Castlevania started on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and I'm playing through the third entry in the series, called Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. This old school platformer has several things going for it: great graphics, memorable music, and several distinctive levels. It also suffers from some of the worst qualities of the NES: passwords instead of saves (battery-backed saves were possible in 1989), limited controls (other games feel less rigidly unnatural), and some unimaginative repetitive jumping/hacking sections (hey, look, another graveyard just like the last one!). Given the negatives, I am guessing that if you didn't grow up with this game, you're probably not going to get much enjoyment out of Castlevania III. At the very least, play it in an emulator which supports saving the game state; this will lower the frustration level as you work through some areas that require careful timing amongst a plethora of cheap hits by enemies.

The story is the same old Castlevania schtick: battle through Dracula's castle (and in this case the surrounding area) to kill his henchmen and finally take down the big neck-biter himself. Along the way, beat the crap out of some candles to collect hearts, which you expend to fire a subweapon. Also collect moneybags, although the only gain there is for a score; you can't spend the money like you can in later Castlevania games. Incidentally, someone actually wrote a very nice FAQ on Castlevania III just this year. You can find it linked from this page on GameFAQs; it's the one by "Needle". If you're going to write an FAQ a whole 14 years after the game was released, you're probably doing it because you care, and I respect that.

What is amazing to me is how little this series has changed. The selection of enemies is nearly the same as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, for example. Got skeletons? Yep. Leaping men? Check. Zombies? Roger. Medusa heads, eyeballs, and bone pillars? Yop, natch, of course. Not only that, but the subweapon system of dagger, axe, holy water, and cross is virtually the same as the other games in the series. In a way, I suppose it's like what I've heard about Shakespeare: each new generation (of game developers, in this case) takes the same characters, story and adds its own interpretation. Oh well, it's been a winning formula for several games.

Which is all to say, this whole series isn't very original. Sure, there are variations on a theme, and the graphics are purty, and the music often is a bit better than it deserves to be, but you have to want to hop-and-hack your way through the same levels over and over again to enjoy it more than once. I guess there's something entrancing about the hop-and-hack that I find utterly soothing.