Trevor scales a building with large stained glass windows that most certainly isn’t a church. Brand new enemies await to swarm and frustrate you. This game is familiar, but make no mistake, this is no retread. These are no longer some of your more imposing threats. Medusa Heads and Hunchbacks are reintroduced right away. Along with the familiar controls, the first block (BLK) as each level is now called, includes the return of Chicken-a-Blocks (Pork Chops, if you must be technical) and even the useless Cross, being mostly useless once again. Trevor controls exactly like Simon, so if you’ve played the original game, you should feel right at home with his slow methodical stride and inability to change direction mid-jump. It gives you new game dynamics, amped-up difficulty, branching paths, swappable companions, and multiple endings. Luckily Dracula’s Curse doesn’t rest on its laurels (no matter how much they enhance the aroma of soup) by simply giving you more of that basic Castlevania goodness. The score and health bar information return to the top of the screen, and sub-weapons are back, and once again usable by acquiring hearts from candles and enemies. The animation is much more akin to that game with the crumbling architecture and Gothic themes. That was just like the first game! And yes, this game brings back a lot of aesthetic things you’ll remember from the original. You know this game is going to be difficult because they use the gritty Capcom font they used for their brutal games. I love discovering little things like that. Inside the candles in Castlevania III‘s first screen you get: 2 Whip upgrades, 2 hearts, and a Knife. Inside the candles in Castlevania‘s first screen you get: 2 Whip upgrades, 2 hearts, and a Knife. However, something about this seemed very familiar to me, so I went back and played the original game’s opening moments and was surprised to find my theory was correct. This is very familiar to the original game where you were given a moment to catch your bearings and get used to whipping, jumping and collecting items. In the very first screen of gameplay in Dracula’s Curse, you walk a short path and whip candles on your way to a doorway. You see subtle little callbacks to the original that you may not have noticed as a kid playing these games so far apart. Replaying these games one after another really is an interesting experience. PICTURE IT, WALLACHIA, 1476 Trevor Belmont kneels before what can only be a giant boomerang. That’s right yawl, it’s time for a prequel. Only our protagonist’s name is Trevor Belmont because this story takes place before the original game. I’ve relived the childhood joy of killing Dracula in Castlevania, and I relived the childhood agony of trying to make heads or tails out of Simon’s Quest, and now, here we are my companions, ready for Simon Belmont’s swan song on the NES.
This week, we continue through the Castlevania series as the NES trilogy of games concludes with the exceptional, brutally difficult Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. Mainlining is our new featured series where we run through all the mainline games in a series one article per game, in often different and original ways.