{"id":102858,"date":"2019-10-31T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/arcade_archives_vs_castlevania"},"modified":"2019-10-31T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T20:00:00","slug":"review-arcade-archives-vs-castlevania-fixes-some-sins-but-the-original-remains-superior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/10\/31\/review-arcade-archives-vs-castlevania-fixes-some-sins-but-the-original-remains-superior\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Arcade Archives VS. Castlevania &#8211; Fixes Some Sins, But The Original Remains Superior"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/e8960d4a38c3e\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/e8960d4a38c3e\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Arcade Archives VS. Castlevania Review - Screenshot 1 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100714\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100714\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Arcade Archives VS. Castlevania Review - Screenshot 1 of 3\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The original NES <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nes\/castlevania\">Castlevania<\/a><\/strong> has seen its fair share of re-releases over the years, but the same can\u2019t be said for its alternative arcade version.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/arcade_archives_vs_castlevania\">VS. Castlevania<\/a><\/strong> was originally released for the Nintendo VS. System of arcade hardware, which for the most part offered tweaked versions of NES games designed to focus more on head-to-head gameplay. We say \u201cfor the most part\u201d because VS. Castlevania doesn\u2019t bother with that; despite the name, this is a strictly solo affair.<\/p>\n<p>For the most part, it\u2019s <em>exactly<\/em> the same as the NES version. The music is identical, the levels are laid out exactly as they were before, the hidden items are where they usually are, and so on. With the exception of a slightly different colour palette, to all intents and purposes this <em>is<\/em> the NES Castlevania as you know and (most likely) love it. That said, there have been a few tweaks that make it clear we\u2019re dealing with an arcade game here.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Arcade Archives VS. Castlevania Review - Screenshot 2 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100718\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100718\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Arcade Archives VS. Castlevania Review - Screenshot 2 of 3\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>To be specific, because the whole point of arcades is to make money, Konami made two major changes to VS. Castlevania designed to trigger a Game Over faster than the home version. The first of these is a vastly reduced time limit; chances are you probably didn\u2019t even know the NES Castlevania had a timer because it was generous, but in VS. Castlevania, if you take time to smash all the candles and collect all the items, you\u2019re going to be really up against it. For comparison, the first stage in the NES version gives you 300 seconds, whereas the same level in VS. Castlevania only gives you 170.<\/p>\n<p>The other major change is the amount of damage you take. Hit a basic enemy like a ghost and you\u2019ll lose a quarter of your energy, which is double what you\u2019d lose for doing the same in the NES version. This scales upwards as you\u2019d expect; bosses and other powerful enemies can often wipe you out entirely if you don\u2019t reach them with full health (something not entirely easy given that the timer has you rushing anyway). The energy and the timer combined, then, make VS. Castlevania notably harder than the NES game, which, let\u2019s be honest, wasn\u2019t exactly <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/ds\/nintendogs\">Nintendogs<\/a><\/strong> to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s frustrating is that this is actually one of the more impressive Arcade Archives offerings in terms of features. While Hamster\u2019s ports are always solid, they generally tend to feature the same stock set of options: scaling, filters, a high score mode, a 5-minute Caravan mode and so on. Naturally, these are all still in here too, but Hamster\u2019s actually taken the time to fix a notorious bug and even give players the option to remove one of Castlevania\u2019s most annoying issues.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Arcade Archives VS. Castlevania Review - Screenshot 3 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100713\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100713\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Arcade Archives VS. Castlevania Review - Screenshot 3 of 3\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The bug fix is simply welcome: at times in VS. Castlevania, the music will cut off if you perform a certain action, so Hamster\u2019s fixed it (though there\u2019s the option to put the bug back in if you want authenticity). Much better, though, is an option that\u2019s been horribly named \u2018The Original Game\u2019s Character Designs\u2019. Turn this off and you\u2019ll remove the sprite flickering that plagues Castlevania when enemies overlap anything. After putting up with this for more than three decades, the fact that it\u2019s finally been fixed makes us so happy.<\/p>\n<p>This doesn\u2019t change the fact, however, that we\u2019re looking at a definitive take on what most certainly is <em>not<\/em> the definitive version of Castlevania. The fact it saps time and energy like a vampire clamping his fangs into the neck of a particularly chubby chap means it\u2019s simply not as fun to play as the NES version, meaning if you want your Castlevania fix you\u2019re probably still best paying the extra to get the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/castlevania_anniversary_collection\">Castlevania Anniversary Collection<\/a><\/strong>, which is a little more than double the price but gives you the NES game (flickers and all) plus seven other titles in the series.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Hamster&#8217;s done the very best with what it had to work with, but the reality is that VS. Castlevania, while still essentially the same fantastic game at its core, is more frustrating to play than the NES version. You\u2019re better off buying Castlevania Anniversary Collection, unless you\u2019re a diehard fan of the series.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The original NES Castlevania has seen its fair share of re-releases over the years, but the same can\u2019t be said for its alternative arcade version. VS. Castlevania was originally released for the Nintendo VS. System of arcade hardware, which for the most part offered tweaked versions of NES games designed to focus more on head-to-head [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}