8/26/22: Well, it sure has been a while. I just thought I'd check in and point out some of the recent site contributions. There are a couple of them: Casey S. has sent in some magazine shots of the Super Castlevania IV prototype. Amar Youkai shares a Bloodlines "Fun Fact" and thus reveals how the game's 9-lives code activates an unknown quick-save feature. VGMuseum overlord ReyVGM tells us about a Simon's Quest secret message that displays when you finish the game on a certain day. Termie Gen shares information for two additional Bloodlines prototypes: Version 0.85 and Version 0.9. And Sr. Lan Belmont returns with two new arrangements--two Epic Renditions of Opposing Bloodlines (these, he says, were done in celebration of the new Castlevania Netflix Series).
10/24/21: I've got a couple of items to share: Contributor Cellextyn has provided us the missing Bloodlines music tracks and, more interestingly, some tracks for the Version 0.1 Bloodlines prototype! All of them can be found on Bloodlines' MP3 page.

And another of KYA's recommended games has added to the homebrew section. This time it's Castlevania: Spectral Interlude--an original work created for the ZX Spectrum. It borrows Simon's Quest's look but takes the gameplay in a whole new direction!
9/28/21: So I went ahead and looked into Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls, and ever since then, I've been filling its page with information. Listed on its page are general information, re-release information, a synopsis, an overview, version differences, and character lists. Character lists site-wide (the Main Lesser Enemy listing and the Main Boss list) have been updated to include information on the game's enemies; there's a new Recurring Enemy page for the Wyvern; and the Other Recurrences page has been updated to include Eligor. I'll be adding more Grimoire content as I learn more about the game.

Also, I've added a page for the recently released Castlevania Advance Collection. I'll be adding more content to that page, too, over time.

Otherwise, Sr. Lan Belmont has returned to provide us a new special Castlevania 35th Anniversary musical arrangement--a rendition of Moon Fight from Akumajou Dracula (X68000); it can be found on his MP3 page. And, once again at the recommendation of contributor KYA, I've added another fan game to the homebrew section; this time it's Castlevania II: Seal of the Curse--a fan-made sequel to Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.
8/24/21: So something pretty exciting happened: The 0.5 beta version of Castlevania: Bloodlines finally leaked! And in celebration of this event, I went ahead and made significant updates to the Bloodlines beta page--or, I should say, pages, since overcrowding forced me to break it up into three. So now there's a standalone Beta Version 0.5 page, and it's been updated to include an exhaustive amount of information. Mainly, it has informational bits and screenshots galore!

Also, thanks to some recommendations made by contributor KYA, I added three more fan games to the homebrew section: Dracula's Curse 2020, which is an enhanced remake of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. Simon's Quest Revamped, which is a similarly enhanced remake of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. And the uniquely crafted Silver Night's Crusaders, which is best described as a high-octane arcade-style Castlevania slaughter-a-thon.

Oh, and as soon as I figure out what's going on with Grimoire of Souls, I'll start adding information to its page.
10/30/20: Eithereor returns with a specially-themed set of MP3s. They represent a complete remake of Castlevania's 16-tune soundtrack done with--get this--actual Super Castlevania IV instruments! You can listen to these hot tunes right here.
9/17/20: Newest contributor Phil comes to the party with guns blazing. He brings us a large mix of interesting items: Water-mark-free screenshots of Bloodlines' 0.5 beta. Screenshots of an assumed alpha-build version of Bloodlines, taken from game magazines. Unused objects for Castlevania 64. A couple of fun facts for Castlevania 64's newly added Glitches and Fun Facts page. And unused Frankenstein sprites for Bloodlines' newly added Unused Elements page.

Otherwise, Spectre2300 has contributed an essay titled From Richter to Julius: Theories of the Belmont Family Tree From 1797-1999. It attempts to create a scenario in which Circle of the Moon is undisputed canon.
8/28/20: Forget about what I said in yesterday's update. All 11 stages are included in the prototype. I learned of this while messing around with Action Replay codes (I'm sure that I'm not the first one to discover any of this). So now the Super Castlevania IV prototype page has been expanded to include stages A and B. I also added an "Extras" section that covers game content that's deeply hidden in the ROM; as of right now, it shows only the "Circular Room," which was brought to my attention by the Cutting Room Floor. More material will likely be added in the future.

Otherwise, Spectre2300, the former Danny V., has submitted both a super achievement and a new high score for Rondo of Blood.
8/27/20: So it turns out that there was more to the Super Castlevania IV prototype than originally thought. There are four additional stages, the first or which can only be accessed via password (one that Eithereor was nice enough to supply me). Acting on this discovery, I've updated the Super Castlevania IV prototype page to include textual and visual information for these four stages. Oh, and a quick request: I'd be grateful to anyone who could help me get a hold of the European Bloodlines beta (the rom, specifically). It's nowhere to be found on my old backup CDs/drives.

Otherwise, the very same Eithereor has updated his MP3 page with a new work: an organ version of Order of Shadow's Blood Fugue.
8/7/20: Since lately I've been in the mood for exploring beta versions of games, I decided that it's time to go about updating the Castlevania: Bloodlines beta page. Previously the page was largely unorganized, the writing was terrible, and there was a lot of misinformation. Well, it has now been fixed substantially--greatly expanded upon and improved. The most attention has gone to Beta Version 0.3; this time, I went over it with a fine-tooth comb and made note of every little detail. And, of course, I made sure to include many more screenshots! I'll be adding more screenshots for the European beta version, too, just as soon as I can find my copy of it.
8/3/20: So I got a hold of that Super Castlevania IV prototype that I talked about in the previous update. After playing through it a few times, I put together a list of all of its differences. You can read about and see images illustrating said differences on the Super Castlevania IV prototype page. If I missed anything, please let me know.
7/30/20: Now for another music-related update, this time courtesy of two separate parties. First is Eithereor, whose dedicated MP3 page is seven tunes richer (they're the orchestrated/8-bit works listed atop the table); the same composer has also supplied two MIDI works (one for Akumajou Dracula and one for Castlevania: Dracula X). And then there's SindraVania Projects, which brings us some very cool items: music tracks from the prototype version of Super Castlvania IV (which was one of the items included in the recent "Nintendo GigaLeak," as it's called). If I can get a hold of the prototype, I'll be sure to provide it some additional coverage.
5/5/20: Got a couple of musical items this time. Francisco R. has contributed two new rearrangements (Rainbow Cemetery and Theme of Simon Belmont), which have been added to his MP3 page, and four tracks for the demo version of Dracula X: Rondo of Blood. And newcomer Eithereor brings us six MIDI creations for random series games (Haunted Castle, Castlevania: The Adventure, Dracula's Curse and Castlevania: Dracula X).
3/25/20: I've got a lot of random items to list, and I'm going to be doing it in the order of submission: The first one comes to us from Jerkofwonder, whose existing fan-fiction piece has been transformed into something entirely new; it's now a screenplay called Castlevania: The Live Series, and over time it will be updated to include new chapters.

Next up is Francisco R., who has contributed a bunch of stuff: (1) Complete scans of the Akumajou Dracula: Kojyo no Shitou adventure book; though, since there are over 200 images, I chose to leave the file ZIPed. (2) Credits lists for the Xbox 360 version of Symphony of the Night, Castlevania: The Arcade, Harmony of Despair, Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate, Lords of Shadow 2, Lords of Shadow 2: Revelations, and Castlevania Anniversary Collection. (3) And numerous musical rearrangements.

Lastly, TheWanderingNight returns with a collection of MIDI rearrangements, all of which have been added to his section of the Special MIDI Creations music page. Ten of them are dedicated to Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-kun (Kid Dracula), and the rest are recreations of tracks from random series titles.
3/8/20: So if you don't know: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has been ported to mobile devices. I've updated its game page to reflect as much. Also, the page has been updated to include information on the port differences, all of which were supplied by Eric C. Otherwise, one additional game has been added to the homebrew section: Castlevania: The Bloodletting, which gives life to the previously canceled game of the same name. And, er, if you have any interest in that Memory Bank thing I was doing, then you may like to know that my Castlevania piece has been updated. The good news is that it's now actually readable.
2/8/20: Slow times, man. Not much going on. About all I've got are two new additions to the Homebrew section: Castlevania the Lecarde Chronicles and its sequel, Castlevania the Lecarde Chronicles 2. They're both fine games; I should have added them much earlier. Also, I should have known that Castlevania: Bloodlines was made available for GameTap in 2006, right around the same time as Konami Collector's Series: Castlevania & Contra appeared; I've updated its games page accordingly. Thanks to Iniche for making me aware of this. On a final note: This site has recently seen its 20th anniversary. Maybe I should have mentioned it earlier, back in November, and posted a speech or some silly picture. Oh well--I've never been the celebratory type anyway. I just thought it'd be worth it to at least point this out. So hurray! And a big thanks to all of you who are reading this and to everyone who has ever taken time out of his or her day to visit my humble little Castlevania site. May it bring you more joy in the future.
10/8/19: The Francisco R. Show continues: The super-contributor has for us this time a huge amount of material for the upcoming Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls. We've got the game's soundtrack and 126 pieces of official art. This gave me the perfect excuse to finally set up a page for the game; it's lacking for content at the moment, yes, but it'll fill up over time. I've since come to possess a tablet, so I'll be giving the game a look; doing so will allow for me to provide the game adequate coverage.
8/25/19: Say hello to newest contributor TheWanderingNight, who has contributed an assortment of MIDI creations and--get this--the accompanying sheet music! That's a first for this site, and it's made necessary a new "Special MIDI Creations" page in the MIDIs section. Hop on over there if you want to hear the tunes or if you're looking for sheet music. Currently there are 39 works in total.

Otherwise, Francisco R. is back with another batch of random items. We've got an Electronics Gaming Monthly-exclusive Symphony of the Night ad (to view ads and such, click on the game pages' "Media" links and check under "Magazine Coverage"). An official-art piece for Harmony of Despair--a logo-less version of its desktop wallpaper. Official art for Castlevania Judgment in the form of character shots and packaging art. Three Power Play Magazine ads that put focus on Super Castlevania IV but also advertise previous entries (Castlevania, Simon's Quest, Dracula's Curse, Adventure and Belmont's Revenge). A Total! Magazine ad for Vampire's Kiss (the European version of Castlevania: Dracula X). Three flyers for Haunted Castle: two Japanese and one North American (check under "Scenes, Packaging Scans, etc."). Scans for the Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - Original Video Game Soundtrack 30th-anniversary vinyl edition. And scans for the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate official soundtrack.
8/2/19: After avoiding doing as much for about five years, I went and took a look at the site's home page and yikes--what a mess. The backgrounds weren't tiling properly, and there were pixelated artifacts everywhere. So I cleaned it up as best I could and added a whole bunch of animations. See if you can spot them all! (Note that some browsers, like Edge, don't display them properly.) I'm planning on adding two or three more over the coming days (creating even one of these is a time sink, I've been reminded). But that probably won't be all: In the future, if suddenly I get any ideas for interesting animations, I'll be sure to work them in. Otherwise: I've updated the design for the game-pages' basic-information tables (as you can see here); they're generally more colorful and now include little system icons. It was all part of a greater process of doing away with tiny text, like I've done on the weapons pages. Finally, after realizing that something was amiss, I rearranged the entries on the games page so that they're listed in the proper release order. That such errors exist or have existed is a reminder that there's a lot of work to be done to make a real website out of this place.
7/25/19: I've finished redesigning the stage pages. Of note is that I replaced those placeholder map images with actual map imagery from the respective games Well, save for Curse of Darkness, which I don't feel like playing at the moment, and games that don't feature maps either in-game or in their packaging material (as far as I know), like Castlevania: The Adventure and the N64 and Lords of Shadow games. My next order of business is to get a hold of some real stage maps so I can finally trash those tiny, poorly formatted thingamajigs that currently occupy the space. I oughta update that "Site Requests" list one of these days.

While I was at it, I whipped up an original-mode map for Akumajou Dracula X68000 and added it to the Bloody Road section of Castleography; you can now swap between it and the arranged-mode map with a point of the mouse cursor. Also, I replaced whatever was left of those old GIF-dot-filled character sprites--mostly the bosses, including Dracula forms, and some lesser enemies. There's still one exception: Capturing the Spider Skeleton remains a problem, since the HUD in both Chronicles versions obscures its upper half, so I fixed up the existing sprite as best I could.
7/17/19: Well, I went and did it: I changed the review score for Castlevania Bloodlines, doing which was a long time in coming (as I mentioned in my Memory Bank piece). The text has been altered to reflect the change though not on a large scale; rather, think of what I've done as more a sprucing up of a given review rather than a rewrite. The reason for that is simple: I don't enjoy writing category-based reviews, since I've found that they're not an ideal way for me to express my thoughts on games. So think of those reviews as something merely customary (the text portions at least, since the rankings do actually reflect how I slot and compare them). Still, it does supply reason for the change. So check it out if you're curious. By the way: These reviews are all terrible writing-wise. One thought kept popping up in my mind whenever I tried reading one: "What idiot wrote this stuff?" Just awful. Do me a favor and never read any of them. Thanks!

Also, I'm currently in the process of redesigning the stage pages. Changes include larger tables, the supplying of more information, and the correction of misinformation. The game most affected so far is Castlevania 64, whose page has seen a boost in imagery; I'll be doing the same for Legacy of Darkness soon (by "soon" I mean whenever I can convince myself to suffer through another 3D Castlevania). Really, though, I don't know what I'm going to for the PS2 games; the existing Lament and Curse of Darkness screenshots are horrible, and I can't replace them because I have zero desire to play through those games again. Hopefully something comes up.

Otherwise, Francisco R. is back with more random goodies: Some early tunes (they're WAV files, so think of them as stand-in preview material) and official art for Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls. More official art for all three Lords of Shadow games: Lords of Shadow (24 pieces), Mirror of Fate (24 pieces) and Lords of Shadow 2 (44 pieces). Japanese-language and translated scans for a Symphony of the Night comic that appeared in Konami Magazine, an official publication. And casing scans for the vinyl release of Castlevania - Original Video Game Soundtrack, which was released to commemorate the series' 30th anniversary.
7/10/19: In the course of doing all of this maintenance, I couldn't ignore the fact that one other thing changed about browser displays a couple of years ago: They started bolding and/or lengthening text, which had disastrous results for my enemy tables. Suddenly names weren't correctly fitting into headers, and the text in my "Description" boxes was spilling down into unintended third lines, effectively stretching tables beyond their set values. So, finally, I went in and remedied the issue, and now everything should display as intended (I hope). Following up on what I said in the previous update, I filled in a whole bunch of those "Coming Soon"s in the Cast section--mainly the Lesser Enemy list. Everything except the Lords of Shadow bosses, which will have to wait until I've had the chance to play/replay the. Also, I made a change and introduced a framed presentation for the Boss list. As things were, I had to visit all 200-plus boss pages anytime I needed to alter something in the "Select Your Enemy" table. This will obviously make it easier for me.

So again continuing a theme: I added lesser enemy and boss lists for the latter two cell phone versions of Castlevania. There's Version 2 (lesser enemies and bosses) and Version 3 (lesser enemies and bosses). This was made possible by a fellow named Kya, who ripped all of the cell phone games' assets and created special patches that reskins Castlevania--turns it into the cell phone games, at least visually. Oh, and while I was at it, I added all of Simon Belmont's alternate-version sprites to the "Heroes" portion of Castlevania's page.

Past Updates...

General Updates

9/5/14: Before I get to this "month's" new additions, I'd like to mention that I'm going to be making a little change to how I list site updates. Until presently, I'd wait for a satisfactory amount a material to accumulate before bringing light to it, which always worked out to about a month's time, but such a method no longer make sense when certain realities are considered (a slowing down of contributions, the Castlevania series torpedoing, and my general disinterest). So I'm instead going to break the updates into two types: "Recently Added," which will be updated every time something is added to the site, and "General Updates," which will be reserved for special announcements and my usual ramblings.

And now, for the last time, the medium-sized list of death:
- Sir Lan Belmont has provided ending videos for Castlevania: The Adventure (Konami Classics version) and Harmony of Dissonance (for Simon Belmont, specifically).
- Model-maker Mark has whipped up two amazing new creations in the form of a Castlevania: The Adventure papercraft diorama and a series of interchangeable Castlevania creatures.
- Aya79's game-collection page is eight items richer.
- T.D. Stoneheart has directed two new tracks for the Ainaveltsac Medleys album plus a new variant remix.
- Intros have been added to the "Part 2: Legacy of Sorrow" portion of the fan fiction Darkness Never Dies.
- SolarCiel informs us of a useful exploit for Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (check the addendum to the breakable-brick tip).

Also, for those who have been keeping up with it, my previously discussed Memory Bank blog has two series-related pieces chronicling my history with Castlevania and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, respectively. Future Castlevania-related pieces will be appearing over time. Thanks to anyone who's given it a look.

4/11/14: This is just a quickie update to note, if you haven't guessed by the slight visual change to the link index above, that I've started my own blog. I'm calling it "From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games." What I'm doing is taking games that have resonated with me through the years and detailing my history with them--discussing my history with each title, sharing stories about my gaming experiences with friends and family, and having fun writing about my favorite hobby. I've got about 8 entries up at the moment (not including the first post, which details the mission objective) and plan on adding at least one a week.

I'll be honest and say that Lords of Shadow and the recent series' news haven't been doing it for me, so I'll be focusing my energies elsewhere for a while. Of course, the blog will be covering Castlevania games, which will include a lot of extra details never mentioned in any of my reviews or other more-formal platforms.

Give it a look if you're desperate for reading material.

2/26/14: So Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 has been available for a few days, and the reviews seemed kind of mixed. From my view, having not yet played it, it looks like a solid game that's content to simply deliver a more-seasoned helping of a dish we've already tasted. It finds itself tasked with a difficult mission that future entries will also undertake if they follow its lead; that is, they'll have to compete in the highly volatile AAA sector, whose increasingly risky ventures are symptomatic of a console industry ruled by staggering budgets and a narrow-minded fanbase with a rapidly decreasing attention span. I mention this because of recent comments made by Dave Cox, who stirred up some trouble with his assessment of the current industry. More on this in a bit.

I don't have anything new to share on the Lords of Shadow front, since I never got around to finishing the boss descriptions. I've been too preoccupied with other games, mainly. I'll eventually get back into the groove and output a whole lot of work in quick bursts. Though, I can provide a more timely update if anyone can contribute scans for the game's packaging (any version from any platform).

As for site activity over the previous few months:
- Stoneheart has completed another track for this Ainaveltsac Medley album, bringing the total to 32.
- Dracula9, who previously contributed some artwork, has joined the MP3-making party with a collection on 17 remixes. There's also a bonus MIDI composition--a Circle of the Moon track that can be found here.
- I've added some screenshots for the original Lords of Shadow. I've also added a few shots for the HD version of Mirror of Fate.
- Sr. Lan Belmont returns to the fray with two new art pieces.
- And in case you missed it: NES Castlevania titles have been appearing on all iterations of things called "Virtual Console."

To finish up on my previous thoughts: I don't personally know Dave Cox, so I can't confirm if his opinions suggest a painful industry reality or if he wants to play a role in continuing to push things in that direction. Either way, it's more than sad that Konami is intent on following this ruinous path, since Castlevania doesn't deserve to be misguidedly reimagined as a "blockbuster" franchise steeped in super-derivative modern action-game formulas with little to no regard for its roots or cherished source material. Yes--sometimes things need to change, as I've pled for years, but that doesn't entail following industry trends and currying favor with a crowd that only buys games that are heavily marketed and promptly brushes them off in favor of next week's chart-topper. It worked once, with the first Lords of Shadow, but Konami can't gamble on the hope that lightning will continue to strike (and I've seen no proof that the sequel will be a big seller). Do we really want to see the day when Castlevania is permanently put on the shelf because a highly marketed entry doesn't achieve its ridiculously projected sales-total of, say, 4,000,000? There's no need to take that kind of risk. If Konami allegedly wishes to serve a "wider public" with big-budget games, it should do so by brewing up new franchises created specifically for this purpose.

Rather, the company should reconsider on how to slot the series. While it's true that I'd like to see Castlevania stand tall amongst the big boys, as it once did, it's just not feasible at this point in time. However, there is value in a Castlevania series positioned in a more-stable "niche" category, which isn't synonymous with "low-selling"; it can certainly find success with smaller, better-focused games that can accumulate 400,000-plus worth of sales where it's easiest to do so--on portable game systems and today's many digital services. Without the worry of physical distribution costs, auteurs like Koji Igarashi can be free to experiment with new types of gameplay in an environment where people are starved for them.

It at least deserves that chance.

10/27/13: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate HD has arrived for your digital pleasure, which is just the spark I need to get back into the swing of things. I've updated Mirror of Fate's game page to reflect this happening, and I've set up new pages for the soon-to-be-released Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Collection (which combines the original Lords of Shadow and the previously discussed Mirror of Fate HD) and the further-off Lords of Shadow 2. Things to do before Lords of Shadow 2's 2014 release include finishing up on adding the original Lords of Shadow bosses to the big list and adding some media to the previous Lords' respective game pages.

Though there hasn't been much activity over the last six months, there have been a few notable additions:
- Contributor Khala has done yeoman's work in supplying actual quality images for the Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness weapon pages (replacing my poor-quality rips from a decade ago).
- Legacy of Sorrow, the second part to the fan fiction Darkness Never Dies, is again being rebooted. New chapters are already present.
- Sallongsword has contributed a "help" document called "Castlevania: Mirror of Fate - Map Files," which functions as advertised.
- Stoneheart, the artist formerly known as tduyduc, has whipped up four new tunes (tracks 29-32) for his Ainaveltsac Medley collection.
- The relentless Druid Vorse has made his mark on the "High Score" page by maxing out Order of Ecclesia's stat-page.
- I've put up a quick preview for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2.

I'll be needing a little help in regard to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Collection, for which I'll need all the scans I can get. Thanks in advance to anyone who can send them in. In the meantime, enjoy some news, participate in a poll, or, like, don't.

4/4/13: This update is all about Lords of Shadow. Though I stated, originally, that I was going to wait for the trilogy to be completed before giving it proper representation, I realized by doing so that I was resigning myself to an unimaginable amount of work piled into a single period. So I've instead prepared the site as best I can for the arrival of Lords of Shadow 2, whose content will now be easier to manage.

We'll begin with the recently released Mirror of Fate:
- I've got scans of its North American casing (there is no manual). I had planned to also scan its pre-order bonus material, but it simply wasn't possible. I can explain why in one word: GameStop. Though, that's my fault for doing business with them when I should know better. If anyone took the trouble to scan the bonus material, I'd appreciate it if you could contribute your work.
- Kev has provided the casing scans for the European version, which does include a manual!
- The general information, hero descriptions, and weapons page have been filled in. Also, the "Media" page is now home to official art and official comic strips.
- Its lesser enemies, bosses, Dracula forms, and supporting cast pages have been filled in--though, mostly without images, which I'm at the time unable to produce in high quality.
- It has its own stages and codes pages.
- Its story has been added to the storyline section, which now has a subsection devoted to Lords of Shadow.
- Its enemies have been added to the main lesser enemies and main boss pages, where they're covered in more detail.
- The four playable characters have been added to the heroes section, which now also segregates the Lords of Shadow trilogy.
- Its many secondary characters now populate the supporting cast and Dracula's allies pages, which get the same treatment.

There's also a whole lot of new material for the original Lords of Shadow:
- Its dedicated storyline page has been updated to include the events of the DLC chapters Reverie and Resurrection.
- Gabriel's profile has been added to heroes section.
- The supporting cast and Dracula's allies join their Mirror of Fate companions.
- Some general information has been filled in (enemy descriptions and weapons), mainly.
- There are now scans for the North American Xbox 360 and PS3 manuals.
- The bosses have been added to the main boss list. Though, they're at the moment place-holders. I was going to work on those next, but I ran out of steam and needed a break. I'll fill them up with text in a few months when I've recharged.

There are a few miscellaneous updates:
- The main boss listing has changed a bit, its index now separating Lords of Shadow and "Gaiden" titles into their own categories; their respective monsters just seemed out of place grouped in with those from the original series.
- Camilla/Carmilla now has her own page in the recurring boss section.
- There are two new chapters for "Part 1" of the fan fiction Darkness Never Dies.
- Dracula Fan's collection has grown by double digits.
- And I've put together my own "Essay": I'm calling it Mr. P's Top 250 Games, which lists my favorite video games (of course including Castlevania titles) and those for which I have at least an appreciation. Its likely to balloon by increments of 50 as the years go on.

As I add all of these new characters to my many lists, I'm rewriting old descriptions where I can. I apologize for the pretty bad quality of most of the writing--a lot of which was done over a decade ago and seems to have been produced as if I was under some type of deadline. The lesser enemy list is particularly disastrous ("Boy this guy's dangerous!"). It's just one of many things that'll improve over time in addition to general site navigation and the "cramped" nature of the game pages.

2/22/13: Year #14 of this aging site starts with a glimmer of activity and does so right before the bomb hits on March 5th, which is of course the release date for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate. The last two months have been drenched in developer interviews and general newsbits, for those who devour Castlevania news. The site updates in regard to the game's release will begin shortly after the fifth, starting with scans of the packaging material and pre-order bonuses; the usual enemy listings, character profiles, and story-based elements will start appearing after I've spent some time with the game.

It's the last month of the dry spell, yes--but there's some new material for us to gobble up:

- SolarCiel has provided manual translations for the two versions of Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-kun (Famicom and Game Boy). The translations appear in image form, the Japanese symbols cropped out and replaced with English text. You can otherwise locate these images on the game pages for the Famicom and Game Boy titles.
- The Demon Guest breathes a bit of life into the Midis section with Inner Quarters, which is an Aria of Sorrow piece.
- The ongoing saga of Darkness Never Dies has seen the addition of three new chapters--one per sub-story.
- Newcomer Lapistmacir has given birth to a budding art page.
- Stoneheart has written up his second entry to the Essays section--a piece entitled The Scariest Enemy in Castlevania.

I'll see everyone next month and in the meantime leave you with this question: Do these rockin' guys provide the best metal-remix version of Dr. Wily's Castle, like, ever? You decide.

Past General Updates: Interested in reading out about when big site events went down? Click this link to view the longform updates that began way back in November of 1999!

Want to get in on the action? Send rare information, custom sprites, art, music, reader reviews, your own Castleography or CV Library features, or any other crazy facts you might have; they'll show up on my site with full credit given to you!

Email to: MrPerfectn@aol.com