The PC MS-DOS version of Konami‘s Castlevania was developed by Unlimited Software, Inc. (the same company that did the C64 conversion), and first published in North America in 1990. As far as I know it didn’t get a release in Europe or Japan.

DOS games in the late Eighties and early Nineties were somewhat janky – compared to the ‘golden’ 256-colour VGA years of 1992 onwards – and this Castlevania port runs in either CGA (ugh), EGA, or 16-colour Tandy modes. 16 colours being about the maximum most PCs could display back then. In spite of the limited colours the game doesn’t look too bad. And in spite of the somewhat jerky scrolling, it doesn’t play too badly either. The most important thing is that the controls are responsive and that Simon Belmont (the player character) is able to hit, turn and jump quickly enough to give you a fighting chance. Which doesn’t happen in the terrible Amiga version, but does in the DOS version.

Playing Castlevania in MS-DOS is a reasonably fun experience, but it’s clearly not the best way to play this game. For the time: this is a good port by Unlimited Software. Playing it now: it’s probably one for Castlevania and DOS fans only.

Note: I’m showing the EGA version first, and the CGA version at the end.

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