The Castlevania Series Turns 30 Years Old Today

The Legend of Zelda and Metroid series aren’t the only major NES franchises that are celebrating a 30th anniversary. On this day 30 years ago, the original Castlevania was released, and since then, players the world over have storming Dracula’s castle to put and end to the count and his children of the night.

I personally have fond memories of the series myself. Though I heard about the series myself for years, it wasn’t until I rented the GameBoy Advance game Castlevaina: Aria of Sorrow back in 2003. From there, I was hooked on the series with it’s incredible gameplay, gorgeous gothic artstyle, and amazing music, and I made it a point to play every game in the series, to it’s humble 2D platform beginnings with the original, to it’s RPG exploration roots with Symphony of the Night, and even some of the 3D games (which I wouldn’t personally recommend).

Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any special events or sales planned to celebrate the original game’s release as of time of this writing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recommend some games for you to play today. If you own a Nintendo 3DS, you can download the first three games that were released on the NES, along with a few of the original GameBoy versions (these games can be a bit rough though, so be careful), while you can download Super Castlevania IV if you own a New Nintendo 3DS. On the Wii U, you can download all three original NES Castlevania games, Super Castlevania IV, or any of three Game Boy Advance games: Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, and Aria of Sorrow (the third one I highly recommend).

For PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners, I recommend that you download Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, as it’s an excellent game that really changed the series, and is held in high regard among fans, and as an added bonus for Xbox One owners, you can play the game via backwards compatibility. On the PlayStation Vita, you have Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles and that’s about it really, though it’s actually a pretty good game that you should definitely check out. And of course, there’s also Bloodstained, which is a spiritual successor to Symphony of the Night’s gameplay and is expected to release in 2018 for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Wii U, and PlayStation Vita.

So happy birthday, Castlevania series. May you live on to whip Dracula for another 30 years.