I live for Castlevania.
As I mentioned in another thread earlier I've been playing each entry back to back by order of release and snapping an
Instagram of each. It's only half complete but 13 strong is still pretty good! This covers almost all of the classic entries, from here on out I get into the Castleroid & modern 3D iterations.
Super Castlevania IV is an amazing game with even more amazing music. I chose 'Waterfalls' as the soundtrack for a walk in the
creepy woods behind my house I filmed with the Video Star app for iPhone yesterday. I used to pretend I was Simon Belmont there when I was a kid
My favorite entry will always be the NES original. It's graphics are gorgeous and the controls so precise. I have every little nuance of the game memorized and can blaze through it without losing a life on a good day. I really really really loved it when they released it for the GBA. I had a beautiful crimson red SP+ I used to carry around with me everywhere and that cartridge almost never left it. Like most of my stuff it ended up stolen but I'm planning on re-buying the same setup through Amazon pretty soon.
Aside from that I'm quite partial to Super Castlevania IV, PCE CD Rondo, Bloodlines (I like to think of these as the 16-bit trilogy), Symphony (obv the greatest game of all time), and oddly Legacy of Darkness. The N64 games really don't get enough credit.
Some bullet points on the more recent entries:
Judgement never happened.
I'm tired of IGA milking the franchise but Order of Ecclesia is pretty awesome so far and I really like the character of Shanoa.
Harmony of Despair is wonderful as a multiplayer experience and the throwback maps are a dream come true.
Not a big fan of the way Konami has rebooted the franchise with Lords of Shadow. It doesn't feel like Castlevania at all... it's got a Lord of the Rings vibe for some godawful reason and Patrick Stewart never shuts up.
I got a chance to play through the Famicom Disk System versions of Castlevania and Simon's Quest recently and it inspired me to track down some of the more obscure entries. The amiga version of the original is so hilariously awful!