TBH, the default first loop doesn't change all that radically. Meaner damage and timer, but anyone who can confidently clear the home version will be fine.
Second loop is a different story - even more zako than the home loop, and you're dead in two hits from most anything. Takes two meats to recover your first hit. I honestly can't tell if Hard changes anything, but just like VS Gradius, the default (and only other) setting is called EASY. And I took that personally.
However, in
any version of the game - save perhaps the FC cart on its exclusive Easy mode - the loop catacombs will remind you that, despite its arcade-sleek runtime, Dracula began on Famicom Disk System, IE per-stage saving.
So in a way, you're gonna get fucked regardless.
(watch for my upcoming
Loop Catacombs The Perfect: Fish Fuck Daisakusen 
)
Strictly speaking, I shouldn't even call the arcade Akumajou Dracula by its overseas name. AC Dracula is merely a flawed memoriser. Haunted Castle is an arrant coin muncher. (you may think, with five different games on as many platforms sharing the
Akumajou Dracula name - FC, MSX2, AC, IV and X68K - we are on the verge of containment breach, with FC
also making an arcade appearance! But AYKSHUALLY
VS Castlevania was only ever called that, AFAIK. Respect bibliography
)
For a series geek, AC Dracula shares a small but distinctive honour with Dracula II, having some neat trivia - and killer BGM - referenced in later games. It kinda runs out of steam around stage 4, which could pass for a random launch HuCard, but recovers enough to debut the famous collapsing bridge setpiece, and the storming
Don't Wait Until Night. Last boss is an interesting MSX2 callback, as well. It's also got some of the series' first forays beyond the ol' Universal Monster Mash, into wider horror folklore (Harpies, Dryads, Poltergeists, Golems... and other shit I'm forgetting, probably. Been a while)
Great tragic backstory too, with it being a random horror sidescroller hastily rebadged as a Dracular, before the extra staff were recalled to their original projects (like
HOT SCRAMBLE 
), and it was shunted out the door sans playtesting. Yo, m8, that is GOFFIC TARGEDY liek
SuperDeadite wrote:I still love Castlevania The Adventure. It's slow, but only 4 stages. The spike stage is incredible.
Adventure 2 is a better game, but it's stages aren't as interesting. It does have THE MUSIC though.
Haunted Castle is quite doable if you stick to the Japanese version and spend the time to learn it's unique quirks.
TBH I'd give GB1 the nod just for its tunes, too.
Battle Of The Holy and
Revenge are surpassingly lyrical and catchy, and
Death Fair is a mahfuckin jam (especially great paired with its evil funhouse of a stage). Can't recommend it to non-fiends without the walk speedup hack, but we live in an age of wonder.
I've been dabbling with an arcade 2ALL - for all its issues, AC does have one genuine hook: the end-stage HP restores actually cost ammo. There's an undeniable marathon satisfaction to whapping all those loop bats, then demolishing bosses with
ZA WARUDO. 
I don't plan on going beyond two loops, but I notice ReplayBurners has some crazy 5-ALL where the guy seems to use the Boomerang? Didn't watch, don't wanna spoil.
It's the area just before the lab, the upper floor with three Red Boney-kuns. Get there with HW/Cross/Axe (in that order of preference), and you're set to rack up an army of lives one-shotting them as they regenerate.
Plus you don't need to Skinnerbox it! EXTRA COOLER 
Model shotgun weapon, brutal yet finessed. Fire it at a distance to shred roomloads of skittery pests. Get close and about-face to smash a single hard target. You're invincible during casting, so besides letting you slip enemy fire with proper timing, you can also bait charging enemies into passing haplessly through you, face-first into their destruction. MP-efficient, too.
Just like MR, and indeed most command summons, you're invincible during casting... and with the preceding teleport, landing directly on a hard target, then whipping out the balls is a snap. Enemy will eat obscene, almost certainly fatal FIR damage - this is a great way to deal with armoured foes early on, like the first Coliseum visit. Big exception is the aforementioned Guardians, who are FIReproof (their ground flame is a good way to recover HP, if you've found the Ruby Circlet... I can't quite recall if it's found/dropped, though. I know for sure the Topaz/poison and Cat/cat circlets are ready to grab)
