On the thumbnail I was scratching my head thinking why does the pose look so familiar and oh... It is the same pose that Megaman does on the US box cover art...
The character walks like he took a dump that morning and didn't wipe well enough and hours later at night, he's like all itchy and goopy and he really needs to wipe again but hasn't gotten the chance to yet.
The life bar replenishment works by converting one of your continues. That's why sometimes you can cure yourself one time, sometimes three: it depends on how many continues you have left (max 3 per gameplay).
the Konami beat 'em ups (as well as Sunset Riders, which was a run 'n gun but is contemporary to them) were like that too, except every credit gives you more lives instead of extra health.
@@JabAtLife all too damn often. I wish they would just do a little research before they play a game or something. They are very knowledgeable with some games and others its just brutal to watch.
@@beaniiman I mean this is part of the fun, they're not going into a game with an entire guide telling them how everything works, sometime finding the mechanics by yourself is part of the fun.
I love how Mike goes from saying "I thought this game was supposed to be hard, it's easy", to "This is one of the most difficult games I've ever played"! :D
Mike The Gamer There are two versions of this game, Version M and K. M is the harder version, which is what James and Mike are playing. Enemies don't hit as hard in version K, but this game is still near impossible.
There is Castlevania Nes, Vampire Killer MSX, Haunted Castle Arcade, Super Castlevania IV Snes and Castlevania X68000, AND THEY ALL HAVE THE SAME TITLE IN JAPANESE.
"Same for the Amiga and Commodore 64 versions." Yes because the Amiga and Commodore 64 ones are just ports of the NES game, whereas the other ones mentioned by Gabriele Riva are all completely different games.
I would LOVE him to do some more Castlevania games, like this one, Adventure and Vampire Killer, all of which suck ass. Actually I wouldn't mind him playing some of the good ones such as Rondo of Blood or Chronicles.
This is one of those dollar games... maximum of 4 quaters before your kicked out.. one to play and 3 continues.. if you put in 4 credits and press start 4 times you use all 4 credits at once (no continiues) but get a massive life bar... i find this is the easiest way to beat the game after a lot of practice.
You can spend 4 credits per game on Haunted Castle. You're burning through your continues. Essentially, you're giving up one of your three continues to extend your health. It requires precise movements to survive. You can look up other vids and recognize the music on stage 3. PS... the pocket watch is the strongest weapon in the game!
There's a few games like that. Ajax (a Konami shmup) put a cap on the number of continues. I recently discovered a setting on Road Blasters that limits continues. N.A.R.C. had unlimited continues until you reach the final level. But yeah, Haunted Castle was the worst.
If my memory is correct, Capcom also did the similar setting in the arcade shooting game 1943. You have unlimited continues, but no continues in the final level.
I remember actually playing this game in the arcades! Saw it once, in the Sea World San Antonio midway, placed unassumingly in a corner near Contract. I remember thinking how similar this was to Castlevania--I had just gotten into the series and didn't know it was considered another game in the franchise, since it was pre-Internet 1989--and how damn hard it was! And you could only continue three times?!? I only ever saw it the one time. I hear it was very rare here in the US.
Thumbs up guys just for quoting the least quoted Star Trek film. Have James try Castlevania Rebirth for the Wii. If you unplug the nunchuck and turn the Wii mote sideways, like an NES controller, it's a fun game with a nostalgic feel.
I remember how towards the end of the 80's developers pushed away from player skill and made most games to be set in a specific way just so you keep the quarters pumping into them. This is something that deserves it's own topic of discussion and why that model doesn't exactly work for players in today's setting.
Not a JP-only game. Of all places, a T.J. Maxx near where I lived had a Haunted Castle cabinet. "Wow, a Castlevania arcade game! How didn't I know about this?" Then I played it and found out why. The problem is this particular revision they are playing is insanely hard and 'buying-in' more life with credits prevents you from being able to continue (which you can only do a limited number of times anyways.) Version/revision "K" is the one you want, although being a 80's arcade quarter-sucker at heart, it's still *very* challenging.
Castlevania 1, Vampire Killer, Haunted Castle, Super Castlevania IV, and Castlevania on the Sharp X68000 all have the same name in Japan: Akumajō Dracula.
This arcase game was the U.S.A., at least in its territories. I live in Puerto Rico and I remember playing it in a pizza place back in my hometown. I never got pass Bakshi's Medusa.
This game was certainly in the US. I played it in my local mall arcade in small town Pennsylvania. I highly doubt they were into the video game import scene in the late 80s
Holy shit! If the NES version of Castlevania came out BEFORE Haunted Castle hit the arcades, that means that Konami were being assholes by making the arcade game much stiffer to control than the original Castlevania! (Don't get me wrong; Haunted Castle is a nice game, but the controls are shit.)
I played the game emulated. It didn't matter if I used a keyboard, an original Xbox controller, or a Gravis controller: Haunted Castle handled like shit. To blame it on my controller is absurd, because no other games had problems with stiff controls when ran through the same emulator. The AVGN complains about how difficult it is to control characters in some games because the simple fact of the matter is that some games control worse than others. Unless you count the shitty Tiger handheld 'port' of Simon's Quest, Haunted Castle has the stiffest controls of any Castlevania game, and that's saying something.
Played a lot of MSX at a nephew when I was younger (I am that old;). As a home computer it had a lot of game titles that had a distinct console and arcade feel to it. For you retro gamers out there that come across a system with some games I would highly recommend giving it a try. Playing titles like Vampire Killer, Alpharoid, Firebird, Salamander, Dragon Slayer IV and Penguin Adventure are among the fondest gaming memories I have. Hope you find the time to play on an MSX system James&Mike would love to see you give it a go:).
Forman's Basement Your telling me? i feel disgraced as it is enough living in the same place as assholes like him, only thing that keeps me going is the people that have a heart and care for others.
Vampire Killer was released one month after the Famicom Disk Version of Castlevania, had practically the same soundtrack and very similar graphics. It's not a sequel, but more of an alternative version of the Famicom game. The two main differences: It doesn't scroll, so you have to move from room to room, and you have to find keys to open the doors.
There are two versions of Haunted Castle floating around the internet. Version M and Version K. In Version M, you take MUCH more damage than you do in Version K, and it looks like that's the one you guys were playing. If you ever want to try to long haul this game, track down Version K. It's still a hard game, but not THIS hard.
James is always passionate about the games he loves! I grew up the same way, playing classic NES games then fell off after Super Nintendo! I love my PS4 but I love my Retro games!
I don't know if somebody already said that here, but in this game you basically choose between extra lives and extra health for current life. You starting with somewhere about 3 or 4 lives, but when you add extra health to current one, you sacrificing one extra. It's somehow kinda creepy when you think about it. XD
GUYS i see what happened with the credits and life bar thing try starting the game with only like 5 credits than add 1 at a time after. I think the reason why you could only heal 3 times was when you heal it counts as giving you 1 credit and if you already have 90 credits it might not let you add more so try again but restart the game with only 5 credits in and you might be able to heal yourself 85 times instead of 3. Just a guess but it might work. My guess is each credit is 1/3 a life bar so if you start with 90 it takes 3 right away and lets you start with full life and that is why you cap after 3 heals than you cant add more. I would love to see another playthrough of this game if what i mentioned works. I think i remember there was more than 1 arcade machine that was like that back in the day.
castlevania famicom disk system(same as nes) > vampire killer(msx, too similar to fds ver to call a sequel > haunted castle arcade(approx translation of akuma-jou, demon castle) > dracula no fuuin on famicom disk system(castlevania 2)
There's also an actual Castlevania Arcade game that is light gun based, but the gun is replaced with a whip motion control. Would've made for an interesting Wii port if you ask me
wow oldie but goodie.. we got this game in our small neighborhood grocery store in the early 90s behind the mini pool tables in the back lol loved it.. i think someone found a way to beat it on a single quarter.. just blew me away cause i remember playing altered beast the same time as simons quest came out and this came was like "if they mated" to us.. classic but yes hard. one guy one quart but these days we have youtube longplays.. haha ..
Mike, this needs to be your next livestream play. You beat some serious games before, you can definitely beat this. (But look up as much info as you can to know what you're getting into before you start, and probably practice a bunch before the actual stream).
I actually remember seeing this in the arcade when I was 17 or 18 ('88,'89). Didn't know anything about Castlevania at that point. I just remember the damn flying blocks and thinking 'Wow, this game looks tough, but the graphics are incredible!'.
To answer the Mario Kart queestion - Yes, there are 8 main entries and 3 (soon to be 4) arcade games, and a re-release of the latest main entry. 1 - Super Mario Kart - SNES, 1992 2 - Mario Kart 64 - N64, 1996 3 - Mario Kart Super Circuit - Gameboy Advance, 2001 4 - Mario Kart: Double Dash - Gamecube, 2003 5 - Mario Kart DS - Nintendo DS, 2005 6 - Mario Kart Wii - Wii, 2008 7 - Mario Kart 7 - 3DS, 2011 8 - Mario Kart 8 - Wii U, 2014 (+ DLC packs with more characters and tracks) MK8 Re-released as Mario Kart 8: Deluxe on Switch, 2017, with all DLC packs included. The Mario Kart arcade games was mostly Japan-exclusives: Mario Kart Arcade GP, 2005 (also released in America) Mario Kart Arcade GP 2, 2007 (Japan only) Mario Kart Arcade GP DX, 2013 (Japan only) Mario Kart Arcade VR (supposedly releasing 14th July, 2017, Japan only)
This actually came out after Simon's Quest. It goes Castlevania on NES, Vampire Killer on MSX, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest then Haunted Castle. The guy who did the soundtrack for Simon's Quest did the soundtrack for this game.
This game was in the states back in the arcade days. And yes this was meant to eat as many quarters as possible. Very limited continues no matter how many credits you put in to it and the extra life for extra credits was false veil of security. It literally made it so if you dumped all your so called continues into that extra health, you took even more damage and when you died you started right back at the beginning of the game. This was one game you had to have skill, timing, and shortage of luck.
We all love the Castlevania Series, the Ghosts 'n' Goblins series, and like, the other Medieval-times based games. But where did it all start? What game started this expansion of the slayer genre?
There are two version of this game actually. According to MAME arcade game emulator. One is version K, and other one is version M. And the difference is the difficulty. I don't know which one is harder one, but you guys were playing the harder version. Easier version is a lot easier than this. You don't lose your half of your health just by touching the skeleton, you don't go back to all the beginning when you're dead, and you can't increase your health by putting quaters. But it sounds a lot fair than the one you guys are playing, right? I hope you guys see this for some info behind this.
You two should play Lament Of Innocents. We never had Symphony Of The Night in the U.S.;so I didn't really care. It's an underrated game that I think you two could bring back to a younger audience that over looked the game. I beat all the original Castlevania with the exception to the third game. This one was my favorite. I hope you guys find the time to entertain the world with that one.
Vampire Killer is MSX if I recall. So it's probably best considered as a home computer conversion of Castlevania 1. Compare and contrast Super Mario Bros Specia for the PC8801l, where the gameplay was tweaked to make it work better on the platform (SMBS is s flip screen rather than scrolling, for example) There was also a home computer conversion for the Amiga, interestingly. The Japanese name of Haunted Castle Is Akumajou Dracula, which is the Japanese name of the franchise. It's unquestionably a part of the franchise. Haunted Castle is just kind of an alternative translation: One assumes that Konami's arcade division and home divisions didn't have a lot of contact... Their branding game was pretty weak.
This was one of two arcade adaptions of Castlevania. Before this there was an arcade port called Vs. Castlevania. And from what I understand Vampire Killer is more of a spinoff of Devil Castle Dracula than a sequel.
Ah,.. I remember seeing this in an arcade at a hotel at one of my family summer vacations as a kid and saying, "Wait, this is Castlevania but it's called something else? WHHAAA??" There are all kinds of mysterious arcade games I remember but I don't remember the names from all the arcade hopping I did as a kid and teen. Arcades were always so fun with all the game sounds playing at the same time & how at every different arcade I would always find some random game I never saw before.
MSX is a computer but you could put cartridges in it. It was mainly popular in Japan and parts of Europe. What is interesting is, that Konami developed games for the system and a lot of them are really fun.
