by Russell Cohrs

Created on: October 02, 2009

The granddaddy of the franchise, Castlevania was a top selling game by the Konami company released for the original NES.

Story

Welcome to the Hell House. You are Simon Belmont, part of a famous line of vampire slayers. It is your task to enter Dracula's Home of Castlevania in order to defeat the dark lord and his minions. You are accompanied only by your trusty whip, dubbed Vampire Killer, and your hatred for the forces of evil. As an interesting aside, in the games credits, Simon Belmont is listed as Simon Belmondo, and all the bosses are a parody of past horror movie performers.

Gameplay

Castlevania is a side scrolling action platformer. You control Simon, and can move in basic directions, jump, and attack with a whip and special items. Your whip is upgradeable to three levels, extending and doing more damage with the upgrades. Special items include holy water, a knife, an axe, a stopwatch, and a boomerang, and use hearts, which are gathered by smashing candles spread throughout the stages. You can also upgrade your special weapon to throw two or three at a time.

There are six stages in Castlevania, which are divided into large areas separated by doors. If you die, the doors act as a continue point, but if you lose all your lives, you must continue from the beginning of the stage. There's a map in between stages that shows your progress through Dracula's castle. The game is fairly easy until around the fourth stage, where it starts to become daunting.

Each stage has numerous smaller enemies and features a boss, modeled after familiar ghouls. The bosses include a Giant Bat, Medusa, Mummies, The Creature, Death, and finally the dark lord Dracula. While the game is tough enough for many, once you beat it, you can take on a harder version featuring more and faster enemies.

Graphics

The graphics of this game are mostly dark, as you would expect inside a nightmarish castle. The enemies are distinct and vary in size, and backgrounds are pretty to look at and help immerse the gamer in this surreal nightmare. One exceptional graphic is the moon shining on Dracula's tower ominously. The different areas in the game are all well defined, although the layout can get pretty familiar quickly. The Count really looks suave, until he transforms into a horrible bat monster.

Sound

Castlevania has terrific music. Its main theme has been reused in many later sequels. Most of the music is very melodic, usually faster paced stuff that's a cross between classical, metal, and the

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