxide, and X Men.
Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise, as this game was being developed by KCE KOBE….the jackasses behind the Saturn port of Symphony and the n64 games.
1997
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night-PSX
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Regarded as finest game ever made by most members of this board, this was the first game in the series to incorporate the exploration elements previously used in [Nintendo’s Metroid.
At first, most of us were expecting a disaster along the lines of the PS1 Contra games. Our fear was that Konami was changing the basic formula that was present in the previous action oriented Vania’s , much like how the Apaloosa Contra games had done.
http://www.classicgaming.com/castlevania/sotn9.jpg
However, this game did more than well to exceed our expectations. The intricacy of SoTN’s game level layout is without a doubt, some of the best in gaming history.
I’ll refrain from giving out any spoilers, but the second half of the game is an act of genius.
And I believe that this was the first Castlevania designer Igarashi and artist Ayami Kojima worked on.
1998
Akumajou Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku - Nocturne in the Moonlight-Saturn
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The Saturn port of SoTN. It has two brand new levels, and allows you to play as Maria, who was axed from the PS1 version due to time constraints.
Despite what many of us believe…. The Saturn is not the ultimate 2D system(power wise). It’s area of expertise were its ability to handle excellent ports of STV, Neo Geo, and CPS2 ports. Many games falling outside of these sources wasn’t done all that well. Likewise, this port of SoTN had massive amounts of slowdown, butchered sprites, and load times that lasted for ages.
And the two new areas weren’t very good at all. KCE Kobe is pretty much the 3D0 of Konami, and they really shouldn’t have had a hand in the design of any of these games.
Castlevania: Legends-Game Boy Color
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Another portable Vania.
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It’s worth mentioning that Sonia Belmont, heroine of this game is Alucards lover.
1999
the awful N64 games
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blech…KCE Kobe strikes again.
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Castlevania: Ressurection-Dreamcast
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Cancelled. Can’t say that I’m too upset about it as it wasn’t looking very nice. Internal politics between the US and Japanese Konami divisions supposedly killed this one.
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2001
Castlevania: Chronicles-PSX
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Remake of the Sharp X6000 remake of the first game.
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Castlevania: Circle of the Moon-GBA
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Excellent Metroidvania game. Some complain that the screen is extremely dark, but they just need to get their eyes checked.:p
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It’s significantly different from Symphony in a number of important ways. First off this game is much harder, some of the bosses in this game, such as the Twin Dragons deserve a place in the Vania hall of fame. And it also employs the DSS card system, which has you mixing and matching different combinations of cards to equip your character.
It’s significantly different from SoTN. The DSS card system is the focus of the game, and level design is more maze exploration oriented. And it’s a lot harder than SoTN
Konami Krazy Racers-GBA
It’s not directly related to the main Vania series, but since it’s the third Wai Wai game I think it deserves to be mentioned.
http://www.gbcorner.com/gbadata/kona...wai_jap/01.jpg
Think Mario Kart with Konami characters and you’ll get a general idea of how this game plays. I honestly think that it’s a much better game than Mario Kart: Double Circuit
2002
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance-GBA
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Fans were clamoring for the new game to be closer to Symphony.. and they got their way. Unfortunately, this game is pretty much a SoTN clone with everything dumbed down to work on a portable.
http://www.classicgaming.com/castlevania/wnc-6.jpg
It’s a decent game, but it really isn’t anything amazing.
2003
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow-GBA
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Yet another SoTN clone. IMO best released in 2003 as of yet.
Konami Collectors Package-PC
Emulated versions of Contra, Super C, the first 3 Castlevanias and Jackal.
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence-PS2
http://www.classicgaming.com/castlev...t/slamlogo.gif
Check out the latest EGM for more info on this one.
Interview with Igarashi
~Similar Games~
For those of you who can’t get enough vampire killing action…
Kensendein:SMS- Sega Castlevania clone starring a Samurai. Truly ace stuff.
http://www.smspower.org/db/kenseidj-2.gif
Vampire & master of darkness- Game Gear- Another Castlevania clone. I think that Sega also worked on this one.
http://www.smspower.org/db/vampire-2.gif
Bram Stokers Dracula-SMS
http://www.smspower.org/db/dracula-gg-2.gif
8 eyes:NES-Shameless Vania rip off for the NES. Overall, it’s a decent game
http://dorando.emuverse.com/images/8-eye-s_02.png
Holy Diver:NES-Irem Castlevania/ Mystic Defender hybrid.
http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/fc/holydiver-i.jpg
Legendary Axe:TG-16- Red’s stone age Vania-ish game.
http://pcengine.free.fr/Legenaxe1.gif
Majyuuo:SNES-A cross between rolling thunder and castlevania. Never made it to the States.
http://www.cherryroms.com/screenshot..._(J)(4091).png
Nosferatu:SNES- Think Prince of Persia in Castlevania.
http://www.cherryroms.com/screenshot..._(J)(4602).png
Valis: Vaguely similar to Vania, IMO.
http://www.genesisproject.co.uk/Genesis/U-w/Valis3.gif
Hunter Yokhyo:genesis- Ditto
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DMC- Yeah, we’ve all played this
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Soul Reaver
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Metroid- Inspiration for SoTN
http://www.acornemus.freeserve.co.uk...ts/metroid.gif
Cyborg Hunter~ SMS- Metroid clone
http://www.retrogames.co.uk/stock/as...org_Hunter.jpg
Lady Sia GBA- I haven’t played too much of it, but I remember it playing similar to the older Vania games.
http://digilander.libero.it/calimero...ce/ladysia.gif
Zillion SMS- Awful Metroid clone. Popular among Master System fans for whatever reason.
http://www.flashback77.net/sms_scrshot/zilli_04.png
Goonies II NES: Metroidish game from Konami.
http://www.classicgaming.com/wwnbf/g..._intro_low.jpg
Getsu fumaden FAMICOM: I can’t really remember much, but the sidescrolling levels were somewhat similar to Castlevanias. Another Konami game
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And Vagrant Story- SoTNish RPG.
http://www.psillustrated.com/ss_vagrantstory1.jpg
