I was excited to receive my copy of Castlevania for MS-DOS in the mail, but surprised by one thing: the manual is a universal one, with instructions for all three of the home computer ports of the game. This includes the boot instructions as well as the controls. When I boot the game, it asks me what my video and audio hardware are, because this is from back before Windows… you needed to tell these games everything.
Another interesting issue I’ve had with the DOS version is that the “passwords book” I mentioned that came with it is a grid. When you boot the game, it asks for the four-digit code at certain axes, and if you don’t get it right in three tries, the game exits. As a result, this would be unplayable without the passwords book! The version I had downloaded online in the past must have been hacked in some way, because this was not the case. It skipped the video and audio configuration, too.
The fact that these three manuals are identical could potentially work to my favor if more copies ever appear for me to buy. I’ll know not to sell or trade away any manuals until I have three.