NES Classics Castlevania -- for GBA

Today just happens to mark the 5 month anniversary of the time I finally defeated the game known as Castlevania on the GBA.  As of this moment, I have still only beaten it once on normal mode.  It's that hard.  Despite this obvious quill in the backside, the game is still playable.  It's actually one of my favorites in my collection.  The gameplay, the setting, the enemies, and the music are in my opinion, it's best features.

The main plot of the game is that you're a warrior named Simon Belmont, who's taken it upon himself to find and destroy Dracula, who's hidden away deep inside his castle.  You have to make your way through 6 stages, defeating different iconic monsters to get deeper inside, all while gaining different power ups, weapons, and a twitch finger reaction. 

Simon's main weapon is the whip, which can be upgraded from the short leather whip to the spiked ball and chain, and finally to the Vampire killer (a longer version of the spiked ball and chain).  You can only aim to the left and right.  They are found by whipping candles. 


Other items include hearts, which are gotten from enemies or candles that are scattered through out the stage.  Instead of replenishing life (as gaming intuition would tell you) they act as ammo for your subweapons. Sacks of money earn you points, food replenishes your health, gold potion acts as invincibility (sort of like the Star in Super Mario but without the enemy dieing when coming in contact with you), and the Holy cross kills everything on the screen. 


The Subweapons are found when attacking the candles and they're all unique.  The Axe attacks in a arcing pattern while the Dagger goes forward and goes relatively quickly.  The Boomerang cross goes... in a boomerang pattern.  Holy water travels a short distance ahead of Simon when thrown and on contact with the ground or enemy, bursts into a small ember that continually damages the enemy while freezing it (overpowered).  The Stop watch is the most expensive subweapon, costing a whopping 5 hearts to activate while the rest only need one. It freezes every enemy and obstacle on the screen (like collapsing spikes and moving platforms).  The double and triple shot allows a player to use a subweapon in a rapid fire fashion with the roman numeral corresponding to the amount of weapons you throw at one time.  

The enemies are fantastic.  There are ghouls, ghosts, vampire bats, hunchbacks, skeletons, hawks, dark knights, bone dragons, medusa heads, you name it.  The bosses just get better with a killer bat, mummies, Frankenstein's monster and Igor, Medusa, the Grim Reaper, and Dracula.  Does anybody see a recurring theme here?  Their design was just great.  Keep in mind that this game was competing with stuff like Super Mario.  Compared to that, Konami did a hell of a job at recreating some of the silver ages best horror monsters on the 8-bit NES.  

Now on to the gameplay.  The control... isn't the greatest in the world.  When Simon jumps, he commits to where he's going.  You cannot change the trajectory and he always moves a set distance.  At least he can attack while jumping.  Simon also moves at the same exact pace throughout the whole game; a slow trudge.  The primary problem in this game is that when you're hit, it often meant you were going to die.  Not because of being hit too many times, no, you had a lifebar.  The problem was that whenever you got hit, you flew back.  And this normally resulted in you falling into a pit or water, where no lifebar can save you. Then there are the annoying enemies like the medusa heads.  I swear, I never look at a wavy line in a positive manner anymore... Ok, I feel like I'm just beating a dead horse now.  Better leave this kind of bashing to the experts.  

The music on the other hand is top notch.  Each stage had it's own unique theme that matched very well with the setting.  Would you believe that a game that came out in 1986 (a year after Super Mario Bros) managed to simulate music that was reminiscent of 80's rock and classical piano?  Just listen. 

In conclusion, this game is incredibly difficult (nigh impossible on hard mode) and should be played by only the most avid of retro-gamers.  Back in the day, this type of hand eye coordination exercise was common, unlike now.  In fact, the version that I'm playing is the easy version.  On the original NES, there was no save function to my knowledge, which meant that losing all your lives put you right back at the start.  This meant you would have to beat the game in one sitting.  The game is short (it can be beaten within 20 minutes with the luck of God and the reflexes of a crack snorting cheetah) but it can take days just to get past one level due to it's difficulty.  If you're an ordinary gamer, and not even kinda-sort of a casual gamer, then I suggest you do not at any point; pick up this game and play it.  I will not be held responsible for any broken consoles, furniture, and sleepless nights.