Castlevania Chronicles

The most recent version (one of five) of Simon Belmont's assault on Dracula's castle in 1691.

Originally titled Akumajo Dracula (same as the original Castlevania 1986) and released solely in Japan in 1993 for the Sharp X 68000 computer, it was rereleased worldwide on the Sony Playstation in 2001 as Castlevania Chronicles.

Castlevania Chronicles provides examples of:

 * Anachronism Stew - Dracula keeps M. C. Escher's Relativity and Salvador Dali's Persistance of Memory (or pretty good copies of them) in his private art gallery!
 * Beastess - This is the only female werewolf in the series to date. How does she compare? The typical series werewolf uses charging attacks, fireballs and a ground pound. This werewolf rips the clock tower apart trying to kill you.
 * Bloody Tears - From a large statue. They turn into red skeletons, too. Guess what BGM plays in that stage? (which is stage 4 by the way).
 * Creepy Doll - What do you expect from the place called Tower of Dolls?
 * Denial of Diagonal Attack - Simon can only whip downwards or diagonally downwards when jumping, now. After Super Castlevania IV, this is very jarring.
 * Disturbed Doves: Seen at the ending of Original mode.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything - See No Fair Cheating below
 * Each New Game Plus tweaks the obstacles you face. For example, the black panthers in Dracula's Castle can jump at will, and the ninja maids can roll at you ala Blanka
 * Falling Chandelier of Doom - And they also set the stage (and the enemies) on fire.
 * Foreboding Architecture - The skull door to the last section of Dracula's keep, attended by Ninja Maids.
 * Foreshadowing: Half-way through stage 2 you'll see the giant dragon skeleton. Guess who's the Boss?
 * A Glass of Chianti - This is the first game to depict Dracula with a glass in hand.
 * An Ice Person - The Ice Wizard.
 * Meaningful Background Event: On the background of the second area of stage 2 you can see winged shapes with spears flying by. They attack you ten seconds later.
 * New Game Plus - Each play through bumps the difficulty, for a max of 8 different play throughs
 * Ninja Maid - Unlike the later vacuuming martial artists, these lithely leap around and throw knives.
 * Nintendo Hard - Thankfully, the remake tones down the difficulty for the Arrange Mode.
 * If you're a sucker for punishment, try taking on the original mode and all its New Game Pluses.
 * No Fair Cheating - The first stage closely resembles the first stage of the original Castlevania. Thus, you might know exactly where the wall meat is hidden. Nope, it's been moved. In its place, how about an infinite supply of fleamen?
 * Nostalgia Level:
 * Stage 1 is copied almost brick-to-brick from original Castlevania.
 * Stage 2 has elements from Castlevania's first half of Stage 4.
 * The first of Stage 3 has elements from Castlevania's second half of Stage 4.
 * Stage 4 is basically Stage 2 from Castlevania with the giant blood crying statue.
 * The beginning of Stage 6 is the same as the beginning of final stage from Super Castlevania IV.
 * Stage 7 is stage 5 from Castlevania.
 * Orchestra Hit Techno Battle - The final boss track "You Goddamned Bathead!"
 * Redheaded Hero - The remake was the first game to depict Simon with red hair (and drawn by Ayami Kojima). He hasn't been seen with another color since.
 * Stalactite Spite - In stage 2.
 * Subverted Innocence - One of the later rooms is an art gallery that starts off with a colorful mural of an outdoor scene on the back wall. (It even changes season based on the time of year.) The beauty of the area doesn't last.
 * Tears From a Stone
 * Visual Pun - For those who didn't figure it out, the theme of stage 4 (the one with the the giant statues that cries Tears of Blood) is Bloody Tears.
 * Wasted Song - One of the game's two most popular new songs (the other being the Tower of Dolls) is used for its data loading screen. It wasn't until Dracula X Chronicles and Adventure Rebirth that its true potential was harnessed.