how did kids beat this back in 1986? no amount of nintendo power is gonna help you here. outside of a rather high difficulty spike in the last third or so, castlevania stands tall in an era riddled with games that were simply hard for the sake of it. outside of it's impressive atmosphere and excellent soundtrack (both nothing new from konami) the thing that really sets castlevania apart from the crowd is it's commitment to it's core design elements. it would be easy to look at your restrictive movement and sluggish whip and call the game sloppy on the face of it, but for the most part everything is built well around this core set of mechanics. enemies are placed in fair locations, checkpoints are well placed, bosses have limited movesets, and in general it's all balanced around the weight of simon. i suppose an argument could be made that more control is always a good thing, but given the popularity of such restrictive titles as dark souls and other games like it, i don't believe it's always a necessary aspect to a good game. the worst of it is easily getting knocked into an instant death pit or being stuck on a staircase. stairs in particular present the most persistent challenge in the whole game, funny enough. all in all, i was rather impressed with this game despite some rough spots. i can't wait to see what the series will eventually blossom into from here.

Reviewed on Jan 20, 2021


1 Comment


10 months ago

great review!