Castlevania: The Adventure/Gameplay

The games and the hero
The Dracula Densetsu sub-series consists of the following two games:
 * 1) Dracula Densetsu, localized outside Japan as Castlevania: The Adventure.
 * 2) Dracula Densetsu II, localized outside Japan as Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge.

The playable character of the Dracula Densetsu sub-series (lit. "Legend of Dracula") is Christopher Belmont.

Christopher is an ancestor of Simon Belmont (from Castlevania 1). In fact, the six Castlevania games starring Simon are set from 1691 to 1698, while the two Dracula Densetsu games are set in 1576 and fifteen years later. Nevertheless, most of the differences between Christopher and Simon Belmont are in the manual only.

From the point of view of gameplay and sprites, Christopher and Simon Belmont are almost identical. The most notable difference is that the hero of "Castlevania: The Adventure" cannot use the classic sub-weapons. Instead, the player character can upgrade his whip so that it shoots fireballs. Because the hearts used to be "ammunitions" for the sub-weapons, now they would be useless. Therefore, their function changed: in this game, hearts restore health. As a consequence, the classic roasted meat is not featured.

Items

 * Candles: hit them, and one item will come out.
 * Orb power-ups: Christopher starts with a leather whip; one power-up will upgrade it into a stronger chain whip, a second one will also allow to shoot fireballs. Anyway, every time Christopher gets hit, he will lose one upgrade.
 * Hearts: they restore health (unlike in any other Castlevania game).
 * Cross: it makes Christopher invincible for a short span of time.
 * Extra lives (1-Up): self-explanatory
 * Coins: they just increase the score.