The WORST Castlevania Game You've Probably Never Played! 

Most arcade games had the decency of making their first level easy as to fool you into a false sense of security, but Haunted Castle pulls absolutely no punches, skeletons or bats.

Love how he goes from wedding suit to old time vampire slaying gear straight away, like the garb was underneath his suit the whole time.

There was a difficulty switch inside this game's motherboard. On the hardest setting, minibosses (such as the _wall_ at 1:18) will kill you in two hits. Every machine they sent to America was flipped to the hardest setting by default. Also on EVERY difficulty, using four continues would send you back to level 1. This was INTENTIONAL

Simon's walk makes it looks like he is holding it in so he can finally reach Dracula's bathroom!

Mummy: *appears* Ryukahr: Oh, look. A zombie.

I want to know what the lore behind the harpies in this is. It sudden teleports you to an alternate world with them and there's just one chilling in Dracula's room for some reason.

Honestly, it's mostly the NA difficulty that makes it so bad. Having a trap deal half your health instead of 1 unit is crazy.

I just wanna say, somewhere in the last few years I have for some reason just started to love the concept of picking some random, obscure old game that is obviously poorly designed and beating my head against it until I get to the end. It's like solving a puzzle or something, and by the end you have a bizarre twisted love for something a ton of people hate. Idk, it's just really fun in some weird twisted way. And not only that, you get kind of an idea or lesson on what ideas/ concepts were done legit well or had a lot of potential, and it's just neat to see some of the uniqueness. All of that to say, if you ever run out of more mainstream super hard/ bad games, there's always a plethora of completely random and 1 off bizarrely hard games on SNES and NES. This type of content is some of my favorite, I just love seeing the entire process of problem solving stuff like this. Keep up the great content.

"Why are there no more upgrades" he says as he runs away from literally every enemy. For real tho the game is difficult to a point. If you learn the patterns (Except the big rock boss) you're basically rolling through it free. Also, the portrait crying blood when the song "Bloody tears" plays is an amazing nod.

Haven't seen a Belmont get ravaged like this since the inquisition

So Ryu, how many quarters did you lose? Also I want you to consider the true horror of this game. Imagine this was the first Castlevania game somebody played.

I was hoping the groom would rip off his tuxedo to reveal his Belmont gear underneath.

I would really like to see more videos like this where Ryu plays quarter munchers and sees how much money it would have taken to beat it in an arcade.

This game is so cheap it should've been illegal. Talk about a coin guzzler. Coin guzzler is a term used for arcades that were ridiculously hard to beat, causing players to throw quarters into the machine to keep playing.

I wonder how many fellow nerds said something along the lines of "Well . .that's Frankenstein's Monster . . not Frankenstein"

They slapped this game together in 20 mins threw the name castlevania on it and let the suckers at the arcade do the rest.

"It was an arcade game" That's why it's so stupidly difficult.

Whoa. I was worried. Thank goodness Drac went after a bride who's new groom is the destined vampire killer.

The little dudes right before you fought that glass boss (level3) drop swords...the strongest weapon in the game. It one shots almost everything. You never killed them so you never got it.

The only thing i like about Haunted Castle is the 6th stage music named Don't Wait Until Night, which translated over to Aria of Sorrow as Julius' battle then dubbed Heart of Fire, despite being a song from the original Castlevania

Haunted Castle is what people who don’t like the Classicvanias think they are like.

This entry should be called Janklevania, love your patience if that was me I would've quit level 1. If I was 6 year old me when this came out I'd be in tears, a little ball of hateful rage.

Somehow we never played Castelvania as kids, but we did have 8Eyes. Which I later noticed looks practically the same 👀

Yo, that Level 3 stained glass boss is totally straight from Young Sherlock Holmes, that's wild

I wonder how many loads of laundry washes didn't get washed because people kept pumping coins into this arcade game??😂

The internal rage instead of yelling at the screen when you didn't kill the ghost at the top of the stairs in stage 3 that drops the holy sword... ugh. lol I know from the arcade that you get extra hp if you put in more coins. Up to 4 I think.

Wait how do you have infinite credits? When i played this it forced me back to level 1 no matter how many credits I put in.

If you change the region of this game to the Japanese version, it's significantly easier than the North American release.

That Cathedral stain glass boss was inspired by the first ever fully CGI character in a movie: Young Sherlock Jones.

I think if you gave it a couple more playthroughs you could do a debunking the difficulty on this one. A no death run is not very difficult once you have some experience with the game and takes less than 20 mins.

Actually, this was the first Castlevania ever played. I was 7 years old and played it at a Kroger. I noticed the similarities to Castlevania when I played it on the NES, but I wasn't sure until years later the games were related to one another.

In this game you could see the future of Konami as a producer solely of microtransaction and paywall ridden mobile games.

This game deserves a remake that makes it more playable and enjoyable to play.

According to the wiki, this one wasn't even supposed to be a Castlevania entry. Supposedly this was meant to be an original horror-themed game before it got retooled into a Castlevania title midway through development. Dunno if that's true, tho.

Ryu: I'm alive!! Game: hold my controller

This reminds me of Waynes World when Noah Vanderhoff is explaining the Gelatinous cube game that you can't beat "so the kids keep pumpin' in quarters."

Holy shit, I never saw this game! You can REALLY see where this informed Super CV4. -Simon's armor design, color, headband -Statues that roll into the foreground as traps -(sidenote: hilarious that he has bombs rather than holy water) -Obligatory underground waterway short corridor with mermen then come back up, lol -Coming up the green staircase in the mist actually reminds me more of that CV3 level -Rockmen -Falling chandeliers -The getting hit sound effect is really similar -(sidenote: Interesting that the axemen's boomerangs are actually still attached by chains, and that the dragons are still meaty, and the detailed flea men) -Haunted/animated tables -Giant golem boss -Speedy vertical tunnel up (this was an elevator, as opposed to racing up staircases to avoid a spiked gear saw across the bottom, but... I knew as soon as you walked in, that you'd be heading up, it looked just like that tower) -Breaking bridge escape Kudos to them for having a stopwatch that's actually worth something. And there's definitely been other arcade games with pay-for-more-life-whenever mechanics, I just can't think of any off the top of my head. I think Gauntlet did that, and maybe a Capcom D&D game. 1943 might have. The cross was *bad ass,* sweet animation there! And honestly, great background art, particularly those lv1 mountains. Also, joke's on you Ryu bc you def complained in the NES CV1 debunking the difficulty vid about how cheesy it is that there's even a whip upgrade at all, when you pretty much get 2 upgrades in your first 2 candles every time you die, and you were all "Why even bother having upgrades?" Missing that feature now? haha That giant morningstar looks really cool though, huge hit box. Bet it feels real satisfying now, huh? ha

I knew there was a reason I didn't want to play Haunted Castle. That second part with the buring cemetery confirmed my intuition.

30:00 - is it where the music for Luigi's Mansion comes from? Sounds weirdly similar...

22:10 love how it makes a fart sound effect as it kills you LOL

34:49 the way the 2nd Dracula form just dies quickly and just fuckin DEFLATES after you kill it is perfect comedic timing. And perfectly represents the game. A deflated bore

I was crying laughing at this, not at you but in shared pain. The Castlevania Experience.

It truly is sadistic that they took one of the more annoying enemies from Castlevania (the fleamen) and made them even more so. They were fast and agile before, but had low health. Now they take two hits from an upgraded whip and four from the base whip! Also the bats are basically the Medusa heads of this game.

don't remember us or japanese was the easier version but I completed the easy one within 2 days. Once you learnt the patterns it's not hard to beat. Like if you stood in one particular spot, nothing could touch you. But you had to make it with one life , that's when you got all weapon upgrade. If you died midway thru , might as well start from stage 1. Cos it's when the game's become impossible. Same like NES' Castlevania if you don't have the holy water (from the previous stage) upon fighting Frankenstein , but this one was way harder than that . I don't remember exactly what you need ,it's been years. I heard ppl vent alot about 3 continues but it doesn't make much of a difference since it's either you beat it with one continue , or another 50 continues and wouldn't make it anyways. How nice of developer to make you not even trying lol

The glass pane knight boss was definitely a rip-off from the movie Young Sherlock Holmes. specifically the most expensive scene of the movie, because seeing such CGI in the 80s was pure sci-fi, yet John Lasseter (yes, THAT John Lasseter) pulled it off and it still holds up to this day. I'm not even gonna describe it, go look for it.

I saw this, very briefly, in a skating rink game room. Had some familiarity with the NES Castlevania (and Vs. Castlevania), so I made the connection right away. Played it once, maybe twice. Didn't get past the first level. No, it didn't turn me off to the series forever. Why would it? It was a brutally difficult arcade game. As were Crazy Climber, Stargate, Ghosts 'n Goblins, The Speed Rumbler, Hang-on, Dragon Spirit, Marble Madness, Operation Wolf, The Ninja Warriors, and countless others. Excessive damage, cheap deaths, and limited continues were nothing new for me. I never expected Simon's Quest to be anything like that, even before I knew about the "Don't believe everything you hear, idiot!" mechanic.

This game just recently got a remake as part of the Castlevania Dominus Collection which most people consider to be WAY BETTER than its arcade counterpart

I never played this game on the arcades, so I discovered it on the internet around 2002 with the emulators, there was something different in the real arcade, you can only continue 3 times and then even if you put more coins, it takes you back to the title screen, I wonder if they added infinite continues on the console release. So actually there are 2 power ups, the first one is the morning star on the second stage, the first skeleton or zombie drops it, then in the stage 3 in the castle halls one enemie drops a sword, with the sword you can kill most enemies in one or 2 hits, so this makes the dungeon stage way more easy, also the clock works stage you can take it slowly and kill most enemies. So actually the worse stages are second and third stage.

My humble suggestion, Ryu.. if you want vengeance for all the misery this game has inflicted on you... play Vampire Survivors. You can rain death on bats, skeletons and undead by the thousands. Vampire Survivors is for every gamer who has been hosed by unfair fights against hordes of enemies. 😄

**Sees a Mummy** Ryu: so anyway these _"Zombies.."_ 😵‍💫

lol the beginning reminded me of double dragon - someone get kidnapped then you have start screen lol same idea

They got the idea for that stained glass window boss from the movie Young Sherlock Holmes.

After all of that Dracula just kinda hangs out, then sticks his chin out for you so to speak...

The bosses remind me of Super Castlevania 4, where if you have full health and a sup weapon you can just beast through it with zero skill.

Wanna hear something that's especially sadistic about this game? The original arcade version had LIMITED CONTINUES. Yes. You heard right. Even if you had the money, the game would start you back at level one eventually if you died enough times. IMO, it was unbeatable in the arcade. I doubt anyone ever did it.

What I want to know is how much money would he have spent to complete this run in the arcade. I seems like 30 dollars or more.

Try to play Vs. Castlevania the arcade version Ryu. Keep up the good work

What the HELL was that ending?

If this is the worst, how come has it has just gotten a remake in the Castlevania Dominus Collection?

Suffer, stranger, suffer so that I don’t ever have to!

yeah in the arcades some games let you add quarters for more life.

omg - I was hoping you would play this, but thought it would never happen. Looking forward to see how this goes, it's horribly unfair, but memorizable. Will it break Ryu??

That bridge defied all physics. 😂

My local pizza place had this in the lobby. It’s brutally unfair and not fun.

Your character walks like he recently recovered from a stroke.

This is the first thing I thought of when the Dominus Collection dropped. Time to play the updated version and compare it!

the only dodge-able boss is the final boss. thats weird

Probably won't see a debunking the difficulty for this one.

there was definitely games that boosted you if you paid more money. maybe you were adding credits for health

"Cheats" to get extra health for the last boss, doesn't even need it 😄

How many poor kids burned through their 10 dollar allowance in 5 minutes playing this game?

The whip power ups, like the early Castlevania console games, are based on your hearts. You had 6 hearts each time an enemy dropped the morning star.

people complain about predatory monetization in modern games, but arcades were worst: we were just to young to realize it :D

this was painful to watch. the start button health is basically manditory

That was traumatic dude

I have to say, the fact you kept that level of control all the way to the end was almost as infuriating as the game itself xD Good job btw 👍

"Where the hell did that boulder come from?!?!" LOL

I remember playing this stupid game in the arcade. It was literally ate quarters.

Konami tried to say this wasn’t a Castlevania game even though the Japanese title of the game is Literally Akumajou Dracula, which is the same name Castlevania is translated to 😂

You can fight the little guys if simply you don't duck. You kept ducking so they jumped over your attacks. If you stand attack when they jump, they freeze on the hitpause in the air and you can easily kill them

I got angry just watching this. Lol Thanks for going through the pain so we don't have to.

This arcade hqve key location. Even falling bridge before Dracula. Also this music at 12:50 originated here(I think it's Bloody tears). And I think glass window boss from 18:40 is a reference to one old movie which was claimed one of the first 3d effects

You know, even for an 80s arcade game, the graphics kinda sucked. Say what you will about Simon's Quest, but at least you got more regular power-ups and health. But of course my boy Ryu came through and conquered this mess.

Dude, just find another wife....

You're legendary. Love watching your contents. Cheers from Poland.

Well...at least that guy has a cool death scream....

the candles or lanterns in castlevania usually have power ups

Some games are made with care and love. Some are made by a corporate entity in a board meeting. This was the latter

Atleast the girl is hawt. A journey with taking.

you should play the MSX version of castlevania (vampire Killer) next

26:05 rock paper scissors to its finest

19:58 I felt that win, dude. Game is crazy! Quarter eater. The patience you have with video games. Top tier.

Yeah, F this game. Even had limited continues so you couldn't buy your way to the end.

If it's very hard and unfair most likely you have the hard version. There was like 3 revisions marked with a letter code. 1 version is stupid hard.

I see a few moments that Castlevania III played homage to. Good play through.

8:33 "Am I winning" You're playing Haunted Castle, so there's a 256 to 1 chance that the answer is no

18:38 Bufario!

My friend, this Castlevania looks like solid gold compared to the Commodore Amiga version of Castlevania. If you haven't played it, and you enjoy pain, come pay the Amiga a visit.

This feels more like dragon's lair than castlevania

I guess I'll go ahead and say the dumbest thing on the internet today. I played this for maybe 10 minutes on the Konami Arcade collection and didn't even know it was a Castlevania game. I just figured they didn't want to put the time and effort into coming up with something new and ripped it off from themselves.