If I made a game part of a series that was this bad, I'd give it a different name too to try and distance it from its original namesake. Realistically this should have been called "Castlevania Arcade" or something else equally generic. Instead it gets the somewhat awful Haunted Castle name and is the most "Castlevania at home" meme there could be, except Konami actually made this.

I'd never actually heard of this until I started playing through the Konami Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection. Interestingly it's also the only non shoot 'em up on there. I still can't decide if I'm happy they included it as a historical oddity for me to try or not.

So the game plays very much like a "classicvania", which shouldn't surprise coming out only a couple of years after the original game. Visually it's ok, technically the sprite work is good and yet it all feels wrong. Like uncanny valley Castlevania or a fan made project. I can't put it into words but the fleamen are too large, there are no medusa heads, the whole game feels off, too....chunky.

Gameplay wise it has everything I dislike about the classic games but amplified. The enemies come from awkward angles, there are cheap hits and occasional traps you can only get past by level memorisation, or save states. The boss designs are really awful both mechanically and artistically. One of them looks like a vector man enemy and jumps while fleamen run at you. It doesn't even look like it belongs in this game. There is a boss on stage 4 that you can barely hit unless you get the right subweapon as he moves off screen when you approach and is generally just poorly animated. Add to this each level is on a roughly 5 minute timer and it's pretty evident this was entirely designed to try and take your money, not for entertainment.

I stopped on stage 5. Near the start you get on an elevator that goes straight up. As it moves there are stone ledges that hit and damage you that your character (who walks at such a slow gait it's like he has rickets) cannot avoid even when you see them coming. Knowing the pattern is the only way. It's awful. It just isn't fun, which is the purpose of gaming to me.

Honestly there just isn't anything about this game I like, nothing stands out, nothing's unique, clever or interesting and nothing about this is fun. I got the point score I needed for the Konami Arcade Classics trophies and then stopped. Literally any other Castlevania (except arguably the Game Boy ones anyway) is better than this. An interesting historical novelty of an attempt by Konami that is best forgotten.

- Unfun gameplay.
- Bad bosses in both art and gameplay design.
- Weirdly ugly compared with it's main series counterparts.