The foundation that Dracula’s Curse had established helped pave the way for the ambitious additions the series could adopt in entries such as Bloodlines and Rondo of Blood before completely moving forward with the Metroidvania style of gameplay that Symphony of the Night revolutionized.įor Japan, Dracula’s Curse was classic Castlevania with newly added gameplay elements, enhanced graphics, and the best sound design that the Famicom was able to output thanks to the disk system and cartridge’s unique capabilities and upgrades that the Nintendo Entertainment System had been lacking in other territories. A story with more depth than the previous two entries and a cast of alternating playable characters that would be interchangeable depending on the route players choose to explore after completing a level were just two of the few new additions that helped Dracula’s Curse solidify itself from the other two pillars of the 8-bit Castlevania trilogy. By revisiting the first game’s simplistic yet challenging platforming focus that many would brand as a linear adventure game, the masterminds behind Dracula’s Curse crafted one of the finest games in both the Castlevania series and the platforming genre by aiming to incorporate new elements that the original entry was never able to envision due to a prior lack of deeper technical understanding for Nintendo’s first home console.