So far I've played a couple of Castlevania games, those being 1, 3, Bloodlines, Dracula X, Rondo Of Blood, 2: Belmont's Revenge (the game boy Castlevania 2) and Symphony Of The Night. And while I haven't completed all of them, I can say that for me personally, Castlevania 3 is the hardest I've played. So how good is what seems to be the hardest classic Castlevania? Let's start with the story shall we?

Story-
The year is 1476, and Dracula is being his usual evil self, spreading chaos over Europe and has been practicing sorcery "to create a bad world filled with evil" (isn't that a fantastic line?). After being exiled because the townsfolk of Wallachia feared his power, Trevor Belmont is called back to deal with Dracula. Now Trevor must travel to Castlevania and put Dracula away until the next 100 years come round for him to come back and ruin everyones day again. Oh and there's some other people Trevor may meet along the way that may help with his quest.

Gameplay-
This is going to be a long one. The gameplay consists of you as Trevor going through extremely hazardous levels, whipping monsters and bosses in the hopes that you will make it to the end of the level with your sanity intact. The d-pad has you move left, right and duck, the a button has you jump, the b button has you use your weapon (Trevor's being the whip), holding up and pressing b uses your sub weapon and the select button switches your character between one of the other characters found and Trevor, the other characters, I will get to soon.

Despite the very simple controls, the Belmont's seem to have a problem with movement throughout the series. Trevor's jumping is something one may need to get used to. Pressing a while standing still will have Trevor jump straight up and then back down, moving while pressing a will have him jump forward, now that seems perfectly fine right? Well Trevor cannot influence his jumps in mid-air, as in you cannot move him once he starts a jump, so when you jump in one direction, you are going in that one direction until you touch the ground or if you touch something painful. Whipping also has a slight delay as in you won't be doing damage exactly when you press b, but for some reason I feel that the whip is a very satisfying weapon to use.

Throughout the levels you will find lots and lots of candles, whipping these reveal that they contain hearts for some odd reason. These act as ammo for your sub weapons, the sub weapons being a axe you throw in an arc, a throwing dagger you throw in one straight line, a cross which acts like a boomerang and holy water which you drop on the ground and makes a little fire which stuns enemies and even some bosses allowing you to hit them with your normal weapon while they can't attack you. The candles also contain whip upgrades for Trevor which turn the whip into a flail which increases it's damage, and then into a longer flail. You pretty much need to have your whip fully upgraded if you want to live long. Also, you can whip some walls that will reveal some other items, such as a pork chop, which heals you, and these square.... things with the number two or three on them, these let you use a sub weapon more than once, for example, without the item, you can only shoot one dagger onscreen, with the II item, you can shoot two onscreen, and then three if you get the III item.

Now about those other characters. Trevor can meet some people along his journey that will help him along the way, these include Grant Danasty, Sypha Belnades, and Alucard, the son of Dracula. Each bring their own strengths and weaknesses:

Grant is the first you can meet and is to me, the best of the three. He has the ability to climb walls and ceilings, making some areas easier, and you can actually influence his direction in mid air which as you can imagine, can help a lot with avoiding obstacles and can prevent? accidentally jumping into hazards. The problem with Grant though is that his weapon is a short dagger that's just about as powerful as the throwing dagger sub weapon, so obviously his attack range is pathetic, though this does not mean that he is useless in a fight, since he has better movement in general.

Sypha has the same movement as Trevor and also has Grant's short attack range with a small wand. The good thing about Sypha is that she has her own sub weapons which are some pretty useful spells, these include fire which shoots a line of fire in front of you which has very good range, an ice spell that shoots three ice balls, freezing projectiles and enemies, and lastly three electrical orbs that are quite effective against bosses.

Alucard... is probably the worst one for me. Alucard's attack is shooting ball.... things (which also needs to be upgraded like the whip if you want to shoot more than one) that go straight, horizontally up and down. These... are not as powerful as one would hope. But the best thing about Alucard is his ability to transform into a bat for one heart per second. This allows you to get past some sections with relative ease which is extremely useful, but other than that, Alucard doesn't seem to have much going for him.

But how do you meet these characters? Well at the end of most of the levels, you are given a choice of two paths, and what path you take depends on who you will meet. This is a pretty nice part of the game, giving you a reason to play the game again, since you can go for a front door approach into the castle, or from the underground. It's also pretty important to note that you can only have one partner, if you take a new one, the other will wish you luck and leave.

Now the levels themselves, these levels are HARD, but why? Pretty much everything, most enemies have something that will annoy you, such as small fast moving birds, axe knights that take WAY to long to kill and throw axes in two different altitudes, the enemies are just annoying, also getting hurt will knock you backwards, most of the time into the nearest pit. Lastly, they hurt more as the game progresses, so weaker enemies become ones that kill you in 4 hits, yay. Bosses are also very very mean and can take some time, especially the ghost that makes you face three bosses in order with no health refills.

But they aren't the only problems poor Trevor will face, the levels usually have some gimmicks that set them apart and all will give you a hard time, such as the level with the screen that moves up and you have to keep up otherwise you die, the waterfall levels with water pushing you, and worst of all. Stairs. Stairs were bad in the first Castlevania, but now they are so much worse. The stairs you cannot jump off of, sometimes getting a sub weapon to work is aggravating since pressing up makes you go up the stairs, you move pretty slow going up or down them, they sometimes end on a small platform, there are enemies that usually wait at the end and they are just the worst parts of the levels to me, and there's a level where it feels like that's all there is in it. Checkpoints are pretty scarce in these levels and it becomes pretty evident if you make it to the final level.

I will say that I do find the gameplay pretty fun, for the most part. There's a point where it will start being more frustrating than fun.

That's pretty much the gist of the gameplay. Onto the graphics.

Graphics-
I'm not one to analyze graphics to a big degree since they don't matter that much compared to gameplay to me. But I will say that I think the game does look better than Castlevania 1 and I also think that the stages look how they were intended. I also like that the level locations are more varied, since there's a swamp level, a waterfall level, the clock tower, the underground areas. They all look pretty good by what the NES can do.

Sounds-
The soundtrack, is just awesome. I like nearly all of the tracks in this game and they fit perfectly with the locations. You have both your upbeat tracks and your creepy ones, especially Nightmare, which plays in the underground sections. My favourite track would probably be Clockwork, which plays in the clock tower, which is only the second level in (that is if you choose to go there anyway).

Addictiveness and Depth-
This game will definitely take you some time if you don't know of the hell that awaits you. Despite it being very hard, it is still fun to play and is very satisfying when you beat a tough boss. The multiple paths and characters give the game replay value since you won't be exploring all the levels in the game in one play through and you won't be using one partner for one play through either (I think you might be able to meet them all, but I'm not sure on that), that and using different characters for different playthroughs will just give the game more replay value, you don't even need to take a partner with you and you can go solo with Trevor, but it's going to be an even harder journey than it already is if you do that...

Difficulty-
I'm pretty sure I've made it evident that I think this game is extremely hard. Again, the enemies, the control, the levels themselves all make this a very challenging game. I don't think it's to the degree of Ghosts 'n' Goblins though, I can't even beat the second level in that.

Verdict-
Although Castlevania 3 is a fun game, the difficulty may put the game down for some. But the replay value is great, the different locations are pretty awesome and the music is also really good. I give the game a 8. Shall we go over what is good and bad?

The Good-
That soundtrack.
Grant is extremely useful.
The partner system is just great in general.
More interesting and varied locations.
Multiple paths.

The Bad-
STAIRS.
The amount of stairs is just ridiculous.
The checkpoints are scarce.
Some bosses are just a downright pain. (I'm looking at you, Crypt Ghost)
Konami may have went just a little bit overboard with the difficulty in general and the game may just become frustrating more than anything.

The Ugly-
What in the world is Dracula's second form supposed to be?

Overall-
A good game, but boy is it a hard one. It's worth a go, but I think that the other Castlevanias I've played are more accessible since they don't get as hard as this.