Castlevania is an extremely fun game from start to finish despite the pain in the butt difficulty! OWWWWWWW!!!!!
Now Castlevania was orginally one of the earlier games for NES library and it's infamous for it's hard difficulty and introducing Simon Belmont and Dracula to the world. Since I'm 13 yrs old and I'm revewing an incredibly hard retro game, does it stand the test of time or does it fall flat on it's face with the difficulty? Well, let's find out!
The Story is obivious! You Simon Belmont must kick Dracula's smelly butt while travelling through 18 levels!
The Controls are pretty straitforward. You move Simon with the control pad, use the B utton to whip, A to Jump and up+B to use your secondary weapon. See, simple controls which makes sense especially for the incredibly difficult challenge that awaits you! (And trust me if you played Super Mario Bros 3, it's a piece of Cake compared to Castlevania!)
I don't know why people say the graphics are ugly. I actually think they are nice for the most part. The Scenery for the levels look nice and it has a very smooth frame rate for the most part. As for the character models, they are not the best but they do work for the most part. Anyway the graphics don't really hinder the game that much. So let's talk about the gameplay, shall we now.
The Gameplay has solid action and great value! You control Simon Belmont in his quest to take Dracula apart through 18 levels of old school trickery! You are armed with a whip and you can upgrade it to have longer reach and strength. You can also collect some items in this game like hearts for ammuniton for whatever weapon you are holding, (Wait? Hearts for ammunition? I thought they were ment for health points!) and you can also collect various weapons like knives, axes and Holy crosses for throwing, Holy water for stunning. The items are pretty awesome and they really help e.g: I can freeze those damn Medusa heads with the stopwatch! Also the levels are played in a linear fasion suprise suprise so for those who want Metroidvania, you might feel a little upset with this game! The Boss fights are epic and they range from bats, Medusa heads, Death, (Wait? The Grim Reaper's in the game? I can't wait what he will have to say to Billy and Mandy when he got his Butt whipped by Simon. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Okay I'll stop laughing now.) and finally Dracula himself! The enemies are also cool as well like the Medusa heads, Bats, Knight etc and other stuff. Overall, insanely epic game and fantastic gameplay!!
The Music is instantly one of the best retro tracks I've heard in my life! While the sound effects may not shine, the music just literally took my breath away! Listening to tracks like "Wicked Child" and "Vampire Killer" just puts me in a good mood for the rest of the day!
The Downsides that I found were: I hate the Medusa heads. Seriously, I take Kwing's revew for it and he was right! They are annoying and just literally catch you off guard and it's very annoying! Also the jump mechanic is broken. Sorry guys but because of the stiff controls I can't control Simon's air speed! That crapola is sooo annoying. Also I had a problem with the difficulty, it was waaaaay to high for me and all because of one simple problem: When Simon gets hit, he flies back and because of this problems like the Medusa heads and the bats are a huge issue! Also, your health drops like mad sooo much that you will be literally be begging for a pork chop anytime soon! (Drinks Castlevania Soda drink.) Ooookay, onto verdict!
Castlevania is a great, epic game for your collection! Despite the difficulty issues, I suggest getting a NES for this game, or get it for the NES Classics on GBA or download it for the Wii's virtual console! Let's overview the facts shall we?
The Good: Great variety of solid action, various items, likable protangonist, clever level design (almost clever, some levels are a bit annoying.), simple controls, exellent music, good architectery for the castle, epic boss fights, variety of enemies!
The Bad: I hate the medusa heads, contols are stiff!
The Ugly: Punishing difficulty!
Title: Grows in you real fast!!