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In the Wake of the Vampire
In The Wake of the Vampire, made by Sega for that Game Gear thing nobody cares about anymore, screams Castlevania rip-off. However, it tries to take the angle of the Dracula novel by placing you in merry old England. There's adirty deeds afoot, being that bodies are being found being completely drained of blood, so it's up to Dr. Social to (in the most hilarious part of the game) use the guidance from his Ouija board to find the origin of the wrongdoings.
Dr. Social doesn't carry a whip, but he does have an array of weapons dropped like swords, canes, dagger and axes. There are also secondary weapons such as bombs, guns, and boomerangs that can only be used a limited number of times, and, in a move of incredible innovation and insight, are activated by pressing Up + Attack.
As an action game, it's kind of middle of the road. The atmosphere isn't very interesting, the game isn't very hard, and there isn't much there to keep playing. After the second level, I stopped, figuring I had enough screenshots to see what this game was about. Worth a shot, if only to see the shamelessness.
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Download the Emulator (MEKA 0.51)
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Kenseiden
The way I used to describe Kenseiden for the Sega Master System was "Castlevania set in ancient Japan". Though the games are different, some of the fundamental gameplay elements are the same - the large sprites, the enemy patterns, and the ever-so annoying kick back when you get hurt.
There are some cool parts, most notably the cool sword techniques you could learn, and non-linear play (so you can search ancient Japan for said sword techniques - what, did you think the game would just hand them to you?) And, much like Castlevania, it's extremely difficult, almost to a level of unfairness. However, Kenseiden steps over that boundary much more often than Castlevania does, especially when fighting bosses, who are almost universally impossible.
Still, given that this is a SMS game, the graphics are nice and it's a nice take on the gameplay elements.
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Download the Emulator (MEKA 0.51)
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Actraiser
One of the earlier Super Nintendo games, Actraiser gave the player something unique to do: essentially, it was two games in one. There was the Sim mode, in which you would control a little angel in an overhead view, building a village, protecting it from little monsters and making sure that the village people were happy and safe. Your task was eventually to lead these people to the monster lairs so they could seal them off.
Well, once the Sim stages were done, you went into the Action stages, which are rather similar to Castlevania, both in the graphic style and control scheme. And, as expected, these scenes are also extremely hard, especially later on.
There was also a sequel released later, which removed all of the Sim elements and made it almost entirely an action game. These are pretty much in the same vein as the original. The final picture to the left is from Actraiser 2.
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Download the Actraiser 2 ROM
Download the Emulator (ZSNES 0.953)
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Nosferatu
Though Nosferatu for the SNES doesn't play very much like Castlevania, it's very similar to Prince of Persia with the same gothic elements as our favorite series injected in for good measure.
Seemingly taking place during the modern era, our stunningly daft hero runs through the front door of the vampire's castle with no weapons and wearing a pair of jeans as protection. So, much of time you'll be beating the undead with your fists. You might get a weapon later on, but I'm really not sure. I got past the first "level" and then was confronted with a little opening I couldn't crawl through and thus was stuck. I waited till the timer ticked down, where I was presented a little "Game Over" message, then gave up. Undoubtedly there is some simple solution that I have overlooked, but I really don't care to find it out, because Prince of Persia wasn't exactly my favorite thing and this doesn't seem to be much better (give me Flashback any day!)
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Castlevania Games - Castlevania-like Games
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