Castlevania 3 (Akumajou Densetsu) is one of those games I kept seeing people talk about but never really tried. My extent of Castlevania knowledge was 1 & 4 (never beat either). I went with the Famicom version with an English Translation patch because HOLY FUCK the music in this game is so good. The VRC6 sound chip makes this soundtrack so legendary.
I really think the gameplay loop & level design is vastly superior than what I played of 1. However, unlike 1, this game is hard. Really fucking hard. Holy shit is this game hard. Some of that difficulty comes from the right place & the wrong place. I still don't like how your character gets knocked back after getting hit, and enemy respawns are still annoying, but I will say some of the enemy placement does add interest to the level design, and it kept me on my toes.
I didn't really get much out of the multiple characters, but that's because I only unlocked Alucard. I didn't use him much, but I feel like he'd be one of those characters I'd use more if i really knew his potential. I mostly just kept playing as Trevor (Ralph) Belmont.
I did like a lot of the levels, but the last few started to piss me off a little. The one with the blocks slowly dropping down was just fucking shit. That level sucks ass. The last level wasn't much easier but it didn't waste my damn time at least. I will admit I did cheat a little bit towards the end, but mostly because of how fucking ball bustingly hard this game gets by the last few levels & I didn't want to waste my time playing the same shit over and over again.
The fight with dracula drags on way too long too. The first phase is pretty fucking hard, the second phase is a joke and the third phase is....okay, i guess? I don't really think 3 phases was necessary.
Overall? Pretty good. Something I'd probably go back to in years time, and I'll def keep listening to the music. It def shows its age a little bit but I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit. Maybe next time I beat it I'll do it completely legit
I really think the gameplay loop & level design is vastly superior than what I played of 1. However, unlike 1, this game is hard. Really fucking hard. Holy shit is this game hard. Some of that difficulty comes from the right place & the wrong place. I still don't like how your character gets knocked back after getting hit, and enemy respawns are still annoying, but I will say some of the enemy placement does add interest to the level design, and it kept me on my toes.
I didn't really get much out of the multiple characters, but that's because I only unlocked Alucard. I didn't use him much, but I feel like he'd be one of those characters I'd use more if i really knew his potential. I mostly just kept playing as Trevor (Ralph) Belmont.
I did like a lot of the levels, but the last few started to piss me off a little. The one with the blocks slowly dropping down was just fucking shit. That level sucks ass. The last level wasn't much easier but it didn't waste my damn time at least. I will admit I did cheat a little bit towards the end, but mostly because of how fucking ball bustingly hard this game gets by the last few levels & I didn't want to waste my time playing the same shit over and over again.
The fight with dracula drags on way too long too. The first phase is pretty fucking hard, the second phase is a joke and the third phase is....okay, i guess? I don't really think 3 phases was necessary.
Overall? Pretty good. Something I'd probably go back to in years time, and I'll def keep listening to the music. It def shows its age a little bit but I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit. Maybe next time I beat it I'll do it completely legit