Japanese Konami titles translated in English

Oh I seem to have done easy mistake!
Thank you for your pointing out.

For me, 悪 means Bad and 魔 means Demon. 悪魔 is bad demon. We can probably write 良魔 or 優魔 to say the opposite. When we add の behind 悪魔, it can become like an adjective "demonic" and therefore interpreted as "terrible" in some cases.

I'm sure everyone knows tradition of Japanimation naming theory. For example, 機動戦士ガンダム means Mobile-suit Gundam. The term 機動戦士 explains what is ガンダム. I mean ガンダム = 機動戦士. We can generalize as follows. In the case of such a name contains kanji + pseudo English written in katakana, kanji part explains what kind of thing is the proper name by katakana.

Well, let think about our case, 悪魔城ドラキュラ. It is clear that the term 悪魔城 does quite not explain what is ドラキュラ. Actually this naming gave strange impression even to Japanese people in those days. I mean Konami intentionally deviated from the ordinary naming theory when they gave this name to the masterpiece.

Imagine the reason why they did such a deviation. In my opinion, they seem to have wanted to express what is the selling point of the game, by the erratic way. Dracula is exactly the anti-hero in the story. Well, what did 悪魔城 mean? It expressed where we had to seek for and fight against him. As you know, this castle is not just a large map but a complex trap house, which stood out among the other video games in those days. The castle should be called the second anti-hero of the game.

For the reasons stated above, I made a conclusion as follows. The word 悪魔 in this title didn't mean what we call "devil" or "daemon". But it meant the castle as the stage of the game is "demonic", "terrifying just like devil" or something else. A very dangerous mountain to climb is often called "魔の山" among Japanese people. I think this game title comes from the similar nuance.

See, I've always kind of taken a little umbrage with the name "Castlevania," because while it does set the right mood, it's... a little odd. It's a portmanteau of "castle" and "Transylvania," which would be a little like if people started calling the Tower of London "Towndon." It doesn't follow any naming schemes that people actually use when naming castles, whereas in a lot of ways, the "lazy" translation of "Devil's Castle" actually sounds like something the locals might call it. "Ye'd best stay away from there, f'r that's where th' devil dwells! Ye enter, and ye're goin' straight t' Hell!"

I don't really see the locals calling it "Castlevania," however. "Yes, this place is Transylvania, as you know. And that's Transylvania Castle over there. But that name's so long, we locals just abbreviate it as 'Castlevania' to save precious seconds when speaking to one another!"

-Tom

Haha. Well, it's a pretty low-brow name, but it works. In the context of the game it definitely needed a proper name.
And I think the locals would be more likely to call it "Vampire's Castle" than "Devil's Castle"...