Once I finished Blasphemous 2 on the Switch, it was clear that I was smack in the middle of a brand new addiction. An addiction with no real side effects, aside from blind rage when things seem impossible. And the only withdrawal symptoms are intense cravings when I’m busy with meaningless, repetitive every day tasks like holding down a job.

I’m talking about Metroidvania addiction. Non-linear action platformers. This sick stuff comes in either 8 or 16-bit strength and can keep you couch locked for hours.

I’ve played most of the current gen console stuff by now, so lately I’ve been getting back to the roots and playing through the definitive titles of the 80’s through the 2000’s. Everything from the NES versions of Metroid and Castlevania up through the slightly shinier, still pixelated versions from the GBA and DS eras.

For me, the sweet spot for these kinda games was late 90’s, early 2000’s. Stuff like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The movement and combat systems are more dialed in and fast paced than a lot of the earlier titles and the visual art style and music absolutely slaps.

But let’s talk about Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse for the NES - a game I’ve tried to love more times than I can count. I don’t know how anyone played this thing without the luxury of save states.

I’m hooked on this shit though, so I had to give it another shot. I got about 10 minutes into it again and said fuuuuuck this. I started doing some research. Like… do people who aren’t complete masochists or career gamers actually enjoy playing this?

If you’ve ever rage quit Castlevania III and wondered how anyone played this without snapping their controller in half, it’s not you. You were just playing the wrong version.

Enter: Akumajou Densetsu

Auto-generated description: A retro video game title screen features Konami’s trademark and options for Opening and Password, along with Japanese text.

A lot of the time, Japanese game companies dumb things down for Americans. Take Super Mario Bros. 2 for example. In Japan they got what we would later come to know as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels while we got a cute re-brand of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic instead. Honestly that was a good call. SMB2 is one of my all time faves. I rage quit The Lost Levels after about 20 minutes every time.

That’s not the case with Dracula’s Curse though. It was actually opposite - in ‘merica we got the absolutely brutal hard mode version while they got Akumajou Densetsu - a much more forgiving and playable version with stronger character abilities and a killer soundtrack thanks to Konami’s VRC6 audio chip.

The chip added an extra sawtooth wave, a third square wave and a second pulse wave, giving you six sound channels instead of five - basically letting the composers write music that sounded more like an 8-bit symphony than a beepy death march. If you’re a fan of chiptune, it’s worth getting a copy of the Japanese rom just to sit on the title screen and listen to the better mix. It’s SO GOOD.

You can check out the whole soundtrack, side by side on The Cutting Room Floor.

Nintendo had restrictions on third party chips in NES carts, so that’s why we got a more basic version of the background music. Pretty wack combo when paired with the OP enemies, weaker weapons and spells and more restrictive combat movement.

If you were ever turned off by the original three in the Castlevania series, trust me, you absolutely need to look into Akumajou Densetsu. It’s actually playable and the soundtrack absolutely slaps. There’s an English translation patch that’s pretty easy to find floating around out there, but for my first playthrough I’m running the original Japanese version just because there’s not a whole heck of a lot of dialogue. And I like the monospace font a little better.