"a subpar entry in the Castlevania series"

I'm a HUGE fan of the Castlevania series, so when I had the opportunity to play this, I did so. I was tremendously disappointed.

Graphics: 8/10

The graphics were pretty good for when it came out. The game looks somewhere in between NES and SNES. Imagine Castlevania 4 if it was one of the early TG16 games.

Sound: 5/10

Nothing great, nothing grating. Middle of the road.

Story: 3/10

Barely existent, but at least it's translated correctly, unlike Violence Fight, Ninja Kids or any game released by Taito or SNK in the last decade. Cliche videogame stuff. Bad guy kidnaps the girl. You have to save her.

Considering the fact the Castlevania series always had a decent story from Simon's Quest (released the same year, 1988) onward, this was disappointing. Since I've never been able to beat the game, I can't say if there's an ending or not.

Controls: 3/10

Basically the same as the first Castlevania game, except less responsive. Expect to get hit, a lot. Acceptable for NES, unacceptable for an arcade game where you die after 1 or 2 enemy hits.

Difficulty: 11/10

This is probably the hardest game ever made. Really, I'm not kidding. Even playing the "easy version" you probably can't beat the first level. After 3 continues you start at the beginning of the game.

Even this wouldn't be so bad were it not for a big problem - cheap hits and wildly unbalanced gameplay. This game isn't just hard, it's just not fair. Several enemies and some bosses have UNAVOIDABLE attacks, meaning even if you play perfectly, you will get hit. This is unacceptable.

Common enemies, ledges and other things will kill you, a lot. You can take hits on ladders and while jumping, but you can't hit enemies. Then there's the fact that shallow jumping, which wasn't a major problem in castlevania 1 and 2 is now terrible because the enemy's cheap hits will often kill you instantly. Oh and then there's the game's other platforming problems, like struggling to see the stairs.

This game makes beating the Ghosts and Goblins arcade games, Metal Slug and Contra on a single quarter look like a cakewalk by comparison.

Overrall Gameplay: -10/10

Overrall Game:: 2/10

The graphics were pretty good for when it came out and some of the character/monster models are nice, but the atrocious gameplay tanks this game. It turns a game that might have been fun with a lot of tweaking into a game that's just frustrating.

It's only worth a play or two if you're a Castlevania completist. Even then, it's not really worth much more than a passing glance because of unresponsive controls and the insane level of difficulty/cheap hits.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 01/12/05