Remember that corridor before the Death boss fight in Castlevania 1, usually regarded as the hardest segment in the game? Yeah you do, enemies all around, hard to telegraph their movement, you had to be resourceful, every step was important, literally no room for mistakes or improvisation; it was challenging in the first game, but it felt good to beat it once you learned how it worked, at least it was just one room, right?
Now imagine that corridor, but it is now an entire game, this is Castlevania III. Yeah, technically speaking it is better than its predecessors, I mean, wow, 4 playable characters, that's awesome, and soundtrack fucking slaps! But that's where it ends, at least for me, this game isn't nowhere near as fun as Casltevania 1, I swear I tried, but it's just frustrating, facing the same reused bosses, falling in the same stairs, taking damage from the same fucking bats, even with save states this shit is annoying.
It just wasn't fun.

Reviewed on Feb 23, 2024


2 Comments


2 months ago

Great stuff. Yeah this review matches my attitude towards III. Like you, I can appreciate the technical and artistic ambition here but its too miserable in play for me to have any stronger emotion towards it beyond 'appreciate' or 'respect'. The final stage is the most joyless experience I've had with Castlevania.

2 months ago

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks like that. I was mostly expecting to receive the "get good" comments lmao