Building a Legacy: The 8-Bit Rise of Castlevania

A detailed retrospective of Castlevania, Vampire Killer, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse with a focus on how the series' game mechanics and design philosophy evolved as the series progressed. I also touch on the perplexing localization of the series and the many differences between Castlevania III's NES and Famicom releases.
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This video contains clips or quotes from the following channels:
@RT55J
Spitfire (Channel F, 1977) Easter Egg
• Spitfire (Channel F, 1...
@jsarchive631
BlockBuster Thumb Blister Video Game TV Commercial
• BlockBuster Thumb Blis...
@MarkNiko
Mega Man 2 Walkthrough [Part 1] No commentary
• Mega Man 2 Walkthrough...
@NoireBlue
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Walkthrough Part 6 No Commentary (PSP)
• Castlevania: Symphony ...
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Text Citations:
Raph Koster
A Theory of Fun for Game Design (ISBN: 978-1449363215)
theoryoffun.com/
Reddit (u/ThatDanJamesGuy)
Famous NES games by cartridge size -- new and improved!
/ famous_nes_games_by_ca...
MobyGames
Developer Credits
www.mobygames.com/person/1005...
www.mobygames.com/person/7186...
www.mobygames.com/person/2042...
Castlevania NES Credits (1986)
www.mobygames.com/game/2062/c...
Tumblr (thearkhound)
1993 Castlevania Commentary from Micom BASIC Magazine
www.tumblr.com/thearkhound/18...
Koji Igarashi Interview
(Sourced from VG247 because of USgamer's closure)
www.vg247.com/castlevania-sym...
Video Game Music Preservation Foundation Wiki
www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?...
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Audio Equipment:
Mic: Shure SM58 Dynamic Mic
Preamp: Scarlett 2i2
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No copyright is claimed in my use of Castlevania (1986), Vampire Killer (1986), Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1987), Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (1989), Celeste (2018), all of the music owned by Konami, or any of the images used in this video, and to the extent that material may appear to be infringed, I assert that such alleged infringement is permissible under fair use principles in U.S. copyright laws, specifically 17 U.S.C. § 107. If you believe material has been used in an unauthorized manner, please contact me.

[@BlueChessboardRook]

Which part of the original Castlevania trilogy is your favorite?

[@thatoddpossum2654]

Another hood classic and we're barely half a year in!

[@MyRetroLife]

Going to give the is a watch when I have some time! Looks very promising

[@alessandroferrucci6087]

So glad I've found this channel, I can already tell it's going to deliver ❤

[@J.Lynn-mt5tr]

Well done. Very professional.

[@serunovu8857]

while not games i've played I do like learning about these wildly iconic retro franchises because it helps me appreciate what a love letter to them Shovel Knight is (one of my favorite games ever), i'll get to these someday though maybe.

[@thesilverranger1]

i wanted to mention that the space konami had for tiles to spend on different areas in castlevania 2 vs castlevania 3 actually was a limitation of hardware: while the nes itself wouldn't receive many upgrades for it's lifespan, it did have support for cartridges themselves to upgrade the capabilities of the nes. many iconic games later in it's lineup would have the capability to swap out graphics data on the fly in order to achieve a larger effective amount of graphics, and the total amount available only increased with time

[@BlueChessboardRook]

Very interesting. I was aware that later carts had more storage space, but I will have to look into that.

[@TheKHC]

It's always weird to me how Simons Quest feels like the template for games like faxanadu and the originsl blaster master

[@TarlukLegion]

I find it interesting how often Castlevania's music seems to appear in other games. Pony Island's Beelzebub track directly samples from Castlevania 1's stage 13-15 music (Heart of Fire), and when listening to the Castlevania 2 music montage at 51:32, I was immediately reminded of Plants vs Zombies' Pool theme (Watery Grave). Makes me wonder how many other composers have taken inspiration from Castlevania's tracks.

[@serunovu8857]

I for sure hear a motif in one of castlevania 1 tracks that is referenced somewhere in the shovel knight soundtrack

[@DaffyRoth]

Hahahahhaha...finally some affordable housing.

[@eanderson9599]

Castlevania 3 is my favorite NES game. It’s very replay-able and it’s got a pretty impressive scope for a game on the NES
Sad that the franchise is basically just dead at this point

[@BlueChessboardRook]

It's a shame, yes, but after seeing what Konami has done to its other franchises maybe it's for the best.