Konami snuck this one under our shiny metal noses. I couldn’t find the release date of this game until the day it came out, which was two days ago, but it was worth the non-wait!

For those of you that are not familiar, Castlevania the Adventure was the original Gameboy 4bit released in 1989 (20 years ago.) (Damn I’m old.) For the twentieth anniversary they remade it for Wiiware with SNES graphics. Some of you might ask yourself, “Did this need to be remade?” and the answer is, “Yes it did, you idiot!”

The new graphics make it look a lot like Castlevania IV, while maintaining the difficulty of the original game. Overall, much more user friendly. (I hope that Nintendo follows in Konami’s foot steps and re-vamps Metroid II.) This game has a specific charm to it that definitely belongs in the mainstream Castlevania series. You play a Belmont, the story is drastically simple, and it is a delightful challenge.

Just like most Castlevania’s it should take the better part of a day to get through the whole thing. (Other than Castlevania III and X, those game’s are bitches.) And for what feels like an entirely new Castlevania game $10 dollars is a reasonable price. It is truly one of the most balanced Castlevania games. It’s challenging at times, but very playable. It has Normal and Hard settings, and if you want to make it even easier it has the option to add lives per continue.

I would place the difficulty of this game right below Castlevania Chronicles, but above the first and fourth in the series. (Obviously only including the platformers.) I am mostly only gauging this based on the last two levels, as they are almost always the most challenging.

But ultimately there are two things that stand out about this game. The first being, even the three stage Dracula seemed to be a very methodical victory, meaning I can feel that it was about skill and not luck and it was challenging, but in the end very beatable.

And the number two reason this game was awesome, was that they fixed the problem from the original so that you can change direction in mid-jump. If anyone is familiar with this problem in the first few Castlevania games, you’ll understand how great it feels to finally have control.

Well that’s about it. This game has some creatures that are indigenous to this game solely, and therefore a must have for Castlevania fans. It is simply a really good game that I recommend downloading the next afternoon you have free.

I am awarding this game 9 out of 10!