Akumajou Dracula first came out for the Famicom Disk System in 1986 (for those who don't know, Nintendo released a disk drive for the Famicom in Japan, and many early games were on these disks.) It is essentially the same as what became the NES Castlevania, though there is now a data entry screen where you can enter your name, and a music theme to accompany this. In 1993, Akumajou Dracula was rereleased on cartridge format. The big thing here was the difficulty select: Normal, which is the same as the NES Castlevania, and Easy, which made things almost TOO easy. You got nine lives, 30 hearts, enemies did less damage, you aren't thrown back when hit, and you keep weapons after dying (and after getting double and triple shots.) This makes it more accessible to regular video game players, but kind of sucks the challenge out for veterans.