Iain: Recently been playing Symphony of the Night for PS1 which I bought off PSN a few weeks back, its the first time I have ever played a Castlevania game and I am hooked, decided I am going to buy a NES for my retro collection next so I can play the original titles
AFnord: The earlier Castlevania games are quite different from SOTN. You can see some similarities in CV2, but that game has major issues with not giving you any hints on how to solve some rather obscure "puzzles". The original Japanese version apparently actually told you roughly what to do (though not directly), but due to the horrendous localization, most of the hints just got lost. So you'll have to find out that you need to press down at a certain spot for a few seconds without any hints. The other 8 & 16-bit CV games are linear or semi-linear (in the case of CV3) 2d platformers, like most other 2d platformers from that time.
If you want more SOTN-like games, then get yourself a DS and play the GBA & DS Castlevanias. They are excellent.
Also, if you enjoyed the Castlevania music, see if you can track down Rondo of Blood (PC-engine, available on Wii virtual console), as the PC-engine/TG-16 had an excellent sound chip (the entire soundtrack can also be found on
youtube).
Also, the Japanese version of Castlevania 3 had superior sound compared to the western releases, due to an expensive chip in the cartridge. Might have been the same chip that made Mr. Gimmick sound so good (which by the way also is part of the reason why it got such a limited release, as the game was only sold in Japan & Scandinavia). I don't know why I know this, I'm not even a huge fan of the early Castlevania games, I think they got a lot better once they became more like Metroid.
I've heard about that bit on Simons Quest, you have to crouch down facing a wall to make a cloud appear to get you across an area but there was no hint as to what you were supposed to do on the English language versions of the game, very surreal!
I think I will take your advice look into a DS for myself and go that route, maybe even go old school and get an Advance and source the cartridges as I am a retro collector after all! Actually, thinking about it I have a Gameboy Pocket (Yellow one) that works great, need to see if any Castlevania games are available on that, from what I remember after watching AVGN Castlavania episodes there are 1 or 2 for the old handheld.