The Internet is a book.

Here are my pages.

My CastleVania exposure began in the late 1980s, early 1990s, with CastleVania 1. I was still living in my old building at the time, and from apartment 4B, I occasionally visited my friend Edwin on the first floor, who, amongst Dino Riders comics and a few other things, owned something they called "The Nintendo", which was a shining lure to the bigger sharks in attendance.

Edwin finally passed me the control pad and, surrounded by my cousin Frankie and other friends, I played up to the end of stage one. That blasted Phantom Bat killed me with his gaping smile. It killed my turn, too...

I moved from the old building on November 6, 1991.

In February of 1991, I got what I thought was the most popular game, CastleVania III Dracula's Curse. I input the name, "Eric". This would be my first time through this unexplored world. I witnessed Trevor Belmont standing from a prayer which would prove to be more than necessary in the long run. This was going to be good. That Sunday, I struggled through the game, using continue after continue, and I finally quit when the Bone Dragon King bumped Alucard into the abyss. CastleVania III was very cool.

CastleVania III was definitely the game for the moment. So much so, that the Nintendo had to be disconnected...let's not get into detail. Fortunately, for the Easter vacation, I got my Nintendo back and played through where I last left off; according to the tape recording, it was the Underground Tunnels. Easter and Summer Vacations gave me ample time to master CastleVania III. My cousin, Frankie Ruiz, and I found Grant DaNasty to be most formidable, and eventually beat the game for the first time using Grant. During the time we were still trying to get Sypha Belnades up to Dracula, I received CastleVania 2: Simon's Quest (with Mega Man 3) as First Communion gifts, and CastleVania 1 as a sort of preliminary gift.

Mid-December, 1991.

I had studied the September 1991 issue of Nintendo Power for a while now. Super CastleVania IV looked unbelievable, though it was difficult to make out the actual enemy pictures amongst the dark, shoddy printing. The phrase byte for the Snapper Casket enemy read something to the effect of: "What's inside? No one knows, until now." That was one mystery I wished to solve as I pined for the Super. I had a crush on Tiny Toon Adventures' Babs Bunny. Frankie stopped by my grandmother's house as he always did on the weekends, only with some moderately important news. He reported that Super CastleVania IV was seen at the Yonkers Toys R Us! I guess the secret was out that he'd get a Sega Genesis for the impending Christmas, as he went on to say he and his mother went to Toys to buy games for the Genesis in advance. He picked out Fantasia and an unknown game called ThunderForce 3 (though I now believe the first of the two was intended for his sister/ other cousin, Lici).

The absolutely superb illustration for the package artwork of the original Japanese Super Famicom version of Super CastleVania IV, called Akumajo Dracula, graced page 70 of Nintendo Power Volume 28. It also features an axe-weilding Grim Reaper, much to a certain 11 year old's delight...

Was there any other way the secret could have leaked out? Hmm... Well, I did show him the newer RF attachment which came as a supplement to the new-apartment-bound TV bought at Tops New Jersey...along with the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The seller said this adapter would be essential for the connections...(not at all necessary, as I've always lived at my grandmothers' and went over to mom's from time to time due to her busy schedule). The gift-wrapped Super NES and Genesis boxes were in the wardrobe (or, small portable 'closet') in my room, where I guarded them since late October/ early November! Imagine my fiendishness for 16 bits at that point!

I've held Babs Bunny close to my heart for years. She makes me laugh. You've a problem with that?

Mom drove my cousins and myself on a wild goose chase at various Yonkers game outlets to hunt for the lowest prince of Super CastleVania IV (I regarded the package for Konami's Tiny Toon Adventures NES game at one of 'em). Those locations hadn't Super CastleVania IV to begin with! As night fell, we finally stopped at Toys R Us, parking at the nearby HIP (a clinic) center, mom saying as she steals the parking spot, "My name is Tommy Tuck, and I don't give a (expletive which rhymes with 'Tuck')". Frankie, Lici, and I all laughed as we triumphantly walked to the Toys entrance. Minutes later, I snag the last ticket for the Super CastleVania IV cart in an ocean of frantic late shoppers. Hooray! In a few days, I would slash open my brand new Super Nintendo and play a 16 bit CastleVania!!! Back in the black, red trimmed, '91 Oldsmobile Calais International Edition (to be later christened, 'Latin Lady'), I tore open the plastic cover of the game, skimmed the Konami poster (which advertised an impending Contra IV), and read my future instructions.

This game was looking rather colorful. Stages. Masters. Puweyxil? A skull with a tongue. What's that mean? Koranot? The Dancing Specters: Paula Abghoul and Fred Askare?!?! Zapf Bat? Was it named after Zapf, the company which produced Petra, the imitation Barbie? Dracula! Dracula, who was first to catch my eye on the last page of the rogue's gallery, was looking nice here. Akmodan II, a mummy. Slogra? The thing labeled "Slogra" looked peculiar to begin with. Never saw it before...oh well. Moving on, there were nice drawings and a Password grid on the last two pages, respectively.

Week of Christmas, 1991, probably 2 days before the holiday.

After Tiny Toon Adventures, and during Beetlejuice, my mom, who might have noticed my antsy, finally let me at it. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System beckoned for two months, and now, I could finally shut it up. This odd new controller was WAY difficult to use in Super Mario World, the first game I vertically popped into the new set. The next morning, I started on Super CastleVania IV. This is very cool (the word we used back then was 'dope')! The skeletons! The skeletons die just like the zombies in Altered Beast! Bones fly about!

For Christmas 1991, my cousins gave me F-Zero (which was missing its instruction book. The loss wasn't so great, as a 6th grade classmate, Jason Rivera, game me his F-Zero manual as my first piece of Super NES paraphernalia... Did you know that I actually bought the Control Deck manual from another pal? My yearning for such power was serious!), and I also received a mini pool table, a bike helmet, and some more stuff that year. As a side note, my mom had F-Zero in the traditional Christmas sock. It was later exchanged for 'Geoffrey Dollars', which were used towards Super Ghouls and Ghosts at Toys R Us. A very good, yet barely educated choice.

1992.

As what would be later called my favorite year was in full swing, I thought that I was done with the original, outdated, old 8 bit Nintendo. I thought it would now be obsolete! I gave my TOTALLY loaded NES with Mega Man 1, 2, 3, Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros 3, CastleVania 1, 2, 3, The Adventures of Dino Riki, XEXYZ, Legendary Wings, Dynowarz, Adventure Island 2 (?), and the rest of the mass of carts to my cousin, Frankie. He managed to lose the entire package by summer before his return to Puerto Rico. That was bright....

Late May/early June 1996.

"Second Nintendo childhood", or, "New Nintendo Regime". One night I'm lounging around my long since renovated room in the 5 year inhabited apartment, looking at past Nintendo Power issues, and suddenly have a craving for 8 bits. I asked around in school for who'd give me the best deal on a used Nintendo. "$50 for the core and games," was one student's business proposition. On a hot June day, I even sidetracked myself with an acquaintance on Bedford Park and stopped by his house, where I left carrying a monster pile of Nintendo products to test before buying. Metroid, the Power Glove, you name it. Enough was enough.

That evening, finally, I get a new Nintendo, the new model, and with Mega Man 6. The purchase date is 6-6-96... What an unluckily lucky day. That night, I dismissed the feint vertical lines present in the background of the dark area of Blizzard Man's stage. At the local video rental shop, I scored XEXYZ and, later, a badly bruised CastleVania 1. Both games were once rentals and became sale items due to others' fortunate ignorance and greed for dollars... All that was left to obtain was CastleVania III Dracula's Curse. I needed this one! Once, I even brought the November/December 1990 Nintendo Power issue to my high school, Cardinal Hayes. (You know Nintendo Powers' 11-12/90, right? The issue with the HEAVY review of CastleVania III, tagged with great enemy and cast art which could've been extremely beneficial for the site?...)

It was during the last hour of that day my arch-nemeses would fix it so I would never hold that issue in my hands again.

Sophomore year finished. Summer school was surpassed. Junior Year began. A computer is bestowed upon me for the 16 birthday. Internet spreads throughout school. 1996 ended. 1997 began. So did my new search for CastleVania III Dracula's Curse. In more ways than one.

March 1997.

I remember the day well. In the open, air-conditioned, alternate computer room, room 210, I sat at the scanner-accompanied 'leader' computer, with the CastleVania II Simon's Quest cartridge label being digitized.
Earlier in the Junior year, life on the Internet for me consisted of TaleSpin, The World of Vicki Fox, Mega Man, Midi, game codes, further investigation into Sonic the Hedgehog fandom, Babs Bunny, and studies of Lola Bunny, that new Loony Tune they canonized in Space Jam, also known as the one whom I mistook for a pubescent Babs Bunny in one Space Jam movie trailer.
Not once did CastleVania pop into my mind. Funny. I'm scanning the Simon's Quest label and I have an Internet computer in front of me... After sparse thinking about it, I decide to type 'Castlevania' in the then trusty Excite search engine. Links bring me to my first find, called Rob's CastleVania 2 Page, and a GeoCities site named The CastleVania Dungeon. The Nintendo-accurate graphics astounded me, and I kept coming back later on (St. Patrick's Day of that month, I first signed on to America Online, and that brought The Dungeon much closer to home). Two pages, one exclusively on CastleVania II Simon's Quest, but what about number 3? I did see an HTML file of tips, and ran into a text file of passwords, but nothing I saw focused on the game as a whole.

Seen on the scene was also a site which spoke of a 'new Dracula X' game called "Nocturne in the Moonlight". I shrugged it off, seeing as how the Super Nintendo version of Dracula X was such a... I was almost angered at the fact that the next big CastleVania adventure would leave the Super Nintendo and go to Sony PlayStation...

Round 2. Second Annual Inquiry. $50 was my bait for the single game. Classmates' attention turned to myself once again. After many promises broken, after much convenient forgetfulness by my peers, and one's claim that "after being in the vine stage, I decided to keep it", I was finally sold a CastleVania III cart for 15 singles by a Sophomore who came through. Hooray again! It felt so good and nostalgic to fight the Dragon Skull Cannons once again! The official song of the Dracula's Curse search, which was constantly on the radio waves, was "It's Alright, It's Okay" by Leah Andreone. ("...it's alright, it's okay, welcome to this life! Killin' time, watching the grass grow...!")

May 28 1997.
When America Online released their Personal Publisher, I took it upon myself to create a new 'homepage' (my first foray into the non-profit business was 'Sinyaso's Den', which listed many, if not all, of my favorite links. There were glitches, and the Den was abandoned). This one was CastleVania 3: The Passwords, as I had said to Kurt Kalata of The CastleVania Dungeon, "When I make a page it will be a CastleVania password and tips page. Don't worry, I'll link you..." (Don't worry... DONT WORRY!? You're kidding me...!) The Passwords first contained one code, and a Skull Knight and Dragon Skull Cannon bitmap I made. The Passwords branched out to contain sections on other parts of the game. The focus was mostly on the enemy page (In the beginning, that page had Enemies AND Ultimate Evils at the same spot!). As time progressed, Dracula's Curse THE PAGE grew and grew! Lyndon Moore, author of The Outskirts of CastleVania who happened to be on America Online, became a good friend and knowledgeable Internetter, and at the top of the summer-schooled vacation, introduced me to emulation. With that fortune, I was able to make true-to-Nintendo enemy screen shots, instead of having to draw each by hand, which was the original plan. Those first color drawings, which remained adjacent to the proper enemy shot for a time, became the second group of Fan Art at the CastleVania Dungeon, accompanying a wild raging Richter and lightning-scaling Grant . I mastered the instant GIF aspects of the currently available Paint Shop Pro version. Summer school was beaten again. I went to Puerto Rico for 2 weeks. Dracula's Curse THE PAGE grew.

February 4th 1998.

Scott Kessler hit 10000. Too soon though, as there was no time to do the 10000 visit drawing I planned on (Grant and cast of Vania 3, including Slogra, celebrating at a CastleVania party). I struggled through Senior year. One night, I was opening my protoplasmic Enemy section with Microsoft Word 97, and discovered that the HTML file could be edited and saved! I went to work for a few weeks after, redesigning the site. The Word 97 editor for pages is a WYSIWYG, What You See Is What You Get. Aptly named. Lyndon once mentioned America Online's Personal Publisher as being too limited, and I realized this as I took advantage of easily modified text colors and fonts, ALT tags, and image links with abandon. The new face of Dracula's Curse THE PAGE emerged a year after I first signed on to America Online.

Some story, eh?

CastleVania III: Dracula's Curse, is a GREAT Nintendo game Konami released late in 1990. You play as the first Vampire Hunter, Trevor C. Belmont, and help him in his exploits to rid the world of a terrifying menace, the Prince of Darkness himself, Dracula! Many great perks adorn this game, such as the ability to choose a different stage order and the ability to use a second character besides Trevor; a pirate, mage, or, the now obscenely popular son of Dracula, Alucard. Each of these 'Partner Spirits' has their own abilities, skills, and weaknesses.

Now, a list of each main portion of this site, along with a brief description.

Entry Page- It's like turning on your Nintendo all over again.
Title Screen- The core page.
OPENING- The story of how this site came to be.
PASSWORD- CastleVania III passwords, by Lyndon Moore. My original password from the early site is there, too.
SOUND MODE- Links to WAV files of CastleVania's excellent music, as well as some online zipped Midis.
CAST- Essentially, a guide to the good, bad, and the terribly ferocious, that'd be the Allies, Enemies, and Ultimate Evils, respectively.
INSTRUCTIONS- The instruction manual for CastleVania III Dracula's Curse in TXT format, written long ago.
WANTED- When any CastleVania notions pop into our minds, I put them here.
EXHIBIT- A mini-shrine to a CastleVania character.
GALLERY- CastleVania drawings by myself and others.
EPITAPH- About myself, personally.
HUMOR ME- CastleVania can be really entertaining. Go here to confirm that.
WRITTEN- CastleVania related writings and articles are here.
UPGRADES- A list of site updates.
AWARD- Not that I really need or deserve awards, but when they do come, they go to there.
MISCELLANEOUS- Sparse CastleVania issues and a grab bag of goodies.
LINKS- A big list of CastleVania, Videogame, assorted, and Sailor Moon links.

Thanks to everyone who visited CastleVania III Dracula's Curse THE PAGE!!!, now in it's fourth and finest year. If you have come seeking CastleVania III wisdom, you've made a good choice. If you've come to vent your life frustrations at me with obscenity, you couldn't have picked a better place to waste time and kilobytes!
Enjoy, and keep visiting CastleVania III Dracula's Curse THE PAGE! Until we meet again, honor a Slogra, salute the Skull Knight, feed a Raven, embrace a Venus Weed, and STAY TUNED!

Now, for the more or less original final closure:

Anyway hang tight! I'm ready to make this the best (and probably only, but don't take that as a Grim Reaper threat) CastleVania III site! Send your questions, comments, and input to me Sinyaso@aol.com. More to come!

Return to the Title Screen

I want to acknowledge the Dark Knight, frc@worldchat.com, for information regarding "It's Alright, It's Okay", which, until 9-27-98, evaded memory. Thanks!

The World of Vicki Fox was located at...
http://people.delphi.com/MSRUSSEL/

Rob's CastleVania page was located at...
http://www.bright.net/~agis/castlevania/cv2.html

The CastleVania Dungeon was located at...
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/3138/

The Outskirts of CastleVania was located at...
http://members.aol.com/Netforme/castle.html