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.
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.