10 Best Video Game Prequels
6. Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse
For this entry we’re going way back to the past: to 1990, to the Nintendo Entertainment System and to when Konami actually used to make games for their selection of IPs.
Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse was the first home console Castlevania title in the series not to star Simon Belmont and instead it introduced us to Trevor. Yes, that Trevor from the Netflix series.
Dracula's Curse provided quite a bit of the trajectory for the franchise's overarching plot (and the anime adaptation) by also introducing Alucard, Sypha Belnades and Grant Danasty. These four would-be vampire-hunters give gamers a lot of choice when it comes to different playstyles and how they can approach the sprawling world of Dracula. Which, unlike the original game, now has branching paths in its level selection.
It may not seem like much now but considering the game is over 30 years old it was definitely a rare case when it came to player agency.
After Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest had tried to reinvent the wheel and got stuck on its own spokes, Castlevania III was not just a stunning return to form but set the stage for a lot of the future of the series. Its degree of choice would go on to inform games like Symphony of the Night, and its plot cemented the foundation for the vampire-hunting Belmont lineage.