For the most part, this game is a fairly inoffensive entry in the Castlevania series. It has alright level design, good visuals and music, and even two different playable characters to choose from. However, this game commits one cardinal sin that really holds it back: it has limited continues. No other Castlevania game I've played does this, and that's because it's a stupid feature that doesn't add anything to the game. If you don't want to lose all your progress every time you run out of continues, you're forced to use the antiquated password system (which doesn't refill your continues). The game itself isn't really even that hard outside of this, so I suspect they only did this to pad out playtime.

Even putting the limited continues aside, this game just doesn't really offer anything that a different Castlevania game hasn't already done better. It only has 6 levels, leaving it tied with Castlevania 1 for the shortest game in the series (aside from the Game Boy games). The boss fights aren't really all that interesting either.

Overall, I'd say you're just better off playing Rondo of Blood. Or if you're like me and have acquired a taste for NES jank, you can even give the originals a try.