Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse · NES · 1989 · Password
Effect: Resumes the game at the start of a specific stage with the partner character and difficulty active when the password was generated.
Castlevania III was the first Castlevania to pair a player-entered name with a password, and it used symbols — long chain whips, rosaries, and hearts — arranged in a 4x4 grid rather than letters. The password is tied to the name entered and encodes the player's stage, current partner character, and difficulty. Because the codes were dynamically generated rather than static, players had to carefully record them after each session, and password trading became a significant part of the game's community via Nintendo Power letters columns and bulletin boards. Certain names entered on the name screen even start the game with a particular partner already joined.