#31: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest
What a horrible night to have a mediocre sequel
This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 7, 2019
Initial release: 1987
Developer: Konami
Platform: Famicom Disk System, Nintendo Entertainment System
After Castlevania’s smashing success, it was obvious Konami had to do a sequel. But how to make it seem fresh while still building on what came before? A non-linear action RPG seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t.
We’ve all seen the AVGN review, of course. And maybe some of us saw Egoraptor’s review too. And here’s the thing: they’re both completely right. Castlevania II is nothing short of a mess. None of the new ideas presented in this game work. It’s almost an argument against new ideas.
The game doesn’t tell you much — for once, the US manual actually tells you more that’s useful than the game does, and is even faithful to the Japanese manual’s story! Basically: 7 years after the first game, Simon is dying, it’s Dracula’s curse, so resurrect him and kill him, curse over. What this boils down to is that you have to find your way into six dilapidated manors around the countryside where various parts of Dracula’s corpse have been stored (like relics, I guess.) The actual manor houses aren’t a problem, it’s getting there that’s the pain in the ass.
The basic mechanics from Castlevania 1 have carried over. You have a whip, there’s a slight delay on it, your jumping momentum is absolute. In Castlevania 1, this worked well with the level design and enemy placement. You had to be on your toes and mind your surroundings. In Castlevania II… everything sucks.
A lot of the mechanics have been tied into the RPG/town aspect of the game. Gone is the wall meat, instead you have to go to church to heal. Hearts are money, which is why it’s lucky most of your subweapons don’t cost hearts to use. And if you get a game over… bye bye hearts. The enemy placement is always either inconsequential or impossible to avoid, no in between. You’ll often have to take damage simply because an enemy won’t leave the top of some steps, and if you try to lure him away he moves faster than you do.
To be fair, actually hitting things feels good, with greater feedback, making you feel like you’re actually doing damage. But the combat is still slow and clunky, and the game isn’t really built around that like Castlevania 1. it’s like trying to play Bloodborne with Dark Souls 1 controls. For a franchise so rooted in reflexes, it’s frustrating to have a game fight against those reflexes so much. But if that were all the game’s problems, one could still say that Castlevania II was a good game. But we’ve only just begun. There’s… all the other stuff, too.
The original Castlevania was a linear affair. No bullshit, you just kept moving and hit things with your whip, that’s it. Castlevania II… not so much. We can see the roots of games like Symphony of the Night in Castlevania II, but I would compare it more to Zelda II: a big open world, and no idea where to go. The game can’t even do you the service of giving you an overworld map, so you’re left trying to guess which lengthy forest path will take you where you need to go. In between are towns where you can buy stuff and get lied to, and the mansions you have to visit. That’s the other thing: there are NPCs and they are famously cryptic. They tell you absolutely nothing of value, and many of them will straight up lie to you. The only useful clues you can get are clue books, most of which are impossible to find without a guide. What this means is that without a guide you’ll be spending a frustrating amount of time wandering aimlessly through samey-looking woods and mountainous regions with no idea what to do or where to go. And if you want the best ending, you’re on a time limit.
Speaking of time, there’s a night/day cycle, which was admittedly a very cool idea, but as implemented just serves to frustrate. First is the lengthy pause as the game informs you that night is falling: WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE. Ten seconds later, the game resumes. At night, enemies are tougher, and shops are closed. While this makes logical sense as the towns are flooded with stringy-haired zombies, it’s incredibly frustrating how often you’re forced to wait for day just so you can buy a necessary item, which you can’t get anywhere else. There’s no real “shops” in this game, see: each merchant has one item to sell you, and one item only, usually unique, like a whip upgrade or whatever. And they’re usually fucking expensive… which means you have to grind. All this does is waste more time when you’re already on a tight schedule as it is if you want the best ending. You only have 7 in-game days; after that is the sucky ending, which is actually worse than the worst ending you get if you take more than two weeks.
One small mercy is that time doesn’t pass in interiors… including mansions, which means you can grind to your heart’s content (heh) without having to worry about running out the clock. Manor enemies drop bigger hearts too, which makes it an even better idea. Now if only it weren’t necessary.
There’s also a level system, though it’s fairly useless. The cap is at 6, and you basically have to grind a lot to even get to 4. Fortunately level 4 is where things begin to tip in your favor, damage-wise. Leveling up is also the only other way to heal, which can come in handy sometimes.
There’s only three bosses, and they are nothing short of a letdown. Most of the mansions are devoid of bosses outright; in a couple of them, death and a floating, blood-crying mask named carmilla will confront you, but they’re easily dispatched. Dracula himself can be killed without a fight.
Aesthetically there’s a lot to be desired, as well. the palette is mostly ugly browns and greens, and there’s little variety in the environments. sometimes you get a pretty background. the soundtrack is, save a couple exceptions, largely forgettable, unlike the first game’s amazing music.
The worst part of the game is the constant sense of “what the fuck am I supposed to do now?” So many times you’re left with no idea how to progress, because the game doesn’t tell you that you have to do stupid shit like kneel at a cliff while holding a ruby to summon a magic tornado. I wish I was joking. Like, how is anyone supposed to guess that? Nothing the villagers say can be trusted and clue books are impossible to find as it is. It’s fucking madness, and easily the thing that pushes the game from “ambitious but flawed” to “fuck you.”
While the game’s important in terms of being an early example of an open-world action RPG (very similar in vibe to Zelda II) and an early predecessor to metroidvanias, it’s otherwise a frustrating, dull experience, the odd man out in the classic NES Castlevania trilogy.
There are a couple of quality-of-life romhacks that try to take the sting out of the game’s opaqueness: Redaction and Retranslated+Map. Both promise to do similar things: speed up messages and transitions, make clues more obvious, and some other things. It’s really a matter of personal preference, but I prefer Retranslated+Map — it removes the day/night transition notice entirely, for starters, and is also very customizable.
That being said, Egoraptor is right in that while hacks like these fix the more frustrating elements, they do nothing to resolve the systemic issues that make the game so frustrating. If the original game was more like either romhack, I could still only consider it a mediocre entry in an otherwise venerable franchise, an unfortunate early stumble that fortunately was not a sign of things to come.
