Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse (13 hours, NES)

I noticed a couple of things right away about Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. First, for at least the first three-quarters of the game, the difficulty is significantly lower than in Castlevania I—which is a welcome change. At one point, I was so busy whipping chandeliers that I ran out of time, but aside from that, the early portion of the game is a cakewalk. However, the final quarter ramps up the challenge considerably. In fact, I had to stop playing after the second-to-last boss and watch a longplay of the final level and boss fight just to see the ending—that’s how demanding it becomes, even with a rewind feature.

Another observation came when I booted up Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 while playing Castlevania III. Bloodstained is designed to emulate the look and feel of classic NES Castlevania but with a modern twist, and its input latency is noticeably improved. I eventually realized that Castlevania III isn’t so much about honing your skills as it is about timing your button presses nearly a full second before the action appears on screen. In its day, that delay was the norm, but by modern standards, it’s unnacceptable.

The early stages of the game are delightfully easy. The graphics are among the best in the series (even though I haven’t played Castlevania II), and the music is catchy. It doesn’t take long before the game introduces its first of many branching pathways—a design element still common in modern 2D games. Additionally, you can choose from three secondary characters, which is a neat feature that was remarkably ahead of its time in 1989. Although there’s a loose narrative, as with most NES games, it’s not particularly engaging.

The game is not without its frustrations. The most annoying enemies are a tie between the dinosaur skull statues that fire fireballs and the Medusa heads, both of which are challenging to hit and avoid. Similarly, the segments where you’re climbing stairs while dodging enemies can test your patience—even with the rewind feature, they require deep breaths!

The graphics and music are as good as you can expect from an NES title. What’s truly impressive is how modern games like Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 manage to emulate that retro look and feel with much better input responsiveness. I doubt anyone is this dedicated, but if someone could remake Castlevania III in widescreen with significantly improved input latency (while retaining the rewind feature), I’d gladly bump the score up one point—after all, it worked for the Mega Man Legacy Collection!

On the topic of remakes, I own the Castlevania Legacy Collection on the Epic Games Store, so I don’t feel especially guilty about playing this game on an emulator. The only drawback of these Legacy Collections is the lack of a rewind feature, which is critical for an old man with slow reflexes like mine to complete a challenging game like this.

Although the Castlevania series is more or less dead in the year of our lord 2025, it’s still fun to revisit classics like this. Even though I deduct one point for the spike in difficulty near the end and the input latency (which isn’t really the developer’s fault), you can tell that Konami was firing on all cylinders with this title. Notably ahead of its time were the branching pathways that increased replayability and the inclusion of multiple playable characters. While the legacy of Castlevania lives on through Metroidvania games—perhaps my favorite video game genre—there’s something uniquely appealing about the simplicity of Castlevania III. You manage your health, whip baddies and chandeliers, fight bosses, and keep an eye on the clock. Rinse and repeat.

The real tragedy is that the series had to move on to the Super Nintendo. I would have loved to see more Castlevania games on the NES.

4/5