This game is unfinished. The back third of the game is like someone greyboxing a dungeon and then never going back to finish it. Game is loaded with potential and missed opportunities held back by I assume a rushed development. It's also impossible to finish without a guide but that is the least of its problems and honestly that not rare for the era. I loved this game as a kid but it's just awful.
Sin guía se hace un juego muy complicado, por no decir imposible, no es tan bueno como su antecesor, pero sigue siendo infaltable para aquel que quiere pasarse toda la saga de Castlevania.
I completed this game within the Castlevania Anniversary Collection:
Honestly this game wasnt as bad as I expected. The game has very cryptic areas, and tedious grinding, but the dungeons you go to were alright, and I like how this game had a lot of metroidvania elements.
Honestly this game wasnt as bad as I expected. The game has very cryptic areas, and tedious grinding, but the dungeons you go to were alright, and I like how this game had a lot of metroidvania elements.
Terrible, but it had great ideas
E se Zelda II fosse muito ruim?
Even with a patch to fix the translation its still just slop.
This review contains spoilers
What a horrible night to have a curse!
If you’ve been keeping up with these reviews so far, it should be well-documented that my tolerance for shitty gameplay is directly proportional to my ability to project thematic intent onto it. Simon’s Quest is basically the final boss of that ethos, at least as far as not-very-good-but-not-quite-bad janky old NES games go.
The story in this one is that our boy Belmont didn’t do a good enough job of killing Dracula the first time, and as a result your ass is cursed and the whole land is plagued by monsters. Now it’s your Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest to go collect all of the D-Man’s body parts so you can bring him back to life and kill him again (You know, for real this time). It’s a pretty bold move to start your sequel by totally invalidating everything your player accomplished in the previous game, but it’s one Simon’s Quest really commits to, for better or for worse.
What this setup mostly means for us is that we get to explore the land outside the titular castle for a change, and it’s… pretty fuckin’ bleak. The vibrant colors of Castlevania are gone, replaced with drab, muted tones. The whole world feels like it’s in a state of decay, even Simon’s new sprite looks feeble, totally drained of life. NES palette limitations make him out to look more like a vampire than a Belmont, his hair gone jet black and his skin a pale white. It’s a nonlinear adventure game, I guess, but set on one long horizontal map that’s a total chore to traverse. At one point near the end of my playthrough, I had to spend like a full hour backtracking and grinding for hearts just to get a whip upgrade I had missed before. I slogged my way through muddy, indistinct environments and near-identical towns, constantly harangued by swarms of monsters and an oppressive day/night cycle, only ever moving in one direction at a time yet never feeling any sense of momentum. Is this really it, Simon? Is this is the world you fought so hard to save?
Misdirection is really the main obstacle in Simon’s Quest. Enemies are a joke and death has little to no consequence, so the game’s only true challenge is in deciphering it’s bullshit. Figuring out where you are or where you’re going is a crapshoot, considering the lack of a map or any distinct landmarks. Progression is most often gated by obtuse puzzles, ones the game tends to mislead you on if it even tells you about them at all. There’s people here too, but you’re not going to get much out of them. When NPCs aren’t speaking in oblique, poorly-translated riddles, they’re usually berating Simon or just outright fucking lying to him. And why wouldn’t they? You’re not a returning hero, you’re a returning failure.
Once you do find a mansion (this game’s equivalent to dungeons) you’ll find they’re not much more intuitive than the outside. Layouts are these dense labyrinths without any clear markers, usually filled to the brim with illusory trick floors. There’s five mansions total, with only two of them ending in boss fights. Most of the time you clear a stage by walking up to an orb and putting a stake in it, collecting Dracula’s heart or eyeball or whatever, and then making the long trek all the way back to the entrance. On the rare occasion you do encounter a boss, they’re so pitifully easy that it still feels like an anticlimax. The game even lets you walk right past ‘em if you want, as if even Dracula’s closest minions have caught on to how obligatory this all feels.
Once you have all of Big D’s body parts, you can start making your way to his castle. It’s a pretty pathetic journey, a straight line through abandoned towns and the only paths in the game without any enemies. Castlevania lies in ruin, a big grey pile of rubble, unguarded and unloved. You descend into the wreckage and reanimate your sworn enemy, only to find him a weak shadow of his former self, just like his castle. Just like Simon. After another easy boss fight, the game ends. Assuming you didn’t beat the game in record time, you probably got the bad ending, in which Simon is consumed by his curse and dies. Congratulations, fuck you.
So, that’s Simon’s Quest. Not a hard game to beat, but a wholly unsatisfying one. While Castlevania was brutally challenging, its sequel is brutally tedious. Gone is the deliberate action of old, replaced with lots and lots of busywork. Everything about the experience feels like a dull formality, like Simon is just going through the motions until he can finally put Dracula—and by extension, himself—to rest. Your failure to defeat evil looms over the whole journey, this constant reminder that you aren’t the hero you thought you were. It’s not the quest Simon wanted, but maybe it’s the one he deserves. Is it a good game? I don’t know. Who gives a shit? It’s certainly a potent one, and maybe that’s all you need.
If you’ve been keeping up with these reviews so far, it should be well-documented that my tolerance for shitty gameplay is directly proportional to my ability to project thematic intent onto it. Simon’s Quest is basically the final boss of that ethos, at least as far as not-very-good-but-not-quite-bad janky old NES games go.
The story in this one is that our boy Belmont didn’t do a good enough job of killing Dracula the first time, and as a result your ass is cursed and the whole land is plagued by monsters. Now it’s your Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest to go collect all of the D-Man’s body parts so you can bring him back to life and kill him again (You know, for real this time). It’s a pretty bold move to start your sequel by totally invalidating everything your player accomplished in the previous game, but it’s one Simon’s Quest really commits to, for better or for worse.
What this setup mostly means for us is that we get to explore the land outside the titular castle for a change, and it’s… pretty fuckin’ bleak. The vibrant colors of Castlevania are gone, replaced with drab, muted tones. The whole world feels like it’s in a state of decay, even Simon’s new sprite looks feeble, totally drained of life. NES palette limitations make him out to look more like a vampire than a Belmont, his hair gone jet black and his skin a pale white. It’s a nonlinear adventure game, I guess, but set on one long horizontal map that’s a total chore to traverse. At one point near the end of my playthrough, I had to spend like a full hour backtracking and grinding for hearts just to get a whip upgrade I had missed before. I slogged my way through muddy, indistinct environments and near-identical towns, constantly harangued by swarms of monsters and an oppressive day/night cycle, only ever moving in one direction at a time yet never feeling any sense of momentum. Is this really it, Simon? Is this is the world you fought so hard to save?
Misdirection is really the main obstacle in Simon’s Quest. Enemies are a joke and death has little to no consequence, so the game’s only true challenge is in deciphering it’s bullshit. Figuring out where you are or where you’re going is a crapshoot, considering the lack of a map or any distinct landmarks. Progression is most often gated by obtuse puzzles, ones the game tends to mislead you on if it even tells you about them at all. There’s people here too, but you’re not going to get much out of them. When NPCs aren’t speaking in oblique, poorly-translated riddles, they’re usually berating Simon or just outright fucking lying to him. And why wouldn’t they? You’re not a returning hero, you’re a returning failure.
Once you do find a mansion (this game’s equivalent to dungeons) you’ll find they’re not much more intuitive than the outside. Layouts are these dense labyrinths without any clear markers, usually filled to the brim with illusory trick floors. There’s five mansions total, with only two of them ending in boss fights. Most of the time you clear a stage by walking up to an orb and putting a stake in it, collecting Dracula’s heart or eyeball or whatever, and then making the long trek all the way back to the entrance. On the rare occasion you do encounter a boss, they’re so pitifully easy that it still feels like an anticlimax. The game even lets you walk right past ‘em if you want, as if even Dracula’s closest minions have caught on to how obligatory this all feels.
Once you have all of Big D’s body parts, you can start making your way to his castle. It’s a pretty pathetic journey, a straight line through abandoned towns and the only paths in the game without any enemies. Castlevania lies in ruin, a big grey pile of rubble, unguarded and unloved. You descend into the wreckage and reanimate your sworn enemy, only to find him a weak shadow of his former self, just like his castle. Just like Simon. After another easy boss fight, the game ends. Assuming you didn’t beat the game in record time, you probably got the bad ending, in which Simon is consumed by his curse and dies. Congratulations, fuck you.
So, that’s Simon’s Quest. Not a hard game to beat, but a wholly unsatisfying one. While Castlevania was brutally challenging, its sequel is brutally tedious. Gone is the deliberate action of old, replaced with lots and lots of busywork. Everything about the experience feels like a dull formality, like Simon is just going through the motions until he can finally put Dracula—and by extension, himself—to rest. Your failure to defeat evil looms over the whole journey, this constant reminder that you aren’t the hero you thought you were. It’s not the quest Simon wanted, but maybe it’s the one he deserves. Is it a good game? I don’t know. Who gives a shit? It’s certainly a potent one, and maybe that’s all you need.
game doesnt explain anything. also basically no bosses what the hell
This game was a sequel that got panned by many people due to the confusing clues and such, however, these complaints are caused by the translation being really bad and there were moments, when I looked up the meaning of these things, that I can't imagine how ANYONE could've understood these things either way. I have a list of a few below to demonstrait:
The clearing of the curse of the river will usher (i.e. it will lead/escort you) into Brahm’s mansion. = DESTROY THE CURSE AND YOU'LL RULE BRAHM'S MANSION. (which I thought meant you'd own the mansion or something...
A person without living laurels will perish on the cursed swamp. = THE CURSE HAS KILLED THE LAUREL TREE. (Which could mean absolutely anything...)
In the towns there are sellers who do business in hiding. = A CROOKED TRADER IS OFFERING BUM DEALS IN THIS TOWN. (This one is the most annoying as I thought it meant to avoid going to the buyer in that town to get better deals in other towns)
So unless you're armed with a guide or viewers to help you out, I have no idea how you'd figure this out.
List of Translations
Translations aside, the gameplay is much like the first game, only instead of a linear path to take, you have many, but still need to do them in a certain order as keys and the appropriate crystals can only be found in certain towns. If the translation wasn't so borked that critical clues ended up saying the complete opposite to what's intended, this could certainly be seen as a far better game than it's known as. It's ultimately a shame that this game was let down by sub-par translations, but then again, games weren't viewed as serious back then either.
Gameplay + Stream
The clearing of the curse of the river will usher (i.e. it will lead/escort you) into Brahm’s mansion. = DESTROY THE CURSE AND YOU'LL RULE BRAHM'S MANSION. (which I thought meant you'd own the mansion or something...
A person without living laurels will perish on the cursed swamp. = THE CURSE HAS KILLED THE LAUREL TREE. (Which could mean absolutely anything...)
In the towns there are sellers who do business in hiding. = A CROOKED TRADER IS OFFERING BUM DEALS IN THIS TOWN. (This one is the most annoying as I thought it meant to avoid going to the buyer in that town to get better deals in other towns)
So unless you're armed with a guide or viewers to help you out, I have no idea how you'd figure this out.
List of Translations
Translations aside, the gameplay is much like the first game, only instead of a linear path to take, you have many, but still need to do them in a certain order as keys and the appropriate crystals can only be found in certain towns. If the translation wasn't so borked that critical clues ended up saying the complete opposite to what's intended, this could certainly be seen as a far better game than it's known as. It's ultimately a shame that this game was let down by sub-par translations, but then again, games weren't viewed as serious back then either.
Gameplay + Stream
They dared to change, just like Simon dared to rid himself of Dracula's affliction in the face of ridicule by his fellow townsfolk.
At the approach of midnight, I began my journey home, my boots trudging through the mud as I pumped my fists to the Dance of Monsters. The chill of the wind rustles through the trees as I keep myself at the ready, for any moment the skeleton or wolfman could walk out from the brush begging for death's sweet release by the hand of my mighty whip passed down to me by my ancestors. Upon entry to town the sunrise brings about temporary peace, wherein I decide to visit the local grocery and throw my bottled water at it's floor to reveal the garlic salesman hiding underneath the floorboards from minions of the Count who has decreed that garlic was illegal.
Perhaps I'm obsessed with the idea of pretending to be Simon, perhaps he really is just the world's biggest badass being able to beat Dracula by himself and then again later while he's dying of a curse placed on him by the same guy. You think I wouldn't want to role play as him?
A color palette of putrid dilapidation, reminiscent of Hammer horror films, a land that continues to be ravaged by monsters chaotically stalking about despite the Count's destruction. Simon himself now as pale as a ghost due to the curse that has been sapping away at him for the past seven years, a depressing tone for what should've been a peaceful reconstruction after our past victory. The last town in the game Ghulash is completely monochrome in color with only one person residing in it, showcasing the devastation that has expanded from Dracula's castle. The townsfolk talk in riddles and lies, done in either genuine good faith or as an act of sabotage to keep Simon from completing his quest for fear of Dracula's early return. The ringing of tears flowing from a ballroom mask echo across the land, a most legendary composition.
They say if you wish to follow up perfection, then you better hit strong, differently, or both.
As I have once said before, a game that becomes more enjoyable the more you replay is but a sign of perfection. For the original Castlevania it became more enjoyable as I grew quicker at conquering it from sheer skill, and for Simon's Quest it became more enjoyable as I grew more wary of it's tricks. Instead of a test of strength, it is a test of shrewdness and clever understanding. Whereas the original opted to try and beat you into the grave, Simon's Quest looks to baffle you with illusions and misdirection. Typos appaering, translations such as the Fist of the North Star reference getting turned into a weird shout out to the Galactic Empire's infamous space station, and signs of a rushed development seem to only help it, perhaps it is perfectly imperfect. A perfect sibling to what was a perfect game.
Maybe I am obsessed, maybe Dracula exists and he put a curse on me to forever defend Simon's Quest from the never ending ridicule that comes it's way thanks to videos that were made for humor back in the times of the ancients. Simon's last adventure now cursed to being used as the butt of a joke, and constantly used as a punching bag by armchair game designers. Those who hate are numerous, and me and my fellow Simon supporters are small in number, but we are steadfast and strong in our beliefs. We stand together in the face of hostility and look onward at the army in front of us, I unsheathe my whip, brandishing it in hand and turn to my allies with but two quiet words, "For Simon", I rush into the ensuing battle leading the charge into our forever war.
Our battle is never over, but despite our curse we forever fight to the bitter end just as a Belmont would.
At the approach of midnight, I began my journey home, my boots trudging through the mud as I pumped my fists to the Dance of Monsters. The chill of the wind rustles through the trees as I keep myself at the ready, for any moment the skeleton or wolfman could walk out from the brush begging for death's sweet release by the hand of my mighty whip passed down to me by my ancestors. Upon entry to town the sunrise brings about temporary peace, wherein I decide to visit the local grocery and throw my bottled water at it's floor to reveal the garlic salesman hiding underneath the floorboards from minions of the Count who has decreed that garlic was illegal.
Perhaps I'm obsessed with the idea of pretending to be Simon, perhaps he really is just the world's biggest badass being able to beat Dracula by himself and then again later while he's dying of a curse placed on him by the same guy. You think I wouldn't want to role play as him?
A color palette of putrid dilapidation, reminiscent of Hammer horror films, a land that continues to be ravaged by monsters chaotically stalking about despite the Count's destruction. Simon himself now as pale as a ghost due to the curse that has been sapping away at him for the past seven years, a depressing tone for what should've been a peaceful reconstruction after our past victory. The last town in the game Ghulash is completely monochrome in color with only one person residing in it, showcasing the devastation that has expanded from Dracula's castle. The townsfolk talk in riddles and lies, done in either genuine good faith or as an act of sabotage to keep Simon from completing his quest for fear of Dracula's early return. The ringing of tears flowing from a ballroom mask echo across the land, a most legendary composition.
They say if you wish to follow up perfection, then you better hit strong, differently, or both.
As I have once said before, a game that becomes more enjoyable the more you replay is but a sign of perfection. For the original Castlevania it became more enjoyable as I grew quicker at conquering it from sheer skill, and for Simon's Quest it became more enjoyable as I grew more wary of it's tricks. Instead of a test of strength, it is a test of shrewdness and clever understanding. Whereas the original opted to try and beat you into the grave, Simon's Quest looks to baffle you with illusions and misdirection. Typos appaering, translations such as the Fist of the North Star reference getting turned into a weird shout out to the Galactic Empire's infamous space station, and signs of a rushed development seem to only help it, perhaps it is perfectly imperfect. A perfect sibling to what was a perfect game.
Maybe I am obsessed, maybe Dracula exists and he put a curse on me to forever defend Simon's Quest from the never ending ridicule that comes it's way thanks to videos that were made for humor back in the times of the ancients. Simon's last adventure now cursed to being used as the butt of a joke, and constantly used as a punching bag by armchair game designers. Those who hate are numerous, and me and my fellow Simon supporters are small in number, but we are steadfast and strong in our beliefs. We stand together in the face of hostility and look onward at the army in front of us, I unsheathe my whip, brandishing it in hand and turn to my allies with but two quiet words, "For Simon", I rush into the ensuing battle leading the charge into our forever war.
Our battle is never over, but despite our curse we forever fight to the bitter end just as a Belmont would.
WHAT. Very bad compared to the First One. The only cool thing Is the soundtrack, but everything else Is so bad. An RPG type Castlevania with a bad level design, and (for me) a lacking art style.
É bem estranho, mas esse é o meu Castlevania favorito, eu sei que ele é confuso em suas mecânicas mas ele introduziu bastante coisa legal pra época do NES, sendo inclusive quase que um molde pros Castles não lineares como o Symphony e os de GBA. Eu gosto dele, boa parte do pessoal não hahahaha.
This feels like a troll game more than a game; secrets are meant to be secrets, not a mandatory thing, except that the whole game is based on that concept, and as you can guess, it doesn't fucking work, imagine having to understand the entire FNAF lore for the FNAF games to be playable, this is the game. This piece of cat shit is extremely confusing as to where you need to go and instead gives you stupid tips and expects you to understand them, and a lot of the tips are also hidden without tips to find the tips. It also doesn't help that most areas look the same with slightly different colors.
And here it comes the: "Erm, actually, just use a guide or a proper translation and the game becomes good"; first, if the game is good then it doesn't need a guide to be playable in the first place, Second, the game is still shit even with a guide and stopping to check the guide every 10 seconds is not fun, it only makes this pile of shit playable. How do you explain these? The faster whip is just there to hold your hand, you will find yourself mashing to kill enemies and not strategizing when to attack like the first game, the game is pretty easy, just very tedious that if you ever take damage to any enemy, they're either badly placed or you're too bored to pay attention to them, and wow, the enemy placements... the game can place them right after screen transitions... Devs were too lazy to make a checkpoint system so instead they respawn you right where you died with a few I-frames but without your currency (if you game over), and if you died by falling, it respawns you on the very edge of your failed jump, making you accidentally fall off again by walking 1 pixel, or what about false floors that make you backtrack from Japan to Brazil, enemies either stand still and shoot, walk back and forth or fly towards you, dead ends and a lot of walking (corridors with or without enemies or devs with stairs fetish just putting stairs everywhere where you go up and down slooooooowly) that are only there to waste the player's time; the bosses are somehow WAY worse than the ones from the first game, and you get like 4 places to heal in the whole game that barely feels useful for not resetting lives, just buy what you want and die to reset lives next to where you will start to farm, again.
The very few positives are very small things that can't get the game any higher, movement is better if not the same as 1, visuals are slightly better though they still don't look so good and a lot of places look the same with different colors, music isn't as forgettable as 1 but they're very mediocre and you will listen to the same 4 for the whole game.
Worst game I logged in to this website though I still completed it for the sake of getting to know the series, what a terrible game that uses secrets as 95% of its design, this piece of garbo is unironically... A miserable little pile of secrets
And here it comes the: "Erm, actually, just use a guide or a proper translation and the game becomes good"; first, if the game is good then it doesn't need a guide to be playable in the first place, Second, the game is still shit even with a guide and stopping to check the guide every 10 seconds is not fun, it only makes this pile of shit playable. How do you explain these? The faster whip is just there to hold your hand, you will find yourself mashing to kill enemies and not strategizing when to attack like the first game, the game is pretty easy, just very tedious that if you ever take damage to any enemy, they're either badly placed or you're too bored to pay attention to them, and wow, the enemy placements... the game can place them right after screen transitions... Devs were too lazy to make a checkpoint system so instead they respawn you right where you died with a few I-frames but without your currency (if you game over), and if you died by falling, it respawns you on the very edge of your failed jump, making you accidentally fall off again by walking 1 pixel, or what about false floors that make you backtrack from Japan to Brazil, enemies either stand still and shoot, walk back and forth or fly towards you, dead ends and a lot of walking (corridors with or without enemies or devs with stairs fetish just putting stairs everywhere where you go up and down slooooooowly) that are only there to waste the player's time; the bosses are somehow WAY worse than the ones from the first game, and you get like 4 places to heal in the whole game that barely feels useful for not resetting lives, just buy what you want and die to reset lives next to where you will start to farm, again.
The very few positives are very small things that can't get the game any higher, movement is better if not the same as 1, visuals are slightly better though they still don't look so good and a lot of places look the same with different colors, music isn't as forgettable as 1 but they're very mediocre and you will listen to the same 4 for the whole game.
Worst game I logged in to this website though I still completed it for the sake of getting to know the series, what a terrible game that uses secrets as 95% of its design, this piece of garbo is unironically... A miserable little pile of secrets
Tem algumas coisas bem interessantes pra época, mesmo que sejam mal executadas, mas ainda é divertido. Joguei seguindo um guia e jogar jogo antigo assim tem uma vibe bem legal (e me poupou o estresse).
following up castlevania must have been a daunting task, and i understand why the team at konami made the decisions they did; unfortunately i feel this is just a less interesting version of konami's own getsu fuma den.
there's tons of cool stuff here, arguably a better soundtrack than the first game despite its sparsity, but compared to CV1 the presentation is really lacking. i lovelovelove simon's red armor look but the absence of color in every sprite palette is totally egregious and makes everything kind of blend together.. i think some areas look very cool (the endgame town is a great moment) but there's a total of maybe 5-6 unique screen types in the whole game recolored haphazardly to represent what is supposedly the transylvanian countryside and iunno, i just wasn't able to buy it. the first game's castle had both scale and tangibility, yet in spite being an outright bigger map and longer playtime CV2 feels so much smaller!
the things in simon's quest that people talk about the most (secret floors, day/night cycle, hearts as currency AND ammo) didn't end up really bothering me this time around, in fact i think they're some of the things that really work for this game and help make it unique. the base gameplay is pretty damn good but it'd have to be since it's the same combat and platforming as CV1, though the selection of subweapons is really bad (no axe or boomerang? THREE knives???)
maybe this game's biggest step down from the first is that it's... not hard? a few enemies have some tricky patterns and can sap health (the SLIMES oh my GOD) but with very few exceptions you will never get set back THAT far, unless you're trying to get the morningstar (game overs here put you in the exact same place you died, just with no hearts). even the mansions are kind of a cakewalk, it's hard NOT to have enough money to buy the oak stake! and oh my god the bosses are such a JOKE and there's THREE of them you don't have to even look up the dracula trick to know it's the most obvious course of action!! am i stepping into the shadows of the hell house or the shadows of weenie hut jr??!!??!!??
anyway i know my rating is kind of high given everything i've said but i really think this game is not bad, it's just not very interesting. i'm definitely not getting the transcendent experience others get out of it, but that's fine, it's still kind of a fun curiosity and i'm glad it exists.
(writing this at 2am sorry if it is a mess!)
there's tons of cool stuff here, arguably a better soundtrack than the first game despite its sparsity, but compared to CV1 the presentation is really lacking. i lovelovelove simon's red armor look but the absence of color in every sprite palette is totally egregious and makes everything kind of blend together.. i think some areas look very cool (the endgame town is a great moment) but there's a total of maybe 5-6 unique screen types in the whole game recolored haphazardly to represent what is supposedly the transylvanian countryside and iunno, i just wasn't able to buy it. the first game's castle had both scale and tangibility, yet in spite being an outright bigger map and longer playtime CV2 feels so much smaller!
the things in simon's quest that people talk about the most (secret floors, day/night cycle, hearts as currency AND ammo) didn't end up really bothering me this time around, in fact i think they're some of the things that really work for this game and help make it unique. the base gameplay is pretty damn good but it'd have to be since it's the same combat and platforming as CV1, though the selection of subweapons is really bad (no axe or boomerang? THREE knives???)
maybe this game's biggest step down from the first is that it's... not hard? a few enemies have some tricky patterns and can sap health (the SLIMES oh my GOD) but with very few exceptions you will never get set back THAT far, unless you're trying to get the morningstar (game overs here put you in the exact same place you died, just with no hearts). even the mansions are kind of a cakewalk, it's hard NOT to have enough money to buy the oak stake! and oh my god the bosses are such a JOKE and there's THREE of them you don't have to even look up the dracula trick to know it's the most obvious course of action!! am i stepping into the shadows of the hell house or the shadows of weenie hut jr??!!??!!??
anyway i know my rating is kind of high given everything i've said but i really think this game is not bad, it's just not very interesting. i'm definitely not getting the transcendent experience others get out of it, but that's fine, it's still kind of a fun curiosity and i'm glad it exists.
(writing this at 2am sorry if it is a mess!)
que merda é essa
Behind a deeply flawed and broken sequel to a genuine classic lie the bones of a great game. There's a little meat here, the leveling up, item collecting, day/night cycle and towns 'prosess' a great spark of creativity and are second to none. It fails because without a guide this game is absolute gibberish. The bosses are laughably easy but the end is nothing short of the greatest anti-climax in Castlevania history. An empty castle with a final boss that can be killed before he even appears.
I think this might be more of an actual Metroidvania (compared to the strict platformer found in the first entry), but man, it's painful. They hadn't quite figured out the formula yet. I'm deciding not to invest a ton of time into it for now. I won't give it a review since I didn't give it a proper shake, but I'm leaning 2/5.
I'd actually recommend trying it as a fun study in bad game design. Making maps, taking notes, and exploring the world is fun as you try to make sense of things. That is, until you discover that death is meaningless and the game is lying about/omitting crucial info. Top-knotch atmosphere, but fails in every way that's important to me.
This is a game that’s much easier to appreciate than enjoy. Where the original Castlevania could occasionally have some bullshit difficulty, this game swaps over to being bullshit cryptic. The problem with that is when you have a really difficult challenge in the original, it feels satisfying to overcome it and get to make some progress, and gives Dracula’s mansion the level of treachery it should. But in this game, when there’s some sort of challenge, it’s in figuring out what to do, which isn’t a fun puzzle, but trying to comprehend the poorly translated hints and even then you may not even be getting them in the right order.
The non-linearity of this game is neat, but a gimmick that feels like padding to make little jimmy spend more time on his brand new NES game. I ended up following a guide, and once you know what to do in this game, it becomes painstakingly obvious how easy this game really is. There are a grand total of 3 bosses, and all three are cake walks. In fact, the first was the hardest of the three for me. The final dungeon has this great buildup, an eerily empty mansion with gray walls and a haunting tune, and then you absolutely butcher Dracula in 3 seconds flat. It was incredibly underwhelming. The game nails atmosphere and aesthetics most of the time, but the poor translations are a blemish on that cool presentation. I mean, how do you mix up the ending text? I’m serious, the game will tell you the wrong ending, over a background that’s showing you what actually is happening. It’s all just a big confusing mess.
That’s why I say I appreciate it more than I enjoy it. The game plays fine, if on the easy side. The vague direction and bad translations are really frustrating, I can’t imagine how long it would’ve taken without a guide. The game looks and sounds great, and has some really interesting ideas, but doesn’t have the fun to back it up.
The non-linearity of this game is neat, but a gimmick that feels like padding to make little jimmy spend more time on his brand new NES game. I ended up following a guide, and once you know what to do in this game, it becomes painstakingly obvious how easy this game really is. There are a grand total of 3 bosses, and all three are cake walks. In fact, the first was the hardest of the three for me. The final dungeon has this great buildup, an eerily empty mansion with gray walls and a haunting tune, and then you absolutely butcher Dracula in 3 seconds flat. It was incredibly underwhelming. The game nails atmosphere and aesthetics most of the time, but the poor translations are a blemish on that cool presentation. I mean, how do you mix up the ending text? I’m serious, the game will tell you the wrong ending, over a background that’s showing you what actually is happening. It’s all just a big confusing mess.
That’s why I say I appreciate it more than I enjoy it. The game plays fine, if on the easy side. The vague direction and bad translations are really frustrating, I can’t imagine how long it would’ve taken without a guide. The game looks and sounds great, and has some really interesting ideas, but doesn’t have the fun to back it up.
I liked this one more than I thought I would... At first. Unfortunately, it overstays its welcome, and some of its (mandatory) secrets are ridiculous to find. Combine that with a poorly handled localization and I can definitely see why this game gets so much flak. It also doesn't have much in terms of bosses, and they're all underwhelming. The day/night cycle thing is way overhated, barely bothered me at all.
Even if I spent more time reading a guide then playing the actual game, I still enjoyed it enough. The cryptic nature of the game is a bit too much though. Sort of mixed on this one. Also the music is incredible
The Zelda II of Castlevania. Where the hell do I go? Why was the actual level design of the first game replaced with endless enemy spam? At least the music is still good.
Another great entry in the series but play the Redaction hack for a more solid Castlevania experience.
This game hasn't aged that well and of course had a terrible translation.
But god damn do I love it much much more than 1, this game was way ahead of its time and it shows, but that makes it a game I can like more than either of the other NES ones.
But god damn do I love it much much more than 1, this game was way ahead of its time and it shows, but that makes it a game I can like more than either of the other NES ones.
It was fun, but also quite confusing at times because of the backtracking you had to do. The game doesn't really tell you what to do apart from the NPCs (who were either lying or talking nonsense most of the time). I did use a guide after some time, which a lot of people recommended using because of how the game is, so at least I knew what to do overall. It was also significantly easier than Castlevania 1, having only 3 bosses that were all pretty cheeseable with Sacred Flame or Golden Dagger. Overall, an okay game that would've been better had it stuck with what made the first one great.
2.5/5 stars
2.5/5 stars
I don't think this game is quite as bad as everyone else seems to. It's definitely not very well designed, but the gameplay is fun enough. Please use a guide though.
They took the gameplay of the first game and stretched it out into a boring "rpg". Very boring.
With a proper translation, this game is pretty good.
Cryptic nonsense, enemy spam, grind, you name it. Castlevania II is a major misfire and a huge step down from 1. The game just wastes your time, and I'm not gonna waste anymore time with it, so alas it's been abandoned.
At least the soundtrack is pretty banging.
At least the soundtrack is pretty banging.