Nocturnowl
Member
Continuing my journey through gamings illustrious past to play the gems of years gone by I finally decided that Id take the plunge on what is considered to be one of the NESs most challenging titles.
after playing this game and seeing the terrors why would I want to go to Dracula's home town?!
Now as a brief history of my Actionvania experience Ive beaten SC4, Rondo of Blood and Adventure Rebirth. Even with those games under my belt I was always sceptical about heading back to the NES entries with fear of outdated game mechanics and unjust difficulty being potential threats against enjoyment, fortunately for the most part that isnt the case at all and its a game that stands the test of time tremendously well.
So we kick off with Trevor Belmont unfurling his cape in as classy fashion as possible with 8 bit limitations and thus begins a journey that would remind me of what both the marriage of difficulty and satisfaction can add to the experience. My first path took me through the woods filled with trippy light shows, murderous Owls (YES!) and some spiffy music, I detoured off on the alternative path that led me to my new ally for this quest, Sypha/Syfa of inconsistent naming. From here you could say the real Castlevania 3 begins and Dracula brings the titular curse into full swing.
Mad Forest has Mad Owls, makes sense.
I feel I should state now that this game was the one that made me truly get why there are detractors of the SC4 multi directional super whip, your precision in attacks are vital here but this isnt necessarily bad at all, most enemies are smartly placed leading to a flow in attacking and progressing, when you know a stage (something that tends to occur after many deaths) you can leap through them whipping foes quite handily, even the fixed jump which was probably the main mechanic I balked at the idea of turned out to be a pretty enjoyable twist on platforming that makes you commit to your decisions, though there were a few deaths in the beginning that had me leaping of cliffs trying to evade attacks because Id forgotten about the fixed jump. Most shocking of all is just how useful sub weapons are here, the daggers of all things are actually pretty potent, I mean that says it all really and the game gives you more than enough hearts that use of the sub weapons doesnt feel too restricted.
So Sypha and me sailed across the sea, clambered up the scrolling tower with a display of power, across the aqueduct of poor construct and then burst through Dracs front door, the warnings I ignore.
Yes things had been going quite smoothly for the most part, sure there had been a few tricky moments but nothing had been too tough so far. So of course to my horror the game threw at me one of the most progress halting stages Ive played in years, Stage 9 revealed itself and the gauntlet was thrown down with such force that mere mortals would be broken under its challenges.
Get used to seeing this place, but hey at least the music was awesome
Okay to start off this lovely stage you go on a nature walk in what I assume must be the castle gardens where chimera things keep dropping in the ever dreaded flea man, fortunately you can easily kill them as they drop in, if the game is feeling charitable there will be no problem here but sometimes the never ending assault co-ordinates a pincer movement where two drop in at the same time on opposite sides of the screen, one flea man will manage to begin his hop happy horror, and when one gets away with it the rest all drop in while youre occupied and all of a sudden Trevor is swarmed by the hyperactive little gits leading to some potentially brutal damage or humiliating death. Section 2 gives us some basic instant death crushing shenanigans which isnt very tricky aside from when frustration caused me to do silly things like leap into the side of some spikes, yeah I dont know how that works either, as for why I'd be frustrated well here it comes, this is THE room to end all rooms.
The third section is a bunch of stairs that host the bone skeleton heads that spit fire and the winged skeleton/gargoyle fellows who are like Medusa heads except that they actually try and follow your movement, on paper it seems simple, youve done something like this before but my god the timing of the enemies at one jump in particular is enough to cause a trip to the asylum. Theres a gap that you must jump over while flying jerk flies towards you and skull face spits fire, if you ever miss a vital whip attack by a small margin this is where it happens, if you get hit you will gravitate towards the nearest pit, assuming you pass the jump there is another similar one above and the fact that there is so little margin for error here means that this pit feasted on my lives, eventually I found Syphas fire attack to be the best bet at thwarting the jump of immeasurable terror but damn is this room greasy and the worst part is its not even past the halfway point of the stage itself.
Sure he looks like a chump but this is the face of a stone cold killer, smug bastard
So I eventually trek on, another room that slowly scrolls up to consume time but its easily manageable,and youre rewarded with good old tasty brick meat and another checkpoint, gee thanks game, its almost like you care, now lets just walk through this door and ARGGH FLIPPING CROWS, MERMEN, RUSHING WATER, WHHHHY?! Hey at least they put the checkpoint here, except this is the last checkpoint before the boss meaning failure there means a journey back across the crows deadly domain (this shouldnt even be a sentence, theyre crows and Trevor eliminates the supernatural for a living, I bet theyre related to the ninja gaiden hawks, freaking super birds are all the rage in the NES days) and after that the more manageable path of medusa heads where you must learn to not jump. When making it across this area and to the boss you need to be damn near perfect because you need that health since the doppelganger boss will chase you down and ruin your life by dealing the ultimate blow of sending you back to the flea man fields from long ago aboard the swift carriage of game over, probably while chortling to itself and kicking puppies, its just that evil. This stage was something else, my desire to best it was so burnt into my very soul that I decided last night to give sleep the night off until I was done, I was going to beat Draculas dastardly designs and by Belmont I did and felt gaming related elation that I hadnt felt in ages, victory was sweet.
Too bad theres still another stage, one that starts off with the super crows practically dive bombing you from the word go because even Drac knows who the best minions really are, fortunately its a much easier stage, unfortunately Dracula likes to punt you back halfway across it when you lose to him forcing you to retread the sick and twisted pendulum room where bats become the most ominous creatures since well crows I guess. Dracula himself isnt actually too bad even with three forms and the first was probably the hardest to figure out, standing close to him pretty much gets you trapped in an inescapable fire wall, take a leisurely walk across his throne room however and he doesnt know what to do with his fire columns and scatters them in the most ineffective way possible, must have bad eyesight. Still it took numerous attempts but damn it I did it, it doesnt matter that the ending is basic, this was the most fulfilling ending Ive had in a while based on the victory alone and age be damned because Draculas Curse is still fine gaming to this day.
Dracula's final form looks oddly bird like, actually this would explain so much about the super Crows and killer Owls that do his bidding
Curiosity got the better of me so I went back through, this time picking up Grant who is infinitely more enjoyable to use than Sypha and journeyed down the other route which was hiding two pretty brutal stages, one being the stage with the rising water which doesn't even stop for bosses and the other that has the slow and pretty awful bit with the blocks that fall for like 5 minutes so you can get to the top of the room and the stage itself is bloody long!
So in conclusion I would say that this is one of the best NES games Ive played and maybe my favourite of the classic Castlevania gameplay, Ill have to give the others another shake to be sure, its a shame that this style of CV has been absent for so long, I love my Metroidvanias and even had some fun with LoS but now Im wanting another one like this, Mirror of Fate unfortunately does not look to fill this void.
after playing this game and seeing the terrors why would I want to go to Dracula's home town?!
Now as a brief history of my Actionvania experience Ive beaten SC4, Rondo of Blood and Adventure Rebirth. Even with those games under my belt I was always sceptical about heading back to the NES entries with fear of outdated game mechanics and unjust difficulty being potential threats against enjoyment, fortunately for the most part that isnt the case at all and its a game that stands the test of time tremendously well.
So we kick off with Trevor Belmont unfurling his cape in as classy fashion as possible with 8 bit limitations and thus begins a journey that would remind me of what both the marriage of difficulty and satisfaction can add to the experience. My first path took me through the woods filled with trippy light shows, murderous Owls (YES!) and some spiffy music, I detoured off on the alternative path that led me to my new ally for this quest, Sypha/Syfa of inconsistent naming. From here you could say the real Castlevania 3 begins and Dracula brings the titular curse into full swing.
Mad Forest has Mad Owls, makes sense.
I feel I should state now that this game was the one that made me truly get why there are detractors of the SC4 multi directional super whip, your precision in attacks are vital here but this isnt necessarily bad at all, most enemies are smartly placed leading to a flow in attacking and progressing, when you know a stage (something that tends to occur after many deaths) you can leap through them whipping foes quite handily, even the fixed jump which was probably the main mechanic I balked at the idea of turned out to be a pretty enjoyable twist on platforming that makes you commit to your decisions, though there were a few deaths in the beginning that had me leaping of cliffs trying to evade attacks because Id forgotten about the fixed jump. Most shocking of all is just how useful sub weapons are here, the daggers of all things are actually pretty potent, I mean that says it all really and the game gives you more than enough hearts that use of the sub weapons doesnt feel too restricted.
So Sypha and me sailed across the sea, clambered up the scrolling tower with a display of power, across the aqueduct of poor construct and then burst through Dracs front door, the warnings I ignore.
Yes things had been going quite smoothly for the most part, sure there had been a few tricky moments but nothing had been too tough so far. So of course to my horror the game threw at me one of the most progress halting stages Ive played in years, Stage 9 revealed itself and the gauntlet was thrown down with such force that mere mortals would be broken under its challenges.
Get used to seeing this place, but hey at least the music was awesome
Okay to start off this lovely stage you go on a nature walk in what I assume must be the castle gardens where chimera things keep dropping in the ever dreaded flea man, fortunately you can easily kill them as they drop in, if the game is feeling charitable there will be no problem here but sometimes the never ending assault co-ordinates a pincer movement where two drop in at the same time on opposite sides of the screen, one flea man will manage to begin his hop happy horror, and when one gets away with it the rest all drop in while youre occupied and all of a sudden Trevor is swarmed by the hyperactive little gits leading to some potentially brutal damage or humiliating death. Section 2 gives us some basic instant death crushing shenanigans which isnt very tricky aside from when frustration caused me to do silly things like leap into the side of some spikes, yeah I dont know how that works either, as for why I'd be frustrated well here it comes, this is THE room to end all rooms.
The third section is a bunch of stairs that host the bone skeleton heads that spit fire and the winged skeleton/gargoyle fellows who are like Medusa heads except that they actually try and follow your movement, on paper it seems simple, youve done something like this before but my god the timing of the enemies at one jump in particular is enough to cause a trip to the asylum. Theres a gap that you must jump over while flying jerk flies towards you and skull face spits fire, if you ever miss a vital whip attack by a small margin this is where it happens, if you get hit you will gravitate towards the nearest pit, assuming you pass the jump there is another similar one above and the fact that there is so little margin for error here means that this pit feasted on my lives, eventually I found Syphas fire attack to be the best bet at thwarting the jump of immeasurable terror but damn is this room greasy and the worst part is its not even past the halfway point of the stage itself.
Sure he looks like a chump but this is the face of a stone cold killer, smug bastard
So I eventually trek on, another room that slowly scrolls up to consume time but its easily manageable,and youre rewarded with good old tasty brick meat and another checkpoint, gee thanks game, its almost like you care, now lets just walk through this door and ARGGH FLIPPING CROWS, MERMEN, RUSHING WATER, WHHHHY?! Hey at least they put the checkpoint here, except this is the last checkpoint before the boss meaning failure there means a journey back across the crows deadly domain (this shouldnt even be a sentence, theyre crows and Trevor eliminates the supernatural for a living, I bet theyre related to the ninja gaiden hawks, freaking super birds are all the rage in the NES days) and after that the more manageable path of medusa heads where you must learn to not jump. When making it across this area and to the boss you need to be damn near perfect because you need that health since the doppelganger boss will chase you down and ruin your life by dealing the ultimate blow of sending you back to the flea man fields from long ago aboard the swift carriage of game over, probably while chortling to itself and kicking puppies, its just that evil. This stage was something else, my desire to best it was so burnt into my very soul that I decided last night to give sleep the night off until I was done, I was going to beat Draculas dastardly designs and by Belmont I did and felt gaming related elation that I hadnt felt in ages, victory was sweet.
Too bad theres still another stage, one that starts off with the super crows practically dive bombing you from the word go because even Drac knows who the best minions really are, fortunately its a much easier stage, unfortunately Dracula likes to punt you back halfway across it when you lose to him forcing you to retread the sick and twisted pendulum room where bats become the most ominous creatures since well crows I guess. Dracula himself isnt actually too bad even with three forms and the first was probably the hardest to figure out, standing close to him pretty much gets you trapped in an inescapable fire wall, take a leisurely walk across his throne room however and he doesnt know what to do with his fire columns and scatters them in the most ineffective way possible, must have bad eyesight. Still it took numerous attempts but damn it I did it, it doesnt matter that the ending is basic, this was the most fulfilling ending Ive had in a while based on the victory alone and age be damned because Draculas Curse is still fine gaming to this day.
Dracula's final form looks oddly bird like, actually this would explain so much about the super Crows and killer Owls that do his bidding
Curiosity got the better of me so I went back through, this time picking up Grant who is infinitely more enjoyable to use than Sypha and journeyed down the other route which was hiding two pretty brutal stages, one being the stage with the rising water which doesn't even stop for bosses and the other that has the slow and pretty awful bit with the blocks that fall for like 5 minutes so you can get to the top of the room and the stage itself is bloody long!
So in conclusion I would say that this is one of the best NES games Ive played and maybe my favourite of the classic Castlevania gameplay, Ill have to give the others another shake to be sure, its a shame that this style of CV has been absent for so long, I love my Metroidvanias and even had some fun with LoS but now Im wanting another one like this, Mirror of Fate unfortunately does not look to fill this void.
original mode or bust, even if I like Simon's new sprites. 
