Ahh, Castlevania. I never did grow up with this game, but after finally playing it for the first time about a year ago, I was instantly hooked on it. This game was released on the NES in 1987, and is the first of the well known Castlevania series. The NES Castlevania games have always been known to be annoyingly difficult, and this game definitely fits that for reasons I'll get into later. Despite how difficult it is, I always find myself coming back to this game, because it's just so fun to play. 

Storywise, it isn't that much detailed, especially since it is an NES game, but it does offer a tiny bit more info than other NES games. Every hundred years or so, Dracula comes around and begins terrorizing people of the land, whatever it's named. It's the Belmont's job to take out Dracula whenever he comes around. And in this century, it's Simon's turn. With your trusty whip in hand, you make your way to the opening doors of the castle. But first, controls!

Like pretty much all NES games, the controls here are pretty simple. You can move, jump, and lash your whip out forwards. Probably the biggest issue with this game is the controls. Simon feels pretty stiff. When you walk up stairs by pressing up when near them, you can't attack at all and you move really slow, allowing enemies to just pummel you with attacks until you're off the stairs. Plus, once you jump forward, you're going forward no matter what. You can't shift your momentum at all, so if you know you screwed up your jump just as you performed it, prepare to get hit and/or die. And if you DO get hit, Simon's knockback is just ridiculous. You get flung back way too far. Plus, you can't shift your momentum there either, so let's hope you don't get hit much around bottomless pits and such.

There are a good number of items that you can collect here by smacking down candles, such as bags of money for score, crowns for score, hearts (they aren't for health, you'll see what they're for right now), food(usually found in blocks that you need to break on the walls), a crucifix, which eliminates all enemies on screen, and sub weapons. By holding up and hitting the attack button, you can fire the sub-weapon you got, which ranges from knives that shoot straight forward, axes that are thrown in an arc, holy water that also arcs, but creates a small fire once it hits the ground, crosses that go straight forward and return to you like a boomerang(they'll only move in a straight line when returning to you though) and the stopwatch, which freezes time for a few seconds. These are where the hearts come in. They're your ammunition for the sub-weapons. Each sub-weapon costs one heart per use except the stopwatch, which requires five. Sub-weapons are extremely useful against the bosses in this game, so be sure to get the best one for each boss. There are also the double and triple blocks, which allow you to throw two or three of the sub-weapon you have (like being able to throw three holy waters on screen). With that out of the way, let's delve into the game.

Level 1, which puts right in front of the entrance to the castle. No enemies here, just some candles to upgrade your whip's range from short to medium to long and powerful. After that, we step inside the castle, which introduces to some enemies, including zombies that just walk back and forth, wolves that run pretty quickly towards you once they spot you, bats that float down towards you, and weird fishmen creatures that leap out of the water in the second "section" of the level and spit pellets at you as they move towards you. All in all, not a hard level at all. Just a typical first level in video games. At the end lies the boss, a giant bat. Same as the regular bats, just bigger and you take a little more damage. Not very threating at all. The best weapon to use against them is the axe, which you can get right before this guy, because he usually floats around the top of the screen before trying to ram into you, and you can just spam the axes at him. Just to let you know, pretty much everything you hit a boss with does one unit of damage towards their 16 bits of health. Once you beat him, collect the orb that drops at the end and you have cleared this stage.

Level 2 takes us deeper into the castle, with some neat music in my opinion. New enemies here include these skull statues that fire pellets at you and are sorta tough to kill, ghost skulls that try and hit you from behind, and FRICKIN MEDUSA HEADS. They come from either the left or right of the screen swerving up and down, and be prepared to fail massively on platforming sections because of not only the controls, but the Medusa Heads. Guh. Anyways, aside from those guys, this level isn't too hard either. The boss here is none other than Medusa herself, who is very easy to beat. All she does is float back and forth and drop easily defeated snakes that lsither around the ground. To make this fight retardedly easy, just use the Stopwatch, and she'll freeze completely, leaving her open to attack. Too bad you can't use the stop watch on other bosses. =/

Level 3 brings us outside of the castle and crossing some bridge to the other half of the castle. New enemies here are skeletons that move around rather randomly and toss bones at you in an arc, and FRICKIN HUNCHBACKS. These annoying pests, no matter how hard you try to avoid them, will HUNT YOU DOWN. They're quicker than you, and tend to have perfect accuracy when it comes to jumping and landing on you. There are also those skull statues and Medusa Heads, but they aren't much of a problem here. The boss here are two mummies sharing a half of the boss life bar that walk around and shoot bandages at you, which move like the way Medusa Heads move. If my memory is correct, you can just stand on these blocks, crouch, and just wail on their heads whenever you get close to them. That's the easy way to do it. IF you get on the ground they stand on and fight them like that, they could be challenging, but not really. Whip spam is the way to go, just ignore damage. Plus, there's food hidden in one of the blocks if you need it.

Level 4 randomly drops us in what appear to be the sewers. This is where things get hard. The first section is in the sewer, where precise platforming and ducking along with  fishmen popping out of the water and, if memory is correct, skeletons make this section tough and annoying. AFter climbing up some stairs, we're out of the sewers and around the castle. Here is a long stretch of floor where eagle things will drop FRICKIN HUNCHBACKS at you as you're trying to get back into the castle. Use that whip carefully. Once you clear that, a bone dragon blocks you way to the last stretch of the level. It's attached to the wall, and it moves up and down and shoots fireballs at you. IT's head is it's only weakpoint, so hit it there. The last stretch is a narrow corrior with hidden free food and two more bone dragons. The boss here is Frankenstein apparently. He does nothing but move back and forth, but he's still a chore to beat. Why? Alongside him is a FRICKIN INVINCIBLE HUNCHBACK THAT ALWAYS TRY TO RAM INTO YOU. Seriously, if you hit it, it just stops for a second or two, then resumes in trying to ram into you. Whack the hunchback and Frankenstein as much as possible, and you'll eventually make it through.

Level 5 is a hard level. It's crammed with FRICKIN HUNCHBACKS, skeletons, red skeletons that never die, just reassemble themselves after getting hit, skull statues, and these knights, which have tough defense and toss boomerang axes at you either at your head or your legs. Not to mention the final corridor before the boss has those knights AND FRICKIN MEDUSA HEADS. Frustrates the heck out of me. :/
Anyway, after that corridor is the Grim Reaper himself, with a huge sprite mind you. He simply floats around and summons multiple scythes out of nowhere that home in on you repeatedly till you destroy them. Unless you use the cheap holy water trick (look it up!), this guy is really hard to beat. Aside from holy water, my best bet is to use the cross boomerang on death while knocking out the homing scythes with your whip.

Level 6, the last level in the game.  You start off making your way to where Dracula resides from the previous part of the castle, but in your way are platforming sections with those frickin large bats, the boss of level 1. And they move quick. Be prepared for many knockbacks into the pit. Once you clear that (my advice is to try and speedrun it), we are apparently in some clock tower filled with skeletons and random eagles dropping FRICKIN HUNCHBACKS. This part is just one small section, but is incredibly challenging since while climbing up the stairs to the final section of the game, the eagles have a shot of just BARELY clipping you, and the hunchbacks usually make suicide leaps just to hit you. Don't forget the knockback of Simon as well. After that bullfluck, we approach the grand staircase to Dracula's room.
Dracula has two forms. His first form is teleporting and whipping open is cape and shooting three fireballs at you. He can be annoying mainly if his sprite ends up appearing right where you're standing, and his head, his only weak spot, requires you to jump and hit it, and it's pretty small compared to his body. With the final hit, his head goes sailing and he suddenly morphs into this ridiculous....thing. I really don't know what it is. HE still shoots fireballs, but doesn't teleport; he simply slowly jumps towards you with low and high jumps. The only problem here is that he takes plenty of hits to kill, and his sprite his pretty big. If he corners you, you pretty much have to take a hit to get out of it. Holy water will stun him briefly, making this part easier to handle, but without it, it's a tough tough challenge. IF you can finally unleash the last hit, he explodes in flames, and you clear the game. The castle sinks into the ground, and the credit rolls. Game over (unless you wanna try hard mode right after, which is just more enemies than usual )


SCORES

Graphics 7
They aren't particularly amazing, and some of the stages look like a bunch of stuff mashed together, but others look good and some of the sprites look good as well.

Sound - 7.5
Definitely not the best soundtrack in the series, but most of the tracks are moderately catchy, especially Stage 2 and 3's music.

Addictive - 8
Unless you're a ragequitter when it comes to hard games, you might find yourself replaying this over and over again for a challenge.

Story - 8.5
Even though it's an NES game, I think it at least has a good story when it comes to other games on the system. That's just my opinion.

Depth - 5
There really isn't anything outside of the main game. It's all "go from point A to point B," and their aren't any shortcuts or secret weapons besides the ones I mentioned or anything. Not even different endings.

Difficulty - 9
One of the hardest games on the NES and of all time, mainly for the enemy placement, the stiff controls, and the amount of damage you take from most enemies.

Overall - 8
Not a bad game. It has its frustrating moments all over it, but it's something I would pick up and play again for a challenge.

Thanks for reading.


 

I'd definitely recommend this if you have played any game in the series.

It was the first game in the series that I played around 1990.

I could not beat the game for a while until I decided to try it a again when I was around 20.

It was definitely epic to beat it after almost 20 years later, not to mention that it took me probably around 20 times dying in the battle with Draula.