Master System Castlevania (Homebrew) SMS

[Juiceala]

Homebrew port of Castlevania for the SEGA Master System while taking inspiration fromCastlevania Chronicles for the Playstation. This is an early demo, version 0.1 (02/14/2026), a lot of work has been made though, most of the levels, enemies, and music are done, however no boss fights yet and you don't take damage from enemies aside from knock backs, some platforms are missing and if you fall in a pit you just fall from the top of the screen, keep in mind if you fall in a pit with no platforms in the way you can get stuck in an infinite […]

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• Castlevania (Homebrew) SMS
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[LordeKrull13]

Fantastic! I can't wait for more updates! Keep up the good work, guys!

Post automatically merged: Mar 21, 2026

Fantastic! I can't wait for more updates! Keep up the good work, guys!

Played beautifully on mednafen, for while.

 

[GaleComprehends]

Though the marketing was definitely better, it had more to do with the monopoly Nintendo had on 3rd party. It's hard to compete when they are only allowed to make games on the NES.

Wasn't very big in Japan, either. Don't know if that was related to Nintendo Nintendoing or its much smaller library. Also, it didn't have Dragon Quest.

 

[Phonedork]

Works on my Sega Neptune using the Everdrive X7 cart. Can't run it with Mega SD as SMS will not play while 32X is enabled. But the X7 worked with the 32X in line. Maybe its just because its a COSAM Neptune mod. It just blows my mind the SMS work with it.

It looks fantastic!

 

[mariodoarmario]

Sensacionalle!

 

[AtariBorn]

Not surprising. The Master System was basically superior to the NES in most aspects. Nintendo just had a better marketing system. Double Dragon for instance is a shining example of a far superior product. The Master System version is far truer to the arcade vs the NES version. True two player capability and better graphics.

Don't forget, better music with the FM. I just thought it was odd that the Master System version didn't include the fence climbing section. A strange thing to discard.

 

[Novah]

Not surprising. The Master System was basically superior to the NES in most aspects. Nintendo just had a better marketing system. Double Dragon for instance is a shining example of a far superior product. The Master System version is far truer to the arcade vs the NES version. True two player capability and better graphics.

Though the marketing was definitely better, it had more to do with the monopoly Nintendo had on 3rd party. It's hard to compete when they are only allowed to make games on the NES.

 

[Bigbossman1202]

I will have to give this one a try.

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

Ok I SHOULD play this

 

[Waffle_the_Great]

I'll step back for the moment. I'll wait for a "more finished" release. It's looking better from NES though.

Not surprising. The Master System was basically superior to the NES in most aspects. Nintendo just had a better marketing system. Double Dragon for instance is a shining example of a far superior product. The Master System version is far truer to the arcade vs the NES version. True two player capability and better graphics.

 

[CSmith327]

Odd, I tested on both iOS and Android RetroArch (regular from app store and google play) and it ran fine, but of course I used Gear System out of habit since I prefer it for Master System,.

I always extract the zip unless it's necessary like MAME because I noticed running Roms off a zip can cause issues.

Perhaps the mobile cores work fine but out of the desktop cores for Windows SMS Plus GX was the only one that worked and didn't crash. I thought Enycep was just having issues of their own until I saw it wasn't working either. I can't remember if I tried it with PicoDrive, but Gear System, and Genesis Plus GX couldn't play it

 

[soulfunkdjx]

I'll step back for the moment. I'll wait for a "more finished" release. It's looking better from NES though.

 

[Juiceala]

Strange, Gear System failed on mine and just crashes RetroArch. I'm using the latest nightly versions of all cores too. Only the core I mentioned was the one that would play it. None of the other SMS featured cores would work. I even extracted the .sms file for the hell of it

Odd, I tested on both iOS and Android RetroArch (regular from app store and google play) and it ran fine, but of course I used Gear System out of habit since I prefer it for Master System,.

I always extract the zip unless it's necessary like MAME because I noticed running Roms off a zip can cause issues.

 

[CSmith327]

I played it with Gear System and ran perfectly fine, didn't even occur to me to test it with other cores cause I thought it probably runs well.

Strange, Gear System failed on mine and just crashes RetroArch. I'm using the latest nightly versions of all cores too. Only the core I mentioned was the one that would play it. None of the other SMS featured cores would work. I even extracted the .sms file for the hell of it

Post automatically merged: Feb 21, 2026

This is pretty rad!

If I had a nickel for every time I've seen you say that I could probably buy a McDouble from McDonald's (the cheap value one mind you) That's not a bad thing. I've just seen you say it quite a bit lol

 

[Juiceala]

It does work but the only core I could find that didn't crash when loading it was the SMS Plus GX core

I played it with Gear System and ran perfectly fine, didn't even occur to me to test it with other cores cause I thought it probably runs well.

 

[ArchienineArchienine's icon]

Looks really neat

 

[CSmith327]

couldn't get it to work on retroarch

It does work but the only core I could find that didn't crash when loading it was the SMS Plus GX core

 

[AtariBorn]

Much appreciated, would be rad af if true, but even as is the soundtrack imo was a great conversion.

Oh, I agree. They did an excellent job with the PCM soundtrack but there were no sound effects. I'm not too keen on how taxing the sound effects would be, combined with the awesome PCM background music they were using but he seemed pretty excited about the idea of implementing FM, once others offered to help. If he does use FM for the background music, it would most certainly eliminate the possibility of the sound effects interrupting the music, altogether.

Post automatically merged: Feb 21, 2026

RLY Castlevania at SMS!?! Cool but too late It's a pity that it wasn't at 85-90 on SMS.

It's never too late for a good rendition of a classic,

 

[Enycep]

couldn't get it to work on retroarch

 

[Juiceala]

I asked if FM audio was in the cards for music, delegating PCM for sounds effects. He said he had some issues with the DevKit SMS and FM. Others in the forum jumped in, offering assistance and seemed keen on the idea. Maybe we'll get an even better soundtrack, in the future.

Much appreciated, would be rad af if true, but even as is the soundtrack imo was a great conversion.

 

[AtariBorn]

I asked if FM audio was in the cards for music, delegating PCM for sounds effects. He said he had some issues with the DevKit SMS and FM. Others in the forum jumped in, offering assistance and seemed keen on the idea. Maybe we'll get an even better soundtrack, in the future.

 

[CSmith327]

The PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 was the king of 8 bit systems. It looked better than Genesis sometimes (especially with the CD games) but it wasn't even a 16 bit system. Now the Master System however came a close second and definitely beats the NES in the graphics department. It's a shame that neither of those systems ever had as vast as a library as the NES and SNES had

 

[crt]

Completing the conversion will be lots of effort but it’d be pretty cool to run the first CV off a Genny or SMS

 

[zavbaz]

RLY Castlevania at SMS!?! Cool but too late It's a pity that it wasn't at 85-90 on SMS.

 

[kaine23]

Played this. Very well done.

 

[csanjuro]

looks really cool, I hope the game gets finished