Vampire Castle

Made by the same group who developed Zillion Beats and PriZhm (RezetiA), Vampire Castle is an odd little sidescrolling shooter with light RPG elements. The decently designed levels and nicely designed enemies (having a sort of pre-rendered look like characters from Donkey Kong Country, etc.) help make the game more appealing, and it's fairly challenging too. The game is rather cryptic in terms of where to go and what to do, but you can't usually stray too far off the beaten path. Heck, the game is so cryptic that it doesn't allude to when it was made, though it was some time in 2007 (the .exe says Ver 1.50 was modified during February of 2007).