Castlemania 3 Review

Nowadays, ‘dirty millennials’ are called entitled, which is usually followed by the line “back in my day we didn’t have…”. It is true that in today’s games we can expect a minimum set of features. Options menus and subtitles are expected in every game where appropriate, however, this was not always the case. Back in ‘the good ol days’ spoken audio lines were never conceived, along with 3D graphics in a home console. What we can find looking back, are some early iterations of modern-day normalities, such as a save system, inferior ports, and in an odd way, a difficulty setting.

Castlevania 3 was released originally on 1989 in Japan, followed by a 1990 release in the US, and 1992 in the UK. This review will be using the Japanese version with an English language patch, using RetroArch (Emux NES). It was played using an Xbox One controller, as it was the most compatible with the emulation software. One thing that was striking when booting up the game and continued to impress throughout was the music.

The Famicom hardware is slightly different to its western release, it has access to 2 extra pins on the cartridge that were not available on its international releases. For developers, this is a dream, as it could be used to improve the game in subtle ways. In this instance, the expansion pins were used to add the “Konami VRC6”. This is an alternative sound chip, which can use 2 pulse waves that have a shorter duty cycle (leading to shorter note lengths) and a Sawtooth wave. This is used to a great effect, as the Famicom version sounds more layered, with more grit and depth to it. Most will prefer it over the western release, though other appreciate the simpler version on the NES.

The game consists of side-scrolling and a small amount of platforming. Combat is done using your characters attack, this starts off as a whip, but by saving character can turn into a sword, throwing daggers just to name a few. At the end of each level is a boss, each boss is varied with some crawling up the walls, whilst others will be able to dash towards you. They do however all have a way to easily kill them with a specific strategy, especially if you have some of the optional characters with you.

Something that was initially quite odd is that the international releases are considered easier. At the time of release making each copy have a difficulty setting would take up too much memory. Back then there was a consensus that the western market was not as adept at games as the Japanese market. As such, the Japanese release was made more difficult than the western version. This can be dividing, as those that are looking for a challenge prefer the more difficult Japanese release. Others may want either an easier experience or may find some of the deaths to be cheap and irritating.

Image from the 3rd level

This game uses a mostly dark colour pallet; however, it loves to use red and green highlights, in stark contrast to the background. Whilst it does not use a vibrant colour pallet, it’s a part of the limitations of the system, such as sprites only being allowed to use 4 colours.

Image from level one, only Simon Belmots Foot is visible whilst the rest of the sprite is not rendered due to technical limitations

Whilst the colour pallet may be considered minimalistic, so the player can focus on the moving elements of the game, the level design is varied and surprisingly intricate, with some levels containing moving platforms which need to be jumped across. This can lead to one issue with hardware limitations of the console. The NES could only render 8 sprites on the same horizontal plane. if there are more than it can handle, one or more of the sprites wouldn't render until the next frame, which will then cause a different sprite to not render. This causes them to flicker almost uncontrollably, which can best be seen with the doors, as walking through them will make your character almost invisible at times.

The password screen for unlocking the beginning of Clockwork (level 2)

Something that was a bit infuriating, is finishing a play session, as you would always have to grab a little piece of paper, a pen, and record the on screen symbols down so you can continue from the same point.

Whilst this does mean you can bring your save from one cartridge to another, it means that if the paper is lost, the save goes with it. This does have one advantage, and it’s that you can google, or find a magazine with the level you want and simply enter it in to any console and pick it up immediately. This can be fantastic for those that either don’t have the time to play the game fully or find a particular level difficult. This is a scenario that was fixed with cheats, and then microtransactions, which has left a bitter taste in the mouth of modern gamers.

Sometimes the game can feature moments of ‘how on earth could I have known that?’ with the slightly destructible terrain. These items can range from extra hearts, all the way up to a fully replenished health bar.

Overall the game stands up to the test of time being firm but fair, which is fantastic for those that want that type of challenge, as the market seems to think the only person who can release a difficult platformer is Mario. The only thing I can say has dated the game are the technical issues, and the life system that seems out of place amongst modern games.