Castlevania: Castlevania - Balanced Difficulty

Castlevania on NES is notorious for its difficulty, the battle against Death in particular.

In order to rebalance the game, this hack makes the following changes:

An alternative patch is provided where the player loses 3 health units by any hit instead of 2, 3 or 4 depending on the level.
Compared to the unmodified game, this means that level 1 and 2 are more difficult, 3 and 4 the same, 5 and 6 less difficult.

Finally, a bonus patch is included, that fixes the hitbox of the spike traps in stage 2.

CASTLEVANIA - BALANCED DIFFICULTY

By Zimgief


* PRESENTATION *

Castlevania on Nes is notorious for its difficulty, the battle against Death in particular.

In order to rebalance the game, this hack makes the following changes:
- a multiplier is hidden on the way to Death. This was unavailable on the first loop in the unmodified game
- player damage has been reduced by 1, which means that in the last levels, the player can sustain 5 hits before dying instead of 3.
- pork chops now give 8 units of health instead of 6
- one pork chop is hidden before the battle against Dracula.

An alternative patch is provided where the player loses 3 health units by any hit instead of 2, 3 or 4 depending on the level.
Compared to the unmodified game, this means that level 1 and 2 are more difficult, 3 and 4 the same, 5 and 6 less difficult.

Finally, a bonus patch is included, that fixes the hitbox of the spike traps in stage 2.


* HOW TO PLAY *
Apply to a Castlevania (US) (REV A) rom.
- Balanced Difficulty A has progressive player damage
- Balanced Difficulty B has fixed player damage
- Press_Hitbox_Fix is the optional bug fix


* ACKNOWLEDGMENT *
- the level-editor Stake, by Dan
- upsilandre, who fixed the spike traps


* VERSION HISTORY *
1.0 - First public release (03/09/2020)

Database match: Castlevania (USA) (Rev A)
Database: No-Intro: Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20180803-121122)
File SHA-1: 7A20C44F302FB2F1B7ADFFA6B619E3E1CAE7B546
File CRC32: 856114C8
ROM SHA-1: 3DCB69A8C861C041AEB56C04E39ADF6D332EDA3A
ROM CRC32: B668C7FC