Collection essentials #44 & #45: Castlevania III: Simon’s Quest & Akumajou Densetsu (NES)
Yes, there will be many Japanese games in this series. Japan was the king of the industry for a long time. Many hundreds of games only were released in Japan, including very many good ones, unfortunately. Other reasons to get a Japanese game could be a cost difference, or because changes were made upon bringing the game overseas that make the Japanese version stand out in some way. In this case, what you see here is two versions of the same game.
But more on that a bit later. First, about the game itself. Castlevania III, unlike II, is the type of sequel to the first game that you’d expect to see. In other words, it takes the basic formula of what the original did and builds on that concept. And they sure went above and beyond in doing so. They could have simply designed several new levels with the same gameplay engine and called it a day. But they wanted to make something with a lot more content and variety in gameplay, so that’s what we got. Castlevania III has far more levels, and has a “branching paths” system where at certain points you can choose which level you want to play next. This means you don’t have to see and clear every single level in order to beat the game, so if there’s one that you have trouble with or just don’t like, you can simply take the other path. In addition to your main character who plays pretty much the same as the protagonist from the first game, you can recruit three other playable characters who have much different abilities! One can climb walls and has more control over his jumping, one can shoot fireballs and turn into a bat, and one wields powerful magic. You can only have one of the three at a time. All this amounts to a game that can be experienced in a wide variety of different ways each time you play, and that’s pretty awesome.
So, why do I have two different versions of the same game? Well, a LOT was changed from the original Japanese version to the American release. For starters, the Japanese original has a special sound chip in the cartridge that enhances the console’s audio capabilities, but they apparently had removed the compatibility for that sort of thing from American NES consoles, so when bringing the game over they had to redo the music with the console’s standard sound channels. Whichever version sounds better is ultimately a matter of preference, but I and probably most others would tell you the Japanese version takes the cake. In the visual department, some things got censored too, as companies were usually highly sensitive about keeping games non-controversial and kid-friendly, so stuff like nudity on statues would be altered and religious imagery often got changed.
The American version was also made significantly more difficult. One of the most striking and obvious ways is that one of the playable characters got “nerfed” (video game lingo for “de-powered”), since in the original Japanese version his basic weapon is a dagger he can throw as much as he wants, while in the American version he simply stabs with it, severely decreasing his basic attack range. But there’s a whole list of little tweaks they made to make the game more challenging. For example, many enemies are harder to kill and/or deal more damage.
Why would they want to make the game harder? The answer almost certainly has to do with the business of video game rentals. Back then, video games didn’t have a whole lot of content. For the average game, if an experienced gamer with a reasonable amount of skill rented a game, they could realistically get through the whole thing and see everything in an evening or two, bring it back, and then have no motivation to actually go out and buy the game to keep. If the game is more difficult, however, it’s less likely that they will be able to finish the game within a short rental period. In Japan, it was literally illegal for stores to rent out video games, so this wasn’t an issue, but it was a very common and popular practice overseas, hence the change across different releases. From what I’ve played, I’d say I prefer the Japanese release, but that doesn’t mean the American version is bad or ruined by any means. Some may prefer it, as there were a few cheat codes added, and some of us gamers actually enjoy an increased challenge.
Sadly I didn’t grow up with Castlevania III, so I don't have a ton of experience with it. I have beaten Akumajou Densetsu, but not the American Castlevania III…yet! If you grab the Castlevania Anniversary Collection on modern platforms, you will have access to BOTH these releases, which is pretty awesome.
Castlevania III is a great example of how to do a video game sequel right and it’s one of the best NES games as a result. That’s why two different versions of it are collection essentials.
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