Castlevania: You're Next

All over the Internet I have been hearing great things from a game called "Castlevania" for the NES. This game was several years before my time so I had never played it as a child. I decided to look for a NES and a copy of the game; I found a used version at a game store near where I live. It was about $30 for the system and $5 for the game and I thought it was a good deal so I bought them both and took them home. The game was in exceptional condition considering the age and everything was in tact.

As I arrived home I unpacked the game and system, hooked everything up and started the game. The game loaded up and displayed the famous opening scene of Simon walking up to the castle. At the end of this sequence the screen cut to black more abruptly than usual, I assumed this was a glitch as the game was very old. The game played normally through the first stage, though something seemed odd.

The ghouls had been replaced with more realistic zombie-like creatures with decaying flesh and a creepy pixelated death sound when one was killed and the fish men were more deformed looking, as if they were mutated humans. This seemed very odd, as I had seen playthroughs on the Internet and the game was nothing like this.

When I reached the first boss, the giant bat the fight played out as normal, but again something was off. The boss had no health bar and whenever I damaged it, it became injured; cuts and bruises were clear on its body despite the primitive graphics. I knew this was wrong because I had seen footage of this fight on the Internet before and it was nothing like this.

I killed the boss with a throwing axe and as the final blow hit, rather than disappearing and dropping an orb, as it normally would, the axe stuck in the bat's chest and it fell to the ground, letting out a pixelated screech. The orb never appeared, Simon stared at the fallen creature and seemed to sulk and sigh as if he felt extreme regret for what he had just done, but continued on to the next stage.

The game progressed as it normally would, but the same trends kept going. The knights had blood on their lances and all the enemies could be heard screaming whenever they were killed.

On the second level I died, and that's when things really started bothering me. I was killed by a knight and rather than flashing and fainting as was typical of video game protagonists at the time, Simon was ran through the torso by the knights lance and let out the, now familiar, pixelated scream, but it was clearer and more intense. I later lost all of my lives and rather than "continue" the game over screen gave me the option to quit or "resurrect" when I did this, Simon came back but he was paler, and thinner.

I fought through the game and every time I killed a boss the deaths kept the same realistic appearance. Dropping to the ground and dying rather than disappearing and Simon always had that same regretful appearance but it was more intense each time and after I killed Frankenstein's monster he could be heard crying and sobbing but he progressed to the next level.

During the fight with Death I lost my last continue, which startled me as I was sure the game had infinite continues, and got another game over. On my last death a violent scene of Death murdering Simon with his scythe was shown. The screen stayed where it was for about 10 seconds and then Death looked directly at the screen, pointed one bony finger, and a text box appeared saying, "You're next." This experience shook me up so I tried to get some sleep, however it was difficult with the images I had seen constantly flashing in my mind.

The next day I returned to the game used the password system to return to the fight with death because I had to see what was at the end. I finally defeated Death and he fell to the ground and died like all the other bosses, but rather than the screams I was used to hearing, his death sound was a pixelated voice that seemed to say, "I'm sorry."

I moved on to the final stage and finally made it to Dracula. I kept dying and dying, this time I did have infinite continues which only amplified the fear of my experience with death. I finally defeated Dracula and he died, like the other bosses, but he uttered a chilling evil laugh upon his death.

A text box appeared saying, "It's over, but at what cost?" and showed Simon walking out of the castle.

The game went into a sort of slide show showing pictures of men, women, and children next to the various enemies and bosses from the game, as if it was suggesting that they had been transformed into the enemies, the final picture was an old man who appeared to be Simon's father, suggested by the resemblances between them and the picture of Simon on the necklace he was wearing and he appeared next to a picture of death.

The game faded to black and faded back in to show Dracula rising from a grave, he looked directly at the screen with glowing red eyes, pointed, and a text box appeared saying, "You're next."

I posted about my experience on GameFAQs, but no one had ever seen anything like it. It was very strange because it has the Nintendo seal of approval on the front of the cartridge, so it couldn't be a bootleg. Stranger still, I lent the game to several of my friends and they all said the game played normally. To this day I have no Idea what happened that day.

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