In our retrospective series Castlevania — Journey Through the Years, we’ve examined the history of the Castlevania video game series almost chronologically, through the titular first game up to the most recent Lords of Shadow series. The plots may be lacking in places and the timeline is a bit confusing, but the characters are always interesting. Konami must have thought so too, because over the years there have been a few Castlevania spin-offs and cameos in other games. The two most prominent examples of this are Kid Dracula and Konami Wai-Wai World.
Kid Dracula is included in the new Castlevania Anniversary Collection, making it more available now to a wider audience. The other game, Konami Wai-Wai World, is discussed in more detail here.
1993’s Kid Dracula, released for the Nintendo Game Boy, is actually a shortened version of a Famicom game called Akumajou Dracula Special: Boku Dracula-kun, which according to VG Museum is roughly translated is Demon Castle Special: I’m Kid Dracula. Akumajou Dracula (Demon Castle) is the name of the Castlevania series in Japan.
Kid Dracula is tremendous fun. It takes all the action and adventure from the first few Castlevania games and rolls it into a game that is both charming and difficult. Kid Dracula himself is an adorable chibi (little) style character who plays like Alucard from Dracula’s Curse. Kid Drac starts the game in the Castlevania Castle and follows a path that takes him to the sea, a city, the desert, up a mountain and eventually into a final battle that I won’t spoil for you here. It’s an interesting experience for fans of the original Castlevania games and is certainly a bit of an outlier in the series.
Castlevania – Journey Through the Years
Check out the rest of this video game retrospective series here
