It's October, and we're dedicating each day of the month to a new scary game. To kick things off, we take a look at "Castlevania 3" and "Phantasmagoria."
Whether on the Famicom or NES, Castlevania III is an 8-bit masterpiece.
I disagree.
Having beaten the first 3 Castlevania games I think part 3 is easily the worst. Part 1 isn't that hard and a good, fun challenge throughout, until you reach Death & Dracula. :D Castlevania II is a masterpiece and was far ahead of its time; in fact many action / adventure hybrids today follow Castlevania II's formula. Castlevania III is just Castlevania I with the difficulty increased to the point of being ridiculously cheap. Also, the graphics of Castlevania II, and I'm tempted to say the graphics of Castlevania I, are better than those of Castlevania III.
Totally disagree with your disagree. 3 is better than 2. I understand where you are coming from with the Metroidvania standpoint of it being used today. But 3 was just overall better. 2 wasn't even reviewed as well as 3 when it came out. Still doesn't today. 3 was sloppy in that you didn't know where to go, when to go and had to search every nick and cranny to find something. And when you found it, you had to figure out what to do with that item and at what time. Or ask someone else in the neighborhood who was also playing it too as there were no guides back then. It lacked direction even if it allowed you to walk around aimlessly. Games don't need hand holding. But it needed something as it was not like Metroid exploring. It was worse trying to copy that style. 3 led to a better game with 4 being a forward adventure. All areas were new. It's like saying Zelda 2 was better than 1 or 3. Nope. It was okay. But not better than those either.
3 was a forward adventure with different paths to increase replayability. Metroidvania games like 2 while okay, do a lot of back tracking over the same areas. Which allows the developer to get away with the same assets being reused but can lead to a game being boring seeing the same stuff. That's not always enjoyable. That's being cheap.
It's good developers fixed the Metroidvania confusion of games like Castlevania 2. Because although I beat it then, it was irritating to get through. It's not a masterpiece.
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