Dark Castle. Sounds like an RPG, right? No, it isn't. But, I'm going to see how it stacks up as a puzzle-platformer.

Graphics:NES quality at best.
The game has about as much detail on sprites as your average NES game. In fact, the developers seem to have forgotten that they're working with a Genesis instead of an NES. Even the color palette, with a couple less colors, possibly no colors omitted, could be supported on the NES. In other words, this game fails epically in the graphics department.
-Little detail on anything
-Nothing looks like it belongs on the Genesis
-Color palette is severely lacking

Music+SFX:Like listening to a boy band. While the band members are on crack.
There's 2 music tracks in the entire game. I'm totally serious.
There are Commodore 64 games better than that! Plus, neither of the tracks are any good.
The sounds aren't much that stand out. They lack polish and number, just like the music.
-Music is awful
-There's only 2 tracks in the game
-SFX are few, and aren't any good either

Addictiveness:About as addictive as being punched in the face for a non-masochist.
This game is probably one of the only games on this Earth that didn't captivate me in the slightest. I would play and enjoy almost anything, and this game fails to deliver any enjoyment.  I'll explain why in the Gameplay ratings.
-Probably the only game that doesn't captivate me that I've found

Story:The game designers don't care about it, and it shows.
The story is that you are Prince Duncan, and you are going to go into the Dark Castle and dethrone the Black Knight. Of course, the game never tells you this, so if you haven't gotten that information, have fun wondering why the heck you are doing this in the first place. Prince Duncan doesn't even seem to have a motive, other than overthrowing the Black Knight. Why is he going to do it? Does he want to be king? Is the Black Knight a tyrant? None of this is even explained.
-Story is cliché
-Story lacks any resemblance of detail

Depth:About as deep as a cup of water.
The game has 4 sets of levels. 2 of them are for upgrades, 1 of them is like a punishment stage that you get sent to if you decide to go there, or if you fall on certain levels, and 1 of them is the path to the Black Knight's throne room. That's IT. The levels aren't even that large.
-Only FOUR sets of levels? Come on, I've seen MSX and Commodore 64 games with more levels than that.
-Levels are small enough that an amateur programmer can make more levels than this in a cheap puzzle game in a few days. These people had months, if not a YEAR.

Gameplay:About as much fun as being tortured.
So, you start the game up. You get really awful-sounding music, and a title screen that is lazily made. When you start the game, you are prompted to select a difficulty and determine whether you want the music and sound on or off. That's just dandy, but all the difficulty settings do is double or triple the amount of holes that bats spawn out of, and increase the bonus points you get for finishing the level. That's it.
So, you decide to pick the level that is highlighted at the start. Congratulations, you picked the Trouble set of stages, the absolutely meaningless stages that only serve to hinder you. Plus, the levels are decently difficult, too.

So, you decide to play the next set of levels. You picked the Fireball stages, where you are supposed to get the Fireball upgrade. The stages aren't easy, and the fireballs are unnecessary to beat the game. Sure, they kill enemies that will get back up for good, and they will kill a certain enemy in the Black Knight stages, but otherwise, they're no better than what you start with. Oh, I forgot to mention that the weapon you start with is ROCKS. Yes, rocks. Why would you go into the castle with your only weapon being rocks?

I also forgot to mention our hero. His name was mentioned in the Story section, but he has one thing different from every other hero in existence...
He's about as fragile as glass. Almost everything kills him in one hit, falling twice his height will kill him, falling into water will kill him, trying to walk across a 1-inch drop will make him trip and become dizzy for a few seconds, yeah, he's weak. He's obviously too stupid to live if he tries to go into the Dark Castle with only a pocketful of rocks, his brains, and this kind of fitness. So, this game's gameplay is awful.

Oops, I almost forgot to mention the controls, as well. You use the A button to jump, the B button to duck(!), and the C button to throw rocks. The bad thing is that Duncan moves his arm to aim with the Up and Down buttons, and he does it as slowly as R.O.B. If you don't know what R.O.B. is, Google it. You can't jump straight up, either you have to make a full jump in whatever direction you're facing, or you can hold Up and do a forward jump that doesn't go as far. The jump that you do while holding Up is the only way to grab ropes, so have fun missing jumps. To pick up an item, you hold Down and press B. This applies to all items, no matter what they are, where they are, you still hold Down and press B.

I forgot to mention something else about the jumping. When you jump, if you don't land on a surface that's the exact same elevation as the one you were on before you jump, Duncan will do this stupid little pose, and then he will fall. This applies to dropping off things as well. This is bad in the game's platforming level, because you may find yourself in a position where if the platform you want to drop off of is going in the same direction as you want to drop off of, then you might land back on the platform you were on. Excellent programming, guys. Good job.
-Game has really, really awful controls
-Jumping is really badly thought out
-The stupid little pose you do in midair stops your momentum cold
-Aiming is slow and not very well thought out
-Enemies kill you in one hit, unless you have at least one of a certain item
-Items aren't needed to beat the game, so it has been beaten in under a minute
-Grabbing ropes is a bit harder than it should be
-Collision detection is really off

So, let's recap:

Pros:
None.

Cons:
Everything is flawed in this game.


What you should do if you own this game: If you have a cartridge of this game, go and chuck it into the nearest volcano.
If you have this game on Vizzed, sell it. You probably won't return to this game anytime soon.

Overall Rating:Terrible