Editing Castlevania (section)

==Gameplay==
The earliest Castlevanias are known for their challenging difficulty; the appeal of the gameplay is comparable to that of other platformers like Mega Man. Although mobility and attack options are limited, they are such that games are won by <s>skill</s> banging your head on bullshit puzzles that are impossible to solve unless you buy the Official Strategy Guide, which was Nintendo's plan all along, not luck. Starting with Symphony of the Night, the series took on a more exploratory and RPG approach not completely dissimilar to the Metroid series, which lead to the coining of the phase, "Metroidvania" or "Igavanias" (from Koji "Iga" Igarashi, the producer of the series).
Being sidescrollers, early Castlevanias have the player advancing from left to right as they're assaulted by various creatures of the night with the player's usual method of attack being a metal whip called the Vampire Killer, the iconic weapon of the game. This whip has moderate range, such that enemies can be dispatched from a safe distance and is the main weapon of most Castlevanias. When the Vampire Killer isn't present, player characters tend to make use of a variety of weaponry ranging from various swords and shields to spears and staves.
Common gameplay mechanics throughout the series  include smashing sources of light to collect hearts (which don't recover health) and/or secondary weapons which are fueled by said hearts. Common sub-weapons include throwing-daggers, throwing-axes, crosses that function as boomerangs, holy water that causes fire to erupt from the ground, and watches that stop time. Starting in Rondo of Blood/Dracula X, players gain an ability called "Item Crash" which unleashes a powered-up version of the equipped sub-weapon at the cost of a chunk of hearts. While the sidescrolling Castlevanias tend to be linear with players going level to level, exploration-based Castlevanias naturally have save points in various areas. Beyond these common mechanics, there are numerous game mechanics that only appear in specific games such Castlevania 64's day & night cycle and time limit or Portrait of Ruin's dual protagonists.

It goes without saying that 3D Castlevanias are overall not nearly as well received as any of the classic Castlevanias or Igavanias, try as they might to translate the 2D gameplay to a 3D format. Most of the 3D Castlevanias suffer from poor or stiff controls and camera problems which, coupled with recycled environments and repetitive hallways, can be off-putting. Players will find themselves locked in rooms, facing various mobs and doing precarious platforming with varying levels of annoyance. Regardless, all of these games contribute something noteworthy to the legacy of Castlevania and its evolution before the series was tragically slain and its corpse used in the making of various [[Derp|pachislot games]].