CASTLEVANIA - Good God what a bad Amiga game!

[Shatterhand]

Originally Posted by Solo Kazuki

Haunted Castle is not equal Akumajou Dracula/Castlevania. It's different game which can be counted as "Castlevania 0", some kind of prequel to Castlevania series.

While it's true it's not the same game, the fact they all have the same title in Japanese makes it a little confusing.

Haunted Castle (Arcade), Vampire Killer(MES) and Castlevania(NES) are all called "Akumajou Dracula" in Japan and were released more or less at the same time. If someone asks "are all three the same game", what's your answer?


EDIT: Only now I noticed the game Retro1234 is showing on his post is not Haunted Castle, but the "Vs." version of Castlevania... which is just a NES inside an arcade cabinet.

It doesn't look garbage, it looks like a NES game

[DamienD]

Edit: Ooops, just saw Shatterhand's post after writing / posting mine...

Originally Posted by Retro1234

The Arcade version looks pretty garbage as well.

[ Show youtube player ]

This isn't really arcade hardware; it's the Nintendo VS. System, which is basically a NES console.

Originally Posted by Solo Kazuki

Haunted Castle is not equal Akumajou Dracula/Castlevania. It's different game which can be counted as "Castlevania 0", some kind of prequel to Castlevania series.

Maybe, but it's the first arcade instalment in the series.

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

It doesn't look garbage, it looks like a NES game

The NES? You mean that console you have to lift up the lid to insert a game?
Just like you would lift up the lid of a garbage can...

[Shatterhand]

Originally Posted by lilalurl

The NES? You mean that console you have to lift up the lid to insert a game?
Just like you would lift up the lid of a garbage can...

I wouldn't know, I never owned one, I live in Brazil ,land of endless NES clones.

Like the Dynavision 4:


It has a normal cartridge loader, you can use either Japanese or American carts without the need of an adapter, has an internal headphone jack.... and it's controller is *awesome*, a lot better than the oficial Nintendo one. It may look like a cheap clone or something but *it is not*, it's a great piece of hardware.

There are lots of different Dynavision models, I own one with just the japanase-standard cartridge slot (Which suits me fine, since I just use it with an Everdrive anyway), but they all kinda look the same with different colors and slightly different controllers. But their controllers are always great.

They were made by a now-defunct brazilian company called "Dynacom" which made some *great* third-party accessories for different consoles and computers.... and made their own (probably) illegal clones of them sometimes

But we had TONS of NES/Famicom clones here back at the time before the NES ever released officialy here. I don't think I ever saw a real NES around here back at the time, only their clones.

[lilalurl]

I remember reading (maybe some your posts, but also some other websites) that the consoles were quite expensive in Brazil at that time (because of high import taxes I think).

I guess it explain all these console clones. And Nintendo probably closed their eyes as long as they could get some money from the cartridges sales. Unless these were clones too?

[Shatterhand]

I think they were expensive because our economy was a horrible at that time. Not that it's any good nowadays, but at that time it was absolutelty bonkers. And in the 80s we had a law that PROHIBITED certain good to be imported, usually related to eletctronics.


There was a company called "Gradiente" who officialy produced the Atari 2600 here, and oficially licensed games to be produced here. Then there were the clones (Dynacom made their own one too, a few other companies did it too). The Odyssey 2 was also oficially produced here, though it didn't have the same success as the Atari 2600.

Gradiente also oficially produced the first MSX computers here, which helped the system being the most popular 8 bits computer here (We had clones of other computers, but I believe Gradiente was the only company with money to *oficially* produce them *and* advert on TV - we never had a C64 system though. They probably were harder to clone or something )

In the late 80s another company got into the game, named "Tec Toy". They managed to oficially represent Sega here in Brazil (something they *still* do to this day). At that same moment there was also an explosion of NES clones.

And no, I believe Nintendo didn't even know what was happening here in Brazil. Consoles and games were cloned and pirated with no shame. They didn't know or didn't care, or just couldn't do anything, I dunno.

At one point Gradiente was going to also oficially produce the Atari 5200 here, but as the console wasn't sucessful in the USA, they gave up and used the cases they had already produced to also enter in the "illegal NES clone" market we had here with their Phantom System. Besides the Phantom System, we had the Dynavision, the Turbo Game, the Bit System, the Top Game... oh, there were so many of them. Many of those were adverted on TVs or Magazines as if they were normal legal hardware.

Those consoles weren't cheap, but weren't OVERLY expensive either... but you have to remember Brazil is a very poor country, on certain regions food is a luxury... so depending upon where you live, having a console was just for the rich indeed.

Gradiente at one point also oficially represented Nintendo here (under their "Playtronic" brand), but that was when the SNES was already out for a long time and the N64 was about to be released. At that point they DID oficially bring the NES and NES games to our market, but as people were already look for the next generation after the 16 bits, they didn't sell *that* well. (Also, they were more expensive than the clones and pirated games already on the market... so why bother?) - at least we finally got the Super Nintendo here in Brazil, before that we had to import it (And the law already permited it by then). But they had a good run with the SNES, N64 and I believe they also sold the Gamecube here. By the time the Wii was released they weren't around anymore (They came back to market, closed again, and came back AGAIN since then )


Tec Toy released all the main Sega consoles here (Up until the Dreamcast), but I believe after the Sega Saturn they just imported the consoles instead of manufactring then here. They *STILL* produce the Master System around here though, which is amazingly unbeliveable.

Erm.. sorry about the wall of text

EDIT: Found a nice article about the NES clones . Its in portuguse, but you can run it on google translator I guess... or at least look at the nice pictures https://www.redbull.com/br-pt/ataque...iros-paralelos

[spudje]

Retrohour interviewed the CEO of Tectoy recently https://theretrohour.com/techtoy-sega-brazil-ep182/

[Solo Kazuki]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

Haunted Castle (Arcade), Vampire Killer(MES) and Castlevania(NES) are all called "Akumajou Dracula" in Japan and were released more or less at the same time.

Sure, but Sharp X68000 version was released few years later.

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

If someone asks "are all three the same game", what's your answer?

Simple "No", I have no problem with this. It's because there are much more similar cases of different games with same name. It's not that rare, e.g. Second Samurai for Amiga and Genesis/Megadrive - these are two different games.

[lordofchaos]

Yes it's a terrible port, but worse than that, it's a opportunity missed, especially considering the capabilities of the Amiga. One can only dream what would happen if this game was given to Factor 5.. Also surprised it came out in 1990? Ouch!

[ZEUSDAZ]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

Yes it's a terrible port, but worse than that, it's a opportunity missed, especially considering the capabilities of the Amiga. One can only dream what would happen if this game was given to Factor 5.. Also surprised it came out in 1990? Ouch!

The same dream if Gremlin (Lotus Trilogy) published Outrun rather than U.S. Gold?! I know the feeling :-(

[Marle]

Ahh yes Amiga Castlevania.... What an absolute ***tshow!

I streamed Castlevania 4 ways about 2-3 months ago. The Amiga version left a very sour taste in my mouth.

[ Show youtube player ]

And I've completed the NES original a few times over the years, the C64 version is a bit better than the Amiga port, but even so.

I absolved my sins by playing the original and Super Castlevania IV at the end of the stream, I had to, I felt dirty.

Fetch the holy water!

[malko]

Originally Posted by Marle

Ahh yes Amiga Castlevania.... What an absolute ***tshow!

I streamed Castlevania 4 ways about 2-3 months ago. The Amiga version left a very sour taste in my mouth.

[ Show youtube player ]

And I've completed the NES original a few times over the years, the C64 version is a bit better than the Amiga port, but even so.

I absolved my sins by playing the original and Super Castlevania IV at the end of the stream, I had to, I felt dirty.

Fetch the holy water!

[Shatterhand]

Originally Posted by ZEUSDAZ

The same dream if Gremlin (Lotus Trilogy) published Outrun rather than U.S. Gold?! I know the feeling :-(

Don't forget Gremlin also published Nigel Mansell World Championship and Top Gear 2 on Amiga.



But yeah, no way they would do worse than US Gold.