The original Castlevania

[kynrek]

I grew up with the NES but somehow never played the original Castlevania until about 2 years ago. I found the cartridge for $2.50 and figured heck, why not?

As I've said I've played a lot of NES titles over the years so I've played a lot of great games and a lot of crap titles with terrible control/game play. I've got to say this is a solid title but I guess that's not really a surprise considering it's both a Konami game and a popular franchise.

Even without the Konami name and the Castlevania franchise this game is great on it's own merit.The jumping feels a bit stiff and the game is very hard but the controls are spot on, the graphics actually look good (espically since it's from 1987) and it's fun!

This has actually become one of my favorite NES titles of all time, so I decided that I actually wanted to beat it. While I do prefer playing the game on my original hardware and frequently play the first 2 levels on it, I knew that I would never have enough time/skill to play through the game completely without save states. So I fired up an emulator and played through the game over the course of a few days and it was a blast! It was awesome to finally complete the game. It's kind of cool, after you beat the game it restarts at the 1st level but I noticed that it says stage 19 and the game is much harder. Just thought i'd share that bit of trivia.

http://i548.photobucket.com/albums/ii338/joshandstacy/beatcastlevania.png

[SubaruBrat]

I have been saying that for years. I liked the whips that would increase in power, the changes from day to night, the music was energizing, and the graphics totally conveyed that Transylvania like feel. Love it!

[BydoEmpire73]

I played the original on CastleVania Chronicles, and I've gotten to Drac, but could never beat him. My save is on the last level. Not sure if that's the NES version or arcade version, though. CC has two CastleVanias, one hard one easier. Unfortunately I picked the harder one.

To this day I have never finished a CastleVania game.

[neshead80]

I have the NES classics GBA version saved on Death's stage which I have never beaten. I need to buckle down one day and just do it. Great game but man is it hard. I really loved Castlevania II when I was a kid & Symphony Of The Night is definitely in my all time top 5 games.

BTW Castlevania Chronicles is a remake of Akumajō Dracula on the Sharp X6800 (Japan only PC) which was itself a remake of the original Castlevania. That's a really awesome version of the game, great soundtrack on that too!

[indieseoul]

I beat Castlevania on the NES as a kid. Back when I was good at video games. Now I've gotten soft. I better practice more. The excitement of beating a game back in the day was so awesome!

[Madstedotcom]

This has inspired to have another go at beating it. I was previously playing it through a R4 on my ds and the save state feature is a bit flakey. Will have to have a proper crack using Nestopia.

Ste

[kynrek]

Death is extremely hard, even harder than Dracula. I think the boomerang cross thingies are the best weapon for fighting him.

[random_dave]

I'd like to know which idiot they recorded playing the game for the attract mode, he's worse at playing the game than i am (unless it's something unique to the PAL version in 50hz)

I've never finished a castlevania game, but i own a lot of them, and have got close a few times, but always get sidetracked by something else before i've seen it through.

I've got most of the soundtracks on the mp3 player i use when i'm running, some of the music is soooooo good, I even bought a Twin Famicom just to play Akumajou Densetsu (JPN Castlevania 3) just so i could play it with the VRC6 enhanced audio

[Flare]

Castlevania on the NES is one of the premier gaming experiences of my lifetime.

[DragoonMog]

I love Castlevania. The first game was released as a Playsation Plus freebie recently in the form of the Psone classics Castlevania Chronicles, so I have been revisiting it.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse on the NES was the first game I ever ask for specifically for Christmas and was the first video game I ever received new in box. The first game is great and the third game went back to the formula of the first game with a few extra characters (first appearance of Alucard) and branching paths. The 3rd game holds a special place for me.

[Jammajup]

I like most Castlevania games i have ever played but played them in an odd order (prob as i am in UK and had a SMS) i started with Cas IV on Snes and had never heard of Castlevania until then (blush),then years later as a retro gamer i looked back to play Cas 1-3 on Nes.I am not sure of number 2 though it just seems out of place-maybe i should give it more time?.

[DragoonMog]

2 had some good concepts and some nostalgic value for some, but it is not actually a good game. It is one of those games where they changed a bit to much in the sequel, sorta like Zelda II. Maybe they were trying to make it bigger to make use of the Famicom Disk System or something at the time.

[TimeWarpGamer]

Good call. The original Castlevania looks and sounds spectacular, especially if you compare it to other games releases in 1987, which isn't even a fair comparison. The music to this day remains among my all-time favorite chip tunes.

[random_dave]

I've just started giving this a serious playthrough as It's turn for a retro game on my pile of shame.

I toyed with the best way to play it in the modern day, almost picking up the FDS version so that i could use that to save (I want to avoid any save stating that would be available outside of running it on legit hardware - although i'll make exceptions for game genie level selects)

In the end though I've just been playing it on my NES, and leaving it on the Game Over / Continue screens when i run out of lives so that i can pick it up later

Overall although the game is hard, it seems entirely fair, and a lot of advnacement comes down to a mixture of the strategy of what candles definitly need to be avoided to prevent causing yourself trouble (e.g whilst medusa heads fly around) and which enemies to attack aggressively, which to take time, and finding as many secret item locations (especially chicken) helps too

My first really bad struggle has been levels 10-12 (http://telebunny.net/toastyblog/2012/08/2d-castlevania-stages-10-12/)
I figured out that my best bet was getting the holy water in the first section, and then the tricky part was getting through the long flat section without getting out of sequence with attacking the enemies that are dropped, to allow as much energy as possible to kill the stone dragons with the holy water, and then the frankenstein/igor combo with the water which puts them in a 'stun lock' if you spam water at them

I've only had a quick go at the next section for now and to start with it felt like it was taking the piss, but after a couple of lives i figured out a good technique for the first few screens, so hopefully i can have that done and dusted fairly quickly.

Finding it more enjoyable to play the better and more familiar i get with it. definitly a game i will keep in my collection even after i've finished it.

With the ability to play the 50hz one on real hardware and also play the GBA one or emulate it in 60hz on other hardware I wonder if UKmikes distaste for it (especially seem to remember him calling it "sluggish") is down to the 50Hz speed, as the music is a lot less groovy. I quite like having more time for my brain to process a situation though to tell my thumbs to react to it

I found that stages

[Flare]

I was reading Wikipedia and apparently, Europe didn't get Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse until after the European release of Super Castlevania IV.

Man, that must've sucked. Castlevania III is one of the greatest games in the series. I imagine Europeans were furious, seeing everyone else in the world playing this great game for years, and they weren't.

[random_dave]

meh, anyone worth their salt knows the Japan release is the one to get anyway ;) I have no desire to play the 50hz Pal version

[BydoEmpire73]

I played the original back in the day (never finished and didn't own it), but I picked up CV Chronicles on the PS1 a while back so I could replay the original with saves (there's also an easier 'remix' version, which I should have done first). It's freaking hard. I'm at Dracula but I haven't ever come close to beating him. One of these days I need to check out a "how to beat Dracula" video on youtube or something and see how it's done.