Vs. Castlevania (Arcade) Playthrough

Рет қаралды 13,538

Жыл бұрын

A playthrough of Nintendo's 1987 arcade game, Vs. Castlevania.
This video shows two runs through the game. The first is on the machine's default difficulty. The second, beginning at 27:00, is played on the hard setting. At 53:22 you can see a very short-lived bit of gameplay from the hard mode's second loop.
I think I'll let the game's promo art handle the introduction here:
"ENTER ITS DARKNESS, IF YOU DARE!
Welcome to the shadows and horrors of Vs. Castlevania, the newest addition to Nintendo's Vs. System. Its dark domain is home to some of the creepiest creatures you'll ever find among the living... or the dead."
Thanks, poster. Sounds exciting!
Vs. Castlevania was part of Nintendo's Vs. series, a line-up of arcade cabinets that featured (sometimes enhanced) ports of popular Famicom and NES titles.
Whatever might be implied by the title, there's no multiplayer gameplay to be found in Vs. Castlevania, but there are a few important differences between this and the NES version of the game ( • Castlevania (NES) Play... ) that make it worth checking out.
Since this is an arcade game, the difficulty level has been given a huge bump. Enemies do far more damage than their console counterparts -one hit by a fleaman in the final area on the hard setting wipes out 2/3 of your life gauge! - and you're given way less time to complete the first three areas so you're forced to sprint through those to avoid a time over. You also get fewer bonus points at the end of each level.
And if you thought the first loop was difficult, just wait until the second loop starts throwing enemies at you from the very first screen! If anyone ever thought that Castlevania was too easy, this will quickly change their minds.
The graphics are also a bit different. The colors are much brighter owing to PPU differences between platforms, so the darker gray colors in the NES game become vivid shades of pink in the Vs. version.
Those differences aside, it's pretty much the same as the NES game, but added challenge does make for a fun twist on the original formula. If you want to play it yourself, its available on the Switch and PlayStation as part of the Arcade Archives series, and it can also be emulated through MAME.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!

Пікірлер: 65

@NintendoComplete Жыл бұрын

If you thought that the original Castlevania was too easy, this will be right up your alley.

@johngavalas74 Жыл бұрын

Beat this yesterday lol

@CyberKnightProbably Жыл бұрын

I thought there was a castlevania arcade game, Haunted Castle?

@NintendoComplete Жыл бұрын

@@CyberKnightProbably There was (kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h55lbMiZ1Lqcd40.html), but this is a totally different game.

@merlinthegray Жыл бұрын

You make many games you play look too easy. Well not this one so far.

@johngavalas74 Жыл бұрын

@@CyberKnightProbably there is

@christopherevans9119 Жыл бұрын

Greatest arcade game to play at ShowBiz Pizza as a kid! Still play It still to this day as an 43 old man… Something about this game always brings the Nostalgia memories of the 1980’s & 1990’s!

@mattverish Жыл бұрын

This arcade version is what introduced me to Castlevania in 1987.

@xxHUNGRY4THETRUTHxx Жыл бұрын

The good ol' days when every Pizza Hut had at least 1, if not 2 arcade machines. This was in Rockdale, TX the summer of '88.

@avertthymortaleyes3460 Жыл бұрын

Omg yes. I remember in most pizza parlors, big pitchers of soda, the aroma of hot pizza and arcade games 🕹 im so grateful to be a 80/90s kid.

@josephayers7395 Жыл бұрын

@@avertthymortaleyes3460 Ah the summer of 88. When I was 2 months old

@avertthymortaleyes3460 Жыл бұрын

I always found this game challenging along with most nes games. I just recently downloaded some nes games and wow playing them on a phone made them 100xs more challenging.

@NintendoComplete Жыл бұрын

Oh God, I can't imagine. NES games are hard enough with a real NES pad! Touch screen inputs must make games like this totally unplayable. Even the mushy buttons on an old Razor phone would be better 🤣

@MetalJody1990 Жыл бұрын

To make your NES experience on a phone way better, use a bluetooth controller like PS4 or Xbox One. Be sure to use RetroArch to emulate NES games, either with the core Nestopia or FCEUmm, and set the Run-Ahead Frames setting (in the Latency options for your chosen core) to either 1 or 2. Run-Ahead Frames is a feature that reduces the button-to-pixel delay (aka input lag) and a phone with powerful specs is required to take advantage of it. Might eat up more battery, but it's worth it.

@snotloutisagod2956 Жыл бұрын

And holy crap, on the third loop if you get hit by an enemy, 12 bars of health come right off!

@simonmejia6896 Жыл бұрын

Harder than its hard original NES version.

@VahanNisanian Жыл бұрын

Konami had Vs. versions of "Gradius", "Top Gun", and "The Goonies", too.

@ElZorroHonesto Жыл бұрын

Vs. The Goonies was released outside of Japan, but the console version wasn't (The Goonies II was).

@leroyvisiongames2294 Жыл бұрын

Kind of interesting how the game remained arcade exclusive in the US. Safe to assume they planned a US release but ultimately scrapped it, seeing that it was also included on PlayChoice-10 machines which were used to demonstrate upcoming NES releases.

@SamtheBravesFan Жыл бұрын

It's an interesting touch that the Stopwatch also stops the game timer.

@leroyvisiongames2294 Жыл бұрын

No high score table? What a load!!!

@Dorian_Scott Жыл бұрын

This is really interesting. I knew about Vs. Super Mario Bros but not Castlevania. Although, this looks like a more difficult version of the game... with brighter visuals - Just like Vs. Super Mario Bros.

@NintendoComplete Жыл бұрын

There were a couple of Vs. games that had major changes from their NES versions. Have you seen Vs. Duck Hunt? You can shoot the dog in that one kzfaq.info/get/bejne/l8xjotmJmJbbf58.html

@vgaoct91 Жыл бұрын

I can attest that this one's hard after playing it on the Switch Arcade Archives. I imagine the third loop's where the players stopped loading quarters into the machine and called it a day.

@VahanNisanian Жыл бұрын

You really know how to use the Holy Water. In Nintendo Power's premiere issue, it said to use the Stopwatch on Medusa, the daggers on the Mummies, and the Boomerangs on the Grim Reaper. Maybe I should try your strategy from now on.

@NintendoComplete Жыл бұрын

Thanks! Yeah, the holy water is by far the best weapon for this game's bosses. You can stun lock them with no problem.

@Dorian_Scott Жыл бұрын

The Holy Water is so OP in this game. It even makes Dracula phase two a complete joke.

@superstaramyrosethehardcoreyt Жыл бұрын

Fantastic video.

@SoulStreak64 Жыл бұрын

Hard Mode Castlevania? Oh good, as if players didn't suffer a terrible night to have a curse already.

@retro3188 Жыл бұрын

Even horrible!

@switchstancegames Жыл бұрын

Great vid!

@retro3188 Жыл бұрын

I love this!

@solarflare9078 Жыл бұрын

In which Castlevania becomes Haunted Castle Version M Those 10 point of damage from endgame enemies.... ouch

@Snyperwolf91 Жыл бұрын

Tbh this was always the way of quarter-munchers . Its possible to beat those games with one quarter but only after you know the games knicks-knacks perfect to every aspect.

@NintendoComplete Жыл бұрын

Oh, M type. No thank you lol. Trying to play that is like trying to make sense of anything Donald Trump says. It's excruciating. The K version was a lot of fun though.

@stephenmanuel9860 Жыл бұрын

@@NintendoComplete Count Trumpula rises from his covfefe

@NintendoComplete Жыл бұрын

@@stephenmanuel9860 I'm sure he does it bigly, too.

@solarflare9078 Жыл бұрын

@@NintendoComplete I mean, could be worse :p. Could be Tommy Wiseau ...Nah, then it would be like Gradius 3 arcade.

@ernestlemmingway1124 Жыл бұрын

I remember these Vs. machines. Most of them had a timer built in so you had to keep pumping quarters even (especially!) if you were destroying the game.

@NintendoComplete Жыл бұрын

Wasn't it the Playchoice-10 games that did that? You paid for time instead of credits? There was a version of Castlevania for that too, but it was pretty much identical to the NES game besides the color.

@ernestlemmingway1124 Жыл бұрын

@@NintendoComplete Might have been. I'm not familiar with all the gimmicks Nintendo used.

@MarcBarkyMarta Жыл бұрын

Definitely thinking of the PlayChoice. All Nintendo Vs games operated the way non-sports/non-racing games did - a credit meant a number of tries rather than timed play. By the time Castlevania came to the Vs. System, most of those games were played in the sit down "red tent" machines. Red tents had a screen on each side, and each side played a game (sometimes they were the same, but often they housed two different games).

@leroyvisiongames2294 Жыл бұрын

That was the PlayChoice-10 machine. The VS machines just charged 1 quarter/game like a regular arcade machine, and some of the VS arcade games had differences from the console versions (like in the arcade version of Duck Hunt, you could shoot the dog)

@iciouailleurs1977 Жыл бұрын

Best of mmy chilhood

@milamitchell6282 Жыл бұрын

i know this is off topic, but i was wondering if you'll ever do a playthrough of Leisure Suit Larry: Love For Sail or King's Quest: Mask of Eternity

@NintendoComplete Жыл бұрын

Funny you ask, I'm actually rendering out a brand new 4K video of the PC version of Phantasmagoria as I type this :) I do plan on doing both of those at some point. I still need to figure out a good way to reliably run KQ8 though. The CD drive is dead in my old Pentium 200 which sucks because I have 3DFX card installed in that machine and KQ8 runs pretty nicely on it.

@NinjaCacodemon_IsSus Жыл бұрын

What is the difference between OG and this?

@NintendoComplete Жыл бұрын

I wrote about it in the description

@Ifalvarado 10 ай бұрын

1 hit and you lose 8 life bars? wow

@dbfd276 Жыл бұрын

3:50 i playrd the video with auto cc turned on and it says thank you

@bigchriswhite Жыл бұрын

Could you play the Ghostbusters arcade game

@LITTLE1994 Жыл бұрын

Interesting.

@THEREALGAMEMASTER-gz5xg Жыл бұрын

this game makes the original NES game easy

@patrickwentzell4638 Жыл бұрын

I've got a very good Death Battles idea Merlin the educated but sometimes very forgettable vs Gondolf The Grey makes perfect sense after all both of them these are great wizards .