As time marches on forward, the selection of NES games that are truly worth your time in the present age progressively starts to dwindle, with the videogame canon inevitably continuing its expansion and the list of must play classics becoming impossible to keep up with. Castlevania has been one of such NES games that has maintained its prestige and must play status throughout its entire existence, still being a joy to experience and feeling surprisingly modern despite its old age.
Using the Universal Monsters filmography as its window dressing, Castlevania juxtaposes the horror aesthetic with a vibrant color palette and catchy tunes to an oddly successful effect, and in contrast to many of the protagonists of the era, instead of controlling a nimble high jumping and sprinting character that barrels through the level regardless of how many hits he takes from incoming enemies, Castlevania puts you in charge of SImon, a strutting, stiff, clunky, and inept athlete of a hero that has you commiting to an established jump arc and getting a very "generous" knockback each time an enemy attack registers on you.
This stripping of maneuverability tied with Simon's delayed and one directional default attack is the source of Castlevania's brilliant tension between the player and the game, demanding you to take not only the enemy's movement and attack patterns into account but also yours, as to not quickly fall into a situation of inevitable disaster and get stunlocked into a corner or fall into a death pit, and to make the most out of the power-up items at your disposal to take the upper hand.
Despite some few and far between "NES hard" moments, that can easily be alleviated with some cheeseing tactics, Castlevania rarely feels dated or unfair, with the onus mostly always being on the player and his own faults and flaws, and with its unique presentation and standout game design, its no wonder it cemented itself very quickly in the videogame pantheon, providing the blueprint for better things to come, inside and outside of the franchise.
Using the Universal Monsters filmography as its window dressing, Castlevania juxtaposes the horror aesthetic with a vibrant color palette and catchy tunes to an oddly successful effect, and in contrast to many of the protagonists of the era, instead of controlling a nimble high jumping and sprinting character that barrels through the level regardless of how many hits he takes from incoming enemies, Castlevania puts you in charge of SImon, a strutting, stiff, clunky, and inept athlete of a hero that has you commiting to an established jump arc and getting a very "generous" knockback each time an enemy attack registers on you.
This stripping of maneuverability tied with Simon's delayed and one directional default attack is the source of Castlevania's brilliant tension between the player and the game, demanding you to take not only the enemy's movement and attack patterns into account but also yours, as to not quickly fall into a situation of inevitable disaster and get stunlocked into a corner or fall into a death pit, and to make the most out of the power-up items at your disposal to take the upper hand.
Despite some few and far between "NES hard" moments, that can easily be alleviated with some cheeseing tactics, Castlevania rarely feels dated or unfair, with the onus mostly always being on the player and his own faults and flaws, and with its unique presentation and standout game design, its no wonder it cemented itself very quickly in the videogame pantheon, providing the blueprint for better things to come, inside and outside of the franchise.