Vs. Castlevania (Arcade) review "Count Dracula? The only thing I've counted is the quarters disappearing from my pocket..."

Everything has an origin point. Castlevania has for ages been my favorite franchise, and my love of it started with Nintendo providing the US with arcade hardware that's slowly becoming forgotten: The VS. System.

The VS. System consisted of arcade editions of games offered on Nintendo's Famicom in Japan. Here in the US, it was used as a proving ground for Nintendo's marketability in a country whose video game market previously collapsed. Though many were skeptical of the NES being a hit in the States, the VS. System allowed Nintendo to release Famicom game Stateside and test the waters. What few such titles we received prior to the NES's October 1985 US release were hugely successful in arcades, showing that people were ready for what Nintendo had to offer...

As a kid who loved horror movies, I knew I was more than ready for the NES. Granted, I didn't get one until I was ten, but still, that coin-op changed my life back then. I begged my dad for a quarter while we popped into the gas station on the air force base, having glimpsed what looked like a marriage of Super Mario Bros. and “Dracula.” I couldn't contain my excitement as I rolled the the coin into the slot, watching as a mixture of bright arcade colors meshed with grim Gothic style. I ventured down an entry hall, bumping off simple zombies with a crack of my whip, not knowing what to expect. I slashed at candles and watched hearts fall from them, eventually picking up throwable goods like axes and holy water than allowed me to do more than merely snap my main weapon. After some effort, I made it to a giant bat. My dad asked if it was Dracula, but I didn't think so. I said he had to be at the top of the castle. I just knew in my bones I would still have to fight other movie monsters, like the mummy and Frankenstein's monster, first.

That playthrough ended as all others in the arcade. I died, ran out of tokens, thought nothing of my failure and moved on with my life. I kept thinking back on what I had played and how much it kicked ass, and how badly I wanted that content in my house, knowing that my parents would never buy the cabinet nor secure a console that would be able to run something so awesome.

But over the years, I would snag other experiences that mirrored that one. NES's Castlevania mimicked the campaign, but with lower quality presentation and a soundtrack that proved to be nowhere near as charming. Still, I got a kick out of that one. Over the years, I would embark on so many Belmon-related quests that I would gradually forget about Vs., and that was a damn shame.

Well, sorta...

Finally hopping back into Vs., though, taught me why arcades have been slowly going the way of the dodo. Castlevania is a face breaker of an adventure. It hits you with numerous creatures that swoop in an awkward angles, all in an effort to wear you down on your way to the next boss. You encounter numerous respawn points along the way, but must begin the stage anew any time you hit a “game over” event. That's all good and well for the later home games that offered features like saving or passwords, not to mention infinite continues that didn't rely on quarters. However, Vs. is cut from the “give players the ultimate, cheap-ass challenge so you can siphon more loose change than an old sofa” cloth. Yeah, it's a tough game, and constant dying requires you to either cough up quarters to keep playing or to practice as much as possible, which is a tall order when you're required to constantly pay for another go at the campaign.

Here, you encounter situations like flea men that are nearly unavoidable, leaping at you from ridiculous heights in ways that your body's own physics can't hope to dodge. Your only chance at survival lies in waiting for the foe to land in an ideal place for you to whip it before it hits you. Things only worsen when you must negotiate platforms while avoiding the dreaded Medusa heads that love to knock you backwards and into killing pits. Hell, one of the worst moments involves venturing down a long hallway full of these things, giving you almost no breathing room between spawns. They manage to sneak by your offenses often, bumping into you frequently because their wavy flight patterns all but prevent evasion.

Let's also not forget the classic Castlevania play controls. Simon possesses stiff, albeit manageable, movements to compliment his inability to change direction midair. If you leap forward, you better be ready to commit to it because there's no going back. So if a skeleton pops up in your path after you've taken off, you're boned. Yeah, sorry about one (no, I'm not). Personally, I've always been a fan of games with uncompromising play control because they demand certainty, risk taking, and calculation. However, such setups only work when you have as many chances as possible to try again without a monetary transaction—something this iteration requires and is all the worse for it.

Somehow, your repeated deaths are forgivable when you're at home, having already forked over as much of your bank account as Konami would need of you. Sadly, endless dying becomes tiresome when you're in public, standing, watching your pocketful of money disappear, trying to play a platformer with a joystick and buttons that don't sit comfortably in your hands for such an occasion. Yeah, campaign-driven games don't work as well in the coin-op world unless you're able to continue closer to your point of death or you've mastered them. However, the former robs the game of its challenge factor, devolving it into an affair where you pay to win. Sounds familiar, right? Nowadays, we get content like that on our phones...

If nothing else, Vs. constituted a clear sign that the platformer genre was destined to move away from arcades and remain mostly in our homes. Campaign-driven categories like this one work out better when they're more inviting, giving you as many chances as possible to burn through its monstrous difficulty rating and blood-boiling scenarios.

Yes, I still appreciate the living hell out of Vs. Castlevania, but I by no means see it as a necessary part of the franchise that everyone must experience. It's worth giving it a quarter or two, and then moving on, mainly because its trickiness works against it. Its brain-bending challenge factor is better suited for home platforms rather than the one that demands a constant contribution.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (October 29, 2025) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.