Castlevania III - Dracula’s Curse

This game takes up such a weird part of my brain, if I look at this game objectively I should hate it, annoying jumping controls, bullshit difficulty, weird hitboxes and unfair enemy placements, THE STAIRS, but simultaneously something about this game keeps me coming back, I can’t tell if it’s the addicting core gameplay. But I keep on coming back and that means it’s doing something right, the music is pretty solid, graphics are eh, at times great looking and other times dated and terrible if i’m being frank. A lot of annoying deaths, definitely, but decent, good even.



71/100

What can I say about Super Mario Bros. 3 that everyone hasn't said a million times over. If i’m being honest with y’all I’m not a huge fan of platformers, Mario Odyssey was fun and Banjo-Kazooie is cool but those games were nowhere near their contemporaries in my head. It just didn’t click. The actual gameplay of ‘platforming’ wasn’t my favorite, that was until Super Mario Bros. 3. Recently I've been playing a ton of older NES games just because I want to go back and play through all the console generations and somehow I landed on playing Mario 3. Truth is, I played this game all the way through World 4, and just like most platformers, it didn’t click. I used the switch save states. I thought it was so dated, “How are there no save points, the fuck?” “This shit is not fair at all”. But this time, I decided to change it a little, I didn’t use save states and I immersed myself into the world and what I found was amazing. The atmosphere is bursting through the seams. From the minigames through the toad-houses this game fulfills this sense of adventure I was looking for in these platformers. There's this sense of exploration, especially on World 3, 5 & 7. The game is pretty long, especially for its time. I know some people can bang this game out in 2 hours or something’ but for me, I had like 20 hours before I reached the credits. The controls are just perfect, as I explore more games in the NES library I have more and more appreciation for how this game controls. It is smooth and running at break-neck speeds or making precision jumps has never been easier, especially for the time. The actual platform challenges are great as well, from running away from a mad sun, to the airship auto scrollers & puzzle levels. This game thrives within’ its’ variety and is constantly throwing new ideas, enemies & platforming challenges at you. The actual platforms feel like they are a part of the world and the graphics are easily some of the best on the console, especially the sprite work which is just fantastic. The Music is so good, cursed kings is genuinely beautiful and might be one of my favorite compositions i’ve seen on the console to date. OK enough glazing, what does it do wrong? If i’m being honest, the difficulty at first felt perfect, not too easy but not frustrating and mind numbing, until world 7. Which just blatantly sucks. Filled with long, boring levels that are incredibly hard and irritating to get through, visually it’s the least interesting and the concept of a “pipe” world doesn’t really sound appealing in retrospect, World 8 although a huge improvement still is ridiculously hard compared to the rest of the game but at least that makes more sense since it’s the final world. In totality this game is legendary and an achievement. People wonder if humans could’ve made the pyramids, but I wonder if humans could’ve made Super Mario Bros. 3, gotta be some alien shit cuz this is amazing.

94/100