Best Platformer Games Like Castlevania

The best platformer games like Castlevania are Super Castlevania IV, Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Ghosts n Goblins. Below are 9, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to platformer costs you.

Why Platformer Is a Good Answer for Castlevania

Filtering to platformer means you want the movement itself to be the pleasure. It is the right filter when the thing you liked was getting from one place to another.

What you get: A game you can judge in ten seconds. Platformers live or die on the jump, and a good one feels right before anything else happens.

What made Castlevania worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the platformer part of that answer, and only the platformer part.

9 Platformer Games Like Castlevania

  1. 1. Super Castlevania IV

    The same game loosened up — whip in eight directions, and the atmosphere intact.

  2. 2. Castlevania Symphony of the Night

    Where the series stopped being stages and became a map. The other half of the genre.

  3. 3. Ghosts n Goblins

    The same era of unforgiving, pattern-learned platforming.

  4. 4. Mega Man 2

    The other NES action platformer built on memorising a level until it becomes easy.

  5. 5. Ninja Gaiden

    Faster, meaner, and the wall-climbing gives you options Simon never had.

  6. 6. Bloodstained Ritual of the Night

    The modern continuation, made by the producer of Symphony of the Night.

  7. 7. Blasphemous

    Heavy, punishing, religiously ornate — the tone taken seriously.

  8. 8. Hollow Knight

    If the map rather than the stages is the part you want.

  9. 9. Shovel Knight

    NES platforming rebuilt with everything learned since, Castlevania included.

What This Filter Leaves Out

Weight. Platformers rarely carry a story you will think about afterwards, and the collectible-led ones can become checklists if you let them.

Specifically, these are strong answers for Castlevania that are not platformer games, so they are not on this page:

  • Contra — Same console, same pattern-learning, guns instead of a whip.

The full list is on games like Castlevania — 10 picks, no genre filter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best platformer game like Castlevania?

Super Castlevania IV. The same game loosened up — whip in eight directions, and the atmosphere intact.

Are all of these on the Nintendo Entertainment System?

No. Castlevania released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.

What separates a good platformer from a bad one?

Whether the move set is complete early. The great ones give you everything in the first level and spend the rest asking better questions of it; the weak ones drip-feed abilities to disguise thin level design.

2D or 3D?

Different games. 2D platformers are about precision on a single screen; 3D ones are about reading space and camera. Each pick below says which it is.

How are these chosen?

By hand. Each pick was written for the full Castlevania list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is platformer — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.

Other Angles on Castlevania

More Platformer Games Recommendations

Or read the platformer guide for where to start in the genre generally.