A true classic blast from the past hits Nintendo's Virtual Console store and is available for Wii U and 3DS.
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse was originally released in the US in 1990 and took the franchise more back to formula, post the much maligned Simon's Quest. Castlevania II is the now infamous sequel which took the franchise away from its linear side scrolling monster whipping roots and added in way too much stuff that confused and frustrated fans and angered the fuck out of a certain critic on YouTube.
Instead of the lead protagonist from the Original 1987 classic Simon, this time you take up arms against the un-dead hordes of Dracula as Trevor Belmont. Now this is a prequel to the original and set two generations prior to Simon's quest (not to be confused with the game Simon's Quest) to take down the Prince of Darkness.
Through out the game you can find new playable characters with a variety of abilities. These characters much like in Super Mario 2 each give you certain advantages depending on the situation.
You can play as Grant and climb walls and change direction mid jump, Sypha who attacks with magic and then there's Alucard, who...spoiler alert...is Dracula's Son! You can tell he's Dracula's son since his name is Dracula spelled backwards, it's an obvious clue just as my dads name is Evets. Also he changes into a bat so pretty obvious either way.
In true Castlevania fashion hearts act as special item ammo and upgrades come from candle holders throughout each level.
The classic special attack weapons boomerang cross, holy water, time stop are back, however this time you can power-up to use more than one at any one time. The classic enemies also arise once more from there tombs to haunt you on your seemingly impossible mission.
The level designs include a lot of innovation over the original and require some serious timing and skill, not only to remain on the moving platforms while avoiding the fall through stairs, oh no that's no where near enough, you will also be bombarded from every direction by bats, fireballs and Medusa heads! Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is now not only infamous for being a cryptic pain in the arse game but also having one of the easiest bosses in video game history, well no such luck with Dracula's Curse! Dracula this time out takes on three forms and all of these varying incarnations must be defeated on one life bar!
This is the only Castlevania game I didn't own when I had my Nintendo. I have since added the cart to my collection in the past couple of years and can safely say that if you do not have space to horde tonnes of grey plastic NES carts then I highly recommend you get this on the Virtual Console. Out now for Nintendo Virtual Console Wii U and 3DS so check it out!
Steve Rewind!!!
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/index.html
Article Published:
2014-06-26 09:52:33