{"id":20181,"date":"2020-06-12T00:01:24","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T00:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=20181"},"modified":"2020-05-22T17:28:47","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T17:28:47","slug":"the-games-of-the-castlevania-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/12\/the-games-of-the-castlevania-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Games of the Castlevania Collection."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>So I have to admit, I\u2019ve never been a big Castlevania fan.\u00a0 So why did I get this collection?\u00a0 Well, one, it was on sale.\u00a0 Can\u2019t resist a sale.\u00a0 Plus I wouldn\u2019t have bought it full price being digital only.\u00a0 And two, I also love classic game collections period.\u00a0 And three, it has one game in the series that I do really like, and it\u2019s my favorite Castlevania game ever.\u00a0 It\u2019s also never been released in the US until now.\u00a0 Can you guess what it is?\u00a0 Well you\u2019ll just have to read on to find out!\u00a0 So let\u2019s take a look at every game on this collection!\u00a0 And let me know in the comments section what your favorite Castlevania game is.<\/p>\n

But before we get started, I\u2019ll mention some of the features in this collection.\u00a0 You can play both the US and Japanese versions of some of the games.\u00a0 That\u2019s very important for a couple of the titles, and you\u2019ll see why shortly.\u00a0 There is also a digital booklet with art and history of the games.\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised it doesn\u2019t include sheet music like the Konami Anniversary Collection: Arcade Classics booklet did, especially since Castlevania music is so beloved.\u00a0 And with that out of the way, let\u2019s take a look at each game in the collection.\u00a0 If it seems like I dust over a few of the games in the lineup, just remember that I\u2019m not a fan.<\/p>\n

Castlevania<\/strong><\/p>\n

The game that started it all on the NES.\u00a0 I remember it being very popular back then, and nearly every kid I knew had it.\u00a0 A lot of people say it was the horror themes that drew them in, but it just didn\u2019t grab me for some reason.\u00a0 Part of the reason why I didn\u2019t like it was that Simon Belmont controlled heavy and fell like a rock.\u00a0 \u201cBut Cary,\u201d you might ask, \u201cyou like Mega Man games and Mega Man falls like a rock, too.\u201d\u00a0 Well, yeah, but Mega Man games also don\u2019t expect you to avoid speedy bats and erratic medusa heads without a long range weapon either.\u00a0 Plus, it makes sense for Mega Man to control heavy, since he\u2019s a robot.\u00a0 Simon Belmont just feels like he ate a big breakfast before storming Dracula\u2019s castle.\u00a0 The Japanese version of this game lets you pick an easy mode, but I don\u2019t know what button on the PS4 controller is the NES select button, so I couldn\u2019t figure out how to pick it.\u00a0 But yeah, this game was so popular that Simon Belmont was included as a character in the Captain N Saturday morning cartoon.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it be funny if Konami included THAT version of Simon Belmont in an upcoming Castlevania game?<\/p>\n

Castlevania 2: Simon\u2019s Quest<\/strong><\/p>\n

They added some adventure elements to this sequel, like a slightly maze-like Metroid styled world, towns you could visit and people to talk to, and a day and night cycle.\u00a0 All of which were fairly innovative for the time.\u00a0 Unfortunately they weren\u2019t executed very well and cheap hits, knockbacks, and overall difficulty turned me off of this one.\u00a0 My friend and I rented this as kids and beat it, but I don\u2019t know how we did!\u00a0 I certainly don\u2019t have the patience for it now!<\/p>\n

Castlevania 3: Dracula\u2019s Curse<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the game you want to play the Japanese version of, because it added some extra sound chips and the music (especially the percussion) sounds amazing for a NES game.\u00a0 I\u2019ve also always been impressed with the graphics.\u00a0 They\u2019re so colorful and some visual effects almost look 16-bit!\u00a0 It\u2019s still a Castlevania game, though, so that\u2019s as much praise as I can give it.\u00a0 Simon Belmont, aka \u201cBig Breakfast\u201d is supposedly joined by a couple of other playable characters, but I can never get that far to see them.\u00a0 I hear one of them you can play as is Dracula\u2019s son, Alucard.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why Alucard would be fighting his own father, but I think it may have something to do with the fact that he just named him the same, except spelled his name backwards.\u00a0 But we\u2019ll talk more about Alucard later on.<\/p>\n

Super Castlevania 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

I liked the Super Nintendo so much that I was willing to rent games I normally wouldn\u2019t, just to see what they were like. Such was the case with this one. I really was impressed with the graphics and sound on this one when I rented it.\u00a0 I also liked that Simon could now use his whip to swing from hooks, and can also wave it around like crazy.\u00a0 Made it a little easier to defeat all those skeletons jumping all over the place.<\/p>\n

Castlevania: The Adventure<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hey they even added a couple of Game Boy titles on here!\u00a0 While I guess it\u2019s good for fans and it seems impressive for such an early near launch title, boy it sure does play slow!<\/p>\n

Castlevania 2: Belmont\u2019s Revenge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another Game Boy title.\u00a0 I wonder if calling it a sequel caused any confusion with the other Castlevania 2?\u00a0 Anyway, it plays a little better and you can select stages, but it\u2019s not that much of an improvement.<\/p>\n

Castlevania: Bloodlines<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the only Castlevania game on the Genesis, and you can also play it on the Genesis Mini.\u00a0 I imagine SEGA fans were thrilled to get a Castlevania game of their own.\u00a0 But aside from being slightly gorier, it\u2019s still the same old Castlevania.\u00a0 I like the graphics and sounds on the SNES game better, but I will say the visuals here are still clean and colorful, and there are some neat effects like the water in the second level.\u00a0 You can choose from two playable characters.\u00a0 One plays just like Simon Belmont, whip and all.\u00a0 The other is a guy with a more versatile spear that you can thrust up as well as side to side.\u00a0 Only cool thing about the whip dude is the game says he\u2019s from Texas!\u00a0 People from Texas are cool, don\u2019t you think?\u00a0 You just MIGHT be reading an article written by someone from Texas right now!<\/p>\n

Kid Dracula<\/strong><\/p>\n

And now for my favorite Castlevania game!\u00a0 Did you guess it?\u00a0 Once you play it, you\u2019ll say, \u201cYeah, this is definitely a \u2018Cary\u2019 game.\u201d\u00a0 But this Famicom game never came out to the US, for various reasons.\u00a0 But the US did get the Game Boy sequel\/remake.\u00a0 Technically the Game Boy game is a sequel, but they use a lot of the same levels, but mix things up a bit.\u00a0 For instance, in the NES game, the first boss you fight a baby ghost, and then it runs away and you fight the bigger daddy ghost.\u00a0 But in the Game Boy game, you fight the baby, daddy, and then a grandpa ghost!<\/p>\n

So basically, Kid Dracula is a silly Castlevania game.\u00a0 It\u2019s the Parodius of the Castlevania series.\u00a0 You play as young Alucard, who was woken up from a 1,000 year nap to protect his castle from aliens.\u00a0 I wonder how the Symphony of the Night fanboys and Alucard swooners feel about this game?\u00a0 I knew about the Game Boy title back then, but I didn\u2019t realize it was a silly Castlevania game.\u00a0 Konami didn\u2019t do too much to market it that way, and it looked like a juvenile title that teen Cary wouldn\u2019t have been interested in.\u00a0 But once I was in college and dabbled a bit in emulation, I tried the NES version that never came out over here and realized it was a Castlevania parody after seeing the first level.\u00a0 They even have a silly remix of the stage one theme from Castlevania 3!\u00a0 And really, Kid Dracula plays more like Mega Man, but maybe that\u2019s why I like it so much.<\/p>\n

So I imagine there are lots of reasons why Konami didn\u2019t bring this over to the US back then.\u00a0 It was late in the NES life and the SNES was about to come out, Nintendo limited how many games third parties could release, etc.\u00a0 But one main thing that probably kept it from coning here was content.\u00a0 Remember those baby and daddy ghosts I talked about earlier?\u00a0 In the Japanese game, they look more like they\u2019re wearing KKK hoods with a swastika on top.\u00a0 That wouldn\u2019t have gone well here.\u00a0 For the version on this collection, they took out the swastikas.\u00a0 You can play the Japanese version of this game on the collection as well, but they took those out of that as well.\u00a0 I\u2019m a bit disappointed that the Game Boy version isn\u2019t on here.\u00a0 It DID come out in the US after all, and this collection already has two other Game Boy titles on it.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n

Kid Dracula made some cameos in other Konami games.\u00a0 He\u2019s playable in a Japan only SNES Parodius game, and they even play his level one theme song in the intro parts of the stages.\u00a0 He\u2019s also a balloon in New International Track and Field on the DS.\u00a0 Too bad he\u2019s not playable in that game, but a lot of other weird Konami characters are unlockable in that, like Sparkster, Simon Belmont, Frogger, and even a character from Rumble Roses!\u00a0 And billboards on the sides say stuff like \u201cGyruss.\u201d\u00a0 Only problem is that is one game that can tear up your DS with all the screen tapping and button mashing!\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why Kid Dracula wasn\u2019t in Konami Krazy Racers on the GBA!\u00a0 He seems like a perfect fit for that one!\u00a0 But that\u2019s all I have to say about Kid Dracula.\u00a0 Definitely my favorite Castlevania game and I\u2019m glad it\u2019s on this collection.\u00a0 I wish Konami would make another Kid Dracula game.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all for this collection!\u00a0 In the comments section, let me know your favorite Castlevania games and which ones you would\u2019ve liked to have seen on this collection.\u00a0 I think they should\u2019ve put Rondo of Blood\/Dracula X and Symphony of the Night on here for fans, and I wouldn\u2019t mind taking a stab at some of the GBA ones as well.\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 -Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I have to admit, I\u2019ve never been a big Castlevania fan.\u00a0 So why did I get this collection?\u00a0 Well, one, it was on sale.\u00a0 Can\u2019t resist a sale.\u00a0 Plus I wouldn\u2019t have bought it full price being digital only.\u00a0 And two, I also love classic game collections period.\u00a0 And three, it has one game […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20181"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20183,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20181\/revisions\/20183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}