Castlevania 3 Balances Its Difficulty Perfectly

Castlevania 3 is a game that defines the term “NES Hard”. It’s easily one of the hardest games on the system and is still to this day seen as one of the hardest games ever made. A lot of people over the years have said things such as “This game’s unfair”, “This game is a perfect example of Konami passive-aggressively hating their fanbase” or “whoever designed these stages is a masochist” but I argue that this game’s difficulty is actually balanced quite well. Sure, it can seem like Konami placed things in a completely unfair way, but I have beaten Castlevania 3 so many times over the years that now I see the game for what it truly is. It’s a game that was designed to accomodate different play styles in the form of multiple characters. Trevor plays differently from Grant, Sypha, and Alucard, and the gameplay variety that all 4 of these characters offer leads to different levels of difficulty. If you play as Grant, you value speed and versatility cause he’s the fastest of the 4 characters and he can climb on walls and ceilings so he can avoid situations with relative ease once you get used to his controls. Sypha is VERY good at crowd control with her spells, but it’s at the cost of range because her physical weapon has AWFUL reach. Alucard doesn’t even have a physical weapon like everyone else does, he shoots a spread of 3 fireballs much like his ANNOYING father, BUT he has the ability to fly so if there’s a section of a stage you’re struggling with, you can fly right over it. <a href="https://medium.com/the-mad-belmont/castlevania-3-balances-its-difficulty-perfectly-171894a8f926">Website</a>