Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi takes Castlevania back to basics

“Very little Bela Lugosi” is not a criticism I ever expected to level at a game. It’s not entirely unexpected considering he’s dead, but I’m still grumbling at you, Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi.

It is, as it appears, an unabashed homage to Castlevania, but with none of the -vania, making it much more like the original (or the game boy ones, and possibly a few others in the series I don’t know about): a straightforward, linear platform game about whipping monsters and not stepping on spikes. Ten a penny, right? But CNSBL captures it so well that it had me looking up old game boy tunes it vaguely reminded me of.