30. Castlevania Legends (Game Boy)

How on earth did this mess up the Belmont’s Revenge template so badly? Castlevania Legends just didn’t control or play very well and it was pretty boring once you get down to the game’s core.

Its only saving grace is its magic story and trying to link main character Sonia Belmont with Alucard -which ended up being retconned a few years later. Other than that, it took Konami a while until the portable Castlevania games got their groove.

29. Castlevania: Dracula X (SNES)

This SNES port of Rondo of Blood looks and feels like the PC-Engine classic, but it sure as heck isn’t. Imagine the original game now with fewer levels, no alternate routes, and redesigned levels that turned tough fights to near-impossible feats of madness: that’s this bastardized port in a nutshell.

This is one miserable little pile of a port that really needed to be staked.

28. Lords of Shadow: Mirrors Of Fate (3DS)

The 3DS got the short end of the stick in terms of Castlevania games.  MercurySteam somehow decided that the best approach at a new 2D Castlevania game was to take the worst aspects of the 3D Lords of Shadows combat and the Game Boy Metroidvania castle and level design. This resulted in a tedious slog of a game that should have been a monster-filled wild ride.

27. Vampire Killer (MSX)

What would happen if you took the NES version of Castlevania and turned it into an open-ended RPG with 80s gaming mechanics? A pretty confusing and uneven mess, even in an era where RPGs were getting their groove on with the niche gameplaying crowd.

Unlike the simple nature of the NES title, you have to guide your whip-savvy Belmont to find specific items and characters, backtracking through levels while avoiding bad guys. You also have a limited set of lives and no continues, making this journey all the more aggravating. Give it props though; its ambition and laying the RPGing groundworks for future sequels and iterations to come.

26. Castlevania: Judgment (Wii)

Don’t laugh: this 1-on-1 Castlevania 3D fighting game had some decent ideas with its playstyles and levels. But did it really need to exist? Even with its amusing storylines played out by characters redesigned by the Death Note artist, Castlevania: Judgment is just a notable cash grab.

Unlike others like DreamMix TV, this one is actually tolerable. In a way, paved way for Simon and Richter to be playable in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. At least, we would like to think that.

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