Alucard's badass, right? Let's Play Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

The Castlevania series, like Zelda and Mario, had followed a weird NES trend of having the second game in the series being strange and different. Like the aforementioned Mario, the third game in the series would be a return to the basic roots, but then taking those routes and expanding upon them.



Where Super Mario Bros. 3 took the basic Mario formula and added extra items, Castlevania borrowed a little from it's predecessor's "explore Transylvania" motiff, giving you a variety of scenery rather than just the castle from before.



But perhaps what Castlevania III might be best known for is the introduction of varying characters that can accompany Trevor in his journey... three characters scattered across two main paths of the game.



This added a new layer to the game, as the other characters came with new types of mobility, or firepower. But each had their downsides as well.



Which would in turn lead to a very key part of the francise's future. These new characters would add to the history of the story, and one, Alucard, would go on to star in a game that dramatically moved the series into a new direction.

...and then years later they would all star in a terrible fighting game.



Well... Can't all be good things.

Join me in my playthough, and help me chose the critical path that I take. What heroes will I meet, and which stages will I visit? That's up to you.

Table of Contents

#1: Ruins of Warakiya
#2: Clock Tower of Untimely Death
#3: Mad Forest
#4: Marsh Land
#5: Nightmare Cavern
#6: Nightmare Cavern 2

Clock tower not optional.

Ughhh oh my god the crosses.

Also, Sypha's totes a dude.

It's like the only thing the artist was told about Sypha was "She's a crossdresser." and he thought of something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

#1: Ruins of Warakiya

Where Red reads another intro, laments the speed of the title screen vanishing, and gets copied by a Skeleton.

To my knowledge, it's illegal to play Castlevania 3 without doing the awesome Clocktower stage, so Clocktower is my vote. I don't want you to get arrested.

Nope.

Sypha's totally a Samus case, except her reason for posing as a guy is not because of awesome gender-obscuring power armor, but because she's a for real witch back in olden times when people were crazy enough about witch hunts that they would burn a woman at the stake just for looking at them funny.

Don't believe everything Nintendo Power or US Konami instruction booklets tell you. I'm still disappointed that I haven't seen hide nor hair of Vermon CaTaffy in any Metal Gear games.

Pretty sure Loki knows about Sypha, guys.

Trevor may just be the best Belmont, I have no idea, but "the fate of Europe lies with Trevor" is faintly terrifying.

#2: Clock Tower of Untimely Death

Where Red runs into trouble, makes it double, and learns all about gravity.

Counterpoint:



Also, in honor of the latest episode:

Are those from Nintendo Power? Cause the only CV3 stuff I saw for Castlevania 3 was the NES Game Atlus.

I take your Captain N Sypha and raise you one Captain N Alucard. What is this I don't even...



Speaking of the terrible fighting game, here's what the Death Note guy did to Grant!



Yeah, that's totally what a hunched over pirate thief guy looks like.

What fighting game? I'm pretty sure there are no fighting games in Castlevania.

At least the stage music came out okay.

Hey! Why doesn't your version have the cool sound effects?

I'm not surprised that the soundtrack is one of the few things to be left unscathed from turning Castlevania into Death Note: The Fighting Game. It wouldn't be the first crap game to have an awesome soundtrack, but it's still great that it has an awesome soundtrack.

#3: Mad Forest

Where Red reverses time and space, spends more time talking about a skeleton that it spends on screen, and wait what do you mean the video's over?

I honestly can't remember which path leads where at the moment, so I'd say go for the swamp!
I hear Shrek makes a good companion.

Take the top path if you want to continue liking the game.

Take the bottom path because I honestly don't believe a normal human being can win the Tetris stage.

I played this game about 2 years ago and took the bottom path. I finished the Tetris stage. I now hate this game very much. So I think that's a point for Kishi.

Then I'll balance it out by saying bottom!

The Tetris Stage is pretty easy as the blocks fall in the same predictable pattern each time.
However, it's SLOW if you don't have Alucard, so if that path is picked, I'll make sure to vote for Alucard.

...or screw that, I might be a dickish mood and vote Grant.

#4: Marsh Land

Where Red isn't up to full health, doesn't want to know the time, and totally gets trolled by a bat.

Remember that level was where the game started to rough me up, but good to see you got through easily. The worst is yet to come.

#5: Nightmare Cavern

Where Red is outsmarted by a slime, laments the loss of a useless triple, and pays more attention to the background than his head.