was listening to Castlevania III.nsf just to see if I even liked it anymore, some of the tracks are so bizarre and bleak, and some of the timbres are so odd. Jesus Christ I think my brother used to play the password screen music on repeat to slowly drive me insane. I don't know how much of it is inherent oddness or just memory imprinting. God the boss theme is so hectic it probably encourages you to get it over with as soon as possible. The character join screen music is pretty haunting. But yeah combine this with the weird early Castlevania architecture that is so removed from whatever it's actually supposed to be, some of the levels really /feel/ like you're so hopelessly deep in a strange and dangerous place



but yeah I really wish videogames were still so motivated by/gamers felt rewarded by being exposed to these strange experiences instead of just 'pretty' ones
you can move this to the catamites topic if you want