How to Run Castlevania: The Arcade on Your PC

Last Updated on May 19, 2023

A video game preservationist has showcased the lost and excruciatingly rare Castlevania: The Arcade game on their YouTube channel, detailing how to run the game on PC.

YouTuber Video Game Esoterica has enlightened us on how we can get Konami‘s 2009 arcade cabinet game Castlevania: The Arcade running on your PC with help from Discord members. They have a PC PCB, found the image and can now run the game on Windows 10 in just a few steps! They have compared the game to the likes of SEGA’s The House of the Dead.

What is Castlevania: The Arcade?

The game is a shoot ’em up style game based upon the Castlevania video game series. Players take control of one of four characters and must battle through a variety of levels, defeating monsters and bosses along the way. You can use a variety of weapons and power-ups to defeat enemies and progress through the levels. The game also features cooperative play for up to two players, allowing players to team up and fight their way through the game’s levels together.

The preserved hardware is a light gun shooter using motion controls for whip combat, using the trigger as an attack button. The game was not ported to home consoles and remains officially in its original cabinet format, not seeing the light of day outside private collections, some arcades or even rarely found outside of Japan.

Video Game Esoterica currently has the game running on “Free Play”, however, has not solved the controls obstacle. They say that there’s potential for Wiimote or mouse compatibility.

Despite not being able to run controls in-game just yet, you can take a nosy at the files and look at all the endings for the game, but do bear in mind that they are in Japanese. The YouTuber praises the game from their time playing Castlevania: The Arcade on an official cabinet and hopes to be able to see it accessible to more people.

Other YouTubers have already begun uploading footage from Castlevania: The Arcade.