Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is a prequel that plays Trevor Belmont's hunt for Dracula across a castle route that actually branches — certain stages offer two paths that lead to different levels entirely, changing which partner characters you can find along the way. Grant the pirate climbs walls and clings to ceilings, Sypha the sorceress casts elemental magic, and Alucard, Dracula's own son, turns into a bat and shoots fireballs. Only one travels with Trevor at a time, and swapping between them mid-stage becomes essential to clearing certain rooms.

The NES cartridge shipped with a Konami VRC6 audio chip that expands the console's sound channels well past stock hardware, which is why the soundtrack — "Beginning," "Nightmare," "Mad Forest" — still sounds noticeably richer than most of the console's library. Combined with the branching structure, it gives Castlevania III genuine replay value most NES games never bothered with.

This page hosts the verified Castlevania III ROM, built for Delta Emulator's NES core on iPhone — load it directly with no BIOS file or extra setup required.