Castlevania[a] is an action-platformer video game developed and published by Konami for the Family Computer Disk System video game console in Japan in September 1986.[7] It was ported to cartridge format and released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in May 1987 and in Europe in 1988. It was also re-issued for the Family Computer in cartridge format in 1993.
Players control Simon Belmont, who has entered Castlevania to defeat the vampire Count Dracula.[8] It is the first game in Konami's Castlevania video game series, and was developed in tandem with the MSX2 game Vampire Killer, which was released a month later and follows the same premise, but features different gameplay mechanics. Castlevania was succeeded by an NES sequel, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, and an NES prequel, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. Super Castlevania IV, which follows the same setting, was released in 1991 for the Super Nintendo. A remake of the game for the Sharp X68000 home computer was eventually re-released for the PlayStation as Castlevania Chronicles in 2001.
Castlevania was positively received and financially successful. It is considered an NES classic by PC World, while Nintendo Power and Game Informer ranked it in their list of best video games ever made.