Vivamus ultrices sed ligula ut congue. Though a full list of developer credits doesn’t exist,** it has been noted that there was very little crossover between members of the Famicom / MSX2 game teams and the arcade team. And while it was certainly a departure from the previous NES / Famicom installment, it wasn’t actually all that far removed from the MSX2 title Vampire Killer, which featured merchants and mazes and all other manner of additions to the formula that would be seen again later in the “Metroidvania” phase of the franchise. Haunted Castle Maps :: Haunted Castle (Akumajō Dracula) is a side-scrolling platform game released by Konami for the arcades in 1987. ** One key plot difference though this time around: Simon is no longer just a man determined to save the world from the plague of vampirism. And with its release, I was even more pleasantly surprised to find that it was good! Quisque ornare auctor nisl, at accumsan nulla pretium eget. Also curiously absent is Death / the Grim Reaper, who would also go on to skip Castlevania The Adventure and Belmont’s Revenge in the following years. See, this here is why you shouldn’t rename recurring musical tracks after the fact. Back in the early '90s, Castlevania was mostly known for … Goes by "They / Them" pronouns. Granted, you are able to attack the bats while jumping in order to maintain most of your momentum and keep ahead of the crumbling, but this requires you to be able to predict / remember precisely when the game is going to toss the enemies at you, and acting within an incredibly tiny window in order to land without standing in place for too long. Other tweaks and changes I would make would include extending the length of Simon’s melee attacks, bringing back an axe-like subweapon with a vertical arc to it, and generally re-arranging some of the stages to give them more layered designs / less long flat planes to walk across. Say what you will about the classic renditions of Simon on the NES, with their limited colors and awkward gaits, but this blue-haired swole-as-shit Simon is by far the goofiest so in the franchise. Rather, it is a new game running on custom JAMMA-based hardware. CORRECTION (2-21-18): As commenter “Jonny2x4” has contended, this whole bit of trivia is more likely than not a hoax. I reckon it was just the thing where KLOV was so specific about it, I had to wonder if there was at least something to it. The stage one theme, “Cross Your Heart,” holds a special place in my heart, and it was nice to see it reappear in Portrait of Ruin. On the other hand, having the freedom to implement more colors into larger sprites for Haunted Castle results in an altogether more gaudy experience. Unfortunately, I get the distinct impression that not much care or effort actually went into this particular installment of the Oretachi series. It unfortunately plays like a very rough version of the NES Castlevania game. Sure, I’d still take it any day over Castlevania: The Adventure, but I reckon that’s not really saying much. Konami realized the project was a likely disaster, and chose to brand it as a standalone property rather than sully the Castlevania name. I personally prefer the dramatic effect of walking up a suspended staircase immediately preceding my battles against Dracula, but I can see why even a brief moment of “downtime” like that doesn’t necessarily fly in an arcade game. But the truth is, we didn’t have enough time to refine the game to that level, and also a different programmer was working as a director on Haunted Castle, which was not myself, and that director’s intent behind the scenes probably played a role in making the decision.“ ~ Masaaki Kukino[1c]. Unlike the previous arcade title in the franchise, Haunted Castle is not a port, but a newly-developed game running on custom JAMMA-based hardware. If you pick up the cross subweapon and at least a handful of hearts from some of the bats on the crumbling bridge, you should be able to spam them with ease against a floating Dracula head, stopping his projectiles and stopping him in just a small handful of hits. But in the shape it was released in, it doesn’t even hold a candle to it. It did, however, boast one of the goofiest promotional flyers of all time to try and convince arcade operators to purchase the hardware. Vampire Killer (1986, MSX) 3. Ironically, the best chance we have of seeing future Castlevania games at this point in time are potentially as arcade releases… in the form of pachinko cabinets. "Clockwork's Beat", which plays during Stage 5, was remixed in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow under the name "Underground Melodies" (actually the name of Haunted Castle's Stage 4 theme). Vestibulum in tristique odio, sed ornare nulla. https://www.cntraveler.com/gallery/haunted-castles-around-the-world Haunted Castle also commits the cardinal sin of messing with the original subweapon / weapon upgrade formula. There are also some issues with screen-tearing that might distract folk who tend to get distracted by that sort of thing. While those are harmless cosmetic errors, issues with the camera scrolling can be far more problematic. In order to make the game better they needed more manpower, external help. The game is an adaptation of the original Castlevania, but is not a direct port of the NES version. Haunted Castle – for all it’s flaws – still manages to convey some of that same sense of poise and purpose, but fails to properly pay it off. It was at this stage of development that it seems the bulk of the work on the game was actually done, and some of the most memorable features / set pieces of the game were implemented. Castlevania [Model NES-CV-USA] (1987, NES) 2. Heart of Fire from the original Castlevania for the Nintendo Entertainment System, arranged based on the style and instruments found in Haunted Castle (1988) for arcade. A haunted Scottish-style castle nestled in the heart of an upstate New York city was auctioned off for more than $300,000 just before the witching hour on … Review Arcade Archives Haunted Castle - The Worst Castlevania? Sucks to be you. These are particularly abhorrent in the second and fourth stages, with some stone walls that are frankly hideous. As mentioned, Castlevania is one of my favorite game franchises, and my history with it goes as far back as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System days. And it’s a shame it did such a disappointing job of things, since it sort of put the kibosh on Konami allowing the franchise another attempt, at least until 2009’s rail-shooter Akumajō Dracula: The Arcade. Simon must trek through six stages in order to reach the Count's lair. That Hot Chase game Kukino and company were working on certainly knew how to end with a bang. Unfortunately, I can’t find any recording or transcript of this supposed exchange, though KLOV** goes as far as to specify the specific formats that the audio track came in (either a “SHARP Volt89 cassette tape” or a “Sony 78 CD”). Other than being hair-pullingly difficult right off the bat, does the rest of what’s presented feel like Castlevania? The Japanese release did have one bit of additional gimmickry going for it: Before the final battle, an audio cassette (or CD) embedded inside the cabinet would apparently play a brief conversation between Simon and Dracula. As part of the “Oretachi Gēsen Zoku” (translated as “Our Game Center Family”) series of arcade re-releases for the PlayStation 2, Akumajō Dracula would see the light of day once again, published by Hamster Corporation. But early in the series’ life, Konami released an arcade game, known as Haunted Castle, which wasn’t a port of any other outing but rather an original title. Another interesting change is the idea to have your leftover hearts at the end of a stage count for more than just points, now serving the additional purpose of restoring your health (one heart = one health point) rather than having bosses drop the traditional full-healing orbs. That being said, revision “K” is still no cakewalk, gradually ramping up its difficulty over the course of its six stages. We open with Simon and his beloved (named Selena) leaving the church as a chiptune rendition of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” plays in the background. Both games unfortunately lack credit rolls to confirm the cooperation, but Masaaki speaks to his role as one of the Hot Chase developers pulled from his project to help the Castlevania team: “In essence the team that was developing Haunted Castle needed extra hands. There are stage backdrops that consist entirely of one small, overly-detailed texture repeated dozens of times directly adjacent to each other, creating an awful eye-straining effect. The interesting thing to me about Haunted Castle is that despite running on far better hardware / having more graphical capabilities than the NES, it’s almost as if the developers didn’t exactly know what to do with it? Quite possibly, to be honest! Until one day, a stray rodent found its way into the morgue, and managed to dig up the accursed corpse. Though he goes unnamed in-game, we’re going to go ahead and call our protagonist Simon Belmont, because this game is more likely than not yet another re-telling of the first Castlevania. This time, it’s personal, as he must rescue his newly-wedded bride who Dracula has captured from him. The separate sound-card versions include PC Speaker, AdLib and Tandy 1000. Unsurprisingly, Haunted Castle was basically hung out to dry by Konami on its arcade release, apparently receiving little in the way of promotion or post-release support. Finally, "Don't Wait Until Night", played during Stage 6, which borrows hints of "The Silence of Daylight" (the town music from Castlevania II),[citation needed], was remixed in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow for Julius' theme "Heart of Fire", though this particular song is actually a medley of the Haunted Castle tune and "Heart of Fire" from Stage 5 of the original Castlevania. Nam dignissim nisi in tortor dictum, ac tempus neque ultricies. It is part of the "Akumajo Dracula Medley" that appears in Konami's Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3 (originally appearing in the Japanese arcade and PlayStation 2 music game series Keyboardmania), along with "Bloody Tears". Donec viverra tristique mauris vitae faucibus. 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