Castlevania III Review
Set in the year 1476, Castlevania III casts you as Trevor Belmont, ancestor of the protagonist from the first two Castlevania games. Dracula is set to cloak the world in darkness, and it’s your job to jump and thwap (I don’t know what verbs are associated with whips) your way through Dracula’s castle and the surrounding countryside, ultimately slaying Dracula himself and putting an end to his dark reign. Throughout your journey you can recruit other characters to help you in your quest, allowing you to swap between Trevor and whoever your current companion is (you may only have one at a time). You’ll even get a different ending depending on which companion you finish the game with.
The other major change to the Castlevania formula is the ability to select what route you take through the game. At several points in the game, the player will be given a choice of two levels to take. Both this and the additional player characters add replayability, but I’m not sure the core gameplay is worth revisiting the game after beating once.
A quick check of review scores on Wikipedia indicates that the game was well received at launch, and it seems to rank fairly high on many more recent Top NES Games lists, but from the perspective of someone playing it in the year 2020, who wasn’t even alive when the game initially launched… it’s not that great. By no means is it a bad video game, it just feels like a set of tasks one must complete before putting the game down. There is some satisfaction to be found in mastering a challenging stage or boss, but that is quickly taken away by the stiffness of the controls, sameness of the levels, or the fact that the new features don’t really do much to elevate the game over the original.
I unlocked Alucard in my playthrough, and after experimenting with him a few times, shelved him for the rest of my time with the game. At this point I’ve already spent two games learning to effectively pilot a Belmont, and Alucard’s additional abilities didn’t seem to be worth the competency trade-off. Similarly, the player is not provided adequate information for the route options to be interesting decision points. Occasionally one (or both) of the options will have a skull icon somewhere along the path, but the game does nothing to indicate whether that means a boss, an unlockable character, or something else (I’m still not sure what they meant - Google has failed me).
As far as NES games go, the game looks good! It uses its limited color pallet and low resolution well, and the bosses are well designed. The music, as with the previous games, is generally enjoyable, with one or two stand-out tracks that have made it to my VGM playlist.
If you’re someone that has a great affinity for older games of this type (the previous Castlevania’s, Mega Man, etc.) then this game will offer you a lot, between the different playable characters and different routes through the game (I also understand there is a sort of New Game+ system, though I did not engage with it). Otherwise, you’ll find a competent but ultimately forgettable retro experience. I’m glad I played this game for historical reasons, but I find it unlikely I will ever revisit it.
Played via the Castlevania Anniversary Collection on Steam.
