I bought the Castlevania Anniversary Collection some time ago, and I decided to start with the game where it all began. I had a similar experience with Metroid, I didn't have a good experience but it was nice to see the beginning of Metroidvania games.

The movement and attacks are kind of clunky and combined with the knockback, harsh timings, and insta-death fall damage it makes for a suicidal thought-inducing time. The game is really hard but it feels like it's hard, not in a good way but because of bad design. The rest is whatever, the power-ups were alright I guess. The bosses were really boring, the strategy with most of them besides Dracula is just to spam your special ability. The music and graphics are nice, the music more so.

Bad game, wouldn't recommend it.