Haunted Castle: Revisited

So the Castlevania Dominus (or DS) Collection just released, and with it they decided to include Haunted Castle as an extra. No big surprise there; the Advanced Collection also including Dracula X for SNES as an extra. In both cases, they decided to include some of the most dogshit Castlevania games as extras. Cool.

Haunted Castle long stood, to me at least, as one of the most awful Castlevania games and one to actively avoid playing again. It is truly awful in myriad ways and frustrating in so many more. However, thanks to some cosmic higher power, Haunted Castle isn’t the only extra they packed into this collection. They also included… Haunted Castle: Revisited.

It might have seemed as graphical remaster of Haunted Castle at first, but it is basically an entirely new classic Castlevania game loosely inspired by Haunted Castle. It is basically Castlevania Rebirth 2 (Rebirth being the WiiWare remake of Castlevania: The Adventure). Seemingly, from what I heard, this is more than just a feeling people have; I’ve heard it thrown around that the people behind Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth are behind this game. And I can believe it. (I’ve also heard people say it uses the same engine but I don’t think that’s something you can actually say with any certainty)

It’s short; intended to mimic an arcade playing experience. It is very forgiving, at least on Normal. You have air control, certain pits are not instant death, there’s a lot of powerups and you get a stage select as well as infinite continues. It’s also a very good, very concise classic Castlevania. It looks good, sounds good and plays very well.

My only gripe with it is that you might defeat a boss and keep wailing on them while they’re at 1hp, because the game prioritizes boss animations over them dying, making it so you effectively can’t kill a boss that is currently attacking. Feels bad.

All in all, a solid unique offering and the first new Castlevania game in a long, long time.