We've included a couple of spin-offs and oddities, too, but that's enough talk. Wipe away those bloody tears, and let's go kill us some vampires.
Available on Switch as part of Konami's Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection, Haunted Castle is an odd duck. Made exclusively for arcades, it occupies a strange middle ground somewhere between homage, parody, and port and sees Simon Belmont (with a sprite which stands a quarter of the screen tall) rescuing his new bride from the villainous clutches of the Count. The music is by far the best thing about it, but despite looking superficially 'better' than the original, it's an unfairly punishing arcade experience designed to empty your pockets of shiny coins. As such, there's not much fun to be had and ultimately it's not a patch on the original.
If you're interested you can check out the differences between the original NES game, its VS Castlevania arcade port, and Haunted Castle in this video.
The first entry for the series on the Game Boy, and one best left forgotten, Castlevania: The Adventure is a turgid, terminally sluggish approximation of the series' classic gameplay with repetitive, bland level design. Given the host console's limitations, you might be tempted to give it the benefit of the doubt, but the sequel would show what the platform was truly capable of and expose this for the horror that it is. Do yourself a favour, skip this, and start your portable Castlevania adventure with Belmont's Revenge.
Set in the Castlevania universe, this 2008 Wii game brought all your favourite characters and monsters together for a momentously rubbish one-on-one 3D fighter with awful controls and questionable character designs. Castlevania Judgment was panned by critics and fans alike on release and time has done nothing to heal the wounds this one inflicted. A miserable pile, indeed.
Another game we have fond memories of, despite itself. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is obtuse, infuriating, and downright cheap at times... but it's got a killer soundtrack and admirably changes things up by building on the original game with new ideas, including a day/night cycle and an intriguing (if ultimately frustrating) non-linear approach. Back in the day it would have been an absolute nightmare, and we totally understand people who lose patience with it, but if you're not opposed to sitting down with a walkthrough and making use of save states, we'd recommend giving Simon's Quest another chance. The soundtrack alone makes it worth a playthrough.
Available in the West for the first time via the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, Konami even went to the trouble of localising the Famicom original for us. It's a fun little 8-bit adventure which serves as a fantastic palate cleanser between the epic quests populating the rest of this list. As great as they are, sometimes you need a break from all that samey vampire killing, and Kid Dracula provides a dose of levity amongst all the monsters and bloody tears.
A flawed stab at a polygonal 3D Castlevania, this isn't 'bad' as much as 'crushingly average'. Launching several years into the N64's cycle in 1999, players expected better from a 3D game at the dawning of the new millennium. Camera issues were a perennial problem for games of the era, but the best Castlevania titles have always been characterised by tight controls and Castlevania (yes, it eschewed the '64' colloquially appended to its title) simply wasn't up to snuff. We respect it — from afar — but this one's probably best left in the crypt.
Without knowing that this was the third Castlevania for Game Boy, you could be forgiven for thinking this was the second game before Konami perfected things with Belmont's Revenge. But no, Castlevania Legends was a late release for the ageing console (1997 in Japan, 1998 in the West) — the third and final entry and a less than auspicious farewell to Nintendo's 8-bit handheld. Following the release of the towering Symphony of the Night on PlayStation would have been an unenviable task, to be sure, but even taking into account the platform's inherent limitations this is an intense disappointment. With poor animation, lacklustre sprite work, and equally unimpressive level design, it's hard to believe that this came a whopping seven years after its fantastic predecessor.
Simply put, it wasn't good enough at the time, and despite being a sought-after collector's item these days, it's only got worse with age. It's available on Switch as part of a Nintendo Switch Online subscription now, but we wouldn't. Avoid.
Known as Vampire's Kiss in the EU, Castlevania: Dracula X is a Super NES remake of the PC Engine original Rondo of Blood, and it doesn't stand up to comparison with the game on which it is based, although it's certainly not bad taken in isolation. It offers solid, old-school Castlevania fare and is worth investigating if you've chewed your way through better games in the series (most notably the original Rondo of Blood). If you're new to the series, we wouldn't start here, though.
Killer box art, mind.
We're not going to sit here and claim that this 2.5D offshoot from the (non-Nintendo) 3D Castlevania: Lords of Shadow games is a must-play. However, we'd be lying if we said we didn't enjoy Mirror of Fate on 3DS. No, it can't hold a candle to the classics in the series, but taken on its own terms, it's a fun, if simplistic, little game from MercurySteam (who would go on to develop the excellent Metroid Dread) that made good use of the system's autostereoscopic 3D and gave us a fresh perspective on some series-favourite characters.
Are we busting to replay it? No, but it certainly doesn't warrant the vitriol it sometimes receives from series stalwarts. You can find it for peanuts these days, and it's worth a look.
