To say that the NES isn’t short on platformers is an understatement. The Super Mario Bros raised the bar and games have since failed to capture the imagination. Until now. Diverting from Nintendo’s usually cuddly, kid-
The castle’s backdrops are dark and well detailed, although some of the sprites clearly suffer due to the NES’s small colour palette (3-
It works, and I’m really not going to argue with Konami (although a kick-
Level design is good, you can take a few different routes through certain levels and travelling up and down stairs gives a hint of 3-
This also brings me to the few negative points, and there really are only a few. Enemies blur if there’s more than one on the screen, which is often. The collision detection is poor in places, noticeably some of the boss fights and when using the throwing axes (yup!).
Even though the learning curve seems well judged, the huge life meter and abundance of power ups seems a tad too generous at times. Certain parts of levels look like solid floor where in fact they’re holes. Couple this with getting hit in the air by rapidly flying bats makes certain sections very frustrating. But all of these can be overlooked because Castlevania is a fun platformer which captures that Transylvania feeling and that definitely has more positives than negatives.
