Heh someone said CV 3 was harder than Ghouls N Ghosts, not in a million years sorry, though it is up there. I remember writing down passwords for every stage for every character (except Trevor/Ralph alone). DXC I had no troubles with, CV 3 took a little practice, but eventually I beat the game with everyone, these days I'm very rusty (need to play it again for the hell of it). I've 1 lifed CV 1 all of once, 2 lifed it a few times, 1 lifed both quests of CV 4, CV 2 had it's moments, mainly in not getting lost. Bloodlines has limited continues that kinda drives the diifculty up a tad, but practice makes perfect,
CV Chronicles PSX even in original mode isn't quite as hard as the original X68K version, that one seems to be a bit harder than it's rerelease counterpart on PS 1. Castlevania XX aka Drac X SNES, now that I own a copy I need to work on it (US version a kind friend who used to post here long ago sold to me), it's definitely harder than it's PCE counterpart.
Now Vampire Killer on the other hand is a tad more forgiving due to aesthetics (finding keys to unlock doors, crazy stage design, and now that I have one of the Japanese versions of Haunted Castle PS 2, it is more tolerable than version K of the US release. Seems to use one of the easier Japanese romsets ( the Oretachi Geason releases all used MAME).
And awww hell you guys got me talking CV again, I thought I was cured, that's ok I have a lot of stuff CV and otherwise to play.