Castlevania (NES)

Castlevania is a whip-crackin' good NES game by Konami. Kill Dracula before he terrifies the world with his atrocious fashion sense!

Unused Rosary Subweapon


The rosary can actually be used as a subweapon by setting memory address to. It functions in the same way as it does when picked up as a normal item, causing the screen to flash and removing any enemies, but unlike the item this does not play a sound effect. It costs 5 hearts per use, cannot be paired with the double or triple shot and does not have any effect on bosses. When this subweapon is in the inventory, normal rosary items will not be dropped.

Cross and Bible


Though unused in the NES version, these sprites appeared in the MSX2 version as usable items. There are three crosses and two Bibles: Blue crosses work as a long-range boomerang, tan ones clear all enemies on the screen like the rosary item in the FDS/NES version, and gray ones stop enemies from spawning in from the sides of the screen for a short time. White Bibles decrease the number of hearts merchants charge for items, while red ones increase the number.

Bonus Items
Along with the standard crown, chest, and Konami&trade; brand moai head, some rather unusual bonus item graphics can be found in level 2's sprites. Is that a basket of...puppies?

Unused File Select Music
A short tune that plays on the file select screen in the Japanese Famicom Disk System version of the game (documented below). As this feature was removed from the cartridge versions, the track goes unused. The OST titled it Underground, and it was reused for similar purposes in Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance and Akumajou Dracula THE ARCADE.

Random Crash
Due to a simple oversight during the FDS to NES cartridge conversion, the PRG0 version of the game may crash in areas with lots of sprites, such as stage 15 (particularly the hallway below Death's chamber, and the battle with Death himself).

Normally, when NMI (the end of a frame) is triggered, ROM bank 0 is loaded at, which contains some routines that are run during NMI. However, if NMI hits while the game is doing lots of sprite calculations, ROM bank 6 may be loaded instead; as a result, the game eventually jumps into the middle of the wrong routine and overwrites a large portion of RAM with garbage.

The PRG1 version fixes this problem by swapping in bank 0 before attempting to jump to the offending routine.

Sound Fix
When Simon is falling into Level 4, the dropping sound starts a few frames before Simon appears on the screen. This was fixed in PRG1 by moving the code that plays the sound ahead in the program.

Version Differences
The game was released in three different formats: the original Famicom Disk System version, a Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge version, and a Famicom cartridge version, which was based on the PRG1 revision of the NTSC NES version. Each one has it share of unique features and differences.

Title Screen
The title screen was completely redone for Castlevania, although both have a filmstrip motif. Akumajou Dracula's title scrolls in from the left, as opposed to Castlevania's which simply fades in. An animated bat was added to Castlevania's title, which flies out of the castle and flaps menacingly at the player until they push the start key or the opening demo starts. Speaking of which, there is no opening demo in Akumajou Dracula -- the title screen simply fades out after a short time and scrolls in again.

The Famicom cartridge version enhances the logo slightly with some gray shading and offers an option to switch to easy mode (more on that below). Since the easy mode option and updated copyright text take more space, the title logo has been pushed up and the Konami logo has been removed. The title screen now fades in, instead of scrolling in like the FDS version, and the opening demo from Castlevania is present.

This Konami logo screen is shown before the titlescreen in the Famicom version. It was likely added because the logo that was previously on the titlescreen has been removed.

Saving
Unlike Castlevania and the cartridge version of Akumajou Dracula, where Dracula's castle has to be cleared in one go, the FDS version allows players to save their progress. Up to three players can be saved, which are managed on a very Zelda-esque screen. The current stage is tracked, along with the number of game overs. As mentioned above, the unused music track in the NES version is played on this screen.

Loading
Of course, being on a disk comes with disadvantages. The game has to load twice between each level, displaying the castle map in between loads. The disk must also be flipped to side B to begin playing and back to side A for the confrontation with Dracula on stage 18.

Easy Mode
As mentioned above, the cartridge version of Akumajou Dracula features an easy mode, which can be selected on the title screen. You start with 30 hearts, as opposed to 5 in normal mode, 9 lives instead of 3, less damage is taken from enemies, taking damage no longer knocks you backwards, and the double and triple shot powerups are retained when picking up a different subweapon.