Castlevania Anniversary Collection is one great package of retro games that I am happy I was able to play through for the first time in my life. I will not lie; I am horrible at these games. I have pretty much cheesed the entire game with save scumming since there were no way in hells I’d ever finish any of them without it. Here are my rankings for each game with a little explanation as to why I like or did not like them:
1. Castlevania: Bloodlines – out of all of the games, this one clicked the most with me with its refined controls, good enemy and level design, great music and honest to God wonderful music. The difficulty was just right for me, where I didn’t feel like drinking Sulfuric Acid like with some other of the games. The two playable characters were really fun and provided enough variety for me to have a blast with them (Eric is goated, don’t @ me).
The bosses are definitely the highlight of this game, they are really well thought out and designed to have different approaches at beating them and in my opinion are the best bosses in this collection.
2. Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse – out of the classic trilogy, this one easily was the best one for me. I really liked the level design; it felt like the most thought through out of the three. The art is the best in the trilogy, the music is top notch and the story progression is very fun. Being able to find three different companions to switch between (being Sypha, Alucard and Grant Danasty), was a really fun way to do it and added some much needed variety to the games. The difficulty was just right for me and really cemented this game as the best out of the trilogy.
3. Castlevania 2: Belmont’s Revenge – this game caught me off guard with how much I had enjoyed it. Especially considering that the game before it was Castlevania: Adventure and I completely abhorred that game, more on that later. So, expectations were extremely low going into Belmont’s Revenge. However, I was surprised to find out that the game was a genuine leap in quality compared to the prior title. The game had improved controls, level design that was leagues better than the predecessor and had a lot of unique puzzles/enemies that were specific to this game in the series. I had a lot of fun with this game, which was something I didn’t expect. Out of all of these games, I could see myself replaying this one in the future the most.
4. Super Castlevania IV – this game is a remake/reboot of the original game. All in all, it’s a great game with really good gameplay and level variety. It was the first game to introduce 8 way directional whip shot (that I didn’t make as much use of due to me being stuck with the muscle memory of the trilogy). The music, the background art, enemy behavior and bosses were all great, the game pushed the difficulty quite a bit, but not as much as the original.
My biggest personal negative with this game was the pixel art for the models. I’m not sure why, but it constantly looked wrong to me. Maybe it was due to me having played the first three games and getting used to that style, but the enemies (and Simon) looked really off. And there was some lost visual clarity that some of the enemies had with blending in with the backgrounds sometimes. It’s a great game, but wasn’t my favourite by a wide margin.
5. Kid Dracula – this game lingers between being really good and very annoying at the same time. It has a really cute art style and some very refreshing gameplay for the series. It did not feel as hardcore as any of the other games in terms of difficulty and for the most part felt well balanced level wise.
The only real negatives I can list are that the music was very forgettable for a series that has a banger OST all throughout, especially in this collection. Some parts of the levels felt very random and sometimes unfair with how the enemies would spawn. The bosses are also very weird. They’re nothing to write home about, but it was quite often unclear in what way the developers wanted you to beat them with. Oh, and the minigames were ass.
6. Castlevania – from this point onward, I might anger some old heads by how I place the first and the second game.
I really had a hard time choosing between this or the second game for which I like, or more specifically, disliked more. Castlevania, genuinely felt, like one of the most miserable experiences I had in any game in a long time. One of the levels was so infuriating that it made me put the game down for 2 years before returning and trying again. It has some really unfair level design with very tight timing for jumps, enemies and environment hazards. Some of the levels were genuinely an exercise in patience for me with how the developers had set everything up.
It really did give the feeling of an arcade game that is trying to swallow all of your coins so that you keep playing and playing and I imagine many of gamers back then lost their minds over the difficulty. I don’t ever want to play this game again; I’d rather drink Sulfuric Acid then play through this again. For the positives: the music is iconic and the art is great. That’s all you’re getting from me.
7. Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest – as mentioned previously, this one was hard to place, due to me not being a big fan of the first game. In some aspects, this game is better than the first, but in others it is… something else entirely.
To start off, this game was more of an adventure game than a platforming nightmare like the first game. It had a lot of RPG elements to it and that part I really enjoyed. The art and music were both fantastic. However, this is where things start falling apart for me. The way you progress through the game is absolutely clinically insane. There was literally no way for me to finish this game without using a guide to progress. Some of the progression based things were hidden behind completely indistinct blocks that you had to throw holy water at to break through them and find a secret path to an NPC that’d give you an item so that you can progress. One other time, once in possession of an item needed, you had to crouch on a very specific block, for a specific period of time to unlock a secret platform that will let you progress. How do you figure this stuff out outside of a guide? Through extremely cryptic hints that the city folk will give you, that genuinely did not help me at all. Maybe I’m dumb, I don’t know, but it really made me wonder how the players back then figured it all out. My only guess it was through a lot of free time and boredom, and maybe the occasional game manual or magazine publication.
However, the thing that gives me PTSD every time I think of this game is the fight with Death. That boss fight alone had taken so many hours from me that I’ll never get back and has been forever cemented to me as one of the hardest Metroidvania bosses I’ve ever had to square up against. Not through complexity of the boss, but through sheer bullshiet and unfairness of it. If the first game was Sulfuric Acid, this one is the 12 gauge.
8. Castlevania Adventure – the last game in this collection that I genuinely have not much to say about. It feels the worst to play out of all of the games, has some really awkward and precise platforming, the level design felt extremely poorly thought out, the enemies were uninspired and lame, the art was ok at best bad at worst. The worst of all though, it felt like such a slog to play through, it’s extremely slow and just not fun.
While, I do not have as many negative memories of it as the first two games, at least I made some memories with them compared to this unremarkable piece of software.
That concludes my review for Castlevania Anniversary Collection, despite my moaning regarding some of the games, I still had a great time experiencing these historic games from our past. The grade for this collection I’d give an 8/10.
I will be looking forward to playing more games in the franchise. Thank you for reading!
