Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse is Sheer Brutality

Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, Simon’s Quest.

Castlevania 1 is among my favorite games of all time. It’s simple, it’s brutal, and it’s a ton of fun. If you’ve never played it, I’d highly recommend giving it a shot. It deserves its place among the greats of retro gaming.

Castlevania 2 is… not any of that. But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about an actually good game: Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse.

Y’all know the drill. Dracula threatens to destroy all of Europe and it’s up to a Belmont to stop him. This time around, the job falls to Trevor. But this time, the vampire slayer is not alone. Go kill the bad guy. Classic NES style storytelling.

That being said, they do try to put a stronger focus on narrative this time around. Character’s have dialogue with each other, albeit briefly, and there’s even an opening text scroll explaining the plot. But… how do I put this politely… it feels like it was written by a four year old. I can’t tell if it was a translation thing or if it was written by programmers who were trained in writing code instead of dialogue. Either way, the end result is hilarious.

Visually speaking, this game is a mixed bag. For the time, it’s incredibly impressive! The sprites, the environments, the animations, they’re all jaw-dropping for a game from 1989! That being said, some of the color pallets make certain stages a pain on the eyes. Whoever decided the clock tower would be pink and teal really had it out for our eyeballs.

It goes without saying that the music is incredible. Castlevania is one of those series where the OST is always a gem. Hidenori Maezawa, Jun Funahashi, Yukie Morimoto, and Yoshinori Sasaki all managed to squeeze every last bit of potential out of the limited sounds they had to work with. Their work is genuinely incredible, even today.

Now, onto the main event: the game itself. At its core, Castlevania 3 plays exactly like Castlevania 1. You’ve got your whip and a sub weapon. With only those and your skills, you need to work your way through a brutal gauntlet of enemies and platforming to reach the next boss. Rinse and repeat for each stage until Dracula is slain and Europe is saved.

Castlevania 3 takes that foundation and expands upon it. For one, there are now four playable characters you can recruit throughout your journey. Trevor is your standard Belmont, Sypha has powerful magic, Alucard can shoot fire and turn into a bat, and Grant can climb walls and his greater jump control. Trevor can be accompanied by one of these other three characters, and they share the same health and heart supply. Depending on which combination you bring with you to the end, you’ll get a different ending.

Oh, but the player choice doesn’t end there. Between certain stages, you’ll be offered branching paths to select different levels. This adds a great bit of replayability to the game, as you have a chance to go a completely different route through Dracula’s castle each time.

But it wouldn’t be Castlevania if it were that simple. Oh, no.

This game is hard. I don’t mean ‘I died a few times, so it’s like Dark Souls’ hard. It’s more like ‘the bike tunnel from Battletoads’ hard.

Dracula’s Curse does not fuck around. Right from level one, it throws its most brutal enemies at you. The infamous knock-back from the first game is back and just as deadly as ever. This is not a game for the faint of heart. It will kill you. Again and again and again. Castlevania 1 is as innocent as a Kirby game by comparison!

I normally enjoy a fair challenge. Unfortunately, Dracula’s Curse is anything but fair. You’ll need just as much luck as skill to complete a casual playthrough.

Or you could just look up passwords online and skip straight to Dracula. But you didn’t hear that from me.

Unfair though it may be, I still love Castlevania 3. It’s a fantastic sequel to the first game, expanding on it in every single way. If you’ve got a saint’s patience and don’t mind getting your teeth kicked in a few times, I’d highly recommend you give it a shot.

But if you’re more a fan of winning, I’d recommend Super Castlevania IV. Alas, that’s a conversation for another day.