Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Also known as: Akumajou Densetsu (JP) Developer: Konami Publishers: Konami (JP/US), Palcom Software (EU) Platform: NES Released in JP: December 22, 1989 Released in US: September 1, 1990 Released in EU: December 10, 1992 Released in AU: October 30, 2008 (Wii Virtual Console) This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has a hidden level select. This game has regional differences. This game has a notes page This game has a Data Crystal page

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse completes the 8-bit Castlevania trilogy. Set centuries before the first game, the protagonist of Dracula's Curse is an ancestor of Simon Belmont. Despite dropping the non-linear elements of Simon's Quest, the game contains branching pathways and the ability to switch playable characters.

Sub-Pages

Notes

Regional Differences A surprising amount for a NES game.

Sound Test

At the title screen hold A or B (or both), then press Start. The sound test was designed to fit at the bottom of the Japanese version's title screen; the routine wasn't altered to take the larger title screen of the US version into account, and displays it over the copyright text as a result. The European version does a better job of not displaying anything over anything else.

Japan	US	Europe

Debug Menu

Game Genie code KVEVPYEP sets memory address $0018 (a global event/menu index) to $07 when beginning a game, which is one byte higher than normal and hence allows access to the debug menu. Note that the menu is very similar to the one in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles prototype, right down to the cross-shaped cursor.

When starting a level from this menu, the first 100 points you score will instantly give you a 1up.

Controls:

• A - Increase value.
• B - Decrease value.
• Select - Move cursor.
• Start - Begin game.

(Source: gedowski)

Options 1, 2, 3

This allows you to choose which stage, act and screen you want to start out on. For a full list of every room, see the Notes page.

• 00: Stage 1-01
• 01: Stage 2-01
• 02: Stage 3-00
• 03: Stage 4-0A (after the second flight of stairs)
• 04: Stage 5-0A
• 05: Stage 6-0A
• 06: Stage 4-01 (starts you off in a wall, unable to move)
• 07: Stage 5-01 (after the first flight of stairs)
• 08: Stage 6-01 (after the first flight of stairs)
• 09: Stage 6-01 (the cave area)
• 0A: Stage 7-01
• 0B: Stage 7-0A
• 0C: Stage 8-01
• 0D: Stage 9-01
• 0E: Stage A-01 (after the autoscrolling part)

Option 4

This allows you to choose which partner you start out with:

• 00: Nobody
• 01: Sypha
• 02: Grant
• 03: Alucard

Unused Graphics

There are graphics for melted sub-weapons that went unused.

(Source: FlyingOmelette)

Build Dates

At the end of the PRG ROM is a text string identifying the date on which that version of the game was compiled. A similar ID is found in many other Konami games.

Japan	US	Europe
SAMP891007	MAST900000	MAST920117

"MAST" means it's the "master" version of the game, and the numbers represent the date. The Japanese version was originally a Sample ("SAMP") version built on October 7, 1989; the US version was built at some point in 1990; and the European version was built on January 17, 1992.