Can't believe you didn't mention 8 eyes for the NES. That's the quintessential Castlevania clone

The character sprite on Haunted Castle walks like he has some terrible low back problems!!

Just as Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is a homage to classic Castlevania, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a spiritual successor to Symphony of the Night and those style of newer Castlevanias.

"Kenseiden" for the SEGA Master System plays a lot like Castlevania.

While not the best in the franchise, Vampire Killer and Simon's Quest's overall impact was important for Konami, because both had elements that served as foundations of what would later become Symphony of the Night.

Great vid as always. I'd personally also recommend Ghost Sweeper Mikami (Japanese release) on the Super Famicom as a great old school Castlevania title, and Touhou: Luna Nights as an incredible Metroidvania style title that plays and feels like a spiritual successor to Aria of Sorrow.

_Master of Darkness_ is also available on the Sega Game Gear, it's essentially the same game as the Master System version. You can also get this version on the 3DS eshop for like $3, making it much more accessible.

Here's one you may have forgotten: 8 Eyes. Very Castlevania-like.

Man I was all ready to start recommending Odallus The Dark Call; it feels like no one knows about that game. The game deserves a ton more recognition than it gets. My suggestions are Rogue Legacy and Shovel Knight. Yeah Shovel Knight is a love letter to the whole era, but it has a ton of Castlevania influence in it. As for Rogue Legacy, it's essentially a roguelite metroidvania game where the castle shifts around every playthrough (unless you lock the layout down). A ton of rage-inducing platforming goodness, and there's a second Rogue Legacy that's coming along nicely in Early Access.

I hit like while the ads were still running. Just happy to see another FNA release in time for Halloween!

There's a game I downloaded on the Switch called Wallachia: Reign of Dracula that's pretty great actually from what I've played.

Yeah it’s Friday Morning Arcade!

Blasphemous is one of the best games I’ve ever played

You can also try Maldita Castilla from Locomalito and it's also free to download. P.s. He also had developed Curse of Iosos, which in many ways similar to Vampire Killer and Zelda 2.

Devoted husband, father, and successful KZfaqr....I honestly don't know how you do it Aaron..... TGIFNA! Thanks for the hard work as always bud. Some of these I never even heard of but will go on my list for sure. Bloodstained series- epic, Haunted Castle Port for PS4...garbage BUT playable. Have a great weekend sir!

Great to see you back. Love your content. I hope dad life is treating you well.

Slain Back From Hell is another Castlevania type of game. And I didn’t know about a couple of these games, thanks for the video!

Q: Why doesn't Simon Belmont carry a gun while the protagonist of Vampire: Master of Darkness does? A: The date their adventures took place. Simon was fighting Dracula in the late seventeenth century. This means the vast majority of guns available too him only allowed a single shot before he would need to reload his weapon, with multi-shot weapons being very expensive, while reloading times were long, and accuracy low. Vampire Hunter was set almost two centuries later when faster reloading, and more accurate guns that allowed several shots between reloads were much more common.

The last boss from Kid Dracula is that guy from SotN that's in the bottom of the inverted castle who looks kind of like an Egyptian god and shoots lightning at you. He's also a big bad in that awful Castlevania fighting game.

Here's to not being dead!

Easily my favorite KZfaqr. Great work, FNA

Never heard of Odallus! Looks pretty dope! Thanks for sharing, will check it out! Also been a while since your last upload, thought you went texting and driving.

Great video, Aaron! No matter the length of time between videos, the viewer is always in for a good time.

4:06 good thing quicksand turned out to be less of a problem IRL than NES games would have had my younger self believe, otherwise I'd be shit out of luck trying to keep from sinking by jumping up and down

Great video and fun humour, liked and subscribed 👍

8:30 this look like if someone told Simon Belmont to "wise from your gwave". He's also walking how I would expect someone injured to walk.

Great work Sir thank you

Oh my god you’re back!!!

It's been a while, welcome back!

I know I already posted but I had to watch this again. Particularly because I don't remember watching it. At any rate, you asked why Simon Belmont didn't carry a gun with him? Well... Simon Belmont fought against Dracula and his evil forces in 1691 and 1698. Now, firearms existed in the very late 1600's but they were very primitive and would make a terrible weapon against the undead. Look up the King Henry Eights Carbine as an example of what Simon would be killed holding.

Yay Friday mornings are back

Yay first! Great way to wake up to. Happy to see you back.

FNA back in black with a tribute to Castlevania! GREAT video, highly enjoyable. Need that character name to be a ringtone or something, lol. Also good to read so many encouraging comments. We are here and ready for whatever content you can bring, whenever you can bring it. Rock steady youngblood.

Happy Halloween FNA 🎃 Glad to see a new video from you!

I would add 'Holy Diver' for the famicom. It was Japanese exclusive and was loosely based on the heavy metal vocalist Dio.

Also no one will ever believe me but I completed Haunted castle on mame and it was one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I ever had. In the arcade version if you used more than like 8 continues it would send you back to the start to complete it I had to get the stop watch and keep it at all costs. It actually got alot easier the further i got in because the devs clearly stopped caring the further you get into the game the last few levels seemed really just thrown together.

You might like a Genesis homebrew called Demons of Asteborg

Great video...this reminds me - I visited Florida around 1988/1989 and walked into a 7-11. In there was an arcade cabinet - it was Castlevania. The graphics were pretty good, but it definitely wasn't the NES version (admittedly I've never ACTUALLY played any CV games on the NES) and I could only get a few screens in. I've been looking everywhere for an answer - what was this game?!?!?! According to the internet, this game doesn't exist, but I know full-well what I saw. If anyone has ANY clue, please let me know and I'll buy you a beer. It's NOT the one in this video btw.

So good to see you posting videos.

Holy Diver is a good one you forgot to mention, it has the same difficulty as Castlevania, and has a similar gothic horror, except you fight demons instead of dracula. It also has one of the most 8-bit metal soundtracks as "Offal Hell / Golden palace" Theme is one of my top ten NES songs.

I can vouch for Master of Darkness personally; it was good on both the SMS and the Game Gear, and has one of the best soundtracks on either. I've played a little of Haunted Castle, but it was too hard to be any fun, and I've played a little of Kid Dracula, but that was so long ago that I don't remember why I never finished it. I haven't played Vampire Killer, but if you're looking for something similar, there's a Castlevania hack called Castlevania: The Holy Relic that was quite good.

Awesome video! I’m glad you’re back, I’ve been waiting on new videos from my favorite KZfaqr!

Remember your video on Atari's Haunted House game. I still play it! Reminds me of Halloween in the 1980's.

By 1992 most people had already moved onto the Sega Genesis - i didn’t even realize that they were still making Master System games in 1992

4:00 I recommend a GameCube controller because the button placement is better for 2d games. But that may be my nastalgia talking

Should've titled this video "Games that aren't Castlevania, but actually are Castlevania."

Holy Diver, give that one a spin if you get the chance! I think you'll like it!

I have the switch port of Haunted Castle and it’s definitely the hard version. Absolutely brutal.

Nosferatu for the SNES. It plays a lot more like the original Prince of Persia games but if you love Castlevania, that’s a great one to play as well.

My fave from back in the day has to be Kenseiden, which has more of a japanese folklore theme to it. There were similar early MD games too, like ESWAT, Shadow Dancer and Mystic Defender.

Glad to hear you are coming back!!

Three of those games are actually Castlevania games.

i think dr. jekyll and mr. hyde is pretty similar when you're in hyde mode. and the dogs have the same running style as castlevania monster dogs. and midnight castle succubus has lots of the same stuff as castlevania and games like that, like beating monsters with a whip, fish people with flame breath, skeletons, vendors like in castlevania 2 and i noticed that the music in bloodstained during the beginning of boss fights is the same as when the hero in midnight castle succubus finds the damsels in destress. warning, midnight castle succubus has 2 versions. 1 clean, 1 dirty

I've played the PS4 version of Haunted Castle and found it to be a monstrously hard pain in the ass, so it sounds comparable to the arcade version.

Kid Dracula is my favorite game on the Gameboy and I also have the version for famicom that I paid 49 bucks for off of Amazon

Mannn tengen I have not heard that name in years!!! The nostalgia is strong in this video

I like to think of Kid Dracula as Alucard's First Adventure.

"Or piss you off." *raises hand* Master of Darkness is great. When I got my Master System that was one of the first games I picked up. Though be warned it's pricey these days. I grabbed it when it was cheap. Vampire Killer is one I wished I owned. But it goes between $200-$300 which is still a lot cheaper than Castlevania for the Sharp X68000 and the North American version of Dracula X because there is no God. Also don't feel bad for not knowing about Kid Dracula. I own the famicom version but for years had no clue it was released in the states on Gameboy.

Um dude Vampire Killer, Huanted Castle, and Kid Dracula are all literally Castlevania. And no I'm not being sarcastic they're literally part of the series. And even though Kid Dracula is a parody game it's also actually Alucard's origin story. Might wanna do a little research next time or at least a Google search.

I'm kind of surprised sms "Master of Darkness aka Vampire" doesn't have a Castlevania type ROM hack.

As a massive CastleVania fan, I'll never forget the epic day I accidentally stumbled across Master of Darkness in the early 00s before retro gaming was a big thing! XD

Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, Astalon: Tears of the Earth, Lost Ruins, Cathedral, uh... Panzer Paladin, I guess? Cyber Shadow probably counts, too These are all newer games that you can get on PC

At 8:00 "maybe Haunted Castle is more playable on those consoles?" It's not. It's not...at all lol.

"I swear, I'm not dead!" lmao I was starting to wonder.....

Haunted Castle is definitely not easier on the PS4. It’s not even one of those good arcade ports where you can keep plugging in virtual quarters to continue immediately after you die - they send you back to the last checkpoint when you try to continue. It’s frustrating as hell.

man youtube just now putting you back in my feed!? i miss watching your videos man wtf! btw great vid dude.

Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is a great Metroidvania.

Great episode, awesome to see u back

I played Haunted Castle through the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. The game is just as hard on that too. If you plan on playing it, be prepared to spam save states, a lot.

I own haunted castle... I've played all the Castlevania is in the blood-stained games but I have a hard time making progress in haunted Castle, it's really hard

Curse of Issyos.

Excellent video. Cadash is a RPG-game that (to me) plays a lot like Castlevania. I guess that there's a Genesis version of it somwhere, but it's also on Antstream Arcade, which hopefully you (Aaron) have gotten to check out, by now. Good to have another FNA video. Cheers, Aaron! 🍻🕹

And the Castlevania games for Xbox and PS2 And Castlevania Lords of shadow series ps3

How many Castlevania arcade games are there? There's this one, the modern-ish one from several years ago, and vs. Castlevania. Are there more? Also, it's interesting how there are so few retro Castlevania clones. I can think of 8 Eyes, Holy Diver, Master Of Darkness, Rusty, and maybe Earnest Evans if you count that. I don't know of any more. Maybe there were a few but I've looked for them and haven't been able to find them

Try Vigil: The longest night. It's like symphony of the night, and excellent. Ritual of the Night is fantastic, great suggestion.

FNA is Back! :) Missed you!

I was waiting for Kick Master to show up in this.

There are many Castlevania fangames, for example look into The Lecarde Chronicles.

Kid Dracula was released in the US but on Game Boy.

Glad to see u back

HOLY DIVER! DIO, OZZY, RANDY RHODES, ZAKK WYLDE!

Welcome back good sir.

12:10 So... Alucard's anti-fascist then - fighting the KKK doesn't get more AFA. All the more reason to love him and Castlevania.

Man, KZfaq was *late* telling me there was a new episode of FNA. But I lit up like a bonfire when I saw Odallus: The Dark Call get a shout-out. It's such a great love letter to Castlevania and Grimdark fantasy, and I'm glad you got a chance to play it! Any chance you'll cover JoyMasher's other retro platformer, Oniken?

Yeah, you were right, I've heard and played most of these, but some I've never heard of

Vampire: Master of Darkness is a forgotten classic 👍🏻

Watching this while driving.

Been a while since I played the arcade version of Castlevania. I remember it having a time limit and that could get really annoying when you are trying to get through the levels with the minimal amount of damage.

8 Eyes and Holy Diver for the NES.

see if the original castlevania games controls / character could move like oddallus that would have been perfect !

*WHAR'S **_8 EYES_* *WHAR'S **_HOLY DIVER_* *WHAR'S **_RUSTY_*

Thank you for the Odallus suggestion.

Firearms would have been pretty widely available in Simon's time and you see almost no evidence of this it really is weird. Castlevania has like 600 years of game history that just keeps looking like 1000 AD never ended.

I haven't tried using a game controller on a computer and years. Because every time I try to use an emulator for the controller. It never was able to have an angled direction

Record of Lodoss War - Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is a pretty nice SOTN clone.

Odallus is an AMAZING game. Can't stress this enough!

12:11 I have lived in NE Asia since 2009. I can explain ( still not sure why it is on this ghost). The symbol we know as a swashtika from Nazi party symbolism in the 1920's til 1945 was ripped off from older religious symbols. Usually for prosperity. The one on the ghost head has been used for 1000 years or more in Buddhist temples and monuments in NE Asia. ( Definitely Korea and Japan... Where I have visited dozens of Buddhist sites)... I believe China too, and Taiwan as well. It is so common that Buddhist sites in major historical zones ( if I recall, Kyoto Japan was one) have this symbol marked on maps ... Equivalent to a Cross, Star of David or Star and Crescent. Notice that the Nazi Swaztika is flipped over ( like a pancake) so the tips point the other way and then rotated 22.5 degrees to put the arms diagonally. So for a japan only release, this would be a benign symbol, associated with good for a large percent of their population. Not sure why a boss has it, apparently the developer was anti-buddhist!

I can attest to Master of Darkness, or Vampire: Master of Darkness as it's known in North America on Sega Game Gear to being a really awesome Castlevania clone. And back in the day, it was pretty great to be able to bring a fully colored and kick-ass game like that portably over the Game Boy games my friends had. I mean, I got to play it for only around two hours on 6 AAs, but what a hell of a two hours it was. Lol.

12:10 Did not expect the gang at Konami would take on the worst people in the U. S. A!