Cover · fair useGames › Castlevania
Castlevania 2026
Castlevania is a 1986 platform game developed and published by Konami. It was first released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System in September 1986, then later ported to cartridge format and launched in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1987 and in Europe in 1988. The game was re-released for the Family Computer in cartridge form in 1993. This title marks the beginning of the Castlevania series.
Players control Simon Belmont, a descendant of a legendary vampire hunter, who enters Count Dracula’s castle to defeat him after the vampire reappears 100 years after Simon’s ancestor defeated him. Castlevania was developed alongside Konami's MSX2 game Vampire Killer, which came out a month later and shares the same premise, characters, and settings but offers different gameplay mechanics. The series continued with Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, both released for the NES. Super Castlevania IV followed in 1991 for the Super NES and continues the storyline. A remake appeared for the X68000 in 1993, later re-released as Castlevania Chronicles on PlayStation in 2001.
The game was both commercially successful and critically acclaimed, with reviewers highlighting its visuals, gameplay, music, and challenging difficulty. It has since been recognized as one of the greatest video games ever created.
Crew
- Director
- Hitoshi Akamatsu
- Designer
- Akihiko Nagata
- Programmer
- Nobuhiro Matsuoka
- Artist
- Noriyasu Togakushi
- Producer
- Akihiko Nagata
- Music
- Kinuyo Yamashita, Satoe Terashima
Details
- Developer
- Konami
- Publisher
- Konami, Nintendo
- Platforms
- Famicom Disk System, NES, arcade, Commodore 64, Amiga, MS-DOS, mobile phone, Game Boy Advance, Windows, Android, iOS
- Modes
- Single-player
- Series
- Castlevania
