Castlevania Anniversary Collection

I just finished completing every game and getting every trophy, so I figured it was fitting to write this. Overall, this is an amazing collection of the early Castlevania games, some of which I played when I was younger with my dad, and some I played for the first time. Being a collection, I think it's only fair that they get reviewed individually:

Castlevania I
Overall Rating: 8/10
This is a great game. Just wanted to get that out of the way. While playing I really tried to contextualize this within the era of games this came out around; in doing so, this game is one of the best of its class. From the visual design, to the soundtrack, to the challenging boss encounters at the end of each level, this game really does pack quite the punch in such a unique experience. My experience playing this game really felt like a classic "hard but fair," where the game really rewards you for learning it through and through.

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
Overall Rating: 5/10
Full transparency: I played this entire game with a guide on another monitor. To me, that's the only way I would really recommend this game to another person asking if they should play it. I don't know, this game does have a lot going for it, and definitely lays some solid foundations for what the Metroidvania genre would eventually become. However, to me that's all that's interesting about this game: seeing the early glimpses of mechanics and gameplay elements that would later inspire other titles that I enjoy. The ideas are cool, but it definitely screams that 80's sequel to a popular game that is nothing like the first. The bosses are ridiculously easy, being only like 3 of them, including Dracula. Worse yet, the translation is horrible, with most townspeople straight up saying nonsense, whereas they would give general clues to progression in the original Japanese version. It's a very hard game to enjoy on its own; a walkthrough is the only way I finished this game.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Overall Rating: 9.9/10
Okay, this is by far my favorite game in this collection, and from reading other reviews and forums I know I'm not alone. It takes everything that was great about the original and dials it to 11 with an even more levels, as well as the ability to have one of three allies fight alongside you. Each character is fun to play, and each brings something new to the table to make you consider keeping them around. I will be honest, while I did find the game difficult, I really don't think it's that difficult. Most of my difficultly came from my own impatience. Once I shifted my mindset to thinking of each stage as a puzzle to be solved on how to progress, it became a lot more manageable of a game to digest given it's ruthless difficulty. The Dracula fight was a bit underwhelming however, which is why I didn't make it a true 10/10. The final phase specifically is what did it for me. Though that does not detract from the insanely enjoyable experience playing this game was. Easy recommend.

Castlevania IV
Overall Rating: 9/10
A clear runner up to my favorite, but that doesn't take away from my love of this game. I could tell this game was going to be special just from the first level, and now I'm looking on eBay for a physical copy of it. This game is just so cool! Simon received a well deserved polish, and now looks like a person, instead of just a bunch of pixels resembling a person. The movement felt a lot sharper and responsive, which made the platforming sections easier. What shined the best for me however was the visual design hands down. I don't know if it's just that 16-bit charm, but it looks so clean to me. This one for sure gave me the hardest time with the final boss, as Dracula beat my ass for hours while I tried to figure out how to beat him. I was so pressed while attempting it I actually took a break, played through all of Adventure, and then returned back to IV. This game is such an easy recommend, I would've paid the price of admission even if it was just IV.

Castlevania: The Adventure
Overall Rating: 5.5/10
As stated above, I played this while taking a breather from IV. It's only 4 levels, but man what a grueling 4 levels it is. Christopher moves so damn slow, and I know that's mainly from the limitations of the Game Boy, but man is it slow. There are no sub-weapons, which is a weird choice. The only semblance of it is once the whip is fully upgraded, it shoots a fireball out of it. This alone would normally be great and I wouldn't normally call it a negative, but I will only because I hardly got to use it; because for whatever reason when the devs were making this game, you lose the fireball ability whenever you take any form of damage. It's a really frustrating facet of the game and I don't know why it's there other than to make it arbitrarily harder, because it does come in handy in a couple moments and I wished I had it more often. It is hard to recommend, as the whole time it just felt a bit rushed, as if Konami just really wanted a Castlevania title in your hands (literally) as fast as possible.

Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge
Overall Rating: 7/10
This game kind of shocked me, because I played it right after defeating Dracula in IV, so the Adventure was very fresh in my mind. This is what a Castlevania game was meant to be like on the Game Boy. I thought it was really unique that you can pick what level you wanted to play in the first 4, rather than it just having you run through it in a predetermined order. Definitely reminds me of Mega Man in that respect. Personally, I found the hardest part to be the Soleil fight, and not the Dracula fight. Not much else to say about it, as it is also a fairly short experience.

Castlevania Bloodlines
Overall Rating: 8.5/10
This game really shocked me. I haven't heard of this one before buying this collection, and man was I missing out. Such a unique experience under an unsuspecting title. The entire time playing it I was kept in awe of how beautiful the game design was, and how varied each location was from the rest. I thought it was an interesting change to have John trotting through all of Europe, rather than just through Wallachia like previous games. Playing as John is a cool, standard experience that reminds me of playing through III with some IV elements, but then I booted up the game as Eric and the whole game was flipped on its head. You get to use a SPEAR?? Who decided that? Give them a raise immediately because it was so much fun to do the whole thing over again but with a completely different skill set. The main thing I noticed was just how much longer each stage was, with each of the 6 stages being around 8-11 levels long; a noticeable bump from previous titles. Had a great time all the way through, and was not expecting to like it as much as I did.


Kid Dracula
Overall Rating: 6/10
While I am happy that this game is included in the bundle, as it's the first time it's released in English, I wouldn't be lying if I said I wouldn't be upset if it wasn't there. I started playing it as a joke, but then I kinda just couldn't wait to be done with it. It's cute, clearly for kids, and just not made for me, which is fine. I don't know if it's something wrong with my copy, but every time there was more than 5 entities on screen (which was pretty often) the frame rate would drop pretty significantly, which only added to any frustration I had while playing. I thought the one boss that turned out to just be a game show host giving a quiz was pretty cute, definitely wasn't expecting that. Could not shake the thought of how weird it was for there to be a whole section made just for gambling for more 1ups in between levels, especially being a game for made more for children as a spin-off game.

Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been at least 30 years since my last confession. I confess that I spent about 100 dollars....American dollars....on a console controller to play a game on my PC. I know that I've committed a mortal sin against the PC gaming gods and their divine keyboard/mouse interface....but I couldn't help it father! I have recently purchased some old NES games on this Steam service on my PC and just couldn't suffer the damage I was doing to my keyboard playing these silly games from the 80s. Please accept this public confession father, for I just cannot use the keyboard/mouse combo on these games. To be specific, this collection truly broke me of my sacred duty to the keyboard/mouse combo. Between the 8-bit jumps, whips, daggers, axes, holy water, and crucifixes my keyboard/mouse is absolutely useless and as ludicrous as sunblock on Nosferatu. I beg you father, and the gaming gods to accept and reprieve my confession. Hear me father! Many gamers young and old will not understand my devotion to the sacred keyboard/mouse combo, for it provides such flexibility and button combinations that could never be matched by an inferior console controller, no matter how much any heretics may disagree, but not here! Not for this beloved Castlevania collection! Please don't allow this affront to damage my devotion and worship of the electronic personal gaming computer gaming universes. I remain a devoted disciple of the sacred discipline of the keyboard/mouse combo, but this one time....just this one time....err....please forgive me....there were other games from the gods of Konami. Dare I speak of the "Contra" shooters? They deserve to be mentioned in this confession, those amazing gifts from the gaming gods that gave us mere humble gamers so much joy, frustration, passion, and sore fingers over those many years in the turbulent decadent decade of the 80s.
In the ruins of that truly blasphemous gaming decade I must add the "Contra Collection" to this confession. Please forgive me. I just couldn't endure the damage I was doing to my keyboard playing these "primitive"," side scrolling," "8-bit," and "old school" gaming universes...please accept my humble confession and permit me to move on and pledge to commit no further sins against the PC gaming gods, AMEN....Setting my true confession aside, this collection has it's own genre, or at least half of one. The other half of the so-called "Metroidvania" is still missing. I've searched long and hard for my beloved Metroid (NES) on Steam, and as of this typing have yet to find the original war against the Metroid creatures and their pirate captors on Steam, but such is a tale for another time. For this review I shall do my best to evoke tears from my fellow elders and not bore the younger gamers to death....or at least a death without the sacred cross to protect thyself from the dreaded Dracula and his hordes of the undead. For this utmost holy collection of the Castlevania games is not only the historical partial birth of a genre for the youngsters, it is a sacred place of joy and profound holy frustration for we the elders of electronic gaming. Gamers beware, the hordes of the undead shall show thee no mercy!
Simon's Quest (Castlevania 2) is something of a bittersweet joy in my universe. I spent many an hour in my adolescent room upstairs, down the hall from my sisters, and far away from any adult disturbance trying to figure out Dracula's riddle with little success. So many hours spent and blood spilt! I played the Simon's Quest game cartridge that I permanently borrowed from my Zoroastrian friend down the street so often that my ears would demand that I mute the volume and instead turn up the radio. Older folks will remember those devices that once existed in the FM/AM configuration. In this case I would listen in on my beloved Rock 101 KLOL Houston TX circa 1991-1993 whilst attempting to navigate and solve the riddle of Simon's Quest, without the hints and guides that so many other kids had from their Nintendo Power diagrams and/or gaming magazines maps to assist them in the quest. To this day I can still here the faint sounds of Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, DIO, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and all the others somewhere amongst the 8-bit MIDI music of Simon's Quest, not to mention the commercials in between.
Dracula's Curse (Castlevania 3) came from the same Zoroastrian source and was far more direct, but just as difficult. Ray the Zoroastrian and me the Catholic boy would exchange notes in the summers of 1991-92 before we gave up and went outside to play out our boyish fantasies of blood, glory, and blasphemy. Such nostalgia is reserved for only the most superior gaming gods. Dracula's Curse gave us the same action as Simon's Quest, but simplified the choices and characters. It also didn't require maps and diagrams (or befriending some neighborhood kid that hadn't thrown away and/or lost the manual).
The original Castlevania was something that got lost in the midst of the console wars of the 90s and I have to confess that I hadn't played it until I found this collection on Steam. Player beware! While the youngsters grind away with ambitious futility, I giggle with slightly angry nostalgia and a strange sense of completion. These games are not for the casual gamer! Prepare for jumps and those floating Medusa heads! Don't forget to keep thy head above the rising waters of the sinking Greek ruins. The Gameboy games in this collection are foreign to me, but I care not for that green screen hand-held abomination. I wasn't impressed when the Gameboy was brand new and I remain the same to this day. Afterall, I was a Gamegear gamer back in the day, but that is another story. Super Castlevania 4 (SNES) was something else. The other Ray in my boyhood neighborhood (not the Zoroastrian, the white-anglo-saxon-protestant. WASP) was the one to convince his royal mother to permit me, the slightly older misfit, into the well kept and decorated Hutchinson household to play not the first SNES in the neighborhood, but certainly the most prestigious, and allow us kids an hour or 2 to play Super Castlevania 4. In those days we kids would beg our parents to let us rent actual physical games from the local movie store to play on the family TV. There were no streaming services back then, nor those awful Orwellian touch screen control devices. There's just something missing and absent whenever I click a game download. I miss the ritual of arrival, observation, selection, payment, and the ride home. We kids would be giddy with excitement on the ride home, waiting to try out a new game on the old consoles. The weekend that Ray Joseph (God rest his soul) rented Castlevania 4 from Midway Video will always be in my heart whenever I play that silly game so many years after his tragic death in Iraq....but moving on...
Time passed in my boyhood and somehow I was able to finagle a Sega Genesis from Santa Claus after much struggle. Naturally this would bring Castlevania Bloodlines right to my own doorstep. Talk about redemption! I may have been late in my entry in the 16-bit wars of my boyhood, but I arrived in style. Castlevania Bloodlines is not only one of the best Genesis games, it's a force of nature and perfect update to the survival horror Metroidvania side scrolling gaming god Valhalla created back in '87. So many adolescent memories, so much 16 bit blood and guts. Castlevania Bloodlines was the best we could hope for blood and guts on a home console back in the day. It also gave us the option of a lance over the traditional whip, which had already been mastered in Castlevania 4, These days we have survival horror and action games the likes of which couldn't have been imagined in even the most innovative adolescent mind back in the day, but the original Castlevania games will always be legendary amonst us sinners nonetheless!

This is an entire full pack of every Classic-Vania game in the series, including GB games & a translated version of Haunted Castle.

1. Castlevania (1986) - The game that started an entire franchise, you take control of Simon Belmont as he takes up the Family Heirloom, the Vampire Killer whip, & makes his way into Dracula's Castle to once again vanquish the Vampire Lord! You can find Sub-Weapons & Hearts in Candles, along with Secrets in breakable walls, all of which continued to be staples of the series for many games to come. There is a full line-up of classic Universal monsters for Boss Fights, including the likes of Medusa, Frankenstein's Monster along with Igor, & your standard Giant Bat.

I give this game a 10/10 for obvious reasons, this game is the original & is a pure piece of art.

2. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1987) - Take control of Simon Belmont once again in a rarely-seen direct sequel to the previous game. Simon has been cursed by Dracula during their previous encounter, & after spreading his remains all around the country, he now must gather the remains once again to burn them inside Dracula's Castle, otherwise known as Castlevania. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest would be the very first game to introduce early RPG & open-world elements into the series, which wouldn't be seen again until Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for PS1 in 1997. These RPG elements include, but are not limited to: Levelling up via Enemy EXP drops, picking up ammunition from Enemy drops, finding items that open new pathways for further exploration, & even discerning between good & bad advice from the local Townspeople found throughout the many villages in Wallachia.

I give this game a 9/10, I particularly love the RPG elements mixed with such an old-school game, I am ALWAYS happy to pick up Simon's Quest & highly recommend any doubters just pick up a simple guide & follow along, it will make the game a lot more fun! Or, you can dive into a TRUE old-school RPG mystery & solve everything yourself!

3. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (1989) - A prequel to the previous games, take control of Trevor Belmont, Simon's ancestor, as he returns from his family's exile to fight Dracula's freshly-unleashed minions onto Wallachia. Trevor meets up with several allies along the way while taking different branching pathways, including the Speaker, Sypha Belnades, Grant DaNasty, & Alucard, son of Dracula & future Symphony of the Night protagonist. The ending you receive is determined by which ally you finish the game with.

I give this game a 9/10, while it perfected the Classic-Vania style with as much packed in as possible, I personally find the original to be a touch more fun upon replay. Try experimenting with different endings to see what could have happened!

4. Castlevania: The Adventure (1989) - Set 100 years before the first game, Castlevania: The Adventure follows Christopher Belmont, an ancestor to Simon Belmont, who must wield his Mystic Whip to defeat Dracula's minions after Dracula swears revenge upon the Belmont Clan. The gameplay is a little more simple, being the first handheld title on the original GameBoy, but it's still that Classic-Vania style we all know & love! It's only 4 stages long, but those 4 stages are definitely going to give you some trouble!

I give this game a 6/10, while it lacks any personality in the graphics & sprite work, the classic Whip-swinging action is still intact, & you know it's Castlevania if you can destroy Candles for Hearts!

5. Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (1991) - 15 years after Castlevania: The Adventure, Count Dracula returns to kidnap Christopher Belmont's son, Soleil, to turn him into a demon and siphon his mystical powers so that he can regain human form and rebuild his castle. In this sequel, Christopher (you) will have to conquer 4 separate Castles before you can enter Castlevania itself & conquer true evil!

I also give this game a 6/10, I think the GameBoy games are a cool little side-story that add some much-needed depth to the Belmont lineage & timeline. I definitely recommend NOT skipping these! Just use your Save States & take a deep breath!

6. Super Castlevania IV (1991) - This is essentially a Definitive Edition of the original game, you're back in Simon's shoes playing through the classic setup, HOWEVER, after Level 1, the whole game is completely redesigned & suped-up in every single way! You couldn't get a better Classic-Vania experience than this game right here! Amazing music as always (every Castlevania slaps), amazing power-ups, amazing Whip-action, amazing Boss fights, amazing level design, just amazing all-around! PLAY THIS GAME!

10/10, easiest perfect 10 I've ever given a game since SOTN lol

7. Castlevania: Bloodlines (1994) - This one is set all the way in 1917. Castlevania: Bloodlines follows vampire hunters John Morris (son of Quincy Morris from the Bram Stoker novel) and his friend Eric LeCarde as they travel across Europe. Together, they must stop Dracula's niece, Elizabeth Bartley, who has orchestrated the start of World War I to gather enough human souls to resurrect Count Dracula once again. While this game doesn't contain any Belmonts, John Morris does use the Vampire Killer whip, which was given to him by the Belmont family. Good enough for me! You can also play as Eric LeCarde (Al LeCarde?) & he has a SPEAR, which is unique for Classic-Vania games, & it has pretty good reach, too. The Boss fights in this game are really awesome, as well, they will definitely have you saying out loud "Oh, that's sick!" lol.

I give this one a 9/10, I really enjoy this game, I haven't overplayed it over the years so it always feels nice & fresh when I come back to it every 10 years or so. You definitely need to experience it at least once, & you wont find it on physical cartridge!

If you are a fan of the genre at all, then you owe it to yourself to add the games that started it all to your Library! There is definitely enough value here to get this full-price, BUT it's always on sale anyways, so definitely grab it for a few bucks & play your way through some gaming history!

10/10 Overall Rating!

Just get the collection if you're a Castlevania fan and when it's on sale.
Otherwise here is what I think about each games.
Castlevania original :
Banger game
Castlevania II Simon's Quest :
Banger game if you have a guide next to you
Castlevania III Dracula's Curse :
It's so great I love it, it's in fact my favorite in this collection, but be careful : It's a very hard game.
Super Castlevania IV :
Too easy for my taste, I don't like the music either but it's just because I hate 16 bits musics in general. It's great though
Castlevania The Adventure :
It's not good, really not good.
Castlevania II : Belmont's Revenge :
It's Castlevania The Adventure but 100 times better, it's actually good, I liked it
Castlevania Bloodlines :
I liked it, it's fun, but like Super Castlevania IV I found it a bit easy and didn't liked the music, it's a good game though, really good.
Kid Dracula :
It's a parody not meant to be taken seriously, I did find it fun

Great games, but they're very hard. Get them while they're on sale instead of paying them at full price. Also good for nostalgic reasons.

This is generally just a great collection of linear platforming action games, even though the achievements don't add much. I had already beaten most of the games here years ago, but it was fun to revisit and reattempt to master them.
The first three Castlevanias are kind of essential except for maybe Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest which is horribly dated and only playable with a guide because it's overly cryptic and stupid. When you do use a guide, the game is way too easy because if you die you restart right where you died with little penalty. Castlevania 1 is "classic NES" hard, although really the only "impossible" part is the horrific fight against Death that will likely test your sanity. Castlevania 3 is the longest and most intense of the experiences on here. It's by far the hardest game in this collection, full of sadistic boss fights and horrifically unfair platforming sections. Some of the enemy movement patterns are slightly randomized, meaning you can do nothing wrong and still die. If you manage to beat it, there's an even more insane second loop that replaces medusa heads with flying skulls that attack at random. I don't know if I've ever been more frustrated at a 2D platformer, but I did manage to beat it. Also, Castlevania 3 has three side characters, one optional level and two branching paths. This means you must play through the game four times to unlock all of the achievements.
The Gameboy games aren't really as hard as people make them out to be. They involve tedious memorization and have very hard final levels, but as a whole they're not that bad, plus you can beat them without worrying about the Gameboy's batteries running out which is a huge plus. Castlevania 3 GB is missing from this collection, but it's a bad game and the developer has kind of abandoned talking about it so it's worth skipping anyway.
Then there's the "next-gen" Castlevanias, games that are dated and yet are so cool looking that they still feel cutting edge. Super Castlevania and Bloodlines both use pseudo-3D effects to create vector graphics that just look and feel impressive. Super Castlevania is my preferred game of the two, but they're both great. Super Castlevania's ambiance is top notch, especially when you get to the underground area. It brings me back to that feeling of the best SNES games: mysterious, foreboding, but also adventurous and oddly comforting. It's pure nostalgia and the controls are great, but it's also very easy and can be completed in a few hours without much of an issue.
Bloodlines, on the other hand, has a steep learning curve. The game kind of screws up by not forcing difficulty on the player, letting them choose from normal or easy and setting the lives to 1,3 or 5. Further, if you die you can use a password to continue, negating the need for lives or continues. I dislike this type of game play since it never really feels like you've "mastered" it. With that said, if you beat the game on normal you unlock a much harder "expert mode" where you take double damage and gameplay elements are changed to make things way harder. I managed to beat it on expert dying the number of times that's equivalent to setting lives to one in the settings, so if you spent a decent amount of hours mastering the game you will get better at it. You get four extra lives and there are health refills hidden on the stages, so it is still often forgiving despite the difficulty. You also want to beat this game twice (There are two characters) and it's super programmatic, meaning you can do the same thing on each playthrough with little error once you figure it out. The two characters' paths deviate slightly but it's so little that it's barely worth mentioning, and it's essentially the same game with altered controls.
Finally, there is Kid Dracula, which is technically considered a Castlevania game despite being a Megaman-style platformer. This game is surprisingly hard, especially at the end as you must beat the entire final stage including two bosses on a single life. You get lots of upgrades and there are several "high adrenaline" moments where you are jumping up platforms, riding a rail or trying to climb up while enemies attack you and the screen scrolls. It's really a gem and one of the better platform games on the NES. If you beat it the game has an ending where evil wins and there is a reference to Simon Belmont, almost suggesting "Kid Dracula" is actually Dracula from the normal Castlevania games, which is very humorous considering the tone and look of the game.
If you can handle the dated nature of the game play here this collection is essential for anyone who wants to get into Castlevania because they show the origins and evolutions of the games while just being a lot of challenging fun in general. I only dislike the "save anywhere," and record features. Saving anywhere destroys the challenge, and while I get Konami wants to make these games more casual, it simply isn't the way they were designed to be played and it totally nullifies the sense of accomplishment. Thankfully, it's optional. The record feature is really dumb because it occasionally interrupts the gameplay because the recording is "full" even though I don't even know where the game is storing this theoretical recording.

Basically a time machine with extra vampires. The games are old, hard, and will make you rage but somehow, it feels like childhood again.