Not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, but hold on! It's not even that good.
Castlevania Legends has a cool protagonist design and a nice soundtrack.
... that's it. Everything else feels uninspired, unbalanced (since the first power-up you get is literally the best one) and mostly out of touch with what made the other GB Castlevania games good. There's no enemy variety and even if there was, they all walk and fly towards the player as their mastermind plan. There are forks in the levels, but you can be locked out of the good ending if you choose the wrong path even once! I love being locked out as soon as I start the game!
Adding that the gameplay itself is ok at best, sluggish and tedious at worst, it can be seen why Legends isn't beloved by many. I tried making it work, but it felt more like a roadtrip distraction, as it maybe it was meant to be, compared to an actual videogame.
Castlevania Legends has a cool protagonist design and a nice soundtrack.
... that's it. Everything else feels uninspired, unbalanced (since the first power-up you get is literally the best one) and mostly out of touch with what made the other GB Castlevania games good. There's no enemy variety and even if there was, they all walk and fly towards the player as their mastermind plan. There are forks in the levels, but you can be locked out of the good ending if you choose the wrong path even once! I love being locked out as soon as I start the game!
Adding that the gameplay itself is ok at best, sluggish and tedious at worst, it can be seen why Legends isn't beloved by many. I tried making it work, but it felt more like a roadtrip distraction, as it maybe it was meant to be, compared to an actual videogame.
What a shitload of fuck. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?!??!!? The only redeeming quality is the music, which can be pretty good at some points (best Bloody Tears remix don't @ me) Cuz of this, I was going to rate it the same as Adventure, but then I remembered the misogyny and some of the worst level design I have ever seen in a game.
(Mastered = True Ending)
(Mastered = True Ending)
No soc gran fan dels Castlevania de la Game Boy, però crec que este és encara pitjor que els altres.
El tema d'agafar objectes col·leccionables per al final vertader no està mal de per sí, que per a fer-ho toque menejar-se per escenaris lineals amb rutes alternatives fàcil de confondre amb les normals, és una idea HORRIBLE.
El major interès d'haver-lo acabat era fer "check", la veritat.
El tema d'agafar objectes col·leccionables per al final vertader no està mal de per sí, que per a fer-ho toque menejar-se per escenaris lineals amb rutes alternatives fàcil de confondre amb les normals, és una idea HORRIBLE.
El major interès d'haver-lo acabat era fer "check", la veritat.
I knew from the moment I saw Alucard show up in this nothing game, starting to spout words to a character he never mentions ever again in the series, this game was definitely someone's fan-fiction. Like there's no other way to explain it, no offense to the character herself, I think its great that we have a female protagonist after all these sweaty buff guys, but she really fucked herself over by having a Gameboy game of all things, as we know already those games aren't the greatest, and neither is this one.
This would get another whole star if the movement speed were just doubled. Other than that it's pretty mediocre.
A bad game and probably the worst Castlevania game I've played so far. At least its short.
Castlevania Series Ranked
Castlevania Series Ranked
It's got that janky jump and weird hit detection of all these mid tier early action-platformers, the levels are very straightforward (minus some stupid trap dead ends), and the game is over really quickly. But there are some solid sprites and good music for this era of game.
I really don't get why this exists. The fact that it's less technologically advanced than The Adventure is kind of impressive.
1 extra point for Sonia being cute though.
1 extra point for Sonia being cute though.
peak
I actually hadn’t even planned on playing this any time soon, but, going through my Switch and doing my usual checking of the new games on the Switch Online retro services, I found that I’d completely forgotten that this got added to the GameBoy service! One of the few classic Castlevania titles not on that collection that Konami released a few years back, this was a great excuse to finally play through this and see what the last GB Castlevania game is all about~. It took me about an hour and a half to play through the Japanese version of the game with my Switch Pro Controller without using save states or rewinds at all.
Legends follows the story of Sonia Belmont, the original first of the Belmont clan, as she goes through Dracula’s castle to put him down for the (at the time) canonically first time. You bump into Alucard along the way, but it’s a pretty straightforward and simple story that you’d expect from an action game on the original GameBoy. Konami eventually struck this from the canon, and I imagine it was a combination of them wanting to make a larger, grander “The Saga Begins!”-type game later via Lament of Innocence alongside how the little writing this game does have is a bit embarrassing in retrospect (like how in their one conversation together that we see, Sonia is not only Alucard’s protégé but also implied to be a romantic interest for him ^^;). As is, it’s an inoffensive and funny story that does more than enough to set up the action at hand, much like its many classic Castlevania brethren.
But stories, silly or no, really aren’t why we go to Classic-vanias after all. We’re here for gameplay! And this game, while certainly not the strongest of the Classic-vanias, is a pretty darn good one! Across the game’s five (or more, if you find the secret stuff, which I did not bother to do <w>), you’ll trek through Dracula’s castle fighting monsters and bosses along the way. Nothing surprising there. Reusing the same formula (and likely the same engine) as Casltevania Adventure, you’ve got your whip that has two upgrades with the second one being a fireball, but this game mercifully decides not to downgrade your weapon upon getting hit like Adventure does. The weirdest part of this game is how it handles sub-weapons. Instead of finding them throughout stages, you get a new one every time you beat a boss, and you can select one from the pause menu whenever you like. You also have a “Burning Mode”, which gives you temporary invincibility alongside a doubling of whip strength once per life, and it’s a HUGE help for the harder fights and sections (especially Dracula).
Beyond just the very forgiving addition of the burning mode, boss and level design is overall pretty solid while still trending towards the easier side. There are a few traps or mean-ish placements of enemies here and there, but playing carefully should see you past most obstacles on your first or second try regardless. Even with that, the game’s approach to dying is very kind too. Losing all of your lives and continuing puts you back at the last door checkpoint you went through exactly like just losing a life normally does, making this a very nicely forgiving Classic-vania, and a better game for it, in my opinion. It’s certainly not going to set your world on fire, and it might be a bit too easy if you’re a super fan of much harder, meaner games like Castlevania 1, but if you want something a bit more along the difficulty of a classic Mega Man game like I tend to prefer, then this is a great time to play through.
Aesthetically the game is very nice for a late-life original GameBoy game, though it’s hardly the nicest thing in the world to look at. You have lots of big, nice sprites and I never found it difficult to tell what I was looking at, but it’s not a particularly pretty game one way or the other, even if it’s not exactly ugly either. There is some slowdown as a result of all of the detail on the sprites and backgrounds, though it mercifully never really affected gameplay negatively. I usually appreciated the bullet time it provided, more than anything XD. While the graphics may be a bit middling, the music is however excellent. It’s largely a collection of classic Castlevania tunes, and these are some absolutely delightful 8-bit GameBoy renditions of them. Granted, you could quite fairly fault the game for lacking much originality in its soundtrack, I still think that the quality of the reused older songs more than makes up for it, especially in such a bite-sized Castlevania package~.
Verdict: Recommended. While it’s not a particularly stunning game one way or the other, I found this to be a really fun one! The wrinkles in its design don’t put it quite as high as the second GB Castlevania game for me, but if you’re a fan of 8-bit action games and/or Castlevania, then this is a game you’ll likely quite enjoy spending an afternoon with as I did~.
Legends follows the story of Sonia Belmont, the original first of the Belmont clan, as she goes through Dracula’s castle to put him down for the (at the time) canonically first time. You bump into Alucard along the way, but it’s a pretty straightforward and simple story that you’d expect from an action game on the original GameBoy. Konami eventually struck this from the canon, and I imagine it was a combination of them wanting to make a larger, grander “The Saga Begins!”-type game later via Lament of Innocence alongside how the little writing this game does have is a bit embarrassing in retrospect (like how in their one conversation together that we see, Sonia is not only Alucard’s protégé but also implied to be a romantic interest for him ^^;). As is, it’s an inoffensive and funny story that does more than enough to set up the action at hand, much like its many classic Castlevania brethren.
But stories, silly or no, really aren’t why we go to Classic-vanias after all. We’re here for gameplay! And this game, while certainly not the strongest of the Classic-vanias, is a pretty darn good one! Across the game’s five (or more, if you find the secret stuff, which I did not bother to do <w>), you’ll trek through Dracula’s castle fighting monsters and bosses along the way. Nothing surprising there. Reusing the same formula (and likely the same engine) as Casltevania Adventure, you’ve got your whip that has two upgrades with the second one being a fireball, but this game mercifully decides not to downgrade your weapon upon getting hit like Adventure does. The weirdest part of this game is how it handles sub-weapons. Instead of finding them throughout stages, you get a new one every time you beat a boss, and you can select one from the pause menu whenever you like. You also have a “Burning Mode”, which gives you temporary invincibility alongside a doubling of whip strength once per life, and it’s a HUGE help for the harder fights and sections (especially Dracula).
Beyond just the very forgiving addition of the burning mode, boss and level design is overall pretty solid while still trending towards the easier side. There are a few traps or mean-ish placements of enemies here and there, but playing carefully should see you past most obstacles on your first or second try regardless. Even with that, the game’s approach to dying is very kind too. Losing all of your lives and continuing puts you back at the last door checkpoint you went through exactly like just losing a life normally does, making this a very nicely forgiving Classic-vania, and a better game for it, in my opinion. It’s certainly not going to set your world on fire, and it might be a bit too easy if you’re a super fan of much harder, meaner games like Castlevania 1, but if you want something a bit more along the difficulty of a classic Mega Man game like I tend to prefer, then this is a great time to play through.
Aesthetically the game is very nice for a late-life original GameBoy game, though it’s hardly the nicest thing in the world to look at. You have lots of big, nice sprites and I never found it difficult to tell what I was looking at, but it’s not a particularly pretty game one way or the other, even if it’s not exactly ugly either. There is some slowdown as a result of all of the detail on the sprites and backgrounds, though it mercifully never really affected gameplay negatively. I usually appreciated the bullet time it provided, more than anything XD. While the graphics may be a bit middling, the music is however excellent. It’s largely a collection of classic Castlevania tunes, and these are some absolutely delightful 8-bit GameBoy renditions of them. Granted, you could quite fairly fault the game for lacking much originality in its soundtrack, I still think that the quality of the reused older songs more than makes up for it, especially in such a bite-sized Castlevania package~.
Verdict: Recommended. While it’s not a particularly stunning game one way or the other, I found this to be a really fun one! The wrinkles in its design don’t put it quite as high as the second GB Castlevania game for me, but if you’re a fan of 8-bit action games and/or Castlevania, then this is a game you’ll likely quite enjoy spending an afternoon with as I did~.
Castlevania for people who really like running into dead ends
THIS SHIT IS SO ASS!!!!
This is really boring and not that fun
I gotta say, coming from Symphony of the Night, this feels...
Disappointing. As simple as that.
Sofia is not a bad character, though. That I can give her.
Disappointing. As simple as that.
Sofia is not a bad character, though. That I can give her.
Caramba, depois do segundo castlevania para GB, eles conseguiram fazer um jogo PIOR QUE O PRIMEIRO!!! como isso aconteceu? Eles tinham tudo na mão, mas conseguiram estragar tudo. Que jogo torturante de se jogar, a única coisa que salva é a trilha sonora, recomendo escutar a "banquet of spirits". De resto, não vale a pena, só se tu for fã maluco.
What a joke.
They really messed up on this one it should have been a great game considering it came so late in the gameboy lifespan, my main complaint about this game is how slow and sluggish I will say this it is better than adventure but that is not saying much Belmonts Revenge was the only good Castlevania on the original gameboy.
Genuinely insane level of fanfiction
No es tan mal juego! Tomando en cuenta que era de consola portatil con limitaciones. Lo encontré divertido. Una loca historia aunque no sea canon. En su diseño de niveles encontramos muchos caminos que solo nos llevaran a encontrar reliquias e items. Fué un buen intento.
It's better and worse than 2 previous titles at the same time
Overall, it's worse though
But at least the game is really pretty and sounds really good for GameBoy
Overall, it's worse though
But at least the game is really pretty and sounds really good for GameBoy
Played on Game Boy - Nintendo Switch Online, but only for a little while. I tried it because it wasn't included in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, and went in with low expectations; while Belmont's Revenge was a step up from The Adventure, this was less fun than both of them. I didn't bother finishing the first stage, and have no intention of coming back to this game.
Objetivamente melhor que o primeiro e pior que o segundo. Sonia é chad.
4.5/10
Before being retconned out of the series chronology, Castlevania: Legends used to be the very first game in the series' timeline. It features the first incarnation of Count Dracula as well as the first Belmont, Sonia Belmont, to rise against him. For what would be a pivotal game in the series chronology, it's... definitely one of the Castlevania games ever made.
The Game Boy and Game Boy Color were filled with boneless, unambitious platformers, be them licensed games or attempts to bring home console franchises to the portable, and Castlevania: Legends is one more game in that latter pile, featuring uninspired level and enemy design, a janky, barebones implementation of traditional series mechanics and encounters that are an exercise in frustration. It has a very short runtime, but even so, it's better off being skipped.
It's a shame, too, because it features a female protagonist, whose appearance on the cover of the game was what drove me to try it in the first place. Sonia is pretty cool, it's just that her game is... not. I do enjoy the implication in the best ending that she had a son, Victor Belmont, with Alucard, thus forever tying the Belmont bloodline to Dracula. My gal literally doomed her entire bloodline to get a piece of that gorgeous dhampir, which... based and goals? Mad respect for her.
Besides, just think about it: had Legends stayed canon (which in my heart, it did), it would recontextualize every one of Alucard's appearances as him looking out for his great great great great grandchildren. "Richter, get down from that throne, you're going to hurt yourself". "Trevor, take an adult with you to fight grandpa's dad, okay?". I can only assume Iga struck the game out of the continuity because he was too afraid of how powerful such a narrative would be.
The Game Boy and Game Boy Color were filled with boneless, unambitious platformers, be them licensed games or attempts to bring home console franchises to the portable, and Castlevania: Legends is one more game in that latter pile, featuring uninspired level and enemy design, a janky, barebones implementation of traditional series mechanics and encounters that are an exercise in frustration. It has a very short runtime, but even so, it's better off being skipped.
It's a shame, too, because it features a female protagonist, whose appearance on the cover of the game was what drove me to try it in the first place. Sonia is pretty cool, it's just that her game is... not. I do enjoy the implication in the best ending that she had a son, Victor Belmont, with Alucard, thus forever tying the Belmont bloodline to Dracula. My gal literally doomed her entire bloodline to get a piece of that gorgeous dhampir, which... based and goals? Mad respect for her.
Besides, just think about it: had Legends stayed canon (which in my heart, it did), it would recontextualize every one of Alucard's appearances as him looking out for his great great great great grandchildren. "Richter, get down from that throne, you're going to hurt yourself". "Trevor, take an adult with you to fight grandpa's dad, okay?". I can only assume Iga struck the game out of the continuity because he was too afraid of how powerful such a narrative would be.
The jumping is awful and the rendition of Bloody Tears is a crime against god and humanity.
I thought it was going to be worse. Okay game.
Stop acting as if this is worse than the original Castlevania Adventure 1 for Game Boy. This isn't remotely of a slog as that one.
But sure enough: it's not as good as the second Adventure. Also non-canonical according to Konami.
But sure enough: it's not as good as the second Adventure. Also non-canonical according to Konami.
worse than the adventure
it tries to be SoTN but it isn't. it's painfully boring and numb
it tries to be SoTN but it isn't. it's painfully boring and numb
I haven't seen this many bats since Pokemon Red
Decent enough Castlevania game for Some frustrating enemy designs but decent use of the invincibility power makes it pretty easy to deal with even the most difficult challenges. Was expecting worse from what I'd heard so I was overall pleasantly surprised to find a very meh Castlevania game.