The Commodore 64 version of Castlevania was converted by Unlimited Software, Inc. and published by Konami in 1990, and it’s not a bad port overall. It’s arguably better than the dodgy Amiga version.

Castlevania on the C64 isn’t perfect. Walking up stairs is finnicky (you have to push the joystick diagonally to use staircases, and it takes a bit of practise to get used to); using secondary weapons is clunky, and the game is very difficult, but it at least has responsive controls and fairly authentic gameplay, which the Amiga version sorely lacks.

The graphics are chunky and a little squished, but the effect is not as bad as seen in the Amiga version, because it fits the look and feel of the C64‘s multicolour graphics mode. Overall, the C64 version looks reasonably good, although it’s not as good-looking as the Famicom original, obviously. The game does have some pretty bad sprite tearing at times.

Castlevania on the C64 has reasonable renditions of the original game’s tunes, but they aren’t an outstanding use of the SID chip. In the hands of a better tunesmith they could have been much more rousing.

C64 Castlevania is playable enough, but not really the best way to play Castlevania. It’s a decent enough conversion, but could probably be bettered by a modern homebrew coding team, I feel.

More: Castlevania on Wikipedia
More: Castlevania on CSDb
Steam: Castlevania on Steam
Steam: Castlevania Anniversary Collection on Steam
GOG: Castlevania 1, 2 & 3 on GOG.com