The story is very much stock at this point, but still cool none the less. Dracula's reign of terror has to come to an end, and a whip wielding son of a gun needs to take care of business, storm the castle, and bring Dracula down once and for all...or until the next time anyways. The poor people of Transylvania never think to move away. You'd figure that would be easier than death and bloodshed, but maybe the housing market of 1476 was just awful. Castlevania III would be a further evolution of the original game. Gone were the action adventure, role playing elements of Simon's Quest. The series would be going back to basics, but with innovation, good game play, and challenging design. If you were a fan of Zelda II, you might have liked Simon's Quest, but the changes from the first game were just too controversial for the time. They would make a comeback much later, but for the time being it was time to get strapped in and hyped from a side scrolling romp through the demonic and treacherous castle. 

Trevor Belmont plays exactly like Simon for the most part. If you played the previous games, you would know exactly what to do. Whip the candles, grab the hearts, upgrade your whip, and re-kill some un-dead. Why whip candles seeming hanging off of literally anything for hearts that don't restore health? Well for ammo of course. What? You thought hearts replenish health? Not in Castlevania! That would just be logical. No, the hearts give you ammo for the other items that Trevor might find on his trip through the castle. You can get throwing weapons like daggers and axes, a bible(or a book about the lowercase t), a stop watch, a cross boomerang, and the awesome holy water. Basically, you kick ass for the Lord, with the tools of the trade. Some things would work better depending on the situation, and the variety helped in getting out of tight spots, but you could only hold one at a time, so if you had what you wanted you would have to avoid getting the other items. 

A big innovation in this game was the addition of other characters. You get the option to save and recruit characters that can join you like Grant, the agile thief who could throw daggers, jump higher and hang onto walls and ceilings. Sypha, who is a girl, don't let the NES manual lie to you, could use powerful magic at the cost of speed and agility. Then we get to the fan favourite. The character Castlevania fans would rally behind years later in one of the best games in the franchise, Alucard. Now I don't want to be the one to spoil this, but I've got the inside information on this character, and it's going to blow your mind. Alucard is Dracula spelled backwards. I know this is the first time you've ever heard this, and remember you heard it here first. Yes, Alucard joins you to defeat his own father, using fireballs and the ability to turn into a bat to make the last half of the game that much easier. You get the new characters to choose from to switch out with Trevor, and you also get branching stages to determine if you even want to get them. It gives the game some non-linearity, while still keeping the flow and feel of the original. See? Back to basics, but with innovation. Konami knew what they were doing.