While the Castlevania Anniversary Collection DID add all the Japanese versions of the games on it in a post-launch patch (the Japanese versions for the English release, and vice versa), the one exception to that is Castlevania II. I even bought the Japanese version of the game on the Japanese Switch eShop, and even THAT version just has the American NES game instead of the Famicom Disk System version of Castlevania II. Given that this is even more of an adventure game than the MSX game is, and therefore has a lot of text, it's easily the worst game you could possibly do that with if the intention is for Japanese players to be able to understand what they're playing XP. The only explanation I can think of to why they did this is that Konami just didn't want to bother getting Famicom Disk System games to work on their Famicom emulator, so they just slapped the NES version on there since, unlike Castlevania 1, no cart version of Castlevania II exists in Japanese. Weird version nonsense aside, despite this game's dire reputation, I was actually very pleasantly surprised by what it had to offer.
In a weird turn (particularly for Westerners without access to the MSX game), Castlevania II is much more a successor to the MSX game than the Famicom game. Releasing the year after the first two games, Castlevania II is an action-adventure game through and through. Just like the MSX game, you have hearts not really to use subweapons, but to buy things from merchants. In an even more odd twist, those hearts also function as experience points that you will level up with to gain a larger max health bar. Unlike the MSX game, however, there's not a set of levels to go through, but a side-scrolling overworld connecting a series of towns and mansions to explore. This is the first time we start getting much any story in a Castlevania game as well. After Simon killed Dracula in the first game, he unwittingly was cursed by the vampire despite his victory. He now must go through five mansions around Transylvania to collect the remnants of Dracula and then bring those remains to Castle Dracula to destroy them to free himself from the curse once and for all. It's not much, but it's something, especially for a series that would eventually become much more narrative focused.
Simon goes from town to town hunting for items, and these items take all variety of forms. Like the MSX game, you can buy subweapons, and some of those subweapons consume hearts but some do not. There are also items you'll need to progress through dangerous areas, as well as passive items to unlock secrets. Even Dracula's remains function as passives when selected, like Dracula's Rib being the return of the invaluable projectile-blocking shield from the MSX game. Most interestingly to me is how your whip can be upgraded to simply do more damage forever. The temporary upgrades of the past are gone, and now you can even get a really awesome flame whip if you REALLY wanna heck fools up. You're gonna need those better whips too, because this game works on a day/night cycle, and enemies get twice as tough at night time. This game has three endings, and you need to beat it within a certain amount of time (which is a pretty damn tight time frame, all things considered) if you want Simon to live through his quest.
And that time limit comes down to the ultimate flaw with this game: signposting. Like so many other adventure games of the 8-bit era (even the Zeldas of the time aren't free from this design hurdle), the massive amount of time spent with the game will be wandering around utterly lost as you try and stumble into the next totally unexplained thing you need to do to progress. The combat and platforming in Simon's Quest aren't particularly hard, but what IS tough is just knowing where to go or how to progress in the first place. The times I did use save states were largely just to save time should I make a wrong turn or take a bad jump, and not usually for larger difficulty reasons. Simon's Quest in particular suffers from a pretty rough English translation that makes the information you ARE given that much more difficult to use in the first place. A guide is absolutely essential if you're going to make it through this game in any reasonable amount of time, let alone get anything other than the worst ending. Personally, I didn't use a guide for my first attempt, ended up totally hecked after accidentally skipping the first three mansions, and then started using a guide. I took a wrong turn near the end of the game and the time it took to recover from that still put me over the 8 day limit you need to beat in order to get the best ending, so all I got was the 2nd best ending XP
The presentation and base mechanics of the game are both good improvements to the first game. You'll sometimes get framerate slowdown, but it's not too brutal or game affecting thankfully. This game polishes up Simon's movement a fair bit too. He moves just a bit faster, jumps a bit quicker, and whips a bit faster. It makes the whole thing feel a bit better to play than the first game, although the kind of action and platforming you're doing isn't exactly the same most of the time. This game also has some of the best music in the classic series, with the main theme, Bloody Tears, being one of the most iconic songs of the entire franchise.
Verdict: Recommended. My recommendation here is largely on the condition that you'll use a guide. If you don't use a guide, then it's honestly largely on you for how frustrated you get being lost, because this game is a doozy of a game for how lost it makes you XP. As a relatively early Famicom adventure game, however, this is a really solid one. The difficulty almost never feels unreasonable, and it's a pretty good time to spend an evening trekking through if you know what you're doing. I was very pleasantly surprised by my time with Simon's Quest, and I'm looking forward to someday playing through the Japanese version so I can compare just how misleading the hints and information are in the original Japanese compared to the cryptic English text.
In a weird turn (particularly for Westerners without access to the MSX game), Castlevania II is much more a successor to the MSX game than the Famicom game. Releasing the year after the first two games, Castlevania II is an action-adventure game through and through. Just like the MSX game, you have hearts not really to use subweapons, but to buy things from merchants. In an even more odd twist, those hearts also function as experience points that you will level up with to gain a larger max health bar. Unlike the MSX game, however, there's not a set of levels to go through, but a side-scrolling overworld connecting a series of towns and mansions to explore. This is the first time we start getting much any story in a Castlevania game as well. After Simon killed Dracula in the first game, he unwittingly was cursed by the vampire despite his victory. He now must go through five mansions around Transylvania to collect the remnants of Dracula and then bring those remains to Castle Dracula to destroy them to free himself from the curse once and for all. It's not much, but it's something, especially for a series that would eventually become much more narrative focused.
Simon goes from town to town hunting for items, and these items take all variety of forms. Like the MSX game, you can buy subweapons, and some of those subweapons consume hearts but some do not. There are also items you'll need to progress through dangerous areas, as well as passive items to unlock secrets. Even Dracula's remains function as passives when selected, like Dracula's Rib being the return of the invaluable projectile-blocking shield from the MSX game. Most interestingly to me is how your whip can be upgraded to simply do more damage forever. The temporary upgrades of the past are gone, and now you can even get a really awesome flame whip if you REALLY wanna heck fools up. You're gonna need those better whips too, because this game works on a day/night cycle, and enemies get twice as tough at night time. This game has three endings, and you need to beat it within a certain amount of time (which is a pretty damn tight time frame, all things considered) if you want Simon to live through his quest.
And that time limit comes down to the ultimate flaw with this game: signposting. Like so many other adventure games of the 8-bit era (even the Zeldas of the time aren't free from this design hurdle), the massive amount of time spent with the game will be wandering around utterly lost as you try and stumble into the next totally unexplained thing you need to do to progress. The combat and platforming in Simon's Quest aren't particularly hard, but what IS tough is just knowing where to go or how to progress in the first place. The times I did use save states were largely just to save time should I make a wrong turn or take a bad jump, and not usually for larger difficulty reasons. Simon's Quest in particular suffers from a pretty rough English translation that makes the information you ARE given that much more difficult to use in the first place. A guide is absolutely essential if you're going to make it through this game in any reasonable amount of time, let alone get anything other than the worst ending. Personally, I didn't use a guide for my first attempt, ended up totally hecked after accidentally skipping the first three mansions, and then started using a guide. I took a wrong turn near the end of the game and the time it took to recover from that still put me over the 8 day limit you need to beat in order to get the best ending, so all I got was the 2nd best ending XP
The presentation and base mechanics of the game are both good improvements to the first game. You'll sometimes get framerate slowdown, but it's not too brutal or game affecting thankfully. This game polishes up Simon's movement a fair bit too. He moves just a bit faster, jumps a bit quicker, and whips a bit faster. It makes the whole thing feel a bit better to play than the first game, although the kind of action and platforming you're doing isn't exactly the same most of the time. This game also has some of the best music in the classic series, with the main theme, Bloody Tears, being one of the most iconic songs of the entire franchise.
Verdict: Recommended. My recommendation here is largely on the condition that you'll use a guide. If you don't use a guide, then it's honestly largely on you for how frustrated you get being lost, because this game is a doozy of a game for how lost it makes you XP. As a relatively early Famicom adventure game, however, this is a really solid one. The difficulty almost never feels unreasonable, and it's a pretty good time to spend an evening trekking through if you know what you're doing. I was very pleasantly surprised by my time with Simon's Quest, and I'm looking forward to someday playing through the Japanese version so I can compare just how misleading the hints and information are in the original Japanese compared to the cryptic English text.