Haunted Castle

Haunted Castle is a Castlevania game produced for arcades. This game is known in Japan as Akumajō Dracula. It was released there in February, 1988, and on September 22th, 1988 in North America.

Being an originally created and unique entry in the series, developer Masaaki Kukino speculates the title Akumajō Dracula was simply chosen for name recognition value only.

In 2006 Hamster ported Haunted Castle to the PlayStation 2 as part of their Oretachi Gēsen Zoku series.

Overview
Being the series' first arcade outting, the game's visuals are significally different from the Famicom and MSX games, with bigger and more detailed detailed sprites and a larger color palette.

Haunted Castle is the first game in the series that made the decesion to once again adopt a playstyle similar to that of the original Famicom and NES game, with Vampire Killer for MSX and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest deverging from this formula with RPG elements like leveling up and more open-ended design.

Thus roughly following the template of the orignal game, Haunted Castle is made up of six linear stages; each with a characteristic focus - through graveyards and underground caverns, leading through the castle hallway and basement, ending in a confrontation with Count Dracula.

A lot of the enemy selection are taken from the Famicom/NES games, noteably examples including hopping hunchbacks and the standard arsenal of undead enemies like skeletons and zombies. On the other hand, some features that were unique to the series at point were included as well: a wall which breaks apart brick by brick and attacks the player, a glass knight which jumps out of a window, and so on.

The weapon upgrade system has been altered from Castlevania since contrary to that game, there are no candles. Instead, hearts and weapons are distributed by defeated enemies. The stronger weapons are a morning star and a holy sword, both of which were exceptional at the time, as weapon upgrades before and were more powerful forms on the whip instead.

Several unique sub-weapons have been introduced in Haunted Castle as well: dynamite and torches taking the place of holy water but with a similair function, and a boomerang, which acts like the cross from Castlevania. An unique weapon is the crucifix, which shoots out little cross-shaped rays. The stopwatch returns with the exact same function as it did before.

Character Gallery

 * See also 

Development
When Konami's arcade development team planned a horror action game, they wanted to give the game a gothic atmosphere, and therefore decided to take inspiration for the original Akumajou Dracula which was a big hit on the Famicom. This resulted in an unique Castlevania game being planned and developed for arcades.

Haunted Castle was very specifically made for the arcades and it is not a port. Due to complicated mechanics posing a problem in arcade games, it was decided the game should be different from the previous two Castlevania games.

At some point during the development period, which was around 6 months, the game was in bad shape, quality- and schedule-wise. Reportedly, the project was short-staffed. The head of Konami ordered people who were working on a completely different project, called Hot Chase, to help out with the project, one of which was Masaaki Kukino.

For a single month, all the artists of that team were assigned to Haunted Castle. That specific month was put to use in order to complete the unfinished stages and characters, and to improve the quality of the player and enemy sprites, as well as their effects and attacks. The schedule left no room for any big additions or changes. However, the concept of the crumbling bridge in the last stage was conceived during that stage of development.

Kukino later said in an interview time for debugging was needed, which resulted in the staff having no more time to make changes to the balancing. However, at that time all the staff members from Hot Chase had returned to their own project already.

Critical reaction
Many gamers have criticized Haunted Castle for certain gameplay problems: the main character, whose sprite is rather large when compared to other Castlevania games' characters, is an easy target for enemy and obstacle hits. This is made worse with poor hit-detection.

Another big gripe among gamers is the game's difficulty. The game must be completed in one life. If the main character loses all of his life or falls into a pit, the game is over. While it was possible to continue, the game would start the player off back in Stage 1 after 3 continues. However, the player is given the option of adding additional energy to the health meter in replace of continuing, although it too is limited.

Many assume these factors are what contributed to Haunted Castle's poor sales when it was released to arcades.

Ports
In 2006, a small Japanese game publisher called Hamster ported the Japanese version of Haunted Castle, Akumajō Dracula, to the PlayStation 2 as part of their "Oretachi Gēsen Zoku" ("We Are Arcade Gamers") series. The game is an emulated version of the arcade original. Included as bonus material were a mini-CD with the game's soundtrack and a mini-DVD with a music video and half of an instructional playing video.

This port was not released outside of Japan.

Fan Speculation
The game's placement in the Castlevania chronology is somewhat disputed as many fans consider it to be a revision of the first game. Technology-wise it predates Super Castlevania IV, another remake of the first game, but the two games seem quite similar despite their varying gameplay.

However, some elements imply that the game occurs in 1695 or 1696, as the graves in the background of the first boss fight show years ending with 91, 92, 93, 94 and 95. Thus, this game would take place before Simon's Quest. Despite this, it is not known how Dracula would be reborn after just 4-5 years instead of one hundred.

Related Products

 * Konami Game Music Collection Volume 1 - Contains the OST for this game.
 * Konami Best Selection Help Video - Contains help video from this game and a text storyline.
 * Oretachi Gēsen Zoku: Akumajō Dracula - Also contains the OST for this game released in conjunction with the Hamster PS2 port.
 * KeyboardMania 2nd Mix - Contains a medley of Haunted Castle songs with a new video featuring Simon, Death and Dracula.
 * Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3 - Contains the same medley of Haunted Castle songs.
 * Castlevania - This game is considered a non-canon retelling of the original Castlevania game.
 * Castlevania: The Arcade - A rail-shooter which is the only other Castlevania game designed to be played as an arcade game.
 * Castlevania Best Music Collections BOX - Contains music from this game on Disk 1.