Ugh, I'm on a really nasty stage in Dracula's Curse. I am starting to realize that Alucard isn't so useless since his bat form made certain sections of the game a breeze. I finally saw Sypha's ice spell though and it's pretty neat. It will actually freeze enemies and some of their projectiles at which point Sypha can strike them once to end them. I need to figure out a better way to get around a section involving stairs, the true evil of Dracula's Curse, and the fire breathing dragon skulls. I guess I should be grateful the section doesn't have Medusa Heads.

In Belmont's Revenge, I finished the Stone Castle which actually had a few interesting gimmicks going for it. Like a section where the stage goes dark and these roly poly enemies become active during this time. The trick though is that the room only goes dark if you destroy the candles in the room. The boss was also a bit tough since he had better range than I would like and two phases. When he first appears, he's a sluggish knight in heavy armor, but once he loses about 2/3rds of his health, his armor is destroyed and he turns into a speedy smurfer with air slash style attacks. Started the plant castle and this stage is already the toughest in this game. Just too many rope sections dealing with hard to hit bone throwing skeletons.

Decided to take a quick peek at the last three installments as well.

Kid Dracula - Is super adorable and plays more like a linear Mega Man than a Castlevania game seeing as Kid Drac uses fireballs to attack and the cutesy graphics are far more reminiscent o Mega Man's art style. The Frankenstein enemies with bows in their hair are my favorite.

Castlevania IV - Feels a bit over designed in some places and Simon's traditional stiff animations feel a bit awkward compared to the graphics, but even Rondo of Blood had this issue. The music is pretty snazzy though as well as the opening. Need to get used to the new whip mechanics, but they are appreciated. The game also has some funky game elements that take advantage of the Mode 7 effects as well. Fun fact: Super Castlevania IV is not an actual sequel. It's a remake/re-imagining of the original Castlevania. It is also the third version of the game and the second remake proceeded by Haunted Castle for the arcades, and followed by Castlevania Chronicles for the PC.

Bloodlines - Looks better than Castlevania IV to be honest, but CIV has the better music quality which is a damn shame because Michiru Yamane (Suikoden III and all of the Igarashi Castlevanias starting with SotN) debuted as the series composer in this one. The music is good but the quality could be better. Besides that, Bloodlines is just a bit odd in some strange ways. You collect crystals instead of hearts for sub weapons, and sub-weapons are given a dedicated button to use them. My only other gripe with the game besides the audio is that some of the bosses have poor damage cues. I guess I'm used to the games giving me more of an audio cue for when a hit lands. I had a boss in the first stage that I didn't even think I was actually hurting them because despite hitting them a bunch of times, I never got my audio cue so I kept thinking it was going to have a second stage to the fight where I can do real damage. The redesigns for some of the classic enemies are actually pretty cool such as the Fishmen.