It’s time to replay the American Castlevania 3. One of the hardest games of all time, a shitty bastardisation of a masterpiece…

I actually think I like this version better than Akumajou Densetsu. I’m not trying to be a contrarian or anything, i’m also not trying to act like I’m incredible at games, but upon replay, I don’t think it’s as hard as its reputation suggests. Maybe it’s the route I took (I went for Grant, but rejected Sypha) but I didn’t have too much trouble beating the game.

Not only that, I realised that Grant is INSANELY good. If you use him right, he can skip hard parts of the game with ease (6-0C, 9-04 etc.)

Also, being sent back to A-02 if you die on Dracula isn’t too bad, he’s not too hard (as long as you get the axe), especially compared to the clone. If you can beat the Japanese version, you can beat the American one.

One day, I’ll try Alucard’s path, and maybe I’ll hate it, maybe I’ll love it. But for now, it’s a fantastic game.

I have concluded that I should stop giving too many second chances to a game just because other people say something like "one of the best of "X" thing".
This is somewhat about the same as Castle 1 but it makes that game look safe since this one has more variety than Castle 1, however, they kept their staircase fetish from 2, and the subpar graphics of both games, it can still kill you because the background can get distracting or looks like the foreground, for the third time.
My main problem with this game is that it kind of feels hard for no reason, so many precise jumps and enemy placements, you have enemies from other levels in later ones and they still kick your ass but not in a good way, 85% of the bad enemy placements in this game come from stairs; since they're very janky (since the very first game), you die because the game wants you to turn and kill the enemy but it takes 2 years because you're on a stair, or you try to use a weapon but it's very inconsistent to use it on stairs, or you take damage because an enemy is camping at the top or bottom of the stairs and you have to hope he walks 1+ extra tile back and react to that in a millisecond. Every 5 steps you have 3 enemies that can take unnecessary precision to be killed, you take damage once and then take it a million more times because the enemy is/are too close to the player, resulting in you taking more hits when trying to recompose yourself. Sometimes the precision you need is so ridiculous it almost feels like a Kaizo (and I wonder how tf do I go through a section without an alt character), yes I know that you have to take the game slowly; still, I don't wanna spend 30 minutes killing one enemy for the 546th time because you died to another bad boss (yes they're still terrible), the crows especially, those are the most bullshit enemies I've seen and when they're combined with 3 more enemies (and could be more crows) and there is water that slows you down or... s-s-s-stairs?! just no. It's the 3rd main entry and they still place enemies in checkpoints too, I also have to fast-forward each time there is a door, character swap animation, or an empty staircase because it's that slow.
The first few levels are boring but can be decent at first since you're still learning the mechanics; after that, it can depend, some are bad, some decent with solid enemy placements. There is still some fun to be had here, I don't blame the people who prefer this over 1, it has more levels, new playable characters, and more enemies, but with a more bullshit difficulty, it can be more enjoyable if you have the patience, I don't. I've seen people praising this yet saying you gotta memorize the game to beat it, if it's more about memorizing artificially rather than dying and learning from each death, I don't see how this can be fun. I could try and play this again in years when I have nothing to do. I still prefer this over the easier Japanese version, that one is the very opposite of this version and I usually prefer a game that is hard for no reason than a game that is easy for no reason. But what I prefer the most is a game that knows how to be challenging and not a [Memory Games - Play Online For Free]

Castlevania III - Dracula’s Curse

This game takes up such a weird part of my brain, if I look at this game objectively I should hate it, annoying jumping controls, bullshit difficulty, weird hitboxes and unfair enemy placements, THE STAIRS, but simultaneously something about this game keeps me coming back, I can’t tell if it’s the addicting core gameplay. But I keep on coming back and that means it’s doing something right, the music is pretty solid, graphics are eh, at times great looking and other times dated and terrible if i’m being frank. A lot of annoying deaths, definitely, but decent, good even.



71/100

Хардкорный экшен-платформер. Левелдизайн специально нацелен на то, чтобы вы как можно чаще умирали. Это не как в Дарк Соулсах, где ты должен запомнить паттерны врагов. В кастлвании Саймон тяжело управляется, его прыжки не контролируется, ты не можешь регулировать высоту прыжка, удар кнута относительно долгий(особенно если сравнивать с другими экшен-платформерами)

В этой части добавили много уровней + нелинейность их выбора. Из новинок 3 дополнительных играбельных персонажа, но одновременно с Саймоном может ходить лишь один. Боссов тоже стало чуть больше, чем в первой части, но к сожалению некоторые из них повторяются, например мумии или летучая мышь.

Hardcore action-platformer. Leveldesign is specifically aimed at making you die as often as possible. It's not like in Dark Souls where you have to memorise enemy patterns. In Castlevania Simon is hard to control, his jumps are not controlled, you can't adjust the jump height, the whip kick is relatively long(especially if you compare to other action platformers)

In this part added a lot of levels + non-linearity of their choice. From the novelties 3 additional playable characters, but only one can go with Simon at the same time. Bosses also became a bit more than in the first part, but unfortunately some of them are repeated, for example mummies or bat.

After the… deviation of last time, CastleVania 3 goes back to basics and builds upon the first games more linear structure.

To get this out the way, this game is once again, brutal. And just like the first game it’s down to the stiff controls, pain in the ass enemies and bosses, though generally I think boss fights are better this time around, giving you slightly more room to breathe and having more distinguishable patterns to learn.

However this doesn’t stop the game kerb stomping you. Luckily there are some additions which can help, namely 3 other playable characters you can find and recruit by choosing optional pathways after some levels. You can only use 1 at a time, but you can switch between Trevor and whoever you pick at any point. This adds plenty of replayability and can make your life easier as most of these guys are awesome. One has smoother control, one can use devastating magic spells, the variety is great and experimentation is encouraged.

But level design is still chaotic and often not very fair, mostly due to the amount of things thrown at you while you’re climbing stairs, where you can barely defend yourself. Stages can get out of hand fast, and despite some more interesting platforming, this game is too difficult for its own good.

The music is phenomenal though, I don’t know why we’re killing Dracula again.. but hey it’s consistent. Not a bad time, just a tough one - 6.7/10

I was ready to like this one more than the original, like on a technical level this is a great NES game. But in terms of design after a certain point the game just takes a nosedive. The endurance tests expected of you in these stages and retro games in general are so unfun that Im glad the overall gaming world is moved on from this. Like the slow and tedius falling block stages and multi phase boss fights especially make dying miserable in this game. I used save states and what I lost in the respect of 40 year old married men everywhere I gained in time of my life saved. Sometimes games are more fun when you cheat!

fui com expectativas altas e dei de cara com uma dificuldade tão desoladora quanto um domingo a noite.

esse terceiro jogo engaveta as ideias torta do segundo, voltando a ser um platformer porradeiro com destaque na melhoria de áudio e gráfico, que não é grande coisa, mas deixa de ser tão agressivo aos olhos, diferente da dificuldade. Cada estágio de uma fase é um soco no estômago, seu fetiche em escadas cansa e não há nenhuma segurança em morrer e ter o progresso salvo durante as longas fases. Apesar da clara frustraçao, muito dos problemas são contornáveis graças as diferentes rotas durante as fases e adição de outros personagens jogáveis.

tem seus problemas mas é um título de destaque na franquia, nao é atoa que a serie da netflix é baseada nela e influencia tanto outros castle

In a fairly hard pivot for the main Castlevania team back from Castlevania II, Castlevania III not only changes the era and the protagonist but also the genre back to being an action platformer. Being an action platformer is also where the series would stay for quite some time, as the same goes for the rest of the games in this post as well. Castlevania III also is a quite famously different game between its NES and Famicom versions, so for this game, probably more than any other on this list, it's important to keep in mind that I'm talking about the easier Famicom game rather than the much harder NES game. It took me about 3 or 4 hours to get through the game with marginal save state usage (mostly just before very hard bosses, especially before the second to last level's boss).

This game follows Simon Belmont's ancestor Trevor (or as he's known in the Japanese version, Ralph) Belmont in his quest to travel through Transylvania to Dracula's castle to defeat him. Similar to Castlevania II, this is another game where the adventure doesn't start at Dracula's doorstep, but instead follows our hero from the Transylvanian hinterlands all the way to and through Dracula's domain. Trevor himself plays a lot like Simon does in Castlevania II. He has no inventory like that game (back to good old temporary whip upgrades and classic heart-ammo subweapons), but he still moves and whips a bit faster than Castlevania 1 Simon did. While this game may not be an adventure game like its predecessor, what it does have is a series of branching paths. The most important feature of these branching paths is not just to give you more ways than one to play the game, but also to lead you down optional roads to this game's other most important innovation on the previous games: extra playable characters.

Along his journey through Transylvania, Trevor can meet three people turned into monsters by Dracula as stage bosses. Upon beating them, they will offer to join Trevor, but he can only have one companion at a time. These companions can be switched to at any time with the select button, and they each have their own unique attacks as well as often having their own unique subweapon set as well. First you have Grant the acrobat, then there's Sypha the witch, and finally you have Dracula's own son Alucard who is half-vampire and half-human. Alucard has a projectile attack and can turn into a bat, but he's generally considered the worst of the companions since his transformation is limited by your number of hearts, and flying isn't actually that useful. Sypha's normal attack isn't that great, but she has a slew of subweapons that turn most bosses to tissue paper if used properly. Finally you have Grant, who can not only jump higher and even change direction mid-jump (something no other character in the game can do and is a rare ability in the series as a whole), but he can also throw infinite knives.

A very big change from the Japanese to the English releases of the games is that Grant was given a very short-range, weak melee knife in the English versions. This is in contrast to his normal weapon in the Japanese version which is an infinite supply of the knife subweapon which he can even throw if he's climbing walls or ceilings. This makes him an even more useful ally than he is in the English version, as he's not just nimble but dangerous too, and that's just one aspect of how the Japanese version is easier. Damage calculation itself differs between the two games, but on the whole you take less damage in this game. Many bosses and even normal enemies have significantly less health and more simple/abusable attack patterns. Heck, Grant is so good and Dracula is so much easier, I got to him with Grant without even full health and I managed to (albeit narrowly) beat him on my first try (which I was very proud of regardless :b). That's still not to say this game is easy, not by a long shot, but having played a fair bit of the American version as a kid, I can say that this version's lowered difficulty allows it to be a lot more fun than its English counterpart for me.

The presentation is once again absolutely excellent. The Famicom and NES's technical differences allowed Konami to use their own hardware in the cartridge for this game, meaning that the Japanese version of the game not just has gameplay differences but it also has several extra audio channels, meaning the music is on the whole often better (although some of the English tracks can certainly be argued to be superior). The environments are very pretty, the animations are nice for enemies and player characters alike, and the game on the whole really flexes what devs were able to do with the Famicom by 1989.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. While not my favorite game of the classic action platforming Castlevanias, this is still easily my favorite of the 8-bit games (followed by Belmont's Revenge on the GB). It's got stellar music and a fairer difficulty curve that makes it a compelling challenge even without save states, and the oodles of content provided by the branching paths and extra characters give it plenty of replay value as well. If you're a fan of action games and don't mind a bit of a challenge, this is definitely one you can't afford to pass up.

I had shelved this game for a while and did not realize how close I was to Dracula, so beating it after just 2 stages came as a bit of a surprise.

It's definitely the hardest out of the original trilogy, with some annoying parts like what felt like an increase of fighting on stairs and an incredibly poorly placed checkpoint on the Dracula boss battle. If you're playing on original hardware, good luck with the second one especially.

Still, there are branching paths and multiple characters to recruit, increasing the replay value and adding depth, while still retaining that Castlevania 1 formula.
There is quite a bit of room for experimentation and coming up with different strategies on the fly is a must.
The improved graphics and soundtrack were also pretty good.

Overall, I'd say this game falls into the category of games I appreciate more than I like. It's by no means a bad game. I had fun with it in quite a few places, I get the reasoning behind most of the design decisions and how important it is to gaming history, but it's not exactly my type of game.