Sonia is an enjoyable protagonist and the small bits of dialogue are surprisingly good, but that really doesn't save the rest of the game. Many of the improvements seen in Belmont's Revenge are simply not present here. The difficulty is completely unbalanced thanks to the new gameplay mechanics, making this one of the easiest Castlevania games to play through, and yet also one of the most frustrating due to poor and overall just very sloppy level and enemy designs. The graphics are uninspired and dated even for its time and the music is the same 20 seconds long track on loop.

The soul weapons, the previously mentioned new mechanic which replaces the sub weapons, are an interesting idea but they all vary completely in usefulness. Combine them with the newly introduced burning mode that makes this game's Belmont unstoppable and you have the easiest boss fights in the series, Dracula included. Castlevania Legends is still by all means better than the Adventure, but there is not much to enjoy here. It's kind of shocking to realize it was made in the same year as SotN and see it take inspiration from the game in form of hidden rooms and branching pathways, but it just never gets the execution right, again leading to more frustration than enjoyment.