For those of you who don't know...

Castlevania is a video game series, created and developed by Konami. The series debuted in Japan in 1986. The series did not receive wide attention outside of Japan until the FDS version was ported to cartridge format for the Nintendo Entertainment System and localized for North American and European release under the title of Castlevania in 1987. The series was landmark as it was among the earliest video games to feature a gothic horror storyline while at the same time abandoning the campy elements of similar games of the time, such as Ghosts 'n Goblins.

The Castlevania series is about a war between the enchanted family bloodline of the Belmonts (originally "Belmondo") and Dracula. Almost every hundred years, Dracula is resurrected and it is up to the Belmonts to defeat him before he unleashes his wrath on the entire world.

The most notable Belmont is perhaps Simon Belmont, star of the first several Castlevania games. However, the games feature many other characters, including Belmonts, relatives and other people that the player can control. Included among the usable characters is Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes, also known as Alucard, the son of Dracula himself. Also, several female characters star in some of the later games. See Castlevania characters for more information about the characters of Castlevania.

The series is loosely based on Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. In fact, the novel is included in the official timeline of the series, with Castlevania: Bloodlines taking place shortly afterwards. The connection even goes as far as to claim that Quincy Morris, a character from the novel who lands the final blow against Dracula at the cost of his own life, is in fact a Belmont descendant. Morris is also said to have a son, John and grandson, Jonathan, who star in Bloodlines and Portrait of Ruin, respectively. The series also incorporates a variety of other creatures from classic horror fiction, films, fantasy, and mythology. These monsters serve to obstruct the path to Dracula but are rarely tied to the game's plot.

A major turning point in the series was the ground-breaking Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Symphony adopted what is sometimes called a Metroidvania style of gameplay due to its many similarities to the Metroid series (primarily Super Metroid), and combines this with the console RPG concepts of experience levels, hit points, and equipment. Subsequent Castlevania games have followed this new style, with the replacement of the secondary weapons by complex magic systems in which spell components are collected from enemies or found in the castle. These systems use hearts to replenish MP and often include most of the classic secondary weapons among the much larger variety of spells and attacks.