Past week went through Castlevania The Adventure, Belmont's Revenge, and Splatterhouse 2.
Haunted Castle - first played this a year ago. Version with no continues so unplayable without save states. There is a really, really cool game here underneath the bugs and unbearable difficulty. I dig the graphics, Simon's blue hair and the bosses are great. But design choices such as a constant, CONSTANT barrage of Medusa head-esque bats, some enemies taking half your health for touching them, etc. break the game. Cool shit like the bleeding tear portrait (old LoneSage fanheads will remember that as my avatar circa 2008), being teleported to a Greek ruin, the Creature boss fight with the corpse of Dr. Frankenstein in the background really give this game some color. I ran out the timer on the Dracula boss fight to hear the music and heard a jingle from the Contra boss fights which is a great Easter egg.
This was the fourth Castlevania game, after MSX Castlevania and NES 1 and 2. Looking it up, it seems it's been ported to modern systems twice which is cool. A part of me wishes Konami would Lucas it and tweak the things that make the game so damn difficult and frustrating. It deserved a better final release than it got.