This review was published on 08/04/2013.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is a side-scrolling platform game developed by Konami and originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990. It's the third and final Castlevania game released for the NES. The Castlevania series is known for its Gothic atmosphere and horror inspired themes, and Castlevania III continues that trend. Castlevania started out as linear action games with an emphasis on challenging gameplay, but Castlevania II took the controversial risk of shifting the focus to nonlinear exploration. It didn't pay off, because a lot of people hate Castlevania II. Castlevania III returns to the way things once were by going back to a more focused, linear design, though it still retains certain nonlinear elements. Of the NES trilogy, Castlevania III tends to get overlooked a lot. It's an oddity, because Castlevania III is arguably the best Castlevania on the NES. Castlevania III came out a bit later in the NES' lifespan, so it was a far more sophisticated game than the first two Castlevanias, especially in the graphics department. This combined with top notch game design makes Castlevania III an excellent title for the NES. It should be noted, however, that the music in the North American version is vastly inferior to the Japanese game, as it lacks a special chip that was within the cartridge of the Japanese release. The game is still good regardless of that, but it's worth mentioning.

This game is actually the prequel to the original Castlevania, as it's set a few centuries before the events of the first game in the series. A lot of people assumed that the protagonist of this adventure was the same as the last two, because video games were just like that at the time. Considering the time lapse, there's no way for that to be possible. Despite that, this game's story really isn't that different from the typical Castlevania tale. Count Dracula is ravaging Europe with his legion of monsters, some undead, some not. A family of vampire hunters known as the Belmont Clan have prepared for such dark matters by passing down a legendary whip called the Vampire Killer from generation to generation. The current wielder of this sacred whip is Trevor C. Belmont, and he is the protagonist of Castlevania III. Trevor is Simon's distant ancestor, Simon Belmont being the protagonist of the first Castlevania game. Initially, the Belmont family was exiled by the Church, because they possessed powers beyond that of normal humans. However, due to the threat of Dracula's evil forces, the Church decided to seek out the help of Trevor Belmont. It's now up to Trevor to put a stop to the Count's wanton destruction with his trusty whip. As always, it's the setting that sets Castlevania apart from other games.

You start the game out controlling Trevor Belmont, who slays foes with his mighty whip, in addition to being able to pick up different sub-weapons. These sub-weapons use hearts as ammunition, and they include throwing daggers, axes, holy water, and the almighty boomerang cross. Trevor controls identically to Simon from the first two Castlevania games, so there's not much to say regarding him. However, Castlevania III does introduce a few new things, one of them being multiple playable characters. Throughout your journey, you'll sometimes get the choice to have another character join your crew. These characters include Sypha Belnades, a sorceress that uses spells instead of sub-weapons, Grant Danasty, a pirate that climbs walls, and Alucard, Dracula's rebellious son. For those wondering, Alucard is Dracula spelled backwards. That's really clever, right? Once you have them on your team, you can switch between characters at any time. The bad thing is that you can only have two characters with you at a time, and one of them has to be Trevor. If you already have a character with you when presented with the choice of getting a new member, you'll have to make a trade. In any case, the unique abilities of the different characters are extremely useful, and they greatly enhance the game's appeal. It's always possible to complete every section of the game as regular ol' Trevor, but why would you want to do that? There are far more interesting options available.

Even though Castlevania III is a mostly linear experience, it does have some nonlinearity to it. Most stages are simple jaunts from point A to B, but you'll sometimes find yourself at a crossroads. You can pick where you want to go next whenever encountering these crossroads, which will determine what level or set of levels you'll be tackling. There aren't too many crossroads in the game, but you do have to beat the game multiple times if you want to see all the levels. On top of that, different characters can join you depending on the path you pick. What this means is that Castlevania III has a lot of replay value, but it still retains the focused stage design of the original game. It's the best of both worlds. The only issue with this is that some of the bosses and stages get recycled in some of the paths. For example, this game has an awesome clock tower stage. What's not awesome about this stage is that you have to go through it twice, the second time in reverse. The reason for this is because you get Grant from the clock tower, and the developers want you to test out Grant's abilities as you backtrack through the clock tower. While the intention might have been noble, this reeks of laziness, since it's the same stage all over again. Still, it's not a huge deal, and the game doesn't do stuff like this too often. This is worth forgiving because the game has a large amount of stages, all of which are well designed.

Castlevania III really ought to get more recognition. People only ever seem to talk about the first game and Super Castlevania IV when referring to the pre-PS1 era Castlevania games, despite Castlevania III being in the same league as them. Maybe it's related to Castlevania III being a late era NES release, which might have caused a lot of people to miss out on it. That's a shame, because the game is wonderful. Castlevania III has impressive graphics for the NES, stupendous music, awesome level design, lots of replay value due to the multiple paths, and multiple playable characters. There isn't a whole lot that Castlevania III gets wrong, other than it recycling some content here and there. Castlevania III is, like the first Castlevania, one of the best games on the NES. Try it out sometime, especially if you like the original Castlevania.

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