Kaper54
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.
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.
1991
This game feels like an attempt at modernizing the Castlevania formula. You can now whip in 8 directions as well as change your trajectory in midair. Partially as a result of these changes, the overall difficulty of the game is quite a bit lower than the older titles. The difficulty does pick up a bit in the last few levels, but only because of the introduction of many, many different instant death traps and janky platforming segments.
Feeling less restrictive may sound like a good thing at first, but I actually feel like being restrictive was an important part of the identity of the older games. Because of how limited your options were, you had to approach each situation meticulously in order to succeed. Learning to work around those restrictions and avoid taking damage felt extremely rewarding, but that feeling doesn't quite carry over into this game. Despite this, I still had a decent time with it (at least until the last few levels).
Due to being much more forgiving, this game might appeal to a wider audience than the NES Castlevanias. Personally I don't feel like there's much to it, though. Even the soundtrack is kind of mid by Castlevania standards. It's an alright game, but nothing special.
Feeling less restrictive may sound like a good thing at first, but I actually feel like being restrictive was an important part of the identity of the older games. Because of how limited your options were, you had to approach each situation meticulously in order to succeed. Learning to work around those restrictions and avoid taking damage felt extremely rewarding, but that feeling doesn't quite carry over into this game. Despite this, I still had a decent time with it (at least until the last few levels).
Due to being much more forgiving, this game might appeal to a wider audience than the NES Castlevanias. Personally I don't feel like there's much to it, though. Even the soundtrack is kind of mid by Castlevania standards. It's an alright game, but nothing special.