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Classic NES Series: Castlevania
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  opened by paleface at 14:19:23 11/20/04  
  last modified by paleface at 12:27:18 03/05/24  
  paleface [sys=GBA; cat=Platformer; reg=NA]
           
Classic NES Series: Castlevania
 
Hey, it's a nostalgia purchase that didn't actually steer me wrong. In fact I think I'll probably end up enjoying the game more now than I did back as a kid on the NES. I'm not sure why that would be, really, although it has the nostalgia factor in its favor now.
 
Anyway its remarkable how well I remember certain stages, like level 7--well, except that I didn't remember the zombie monkey things, oops! I also didn't really remember other things, like how tight the jump is, or how nasty some of those hits can be when they knock you off the platform and to your doom.
 
Or how nice the graphics and sound are. Sure they're emulated 8-bit and all here, but they were well design back in the day, and good design holds up. Your little whip-toting vampire hunter looks like a bad-ass, monsters look appropriately monsterish and creepy, the backgrounds, though seemingly all garish shades of blue or red, still manage to convey a vivid sort of gothic feeling, and the music, well, the music is just pretty nice any way you slice it.
 
It's got a weird save/continue scheme--or mostly lack thereof, rather. You'd have thought that the game could by now have saved your highest stage progress so you could continue there, and on the main menu it looks like it has done this after you're all dead, since it has an option for continuing at the last stage you were on. Shut the power off and boot back up, however, and that option is reset to level 1. What's the point then?
 
Oh wait, okay it looks like if you press both shoulder buttons together, you get a special menu with a "Save" option. If you use that, supposedly it will hard-save your progress up to the last boss. Well, that's better than nothin'. Sort of an unintuitive interface.
    
downloads:
· bataxe.jpg
· medusa.jpg
· monkey.jpg
· red.jpg
 
references:
· Castlevania (NES)
· Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA)
· Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA)
· Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (GBA)
· Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (PS2)
· Demoniac Castle Dracula X: Metempsychosis of Blood (PCCD)

 
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