Castlevania, originally released in Japan as Devil's Castle Dracula (悪魔城ドラキュラ Akumajō Dorakyura?),[6] is a platforming video game developed and published by Konami for the Family Computer Disk System video game console in Japan in September 1986. It was later released for the MSX2. It was ported to cartridge format and released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in May 1987 followed by a European release in 1988. The game takes place in the year 1691 where players control Simon Belmont who is tasked with defeating the vampire Dracula. It was re-released for the Family Computer (FC) in cartridge format in 1993. It is the first game in Konami's Castlevania video game series; it was followed by two more NES games titled Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (released for the NES in 1988) and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (1989). A fourth game was released for the Super NES and titled Super Castlevania IV. Castlevania is often considered to be one of the best games on the NES. It has received critical acclaim ever since its original release. It sold impressively and is considered an NES classic by PC World, while Nintendo Power and Game Informer ranked it in their best video games list (at 22 and 48 respectively). IGN ranked it 19 among their favourite NES games.