I never owned this game as a kid, but I played it a good number of times just from rentals and at friends' houses. But this was the first time I ever saw anything past level two. It really is amazing how scarce the content is in these old games - the programmers made the games so difficult so you would have to practice sections over and over until you got it right, which would artificially inflate the length of the game. This would by no means fly in the modern era of gaming. We nerds expect at least 8 hours of a single player campaign and every second of that better be a new a unique area otherwise we will complain about it on every message board we can find.
But playing this game did not feel like I was being ripped off. I felt as though I was getting better at something as I slowly progressed through. Each boss I killed felt like a fantastic achievement. Now compare this to the 50+ hour Final Fantasy XIII where the sense of accomplishment came not from overcoming a challenge, but just making it through the entire length of the game. Castlevania gave me a true sense of victory when I finally beat it.
Gameplay
Castlevania was made at a time when game design was much simpler. Designers had only two face buttons to work with so it goes without saying that actions were usually limited. But every once in a while, a game would surprise you with the amount of depth that could come from those two simple buttons. Castlevania is one of those games. One button is your whip while the other will make you jump - pretty standard NES controls, but there is a lot there to grab on to.
Jumping is incredibly stiff in this game. Unlike Contra or Ninja Gaiden, once you commit to a jump direction, that's the way you're going. There's no tweaking or moving backwards while you're in the air. This is much more realistic, but much less fun from a gameplay perspective. The loosey goosey style of Contra really let you control the exact spot you were going to land, while Simon Belmont jumps like a stiff robot.
The whipping is where the depth in the controls comes in. It's not apparent when you first start playing, but when you have to start timing your attacks, you'll notice that there is a slight delay from when you press the button and when the whip is flung out in front of you. The designers put in a half second "backswing" on your whip, again making it more realistic: if you were going to whip something, you'd first have to pull it back and then whip it forward. This slight delay really plays into how you approach certain enemies - especially the dual dragon skull heads that shoot fireballs at you. You have to be close enough to attack, but far enough away to hit the fireballs - and you have to time it correctly. It can be incredibly frustrating if you don't understand that the delay exists, but once you do, you'll feel like you are in much more control over the game than if the whip just shot out in front of you.
The backswing
Finally, the subweapons really give the game the extra oomph and layer of control and creativity to how you make your way to the man with the D on his grave. There are a good number of these subweapons but the only one you'll really need is the Holy Water. This creates a small fire where it is thrown and anything that touches it is either killed or temporarily stunned. It is insanely useful in boss fights as I've mentioned. The biggest issue with these is the fact that you have to press Up+B to use them. If you are anywhere near a staircase, you will automatically start walking up the stairs instead of throwing your weapon. I'm sure if the designers had an extra button to use, they would have, so you can't really blame them - it's just annoying.
Enemies and Bosses
There are a good dozen or so enemy models in the game and most of them are pretty well done based on the limitations of the NES hardware. Whipping enemies to kill them felt incredibly satisfying as they poured out against you. There are a couple of standout enemies I want to make mention of:
Level 5 Knights - these guys are a real challenge. They move backwards as you approach them, so to fight them properly (without holy water) you have to jump towards them to gain any ground. At the same time, though, they are throwing axes at you, so you have to time your jumps and attacks just so.
Monkeys - Nothing is more aggravating than those damn monkeys (hunchbacks) they are low to the round, they don't follow a pattern and they are incredibly fast. They also take away a ton of health if they hit you. A nightmare of an enemy.
Effing Medusa Heads - These flying terrors threats don't come from the damage they induce, but rather they exploit a larger issue with the game design: the knock back. Every time an enemy hits you, your character is knocked back a couple feet. This is extremely common in games of that era - even Zelda II had it. These Medusa heads are hard to judge as they fly in a sin wave formation and you never know which direction they'll come from or whether they'll be coming up-down-up or down-up-down. My biggest main game nemesis.
The bane of every gamer's existence
The bosses in the game are pretty generic. They basically just picked antagonists from classic horror movies - Giant Bats, Medusa, Mummies, Frankenstein, The Grim Reaper...none of them have anything to do with Dracula or vampires at all. Why wasn't I fighting Edward Cullen? Or Bill Compton?
As far as the boss's fighting designs go, their difficulty curve explodes after level 3. Levels 4, 5 and 6 are freaking awful and the bosses just get increasingly more and more difficult. My struggle with the Grim Reaper and Dracula are well documented, so I won't go into it here, but they are certainly infuriating. At the same time though I never felt like they were cheap or unfair. When I died, I felt I was the only one to blame. Again, the practice that was required to beat Dracula was well worth it for the sense of achievement I felt when I finally did beat him.
Stuff I Liked
- The music. Everyone praises the music from Castlevania and I will not stray from that consensus. It is awesome. This being one of the first kind of creepy games on the market, the composers managed to really create a epic monster movie atmosphere with the music and sound effects. A tradition that has carried through the series.
- The difficulty. As I mentioned, I can really appreciate a game that requires practice and patience from the player. Castlevania requires those in spades.
- The graphics. An early game in the NES library there are certainly better looking games. But in the same vein as the music, they were able to really create a creepy environment with very little horsepower.
- Infinite Continues and frequent checkpoints. In a game that requires practice, it's nice of them to allow you to do so. Especially the infinite continues outside of Drac's final chamber.
- The knockback
- The mother effing Grim Reaper
- Stiff controls.
Review in Ten Words or Less
Classic, elegant gameplay. Brutal difficulty.
This video sums up the game very, very well.
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