Castlevania Anniversary Collection

All the old games
+ Japanese versions
+ Works great all way
+ modern overlay functions. like save state.

Very convenient having these together, even if it isn't exactly convenient using ALT-F4 every time I'm done playing. Running through these back to back starts to feel very "How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man???" in the best possible way. Good presentation, whipping Dracula in the face has always been inherently funny

Before Castlevania Anniversary Collection, I’ve only dabbled in two games from the franchise: Castlevania: The Adventure on the Game Boy and Super Castlevania IV on the SNES. I didn’t finish either one of them, but I’ve always wanted to revisit this series at some point. Little did I know that I’d be doing it on the PC.

Castlevania Anniversary Collection was developed by M2, the team that also gave us Contra Anniversary Collection. Considering these two collections were released one month apart, and the Contra collection was merely adequate for an “Anniversary Collection”, I didn’t have high hopes for this compilation of Castlevania games.

As expected, Castlevania Anniversary Collection, like its Contra counterpart, runs in windowed mode with no clear option to change screen setting, and has a paltry selection of unremarkable border frames. Plus, the graphic design of the game menu and bonus book, titled The History of Castlevania: Book of the Crescent Moon, looks amateurish.

Further proof of how lackadaisical development of this collection was is the absence of original game manuals. I excused this for Contra Anniversary Collection, but not for this one. Castlevania games are action adventures, and it’s important to know what the icons means and how the in-game menus work (especially for Castlevania II). There are abridged manuals, but they aren’t very informative. Plus, the manuals are in The History of Castlevania bonus book! This means to access them, you’ll have to save your game with save state (thank goodness for that), exit the game, scroll to the bonus book, find the entries and read them, exit the book, and restart the game. What asinine design!

Ignoring that, however, Castlevania Anniversary Collection has a pretty decent set of games. It has most of the 8- and 16-bit game console and Game Boy games, but is missing Haunted Castle (arcade), Rondo of Blood (TurboGrafx-16), Dracula X (SNES), and Castlevania Legends (Game Boy). Haunted Castle and Dracula X are in the Dominus Collection and Advance Collection respectively, but including them here would have been more appropriate.

How much you’ll like this compilation highly depends on your appreciation for Castlevania and/or your nostalgia for this franchise. Here are my impressions of the ones featured in this collection:

• Castlevania – Challenging, especially with the knockback and enemy placement. Very atmospheric, but limited colour palette made some aspects of the environment hard to detect. Truly a classic.
  
• Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest – I was particularly curious about this title because I read the novelization from the Worlds of Power series as a kid. It’s an ambitious, but confusing game partly because of the unclear, bad translation. The day/night cycle was poorly implemented, and became annoying quickly.
  
• Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse – Very challenging, but highly replayable given the branching paths, companion recruitment, and ability to switch characters. It’s brisk, responsive and fun, allowing Castlevania to end its NES era on a high note.
  
• Super Castlevania IV – The multidirectional whipping and overpowered weapons made this game relatively easy. That, plus the bright, colourful art direction made it feel less like a Castlevania game. But, it’s still very fun, and it holds up well over 3 decades later due to the fluid gameplay and some amazing level designs.
  
• Castlevania: Bloodlines – Although this game doesn’t star a Belmont, it allows you to play as either the whip-wielding John Morris or the spear-sporting Eric Lecarde. This offers two unique gaming experiences, making Bloodlines worthy of replay.
  
• Castlevania: The Adventure – Marred by slow speed and clunky controls, this Game Boy title is frustrating to play – not just as a Castlevania game, but also as a platformer. If it weren’t for nostalgia, I wouldn’t have spent as much time on it as I did.
  
• Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge – The Game Boy sequel is faster, has more responsive controls, and brings back subweapons. While a vast improvement over The Adventure, it still can’t match its 8-bit peers.
  
[*]Kid Dracula – Kudos to M2 for putting in the extra work to localize this game in English, but this game is not the reason for your buying this collection. Despite the slightly unrefined controls, it’s a fine action platformer.

I have liked these classic Castlevania games since I first played them a little over 10 years ago and have beaten and replayed the original Castlevania a few times over the years. I've played a chunk of several of the other games in this collection as well, so I feel confident saying that this is a fun little bundle of games. In all honesty you could probably find many or all of these games quite easily on various emulators but I don't find the price tag to be too outrageous for around 8 classic games, especially if you find it on sale. While they can be quite fun, you should be warned that they come from an era of games where players got their value from how difficult the challenge was rather than the amount of content available. Overall, I enjoy these and recommend them

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
This game sucks. Castlevania I and III are great classic Nintendo games, but for Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, the game designers obviously were not thinking straight. At first, it seems like a pretty decent game. A little different from the first in the series but, that's okay. Zelda II was different from the first, Mario 2 was different, but they were all good.

The collection itself kinda blows in some areas but it does mostly get the job done thankfully and im glad i got to play all these games with it
Playing it long into the night reflecting on all the time spent with it
Memories
thatll last forever

I can run games like Elden Ring, and GTA V on steam but for some reason this Collection slows to a grinding and sometimes makes a crackling sound.

This hurts my ego.

I don't care for that Dracula fellow

almost 40 years later and the original Castlevania has claimed another controller

10/10, one of these days I'll overcome this skill issue and be able to play the rest of the collection

(pls Konami bb, port SoTN)

Big collection full of games and localised Kid Dracula, there are some quality of life improvements (save states so you dont rely on passwords and stuff), but it has some nitty little issues, mainly with screen size, where you can't play 4:3 without scanlines (which I honestly didnt mind much); sound, where you cant really change bgm or sfx or stuff like that, which is a big bummer to some people since old NES games have ear ringing beeps (like the sound hearts make when they are counted as score after finishing an level), and, Castlevania 1 freezes and softlocks for no reason while playing, but since it is being emulated you can just load up a save, so, remember to save during gameplay.

Other than all that, pretty good collection, great games, Castlevania 3 is amazing also.

Castlevania is the staple of what modern video games are founded on today and many or most games draw the basics from the Castlevania series on the NES. Castlevania Anniversary Collection is no Exception and represents the best value for the quality of games presented as well as quantity of games presented. Castlevania is a AAA game by far and deserves many future installments as well as remakes of old installments. Keep an eye on this collection and the many others that are here or on their way.

After a brief and easy fix for full screen, I was right back in my room in 1989, playing Castlevania again.
It's like I never stopped. Only took me 90 minutes and one death to beat Castlevania 1.
I love that retro gaming is big. Gen X demands our childhood again!

Absolute nostalgia! fun blast from the past however there are no audio settings - so what you hear is what you get. Also there is a constant crackling sound.

Emulation is for leeching vampires... So be a vampire-killer! Soak up the 80s pixels and whip your weapon back and forth!

Brilliant quality, great option to display with CRT lines and no bugs found (apart from those pesky spiders)!

Despite the many negative reviews I've read. I thought it was a pretty good collection as long as you buy it on sale.
As for the quality of the emulation, I haven't had any problems so far.Could there be more filter options and rooms for saving states? Yes, but the ones that are there are good enough. Only one save state slot is ultimately a good limitation that results in having to play one game at a time. All the titles in the collection are worth playing, each for their own reasons.

Two things I would really change if I had the chance: First, the ability to add and remove filters in all screen resolutions. The second thing: it should be possible to get achievements for the Japanese versions of the games as well, not just the Western versions. Keeping in mind that in some cases the Japanese versions are preferred by many players.

Güzel oyunlar, kötü port. Ciddi ses sorunları var ve oyunu windowed oynarken Alt+Enter ile fullscreen'e alıp sonra Left Trigger ile erişilen menüye girerseniz oyun çöküyor.

Most of the games are very good (I only didn't like The Adventure), all of the music is great. Castelvania is generally difficult but with save states it is not as frustrating.

I really only got this collection for Super Castlevania. It's good but the overall emulator that runs the games is janky as heck. What's the point of putting sound options in the menu if there aren't any options? Also, for the love of glob Konami, PUT SotN OUT ON STEAM ALREADY!!

As a longtime fan of Castlevania, from the NES classics to Symphony of the Night, I was excited to dive into the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. This collection is a curated nostalgia trip, especially for fans who want to revisit the early days of the Belmont legacy and experience the game's evolution. But, let's talk about the elephant in the room – the difficulty.

I don't remember Castlevania being this hard. I played through the NES originals, so I know what to expect from old-school difficulty. But playing these in the collection feels different, almost artificially challenging. I don't know if it's the controls, the collision detection, or just me getting older, but the hitboxes seem way off. It’s infuriating to take damage from Medusa heads that clearly aren't touching you, and when you add in the rigid, slow response times, it feels like you’re constantly fighting the controls as much as the monsters.

The collection itself is, admittedly, a fantastic deal when it's on sale. For around $4, you get multiple games in one package, a solid buy for a casual weekend of retro gaming. But when these issues start piling up, the experience feels like a "Temu" version of the real thing – good enough for the price but not exactly what you’d call high quality. It’s a shame because, at its core, this collection has some of the best entries in the franchise, and it’s a trip down memory lane that every Castlevania fan deserves to take.

In summary: For long-time fans, it’s a fun but frustrating journey. But without some polish on the mechanics, it’s easy to feel like this collection misses what made the originals challenging and fun.

Castlevania is obviously one of those early videogame franchises from the 80s that influenced platformers long after 16 Bit consoles were deemed ancient technology. While I do have an NES, SNES and Sega Genesis where I can play the mayority of the games here included, I don't have a Game Boy, so those 2 extra games, plus the never released outside of Japan "Kid Dracula" make this selection ,which is 75% off until November 4, a worth buy. The collection also includes a digital book with the story of every game, and even the famous music from the original NES games. Moreover, you can play the Japanese version of each game, which is another bonus, as there were differences on each of the games, mostly due to mild censorship and different cultural approaches. I've read reviews complaining about how the playability was affected by this port, and, no offense, but it's clear these people never played the original games when they came out. Controls work just like they did for the different consoles. Training for long jumps, and dodging enemy attacks is part of the journey. If you still don't why the recent retro game fever is called "Metroidvania" look no further. Even if you have the games in the original formats, it's still a pleasure to have them all here on your beloved Steam without the need for plugging HDMI connectors, and turning on your smart TV. These games play like they should. The added scanlines and pixel perfect filters, allow you to customize your gaming experience. Long live the Belmont family!

The iOS port is INFINITELY better. This is an embarrassment. Monsters don't spawn correctly half the time, improper movement of mobs, random lack of collision. Awful, just awful.

Got this on sale and regretted it. The STEAM controls map your buttons in a way that does not feel right to the NES controller, forcing you to use the arrow keys on the right and Z and X on the left, which are inverted from the usual B and A layout. Normally this wouldn't matter except you can't change this. So the solution would be to just use a controller, right? That's cute, because the as soon as I tried to attach a PS4 controller to play the game, the game's sounds just shut off. That's right. If you have the controller in when you start the game, it disables the sound. If you try to plug the controller in AFTER the game has started it will not recognize the controller. Guess I need to try to use an X-Box controller and see if that helps, but as it stands this is unacceptable.

>It's impossible to play the game at 4:3 fullscreen without tuning on artificial scanlines.

This is legitimately one of the most baffling things I have ever encountered in a video game. What in the world is wrong with Konami? It's the kind of thing that would be INSTANTLY discovered during QA testing.

This collection features several original "Classicvania" titles, which feature more linear gameplay than the more exploratory and open-ended "Metroidvania" style later pioneered by Symphony of the Night (although the generally disliked Castlevania II did introduce elements that would later become immortalized in SotN.

Even if you generally prefer the latter-era titles and those like it, you still definitely should try out the old ones especially if you are looking for a challenge. They have all aged very well and this collection does have features like save states to modernize them a bit if you can't deal with the lack of checkpoints most of these titles have. I generally ignore titles from the NES-era as they often have not aged very well, but the original Castlevania and Castlevania III (the basis of the Netflix show) definitely deserve their place in the pantheon of all-time great NES titles.

Great nostalgia game.
Also, Simon's Quest is not as hard as I remembered...

It's not too bad. Shame there's NO easy way to exit the game or switch between windowed and full screen. Fix that Konami. You did for the latest Castlevania collection. Get it together.

The most annoying keyboard controls ever and you can't rebind them. I want to play this so bad but its genuinely not worth it unless you have a controller

Bad. it is not fun. They did include the history of the series and the orginal art in the book. Most of the games were just the first one again but with new colors. I got to the first boss in each one and almost dead by the time I got to it and really struggled with the game. Im still impressed that this is on pc at all. Its z and a for controls. Picture of xbox controller but It didnt work for me. The interviews were a nice touch. The games themselves are trash but the collection itself is well made.

Fuck you, death!

An alright collection.
Nothing was changed compared to originals it seems, there are various display filters and borders to chose from, there is some bonus materials to read on each game and Japanese versions of most games are included in this package as well.
All entries play well, I haven't really noticed any issues with how they are emulated. Wish some better controller support was implemented as game only supports Xbox gamepad button naming and control scheme.
Sucks that original arcade game Haunted Castle is missing from this collection as it is a grandfather of this series.
Other than that - good collection of games for people who missed on this classic series, worth playing even today.

games still hold up. def a filter for zoomers.

My Castlevania Vacation

A Game Series for the Ages

Castlevania

Castlevania II

Castlevania III

Castlevania IV

Why don't you have more hours played

What a horrible night to have a curse.

If you play that song in reverse, you'll summon the demon "Jim Williams."

vaniaed my castle

noic game

as someone who never played these games before, they were fun but mildly frustrating, banger soundtracks though would still recommend it.

Castlevania: One of the all time classics. Feels like the root of action games in general started here even if it technically didn't. It respects your time and is surprisingly forgiving. Should be remembered across the generations, yadda yadda yadda.
Simon's Quest: Even if the game told you exactly where to go with a faithful translation, it's still a boring grindy mess, however ambitious it may be. Ironically AVGN and Nintendo's hotline back in the 80s probably profited more off this game than Konami did. Would've probably been forgotten if SOTN and other future games didn't reference it's mcguffins.
Castlevania III: Probably my biggest hot take: I do not think this game is that good. It does not respect your time like CV1 does, with it's numerous autoscrollers, slow platforms, long stair climbing sections and endless bone pillar/axe knight spam. Has a kickass Dracula fight though and some good ideas used better in other games.
Super Castlevania IV: This game is divisive and I'm in the camp that absolutely loves it. Simon's unique control feels amazing and powerful and the atmosphere is excellent. The game only gets so hard as to feel tense but not overwhelm you and actually kill you if you're paying attention, which is perfect for me. Nothing in the entire franchise gets me feeling emotions like the ending to this one. This and the first one are my picks for favorite classicvanias.
The Castlevania Adventure: The actual worst game in the franchise. There's a part in the first stage where you have to jump from platform to platform, from the absolute edge with no deviation other than a bat towards the beginning that flies in an unpredictable pattern. Feel the most memory test-y out of the series, I kept save stating while climbing ropes in the slow vertical autoscroller because I couldn't trust the game to not put instakill spikes at the top of them.
Belmont's Revenge: This one is actually really sweet. Don't know how the teams were assembled during the making of these games but if it's the same as the first GB one they've improved immensely. Would recommend over 2 or 3 even, if the peniultimate boss weren't so much of a pain in the ass. They made him way overtuned and ruined an otherwise solid sleeper hit of this collection.
Castlevania Bloodlines: Hated this game as John, loved it as Eric, who is sort of an easier mode of this game. Liked how they rethought everything about the series to make something that would stand out, and they'll never let you forget it's on Genesis. The bosses are the best part, which I can't say about any of the previous. The autoscrollers are the worst part, but thankfully they're almost frontloaded.
Kid Dracula: If I had a dollar for every time they decided the next Castlevania should just be Mega Man but you move slower, I'd have two dollars (Belmont's Revenge is the other), which isn't much but it's weird that it happened twice. Not a fan of how they make you do various minigames between stages. Sprites are super cute I guess.

Overall: Could use more wallpaper borders and color options for the gameboy games, but this collection is alright. Doesn't do anything amazing but doesn't ruin anything either, aside from weird RNG in CV1. It's nice seeing some of the dev documents too.

100% worth the purchase

8/10 too much medusa head

the good old days of insane difficulty and limited lives

I really, really wanted to love this collection. I'm a big fan of Castlevania and have played many of the older titles on the original consoles. Unfortunately this collection is ruined by broken sound - you'll hear crackling that will drive you mad. According to forum posts, the sound issue is fine on steamdeck but for PC users it's a mixed bag. I tried every single suggestion - from setting process priority/CPU affinity, to changing my soundcard samplerate, to changing lots of options in Nvidia control panel, to trying Windows XP/7/8 compatibility mode - nothing fixed it. The developer has not updated the game in over 5 years, so I doubt it will ever be fixed.

Amazing work by Konami making all these classics available in a single collection.

Just like the original coin arcade version....this is an absolute parasitic rip off...even in this form.

I still play these games on the original NES, absolutely some of my favorite of all time! I purchased this as well just to support the idea that yes Konami, Castlevania is the greatest 2d action/adventure series of all time, every time you stray from that formula it completely falls apart! I hope they eventually put one more 2d game forward, perhaps a super dark gritty gothic low(ish) magic version, I could see that being a masterpiece. Until then, I'll always throw some shillings at the re-releases to vote with my wallet, and in case my old NES cartridges explode.

Amazing games that litterally pioneered the side scroller genre and still influences games today even if the developers treat it as a dead series (besides the netflix adaptation that is really good). Holds all the charm of retro gaming, while also still having its difficulty.

I just want to know tho who's idea was it to create the medusa heads.

A more than solid collection of some very great games if you're not allergic to old tough games. I, IV, Bloodlines, and Kid Dracula make this worth it easily.

is what they say it is... all that can be said and I consider that high praise

This is a fantastic collection of classics. I never get tired of replaying my old favorites.

Nice games. Huge fan of the series. I don't know how to exit outside of literally exiting the window or stopping the game through Steam, but at the very least at least this collection came with filters unlike Dominus Collection. Like skrew super hyper pixelated zealots, I will take bad CRT filters over raw gigantic blocks blown up to HD from like 250 res or something. Devs never intended for these games to look hyper pixelated originally. Raw pixel people who say it is meant to be that way are disingenuous and did not play these games as they were originally intended to be played. They mock people who prefer filters (even bad ones) based on a faulty premise.

So yeah great compilation game based on that alone compared to the newest one as of this posting. Also it doesn't hurt that the games are mostly great and the ports were done competently enough.

Edit: Oh and I accept any and all rewards whether from butthurt pixel idiots or other people. Thanks in advance.

my favorite part about the Castlevania Netflix show was when I realized it's shit and started playing the games instead (they are very good games)