In my game collection, there is no shortage of ways to play Castlevania. I’ve got the NES version on the original NES cartridge, in its Classic NES Series GBA format, in the Castlevania and Contra Windows CD-ROM collection, and of course on Wii Virtual Console. If I spend five more minutes thinking about it, I’ll probably come up with more.
Back in the day, the NES wasn’t the only platform to get Castlevania. Of course there was the MSX version, but versions showed up for other platforms as well, including Commodore 64, Amiga, and DOS. On the subject of the DOS version, Glenn’s Guides has a neat tutorial up on how to download the DOS version (which they imply is abandonware) and how to get it up and running on Windows XP using DOSBox. Those of us with Macs of course could just grab the OSX version of DOSBox, but it makes a lot more sense to add Boxer to that, which will let you open the game with a simple double-click rather than having to look at a DOS prompt, something even Windows users loath nowadays. Or, as Boxer’s people put it:
Don’t struggle with mounts and emulation settings; don’t nurse a greedy games database; don’t bang your head against a DOS prompt; just play your games. Boxer takes away the fuss and leaves the fun.
I tested it with Boxer and it works great. Enjoy!
Source: Glenn’s Guides