It's basically what would you expect from a sequel from the first Castlevania game. Bigger, longer, prettier and expanded. The map and levels are divided in a lot of sections, we have to choose our path starting a level; either up or down. Choose wisely.

This time we can use 4 character. 3 of them locked up somewhere so we need to find and rescue them:

Sypha Belnades: A mage, focused on long range attacks.
Alucard: Dracula's son.
Grant DaNasty: A pirate capable of climbing walls.

Had to play it with all the characters for the achievements in the Castlevania Annivesary Collection. This means finishing the game 4 times.

This also, was what that inspired the Netflix serie. Awesome.

Castlevania 3 ultimately falls in the mixed category for me. There are obvious improvements made within the gameplay, graphics, and audio side of things (especially if you're playing the japanese version), but the difficulty has been cranked up to a nearly insufferable degree since Castlevania 1, and it kinda harms the overall experience. It's way better than Castlevania 2 for sure, but the balance should've been re-examined one more time.

I really like the multiple playable characters and the branching pathways. They lean themselves really well into encouraging you to play the game at least 2-3 seperate times, as you're guaranteed to run into whole new stages and bosses doing so, while being able to figure out new methods to cross previously-beaten stages by experimenting with different characters. One other particular highlight was discovering a way to insta-kill a boss using the knife to attract the distant thunder right on top of the boss's head. Bar none, it is the coolest thing I've ever seen in an NES game, and kinda wished there were more moments like that one.

Still, I just... can't deal with this one unless I'm cheating. Castlevania 1's difficulty was just right for me, but this one is either too relentless to give you breathing space, or too sluggish and time-wasting to keep my eyes peeled on the screen and not down on the floor, thinking about other games I could be playing.

Speaking of... ever since Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon came out, it's been tough to come back to this one, seeing as Curse of the Moon is like if they did Castlevania 3 again, but ironed out every flaw. To some degree, I still respect this Castlevania, I mean, its presentation is well put together no matter how you look at it. But man, I struggle like hell with this one. Whether that says something about my skills or this game's balance, I know in the very least that there are a bunch of other Classicvanias out there that I jive with a lot more.

One of the best platformers on the NES that suffers only from its incredibly high difficulty. There's also some jank in its platforming that's mostly noticable on moving/rotating platforms. However, even if for me it gets a bit too hard around the haunted ship level, the atmosphere and the presentation are simply incredible for an 8-bit game!

The journey to Castlevania in this classic format will only ever be matched by Rondo of Blood, and frankly, that's a shame. I wish this formula was still in play during the Igavania mania of the 2000s

The first three games in the series move a bit too slow for me, and stairs, knock back, and dying due to the stage scrolling up with you are all annoying features. This is the one I find to be the best of the original NES titles though.

Good music as expected from the series. Ability to play as four different characters with unique abilities and the game allows you to take different paths. You can only take one other character but can leave one when meeting another. Different names can be input at the start of the game to make the game harder by changing enemies to more difficult forms or to start with different characters from the beginning in the US and European versions.

eu gosto que esse jogo mantêm a mentalidade de design que eleva a dificuldade que é típica dos castlevanias clássicos mas sendo bem menos injusto que o primeiro, pelo menos na versão japonesa, já que a versão americana faz mudanças pra aumentar a dificuldade do jogo mas de uma forma que torna ele menos divertido. a música é muito boa - na versão japonesa - e os personagens extras oferecem maneiras interessantes e diferentes de passar pelas fases. eu gosto de ficar escalando tetos com o grant e das magias da sypha.

honestamente, foi nesse jogo - na versão japonesa desse jogo lol - que eu percebi que eu meio q apaixonei por essa série. eu quero tanto chegar em rondo e symphony.

Castlevania III is a perfect evolution of the first Castlevania title. You get double, maybe triple the stages. You get multiple different routes to castle Dracula. You even get 3 new and completely different playable characters. It blows my fucking mind that this amount of replayability was put into an NES game, and it blows my mind even harder that this can actually compete against the original in terms of quality, and Castlevania was already one of the console's finest gems.

My only major gripe with the title is just how difficult the American release is. As far as I know, the original version of Castlevania on the FDS maintained the same level of difficulty that we saw in the west (minus a save feature cut out of the American release if you think that counts as difficulty adjustment). In Castlevania III, a lot of the game's balancing is altered to make the game tougher for you to beat. Like Castlevania, enemies all take away the same amount of health based on where you are in the game. It was definitely a flaw in the original, but it's way more noticeable here because the Japanese release was more fair, with health removed being determined by what you were hit by rather than your position in the game. Similarly, the western release alters where subweapons are dropped and what is given, but that's more of a case-by-case thing, and can actually end up helping in places.

So, after almost a week of grinding out the base American copy I own, I decided to apply a patch through my Retron 5 that would turn Castlevania III back into Akumajou Densetsu. I definitely think this is the way to go if you wish to play this game. The game has insane audio-enhanced sound and, as mentioned previously, is much more of a fair challenge.

And briefly on that music, man is it something else. The addition of the audio enhancements within the Akumajou Densetsu cart really makes a difference. It's probably one of the best soundtracks of any game on the console, possibly taking the #1 spot. Hell, even in the downgraded 5-channel American release, the songs still sound fantastic.

Visuals are also as brilliant as those seen in Castlevania. I think a lot of the backdrops look much better here though, most likely a result of more experience considering this is a much later release.

Honestly there's really nothing at all holding the game back from an easy 10/10 score. Even when I was being beaten by the American release, I was having so much fun with it. I think at this point I'm comfortable in saying that this is better than Castlevania. I'm at least confident that the Japanese Akumajou Densetsu is better.

Also lots of points for being the blueprint for the equally amazing Netflix series.

10/10

A bigger, more ambitious game than Castlevania 1, with a much wider variety of challenges, split paths and extra characters for a decent amount of replayability, and some truly amazing art for the NES. It's also a far worse game than Castlevania 1. It's no secret that Dracula's Curse is the most difficult of the OG trilogy, and in this case, I'd say the game suffers for it pretty harshly. There's nothing inherently wrong with the game being as tough as it is, the problem is that the ways in which it's difficult throws out a lot of the finer details of level design that made Castlevania 1 so engaging and instead repeatedly throws the player into awkward situations that don't quite feel like they were made with the intent of being able to get out unscathed even if you knew what to do.

There's a much greater focus on sections that require a more reflex heavy style of play that doesn't quite mesh with the intentionally sluggish movement of your character, with there being multiple sections that feel as intense as the axe thrower hallway in CV1 without the telegraphing that made it feel fair still. This gets particularly egregious when put up against certain obstacles like the falling block tower or the multiple sections that have the player climb up a ton of stairs while getting pelted with fireballs, using your relative lack of mobility as a way to get cheap shots in, rather than encourage a more carefully considered approach to whatever situation you find yourself in. The fact that the game is like this specifically because they were trying to make sure that people couldn't beat the entire game within a couple of days to encourage buying instead of renting leaves an especially bad taste in my mouth, because it really does compromise the experience as a whole. There's enough good here for me to have still mostly enjoyed my time with Castlevania III however, as there is a good variety of genuinely clever sections, and the music and atmosphere is fantastic as usual, I just wish it wasn't so frustrating.

this game has a massive scope for its time, with branching paths, four(!) playable characters each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and some impressive technical feats, although your mileage may vary on how well theyve aged. its also just plain fun, even with how ball-blisteringly difficult it can get. overall, one of the finest games for the nes, which really shows the strengths of the system.

that said minus half a star because fuck that final level. WHY DOES A-3 NOT GIVE A CHECKPOINT EVERY OTHER SECTION HAS ONE AAAAAAAAAA