Best 8-bit Castlevania. Responsive controls, smooth movement (including reasonable and predictable jumps), interesting and innovative level design, a personally motivated protagonist with a cool flame whip, no randomly throwing enemies at the player for artificial difficulty, and no stairs messing up your combat.
It's a good game, but half the things you praise this game for just make it sound like you're bad at CV 1 and 3. Besides, this isn't even the first game to a personally motivated protag with a cool flame whip (though admittedly it's the first good one).
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