Previously I’ve written about how Castlevania 3 has an outdated control scheme and how I hacked it to have more modern controls. Today I was able to do the same for the original NES Castlevania!

Here are some screenshots showcasing the new features

Mid-air control

Mid-air control

The player can now control their ascent and direction in mid-air like in most modern platformers. Control is also regained during knockback, and it’s even possible to jump off stairs (but not onto them – this could be another blogpost unto itself).

You can see every byte in the hack here thanks to the IPS inspector utility I wrote last week, if you’re curious. And you can check out and fork the whole hack from its GitHub repo here.