Castlevania

Famous for it’s unforgiving difficulty, Castlevania on the NES sees you take control of Simon Belmont on his first adventure through Dracula’s castle. Over the game’s 18 levels of spooky platforming, whip cracking action, you’ll face off against hoards of supernatural enemies from ghouls and bats to psychotic hunchbacks and flying medusa heads that will knock you into pits again, and again, and again. All these enemies are so ruthless that it takes lightning reflexes, patience and muscle memory to get through the levels and even then, it’s often impossible to avoid getting swooped by an evil raven or knocked off a platform by some zombie. Not only do you have enemies to contend with, but you also have to beat the clock and if it runs out before you get to the end of the stage, you die. Items that restore health are few and far between, so you’re left relying on your own wits to survive rather than counting on extra hearts to drop out of enemies to replenish your health bar. If you somehow manage to make it all the way to the penultimate battle, you’ll go toe-to-toe against Dracula himself.

Many games of the 8-bit era relied on their difficulty to extend the length of time it took to complete them, and Castlevania is a notorious example of that. If you play on an emulator, make heavy use of your save states but if you play on the original hardware, may God have mercy on your soul. Regardless, it’s a must play title for any video game fan as the game’s music is iconic and the level design is great for the time. It’s one of the earliest games that managed to draw players in thanks to it’s atmosphere and challenge and it was so successful that it spawned a series of follow-up adventures across multiple generations. It’s one of the greatest games on the NES, an important piece of gaming history and a worthy challenge for even the most hardcore gamer.

Castlevania is first entry of popular old-school platformer that still recognized today among gamers. This game what is definition of challenging and hardcore platformer in 8bit era. Playing as Vampire Hunter, you have to face against supernatural enemies by using whip as main weapon and obtainable skills alongside the side scrolling gameplay by whipping the enemies and also breakable items to get power to use skills.

If its something that is really notable for me in game play is how ridiculously this game when it comes enemy intelligence because every step they know what they are doing to screw you. Even though you have life bar, every time you get hit you automatically jump and this is problematic when you are playing in platformer because in some levels without floor you are easily die because one hit.

Every stages in Castlevania have its own boss to defeat, and there are more five levels to beat. Basically this is game can be finished in two hour, but considering how difficulty the enemies and platformer are, remember to take a break when you are stuck by keep dying. In order to finish the game, if you play this game today. Its kind of that rage-quit inducing game and you need more patience in order to learn unpredictable enemies movement. So play with emulator with regular saves during the gameplay because what I can say… this is the first entry of popular game that appeals to hardcore retro gamers.

Rating : 7/10
Finished : 14/11/18