Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3991 in Video Games
• Brand: Konami
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: Nintendo NES

Features

• Count Dracula has once again weakened the seals of his tomb, and the Belmont family is getting anxious
• Choose between 2 brave vampire-slaying characters in this crusade against the forces of evil
• Search castles filled with dark corners, winding staircases, and other gloomy places
• 28 different areas to explore and 4 different special items to fight with
• For 2 players

From the Manufacturer
A dark shadow is spreading over the N64. Count Dracula has once again weakened the seals of his tomb, and the Belmont family is getting anxious.

In the latest crusade against the forces of evil, players can choose between two brave vampire-slaying characters. Young Reinhardt Schneider, like his predecessors in the celebrated vampire-hunting Belmont family, will rely primarily on his whip. The other character is Carrie Fernandez, a young woman skilled in the ways of magic and spell-casting. Both are on the hunt for the dreaded Dracula and his devoted legions of vampires. You play a game all the way through with the character you've chosen, concluding with his or her own ending. Each character has an individual route to travel, and to see all of the areas you will have to complete the game using both characters.

The passage of time and, especially, the fall of night, play a prominent role in the game. Players will have to search castles filled with dark corners, winding staircases, and other gloomy places. Daytime is the right time for exploring, but be on the lookout for vampires lurking in the shadows.

Once the sun goes down, though, you should exercise extreme caution. When night falls, more creatures come out to play, and they become more aggressive as well. Some tasks are impossible to perform unless it is the correct time of day. A clock will allow players to calculate the time and plan their explorations accordingly.

Konami has planted many cinematic sequences throughout the game. These scenes are surprisingly creepy, and may make you decide not to pick up your controller at night. Enemy characters are designed to terrify, ranging from the traditional horde of skeletons to half-woman, half-spider mutants. There are some gruesome bosses lurking in the darkness, as well. You will have to defeat Dracula in three different time periods, but don't expect the passage of time to improve his disposition.

Reinhardt and Carrie will both have analog control, with different animation sequences for walking, jogging, and running. Reinhardt's whip works on a targeting system. When gruesome enemies are threatening, a green crosshair appears on the screen. If an enemy crawls, slithers, or slides within range of the whip, the target lets you know by turning red. The target automatically hovers over nearby enemies, so once it turns red you are guaranteed of a successful strike.

Castlevania has 28 different areas to explore and four different special items at your disposal to fight the forces of evil. An eerie soundtrack tops off the package, creating a satisfying game that takes you on a unique adventure through spooky surroundings.

Customer Reviews

VAMPIRE KILLER!!! THE ORIGINAL IS STILL THE BEST
Here is where it all started. You, Simon Belmont, must journey into the heart of Castlevania to destroy Dracula once and for all. Well, the original is still the best!

STORY: 5/5. Great story! Go in. Kill all who oppose you. Very simple and easy to understand.

GRAPHICS: 5/5. Incredible! Remember folks, this was the NES. When this came out, these graphics were top-notch. Sure, they made some better graphics for the NES later on, but this was when the Nintendo had very few titles to choose from. Coolest Graphics: Death and Dracula.

MUSIC: 5/5. The music is one area where this game really shines. It starts out good at the beginning with the classic "Vampire Killer" track. Each level has its own music and it is all good. One 8-bit tune from anywhere in this game kicks "Harmony of Dissonance"'s butt anyday.

HERO: 5/5. Here we had a guy with a relatively normal name: Simon. I mean come on, this is a hero we could RELATE to. This was no wimp like some of the other Belmonts have turned out to be.

PLAY CONTROL: 5/5. I am so sick of all these CHUMPS complaining, "Wahhh, wahhh, there's no midair jump control! Wahhh, wahhh, the controls are sluggish..." To all of you GIRLIE MEN, I say to you, "Get a life!" You know what? Sorry people, but midair jump control does not exist in real life. Once you leave the ground, you really don't have much say in what happens next until you hit the ground. And the controls in this game are tight. They are straight to the point. Left goes left. Right goes right. B does a weapon. B+Up does a special weapon. A jumps. Up and Down go up and down stairs. What's not to love about simple controls that are economical and make sense? Nowadays you have to have a freakin' college degree to figure out what all the buttons do on the controllers we've got now.

STYLE: 5/5. The mood and style of this game are killer. Who wouldn't want to crawl around a creepy castle and whack a few bats with a whip? That's just good wholesome fun right there. And who wouldn't want to hit a giant head over and over? That's great stress relief. The mood of this game is just right. It is about as scary as games like that got back then.

GAMEPLAY: 5/5. The gameplay is absolutely great. There was nothing else like it at the time. It created a new style of play all it's own, and the games that followed and copied it such as Ninja Gaiden really shined.

CHALLENGE: 5/5. Let's be blunt here. This game is difficult. It will not be beaten on your first try. But all of you WIMPS and CRYBABIES out there who to complain about that need to take your stupid complaints somewhere else. Hey, we used to spend $40 to $50 bucks on these games, remember? If you can beat the stupid thing in 2 hours, that would have been a total waste of money. Plus, the game is not THAT hard after all. I've beaten it, and I'm not the only one. The enemies all follow a definite pattern. The question is, do you have the patience to learn the patterns and earn that sweet taste of 8-bit victory in all its glory?

FUN FACTOR: 5/5. This game rocks. This is the best game of all time. It is the best game ever created. There were no cooler games before this one, and there have been no cooler games since. And after seeing all the CRAP coming out these days, I believe that no one will ever create a cooler game. But this is more than just a game. It is a way of life. It is a gift from God to all mankind.

HOW TO BEAT IT:

The game is not that hard to beat. If you can get to the bosses, here's how to beat them:

1. GIANT BLOOD-SUCKING BAT. The first one's a pushover. Just grab the axe and whack him. Any 5-year old can beat this one.

2. BUTT-UGLY MEDUSA HEAD. Not too hard either. Just use the watch to stop her and then hit her with your whip. Or of you've got the holy water, use that.

3. DOUBLE MUMMIES - THE LOST DISCO DANCERS. By this time, you may have noticed that the game has started to become a little more difficult. Not to fear, have confidence, young Belmont! For remember, you are a POWER PLAYER, an elite member of the NINTENDO FUN CLUB. It's not hard to beat the mummies, even without a weapon. Here's what to do. There's a pork chop hidden in the room. Whatever you do, DON'T get it. You need that block to stand on. First, jump into the room. Walk to the center to activate the mummies. Then immediately walk back to the left and jump on top of the blocks where they can't hit you. Wait for the mummy underneath you to walk to your right. When they are both a relatively safe distance away, stand on top of the lowest block (the one with the pork chop), kneel, and start hitting them. If they come close, jump back, wait again, and repeat.

4. FRONK-EN-STEEN AND EAGER IGOR. If you have gotten this far, then you are doing pretty good. You've got what it takes to beat this game, my man. The best way to beat Frankenstein is to use the holy water. You've only got one chance in the game to get it. It's located on the starting level. Just get it, hold onto it, and concentrate on getting to the boss without dying. If you get there, stand on the lower right ledge and throw it over and over. It will kill him quick.

5. DEATH (DON'T FEAR THE REAPER). This is one of the hardest bosses of all time for any game. The main thing to do is learn how to get to the boss with a full meter of health. It may seem really hard but it's not. On the last screen, you face axmen and flying medusas. All you have to do is stand up straight and keep whipping. Whip nonstop. You must hit every single ax that is thrown at you. If you are in the center of the screen, the medusas will just fly right over your head. The thing to do is once you hit one or once one passes, move forward a few steps. Take it very SLOW at first. Don't try to move quickly or kill the axman. Just slowly move, bit by bit, after each head goes by. After a few minutes of this, you will be past the axmen with full health. To beat Death, you MUST have a weapon. If you can pick up the ax at the beginning and survive all the way to the end, that is a good weapon. The best weapon is the holy cross. To really use it, you've got to be lucky enough to pick up a double or triple shot. Be careful not to pick up any daggers or watches that the flying medusas drop. Once you get to Death, stand in the middle. Jump up in the air and throw the cross, then move to the left to dodge the sickles. Immediately throw another cross or use your whip to hit the sickles you dodged. Concentrate on hitting sickles before they hit you; it is your only defense. And keep that cross moving! Put the maximum possible out at once. It is your weapon that is going to kill Death.

6. THE COUNT, PART I. This guy is tough. Just 4 hits and you're dead. It will take lots of practice to beat him. Luckily, if you've made it this far, your continues will start you right at the last boss. Not that that helps that much. Dracula is difficult. You have to learn to time your jumps just right. Look for him to solidify. Wait for an instant. Then jump up and hit him in the head. If you timed it right then his bullets will pass over your head harmlessly. Concentrate on moving out of the way because he constantly wants to warp right on top of you. Try to learn to beat him without losing any health, because you are definitely going to need it for Part II. Also, don't use the cross. Get the holy water. Don't use it on him now. You will need it later.

7. THE COUNT, PART II. Is it over? Is he dead yet? Nope. At this point, you will probably feel like smashing your controller into your TV screen. Resist the urge. Just throw some holy water on him to slow him down, and rapidly jump and whip him in the face. He is hard to dodge, so you will probably take a few hits. Keep wearing him down, and you will win!!!

8. THE SECOND QUEST. If you thought the game was hard before, you ain't seen nothing yet baby!

Konami, PLEASE release a Castlevania collection disc for Gamecube. Include Castlevania 1, 2, and 3 from the NES, and part 4 from the Super Nintendo. PLEASE!!! You owe it to your loyal fans!!!

Ain't nothing rare about CV except its quality.
Rarely do we see a title like Castlevania. Only a handful of titles from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras really capture a simple idea so well.

So is it old? Most certainly, and you can find a cartridge for a few bucks. Do the graphics look terrible? No--to the contrary, they're consistently done and support the game's mood perfectly. Is the music awful? Not a bit--the first level music is considered the best composition in video gaming by scores.

Castlevania did get lucky, having the equivalent of a planetary alignment in the console gaming world. Nintendo had decided to port its Famicom Disk System games over to the U.S. with next year's launch of the NES (1987 at this point) and would give them a more reliable format with the cartridge (instead of those intentionally cheap disks--in Japan the philosophy was to make the game affordable, but here they decided to avoid major repair headaches and went cartridge only). Here as in Japan, Castlevania was the first really popular third party game for the system on disk or cart.

The fact of the matter is that Castlevania appears in no form until late in 1986, about a year after Ghosts n' Goblins hit the arcades. Even the venerable style of Makaimura (G n'G again) is too focused on silly details than Castlevania (which is saying quite a bit). Whereas Makaimura mixes up the game mechanic and throws in a lot of unpredictable and mysterious elements, Castlevania's seeming staid nature in fact borrows a lot from it. Instead of replacing the main weapon, a major headache for G n'G players, an inadvertent weapon pickup is manageable. Running to catch a flying key in G n'G is replaced in CV by the famous orb. It's a matter of taste, but many people are attracted to CV over other games simply because it seems more manageable and less intent on stealing your (phantasmic) quarters, which G n'G seems to aim for even in its handheld incarnations.

That's only half of the story--less than half, as many other titles were ported over to the system. Castlevania was developed at a time when you really had no extra space or processing power for silly, complex game mechanics or terribly immersive storylines, and is restricted even further than many later games utilizing more storage space as Castlevania is stuck to the size of the original 128K disk (64K per side, that is). Castlevania is nearly the archetype of the 2D action game with a focus on evenly timed, choreographed gameplay that emphasizes strategy and feels nothing like button mashing. Is this due to its restrictions or in spite of it? It is hard to say.

Unlike a legion of forgettable NES titles, Castlevania is truly the indispensable title.

Introducing Simon Belmont, Vampire Hunter
The classic video game that brought a whole new nightmare to video games. You are Simon Belmont, vampire hunter, your quest is to go through five very challenging levels to finally kill Dracula! Armed with a whip, and other weapons like daggers, axes, boomerangs, you set out into Dracula's castle facing nightmarish monsters and mythical beasts like Medusa, Frankenstien, a pair of mummies, and the Grim Reaper. This game has some fantastic graphics for Nintendo, and even its time! The challenge is incredible, however it is rather mindless, because you only have a whip and one other weapon at a time. You must use strategy and patience to defeat the five bosses, or they will destroy you quite quickly.