Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse (NES) Playthrough

A playthrough of Konami's 1990 action game for the NES, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse.

This video shows four playthroughs of the game, each with a different partner and ending:

1:47 Sypha path
57:44 Grant path
1:59:32 Alucard path
2:51:56 Trevor goes it alone

Konami’s final chapter of the classic NES Castlevania trilogy, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse is a true 8-bit technological tour de force, constantly pushing the hardware to - and occasionally beyond - its limits. Staged as a prequel to the first two games, Trevor Belmont, ancestor of Simon, takes up the mantle of humanity’s last hope as he battles Count Dracula's army of darkness.

Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse eschews the adventure/RPG trappings of Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest and returns the series to its traditional platforming roots, but with some significant improvements. The new branching level structure allows you to forge your own path through the Transylvanian countryside, and on each of these paths, Trevor can meet and join forces with one of three unique playable characters.

These include Grant Danusty, a ghost pirate who can scale walls; Adrian “Alucard” Tepes, Dracula’s shape-shifting son who would later go on to star in Symphony of the Night; and Syfa Velnumdes, a spell-casting priestess and vampire hunter.

These characters lend the game a ton of replay value. There is no way to see all of the game’s fifteen stages in one play through, and the new characters offer entirely new ways to experience the stages and all come with their own endings. Castlevania III also marks the addition of vertical auto-scrolling stages, which add an unexpected layer of tension to the proceedings. Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse offers up a challenge that far surpasses that of the original, though it feels a lot more modern because of its improvements.

The sound composition is as impeccable as ever, though the sound quality is notably worse than Simon’s Quest’s (   • Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (NES) P...  ). The Japanese Famicom version (   • Akumajou Densetsu (Famicom) Playthrou...  ) utilized one of Konami’s custom memory management chips, the VRC6, designed to improve the base system’s graphic and sound capabilities. Akumajou Densetsu, Castlevania III‘s Japanese counterpart, sounds absolutely incredible, with several additional sound channels that allowed for a more complex layering of instrumentation, but the NES version’s tunes sound a bit weak and flat in comparison.

The graphics are fantastic: the enemy sprites are detailed and the backdrops are extremely atmospheric and offer impressive sights by NES standards (the clock tower’s whirring gears, the stained glass windows, and some of the larger bosses come to mind). But, like the sound, this version's graphics suffer a few downgrades due to the lack of the VRC6, and Nintendo’s famous censorship policies led to a further few minor alterations. (Topless statues? Gasp Think of the children!)

The host of innovative improvements make this a must play for any fan of the series. It's not quite on par with its Japanese counterpart, but even still, the spot-on controls, challenging gameplay, and impressive graphics cement Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse‘s place as one of the true classics of the 8-bit era.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!