My Castlevania Collection!


So what’s on this shelf.. well I have scanned all of my Castlevania games, so let’s start with the 8-bits and move forwards ^_^
edit: now my collection is taking up two shelves ^_^

edit: Now I’ve moved into a bigger game room and my Castlevania collection takes up an entire glass cabinet ^_^ And I’ve gotten this pretty Castlevania bit art frame from Cave of Pixels :D

Nintendo NES Castlevania games

Castlevania
The first Castlevania adventure for the NES. I have found a nice complete copy ^_^ I also have a rental box copy from Yapon that was released here in Sweden.

Castlevania II Simon’s Quest
I got a complete PAL version of the second Castlevania adventure for the NES, Simon’s Quest :)

Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse
This one is complete in box and in quite nice condition.

Castlevania reproduction / hacks

Castlevania Blood Moon
This is not an actual release, it’s an NES reproduction cart with a fan-made hack of the Castlevania game.

Castlevania Chorus of Mysteries
This one is also an NES reproduction cart with a fan made hack.

Famicom & Famicom Disk System Castlevania

Akumajou no Densetsu 悪魔城伝説 (Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse)
The third Castlevania game, released for the Famicom.

Akumajou Special Boku Dracula-kun 悪魔城すぺしゃる ぼくドラキュラくん
A cute platforming spinnoff of the Castlevania series. Released for the Famicom by Konami. I have it complete in box in really nice condition but just scanned the cart for the Famicom collection.

Akumajou no Dracula 悪魔城ドラキュラ (Castlevania I)
The first Castlevania adventure for the Famicom Disk System. I have this one complete with the outer plastic box and manual, but scanning the complete package with that box looks terrible >_< So I just scanned the inner case with the game and inlay.

Dracula 2 The Accursed Seal (Noroi no Fuuin) ドラキュラII呪いの封印 (Castlevania II Simon’s Quest)
The second Castlevania game on Famicom Disk System. Same here I have it complete in box with manual, but scanned the inner case with game and inlay.

Castlevania on MSX

Akumajou Dracula
I just bought this from another Castlevania collector. Since I’ve recently gotten myself an MSX system I thought it was time to invest in a copy of the Castlevania game for it ^_^ I’m not sure however whether my MSX is an MSX 2 or not.. I hope I will be able to play it o_O

Castlevania on Sharp X68000

Akumajou Dracula
I just got Castlevania for Sharp X68000, I’ve been hesitating a lot on this one since I don’t own the system to play it on. I’ve also heard that the Sharp X68000 is quite rare, expensive and difficult to obtain. So I won’t be able to play it for probably quite some time :( But at least the beautiful box is now gracing my Castlevania Collection shelf..

Castlevania handhelds

Castlevania II Simon’s Quest Tiger handheld
Here’s a handheld version of the Simon’s Quest Castlevania game. It’s really nothing like Simon’s Quest for the NES, it’s a very basic sidescrolling beat ’em up, but still a nice edition to the collection ^_^

Castlevania Symphony of the Night Tiger handheld
Much like the Simon’s Quest Tiger handheld, this is also just a side-scrolling beat ’em up game, though a bit more advanced with more options.

Nintendo Game Boy Castlevania

Dracula Densetsu トラキュラ伝説 (Castlevania Adventures)
The first Castlevania game for the Game Boy. I wrote a bit about this game here. One thing that baffles me about this game is that hearts = health, where is the wall chicken?! I have this game in PAL edition as well, however only the loose cartridge.

Dracula Densetsu  II トラキュラ伝説II (The Castlevania Adventure II Belmont’s revenge)
The second Castlevania game for the Game Boy. Great adventure, great music. Shouldn’t be missed out on, all the Castlevania Game Boy games are completely new adventures, not just ports of the NES/Famicom games. I have this in PAL as well, but just the cartridge.

Akumajou Dracula Shikkokutaru Zensoukyoku 悪魔城ドラキュラダークナイトプレリュード (Castlevania Legends)
Probably my favourite Castlevania adventure for the Game Boy. I made a video of where I finished it here. Really hard final boss! But thanks to the password system I managed to go back and finally beat him ^_^ Great music in this one! Like most Castlevania games ;D You should really check out my video just to listen to the first stage song, a great remix of the Daylight music from Simon’s Quest! Also the Final Boss brings back the Vampire Killer theme song but in a new version, it’s kickass!! What are you waiting for? Go put on that video in the background to listen to those awesome tunes! ^_^

Castlevania Legends
I also have the PAL edition for Game Boy.

Castlevania II Belmont’s Revenge
This is the same as Dracula Densetsu II, but the PAL release :) I’m still missing the first one in PAL release, but it’s still the same game so I can play the Japanese one meanwhile ^_^

Nintendo Game Boy Advance Castlevania

Akumajou no Dracula 悪魔城ドラキュラ (Castlevania)
The Famicom Mini Edition. Castlevania re-released for the Game Boy Advance in Japan.

Castlevania NES CLASSICS
The NES Classics edition for the Game Boy Advance. Also contains a re-release of the first Castlevania game for the NES.

Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance
The third Castlevania adventure for the Game Boy Advance. There was a Game Boy Advance release that contained both Aria of Sorrow and Harmony of Dissonance but I haven’t been able to find it yet in decent condition.

Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
My favourite Castlevania adventure for the Game Boy Advance. You can collect the enemies’ souls and gain their powers! :D IT’S AWESOME!

Castlevania Circle of the Moon
Also for the Game Boy Advance, also a great adventure with some memorable tunes ^_^

Super Nintendo SNES Castlevania

Super Castlevania IV
The first Castlevania game for the Super Nintendo and I’ve finally found myself a complete copy ^_^ Haven’t gotten around to scanning it yet.. but I will :)

Akumajou Dracula 悪魔城ドラクラ (Super Castlevania IV)
The first Castlevania game for the Super Nintendo / Super Famicom. This is the Japanese release.

Akumajou Dracula XX 悪魔城ドラクラXX (Castlevania Vampire’s Kiss)
One of the rare Castlevania titles. This is a japanese release, complete and in great condition. The PAL version is really hard to find.. but I’m looking ^^

Castlevania Dracula X Evil Trevor
This is a hack of Castlevania Dracula X featuring the sprite of Trevor Belmont from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. I just bought this one from another Castlevania collector, and it’s sealed. Quite annoying since I’d like to try it.. but I will most likely open it up soon ;D

Sega Mega Drive / Genesis Castlevania

Castlevania The New Generation
This Castlevania game was only released on the 16-bit sega. This one is PAL for the Sega Mega Drive, complete and in awesome condition ^^ It was also released in Japan and for the Genesis. It also goes by the name “Bloodlines”.

Castlevania (The New Generation)
I also got this Russian pirated version of Castlevania The New Generation. I think the cover is really cool ^_^ That image from the first Castlevania is one of my favorites :) The case is much smaller than regular Sega Mega Drive boxes.

PC Engine Castlevania

Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo 悪魔城ドラキュラX 血の輪廻 (Castlevania Rondo of Blood)
This is a rare Castlevania game called Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine! :D I also have a PC Engine duo (which reads CD’s) now so that I can play it, great game! Super hard! I uploaded a video of the intro here >>

Akumajō Dracula X: Castlevania Rondo of Blood
This is a reproduction of the PC Engine game made by PCE Works. Beautiful packaging ^_^ They also had a limited edition box that was stunning a while back, but I heard about it too late so it was sold out :(  

Nintendo 64 N64 Castlevania

Castlevania
The first Castlevania game for the Nintendo 64. Definitely not a favourite.. Castlevania games really should stay in the 2D platforming genre…

Castlevania Legacy of Darkness
When I finally bought Legacy of Darkness for the N64 I realized it was the same game as Legend of Cornell in Japan.. XD

Akumajou Dracula Mokushiroku 悪魔城ドラクラ黙示録 (Castlevania)
I have the N64 Castlevania game in it’s Japanese release as well.

Akumajou Dracula Mokushiroku Legend of Cornell 悪魔城ドラクラ黙示録レゲンドオブコーネール (Castlevania Legacy of Darkness)
This is the Japan release of Legacy of Darkness for the Nintendo 64, same awkward 3D adventure as most N64 games>_<

Nintendo DS / 3DS Castlevania

Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow
The first Castlevania game for Nintendo DS. It’s decent and back to 2D platforming ^_^

Castlevania Portrait of Ruin
Another Castlevania game for the DS, I got this new (that’s why it’s scanned with plastic around). Also a good 2D platforming Castlevania adventure :)

Castlevania Order of Ecclesia
This one is also brand new, another Castlevania game for the DS. This one however I had the game cartridge for previously so I have played it and got pretty far, and it was great! But then I got stuck >_<

Castlevania Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate
Got the new 3DS Castlevania game which is a spinoff of the Xbox game Lords of Shadow. They added excessive use of 3D in this game, they could have just stuck to the traditional 2D platforming experience, it would have been better!

Sega Saturn Castlevania

Akumajou Dracula X – Gekka no Yasoukyoku (Castlevania Symphony of the Night)
This is Symphony of the Night, which was also released for the Playstation 1. It also came out on Sega Saturn in Japan.

Playstation Castlevania

Castlevania Chronicles
A PAL edition of the Castlevania Chronicles for the Playstation 1 (PS1)

Castlevania Symphony of the Night
A mint complete edition of a PAL SOTN. Here’s where the Metroidvania style of Castlevania games began. I like it alot ^_^ I especially love that they went back to 2D platforming instead of messing around with awkward 3D..

Akumajou Dracula X Gekka no Yasoukyoku (SOTN)
I recently bought a Japanese copy of Symphony of the Night from a fellow Castlevania collector.

Playstation 2 Castlevania

Castlevania Lament of Innocence
First Castlevania adventure for the Playstation 2. Here they went back to 3D, however I must say it looks better than on the N64 ;D

Castlevania Curse of Darkness
Another Castlevania game for the PS2. Forgot to remove that stupid sticker on the front before scanning >_> too lazy to scan again..

Castlevania キャッスルヴァニア
This is Castlevania Lament of Innocence from Japan. I don’t usually collect the same game for various regions, I’m usually satisfied with having just a copy of the game so I can play it. However, this was a Castlevania game and I got it pretty cheap so I couldn’t resist it ;D

Castlevania Lament of Innocence
The same goes for this NTSC version of Lament of Innocence. So now I have three XD It’s interesting though to see how different the three artworks from various regions are :)

PSP & PS3 Castlevania

Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles
Mint PAL edition for the PSP. This one I was particularly happy about when I got since I would be able to play the rare Rondo of Blood adventure that had been released long ago on the PC Engine, but NOW that I HAVE a PC Engine I am looking for the actual Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine. Soooooon it will most definitely be a part of my Castlevania collection :D edit: I now possess the PC Engine version too ^_^

Castlevania Lords of Shadow Collection
I found this collection for PS3 on a sale, had to get it since it was Castlevania, even though I hardly ever play on my PS3 ;D

Nintendo Wii & Xbox 360 Castlevania

Castlevania Judgement
This is the only Castlevania game I know of for the Wii. I don’t really play the Wii that much, but now I have to try this game out ^_^

Castlevania Lords of Shadow
And finally a Castlevania game for the Xbox 360 (achievements!! :D). I’ve played it a bit, and it’s like all other new games, an adventure game in 3D.. I really do prefer my Castlevania games to be 2D :(

Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2
I also have the second game in the LoS series. Haven’t even bothered trying this one out yet though… I miss the oldschool Castlevania games >_<

Castlevania Belmont Limited Edition
My latest Castlevania acquisition was this Belmont limited edition for the Xbox 360. It was just so pretty ^_^

Castlevania Soundtracks

Castlevania Circle of the Moon Soundtrack 悪魔城ドラキュラ 白夜の協奏曲 オリジナルサウンドトラック
The original soundtrack for Circle of the Moon to Game Boy Advance. This one is amazing! Here are some of my favorite Castlevania songs! :D

Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles Soundtrack 悪魔城ドラキュラ Xクロニクル オリジナルサウンドトラック
I also have the original soundtrack from Japan for the PSP game: Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles. This is a 2-disc collection, quite nice ^_^ It bugs me that they put the cover image in the wrong direction..

Akumajou Dracula Famicom Best Soundtrack 悪魔城ドラキュラ ファミコン・ベスト
This is a collection of all the soundtracks from the first three NES/Famicom games. Some of the best Castlevania tunes ^_^

Retro console photo shoot!

Today the weather was really nice, so I decided to take some of my consoles for a little stroll ^_^







I photographed a few more, but haven’t had time to resize them yet.. tomorrow perhaps ^^

NES games & Nintendo Power: vol 33 -92

I got some more games from Ebay this week :D I also started buying Nintendo Power magazines, and in this lot there was a Nintendo Power issue with TMNT III. I also got a book called “How to Win at Nintendo”, written in 1988 by Jeff Rovin. It actually only has 30 games in it, described with the story and strategies to winning. Including games like Arkanoid, Balloon Fight, Castlevania, Commando, Ghosts n’ Goblins, Gradius, Kung Fu, Metroid, Mega Man, Zelda II and many other big titles. However there’s no pictures, only text describing everything. I’m not much of a reader, I need pictures to look at to stay focused >_<

The games I bought were Millipede, Wurm, Lone Ranger, Xenophobe, Friday the 13th, Dungeon Magic, Joust, Twin Eagle and Predator. Wurm is awesome <3

Well, in this post I think I will take a closer look at the Nintendo Power issue, volume 33 from 1992. (all images are clickable to view full size)

You just gotta love Nintendo Power. 16 pages of a comic about Zelda a Link to the Past, 8 pages Super Mario Adventure comic, Nester’s Adventure and a bunch of game walkthroughs, guides, pictures, game promotions, ads from the 80’s and early 90’s and more!

Here’s the Zelda comic for those of you who want to read it ^^ All 16 pages, large enough to read it clearly :D

 

Now I’m actually not that into the Zelda franchise.. I know many ppl think I’m weird now, but it’s a long story and I basically just never got into it.. but I know there’s a lot of ppl who do love Zelda so this was for all you hardcore Nintendo fanboys, and girls ^___^

Now this is some hardcore advertisement for the Nintendo Power!

And what the hell do they mean by this? Hook your SNES to your NES?! I guess they just wanted people to keep buying games for both systems..

They feature a lot of games in this issue, such as Gradius, one of my favorites ^_^

Another featured games is Super Hunchback for Gameboy, never heard of it. Has anybody played it? There’s apparently many bells to ring…

And T2, “He said he’d be back”, he sure did!

And here’s the Super Mario Adventure comic for those of you who are interested in reading it ^_^

There’s also a 10 page long walkthrough for the game  “The Legend of the Mystical Ninja” for Super Nintendo. I haven’t heard of that one either. It looks kinda fun though, however all the stages seem to have the same shade of orange throughout the game, usually SNES games were more colorful..

The poster for this Nintendo Power volume was Lemmings:

 Super Scope was the shit back in ’92!

And all the children playing Gradius wanted to become an Astronaut! ;D

The Nester’s Adventure cartoon is only  1 page, it’s quite good though. This one is about Castlevania IV:

And last but not least, here’s the Top 20 of the NES, SNES and GB games in February 1992!


There’s a bunch of other stuff in this issue, like walkthroughs of TMNT III, G.I. Joe, Rampart, The Simpsons Bart vs the World, Asteroids, Q*Bert and Wanderers from Ys. If there’s anyone of these in particular that you’d like to see then just leave a comment and I’ll post some more pics :D

Super Star Wars for SNES

So here’s the review of Super Star Wars for SNES!

This game was not a disappointment! It narrated the original story of the first movie amazingly! You got to relive many of those memorable scenes and play as your favorite characters through levels that were really detailed and true to the story.

Like visiting Obi-Wan in the desert…

… finding Han Solo and Chewbacca at the bar…

… rescuing Princess Leia from the Deathstar…

Or encountering Darth Vader!

The game also had a great variation of gameplay, from side scrolling platformer to driving a hovercraft and even piloting an X-wing when hunting down Darth Vader and destroying the Deathstar ^_^

The bosses were classic SNES type boss fights, taking up half of the screen but having a weak spot. Not always something that happened in the movie, but always with some connection to it, very imaginative! Like Banthas!! =D

After encountering new characters you unlocked them so they were playable, you could choose between playing as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or Chewbacca. I preferred Chewie since he had the highest jump, even though he was slightly slower. Luke was the only one with a lightsaber though, but I still preferred shooting laser ^_^



Han Solo looked real silly when he was wiggling his gun around..

Having the old Nintendo Power issue for Super Star Wars helped me and my friend out a little bit, but mainly they just described the scenarios. They did mention that there was a hidden place on stage 5 where you could get unlimited lives. This was very helpful! Since you don’t have unlimited continues. We finally beat the game in about 4 hours. I speed ran it the morning after in about 1.5 hours. It’s faster when you have figured out how to beat each boss and where you will have to jump not to fall to your death (yes, on some places you were supposed to fall down a platform but if you didn’t know to jump at the end you would fall into lava and die immediately)..We actually had more help from the latest issue of LEVEL (a Swedish gaming magazine) that had a retro review of Super Star Wars Trilogy where they had a small walkthrough for each boss in all the games. The Nintendo Power issue actually only covered the first 9 stages (!) There is 6 more stages after that!! An example of advice given from Nintendo Power for the Kalaar boss “Jumping to avoid the attacks takes precise timing“.. no shit?! That’s it! This was one of the hardest bosses and it took several lives before we got lucky and pushed him back to avoid him hurting us. Thank god we have Youtube today!


Look at Luke’s silly surprised face ^_^

All in all it was a great game, hard and challenging, but just enough to make you try again and finally beat it =)

Here’s a little video of all the cutscenes from Super Star Wars, it’s quite fun to see the famous movie scenes in 16-bit ^^  The music is  really great!

I also edited together a video of all the Boss battles of Super Star Wars.

And here’s a guide on how to get 98 lives for those of you who want to play it ;D

80’s gaming day!

Had an 80’s saturday with my friend and we spent most part of the the day playing NES, SNES and Famicom games ^_^
 

We started off with some Caveman Games for NES, it’s kind of like Track & Field except it’s set in the stone age and you’re cavemen playing various sports that could have been set in that age, like fire starting, dino racing, mate tossing etc..

Mate tossing was quite entertaining ^^  It was kind of hard to figure out which buttons you were supposed to press for most of the sports though since we didn’t have a manual. However most of the games we figured out.. except fire starting >_< but it was a fun competitive game, containing just as much button mashing as Track & Field but more laughs! =)

We also tried playing some Toobin, a Tengen game for NES. It’s about a guy floating down rivers on a rubber ring, collecting power ups and avoiding obstacles such as twigs, crocodiles, fishermen and other enemies that occasionally shoot at you. It’s a fun game, we played through quite a lot of levels before quitting, like a jurassic level with dinosaurs lying around in the river, the Nile where egyptians where shooting at you and an ice level with penguins and icebergs! ^_^

“Game over, Dude!”  :D

My friend also made it further in Time Lord than I ever did. Time Lord is an interesting game, where you play as a futuristic guy traveling through different epochs of time, like the middle ages around 1260 with knights and dragons and then 1800’s etc..

It’s tricky to figure out how to advance. On each stage you have to collect five orbs to continue time traveling, and to find the orbs you have to trigger certain things on each level and these are not always easy to find….

We also played Sunsoft’s Batman for NES, this is a great game =) Lots of different weapons and nice graphics.

I also forced my friend to try Punch Out since she’s never played it, she knocked out Glass Joe and then gave the german Von Kaiser a good match, but then she gave up.

I also got her to try 大迷路 (Dai Meiro) for Famicom. It’s a great game! You basically try to get to the end of a labyrinth, but first you have to find all the chests containing pieces of the key, when you have the key you can go to the exit. Now the hard part is that at every third step you take you loose a heart, so you can’t make a lot of mistakes or get lost. Also there is a map you can look at by pressing select, however this drains 3 of your hearts. So you just have to memorize the paths you took! I actually made it through 5 levels of this game, and I felt really proud ^_^ There are mini games you can find in the maze that can give you objects that help you along your way, however they cost a heart if you don’t succeed. It was Jeewario on Youtube who made me aware of this game, so I thank him for making his awesome videos of recommending famicom games! (you can watch it here).

After this we tried out some Mega Man for Game Boy briefly, mainly just to hear the awesome music! ^_^

LIKE SNAKE MAN!!! =D =D =D

And finally we were at the final event of the evening, the thing we had prepared for and looked forward to. Super Star Wars Trilogy for SNES!

I will make an entire post dedicated to the Super Star Wars game, since it did take us about 4-5 hours to beat it and I also have a lot of pictures. I speed-ran it this morning and finished it in 1 hour 40 minutes so I will also upload some videos after editing.. ^^

Until then!

Super Star Wars!

I read in Retro Gamer about the old Super Star Wars trilogy and about how amazing it was. They apparently put a lot of effort into the graphics and retelling the story true to the movies. This got me wishing I had it so I could play it! Just look at those intriguing screenshots of Chewie and Luke!
(pssst…you can click all the pictures to view original size)

So after some E-baying I got my Super Star Wars complete trilogy for Super Nintendo by  mail today!! I’ve also previously gotten the Nintendo Power issue for Super Star Wars, and I also have the Nintendo Power issue with Yoda on the front for the Empire Strikes Back. Now I just have to keep an eye out for the final Nintendo Power issue regarding Return of the Jedi!

This weekend will be filled with fun nostalgic 16-bit Star Wars gaming!

Here’s the Nintendo Power issue containing The Empire Strikes Back:

It has an annoying sticker on the front though, with the address of the guy who probably subscribed to it.. but other than that my Nintendo Power issues are all in really great condition, considering that they’re almost 20 years old!! o_O

Here’s the first Super Star Wars article in the Nintendo Power issue with Darth Vader on the cover: