Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests!  This week's game is going to be Castlevania 3.  Here are the rules:

• Play until you reach Life 0.  You may not play any part of the game on Life 0.  As soon as you reach Life 0, you must stop and take your picture.  If it is suspected you played any of the game on Life 0, your score will be disqualified.
• US version only.  If you play any other version, your score will be disqualified
• Get as far in the game as possible
• Whenever you are given a choice to choose a path, always take the upper path.  You may not take the lower path whatsoever
• Get as low of a score as possible
• No looping the game.  If you beat the game, take your picture when the game starts over
• Entering the name "Help Me" at the beginning is forbidden
• Entering in any other special names to give yourself an advantage at the beginning of the game (extra character, health, etc.), or throughout the whole game, is forbidden
• 1-up loops will not be allowed
• No backtracking on the stairs whatsoever
• Furthest progression with the lowest score wins
• GENRE: Action/Platformer

The contest ends Sunday, 11/2/14 at 11 PM NA time.  Your user name MUST be written on a piece of paper and be in the picture for your score to be valid.  The entire TV screen, or computer monitor if you are playing on an emulator, MUST be in the picture for the score to be valid.  No partial screenshots will be considered or accepted.  No screenshots by hitting "print screen" on a computer will be allowed.  You must take a picture of your computer monitor.  There may be instances where this will be acceptable, but it will be at the discretion of myself and the contest organizers.  Also, the use of turbo controllers is forbidden, as well as any cheat codes, Game Genies, or save states if playing on an emulator.  Also, we will only be using NTSC systems for the contests.  The use of PAL systems will NOT be allowed.  Good luck everyone and have fun

Since Halloween is this coming Friday, Count Bimmula will be giving out a random Trick 'r Treat prize on Sunday evening! Participate this week for your chance to win a free game!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Well, looks like it's emulator time

At least we're going to finally have a random prize draw

It was going to be emulator time for me, anyway, since I typically use a PowerPak... 

low score again? should be fun. I'll try to post a score this week.

Yeah, I would love to partake in this contest, but I only have the (superior) Japanese version of the game, and I don't use emulators. Really a shame, I would kick ass at the contest. This game is really easy to me, one of the "hard" games that I have mastered.

love this game! really cool scoring concept, I have only beaten with the little dude that can stick to walls not sure which route that is so looking forward to the top route

Shit I wanna play but I dont have it!!!!

Can someone sell me one?

Updated progress:

Stage 7-0C:  78,040



I've never given this game much of a chance. It never clicked with me like the original Castlevania and its 16-bit sequels. But this contest usually brings me a new found interest in games I otherwise tend to overlook, so I'm looking forward to making progress with it this week.

UPDATE:  This game has hooked me in big time.  Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to play it this week.  Also, with unexpected company I had to move my NES into a different room with a smaller TV.  It cuts part of the left side of the screen off, but nothing too bad.

This was a pretty good run.  I had 1 lifed it up until the end of block 6-0C.  Then I proceeded to lose three lives between the falling bridge section and the boss fight.  Stage 7 was going pretty well, but the triple boss rush threw me off.  I'm surprised at how much Konami recycled the boss fights in this game, it's at Capcom levels.

Man, I've never participated in one of these, but I'm going to give this one a shot!

Looking over an FAQ, it sounds like if you are lucky enough to get the Lightning spell, Syfa can do some real damage to the bosses.

I prefer to kick it old-school, though, with Trevor, and just use Grant for the hard-to-reach stuff.

Is there anyway to get it to work on the Powerpak that you know of?

I got a copy on the way!

Thanks majestyZX!

Gave this a go last night. I love the low score aspect and have never tried playing it that way before. My friend and I were working on low score speed runs on SMB1 recently and I'm noticing some similarities, very interesting.

I'll give this a more serious run later and try to post a pic.

I don't think the MMC5 is supported on the PowerPak. This means that this game, Kirby's Adventure, Laser Invasion and some Koei games won't work. Those games don't even use the MMC5 at its full capabilities (except maybe Kirby). The more impressive MMC5 games are Japanese games such as Just Breed.

Yes if you download the latest powerpak mappers she works like a champ. Im on the road but i think they are all in the powerpak thread let me know if you need help briguy

Glad to hear! Man i am outta town but was going to see when i get home tomorrow if a priority box could get to cali to make if worth your while this week lol

Good to know for future reference.

i am going to be out of town most of the week anyway, so fortunately it works just fine on the handheld.

Stage 2-03 - Score: 5,870

First attempt. I'm terrible at this game apparently. :/

But surprisingly, this is a lot of fun!

This should be fun. I dunno if I'm going to get around to playing it but I certainly want to try this. The 3DS Virtual Console version counts too, right?

12,280  Level 2-03

You should probably ban the other 3 special names, as well, since having the alternate characters early can open up at least one extra 1-up.

Thanks for the help Ben I got it to work! I installed the newest mappers with loopys MMC5 experimental mapper and it works perfect now. Heres the link, everthing you need is under 4.Mapper Releases...

http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=31&th...
 

I got to Stage 4 last night but did not take a picture because I know I can do better! I am not that experienced at this game though so beating it is probably out of reach for me.