Somehow this game manages to take the already slow pace of a Castlevania game and make it even slower, to the point of agony. I know the Gameboy was never the most powerful system, but other games run ok, so maybe the sluggishness here was an intentional design choice for some reason. Regardless of why, it makes the game not only boring, but frustrating, as making precise jumps and attacks are even more difficult then in the other games. The complete lack of subweapons is another huge misfire, and just serves to make the game that much harder. And who's brilliant idea was it to make you lose your whip upgrades after just a single hit?! If all that wasn't enough, the hitboxes in this game are terrible, causing you to take damage from attacks that are nowhere near you, not to mention making the platforming harder. There's an autoscrolling section in level 3 where you need to outrun spikes while climbing on ropes that goes on for so long that it's almost comical. It's probably the worst part of the game, but the rest of the level design is still very frustrating, and obviously meant to pad at out the short runtime.

Sidenote: it angers me that they wasted such badass cover art on this turd.