Castlevania (series)

***Castlevania*** (悪魔城ドラキュラ, *Akumajō Dorakyura*?) is a series of horror-themed action-adventure video games created and developed by Konami, centered on the Belmont family, a clan of vampire hunters, and their seemingly eternal fight against the Dark Lord himself, Count Dracula.

The series debuted in Japan with the release of *Demon Castle Dracula* (悪魔城ドラキュラ, *Akumajō Dorakyura*?) for the Famicom Disk System (FDS) and MSX 2 platforms in 1986. Even though the MSX 2 port (which was localized in Europe and Brazil under the title of *Vampire Killer*) was released first outside of Japan, the series did not receive worldwide attention until the FDS version was ported to cartridge format for the Nintendo Entertainment System and localized for North American and European release under the title of *Castlevania* in 1987. The series has since become a landmark in the gaming industry, as it was among the earliest video games to feature a Gothic horror storyline while at the same time abandoning the campy elements of similar games of the time.

The *Castlevania* series is one of Konami's most famous franchises, and has seen titles released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Mega Drive, the PC Engine, the Sony PlayStation, the Sega Saturn, the Nintendo 64, the PlayStation 2, the Xbox, and the Nintendo Wii video game consoles. Several franchise titles have been released for handheld game consoles as well, including the Game Boy, the Game Boy Advance, and the Nintendo DS; and also for various personal computer platforms, including the MSX 2, the Commodore 64, the Sharp X68000, the Commodore Amiga, MS-DOS, and Microsoft Windows.

## Overview

The *Castlevania* series is about an ongoing war between the enchanted family bloodline of the Belmonts and Dracula, the Lord of Darkness. Legend says that Dracula is resurrected at every 100 years, and it is up to the Belmonts to defeat him before he invokes his wrath on the entire world. The plot's main focus is Dracula, and he appeared in almost every *Castlevania* game. Most games in the series are set in Dracula's castle and the surrounding Transylvanian countryside, located in present day Romania, although some entries have been set in other areas.

The most notable Belmont is Simon Belmont, star of the first several *Castlevania* games. However, the games feature many other characters, including Belmonts, relatives and other people that the player can control. Included among the usable characters is Alucard, the son of Dracula himself. Also, several female characters star in some of the later games.

The series is loosely based on the mythology of Bram Stoker's novel *Dracula*. The series also incorporates a variety of other monsters from classic horror fiction, films, fantasy, and mythology. These monsters serve to obstruct the path to Dracula but are rarely tied to the game's plot.

## Evolution of the games

The gameplay mechanics are fairly consistent among most of the earlier titles. These are typical platform games in which the player takes the role of a whip-wielding warrior from the Belmont family as he ventures inside Castlevania (Count Dracula's castle) and fights a variety of supernatural beasts on his way to defeat Dracula. The whip used by the Belmont clan is a relic named the Vampire Killer, which was blessed with the power to destroy vampires and other creatures of the night. The games also feature secondary weapons that are powered by hearts, all of which can be found by destroying candles.

The general appearance of the characters in the games has also changed since the first installments. In the earlier games, the main characters were usually warriors sporting leather armor or similar garb. As new *Castlevania* games were released, the heroes' outfits evolved into more elegant, fancy vests. The modern look adopted for the characters in the newer games could be said to have been introduced by *Castlevania: Symphony of the Night*, the first game to feature the Japanese artist Ayami Kojima as the character designer. Another notable detail is the distinctive anime-style design of those characters, which is present in almost the entire series but is more prominent in *Rondo of Blood* and later titles.

A major turning point in the series was the ground-breaking *Castlevania: Symphony of the Night*. In addition to shaking off the stiff play controls that had plagued nearly every previous game in the series, *Symphony* adopted what is sometimes called a "metroidvania" style of gameplay due to its many similarities to the *Metroid* series (primarily *Super Metroid*), and combines this with the console RPG concepts of experience levels, hit points and equipment. Subsequent *Castlevania* games have followed this new style, with the replacement of the secondary weapons by complex magic systems in which spell components are collected from enemies or found in the castle. These systems use Hearts to replenish MP and often include most of the classic secondary weapons among the much larger variety of spells and attacks.

## External links

* *Castlevania* (series) at the Castlevania Wiki