Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge

The Short

Pros

- A *gasp* good Game Boy Castlevania game?

- Takes elements from the craptastic previous game and makes them actually...good

- Some genuinely cool platforming ideas within the Castlevania universe

- World selection aped straight from Mega Man 

- Kick-ass music

- Looks fantastic

- Getting hit doesn't downgrade your weapon (unless getting hit by very specific enemies)

- Not just a good Castlevania handheld game, but a good Castlevania game in general

Cons

- Calling it Castlevania II is a great way for me to think it's Simon's Quest

- The last three bosses can be pretty cheap

- Level design isn't quite as good as the NES/Genesis offerings

- Password system instead of save, but that's better than nothing

- Controls are still a bit ridged at times

Belmont is back, and he's PISSED

The Long

Holy cow guys, I don't know if it's like...weird gaming rebound because I just came off the worst Castlevania experience in my life or what, but Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge is...good? Like...a good Game Boy Castlevania game? It exists? Whaaaaaaaa

Ok, sorry, getting a bit ahead of myself.

My expectations were pretty much dashed after playing Castlevania: The Adventure. I knew already that the Game Boy was an inferior piece of hardware compared to the NES, but I hadn't expected the translation of a classic franchise to have gone so poorly. And if Castlevania Legends  is any indication (cough spoilers for a future review cough), making a good, Castlevania-esque platformer on Nintendo's handheld proved a larger challenge than some expected. I went into Belmont's Revenge fully expecting crap...or maybe even something similar to Simon's Quest (seeing as they share a name).

Guess what? I was pleasantly surprised, so much so that I'd say Belmont's Revenge is one of the best platformers on the system. Yeah. It's pretty solid.

Plus it has MONKEY SKELETONS.

There is actual plot this time. Kind of. Christopher Belmont (the guy from the first game) is back, and his son has been nabbed by Dracula. Or joined Dracula. Or something. I'm not totally sure, there isn't exactly a lot of text in this game. But you're here for revenge, cause it's in the title. So off you head to four different castles named after different...elements? Well, the manual said elements, but I don't remember "Crystal" or "Plants" being elements.

The game here takes a page from Mega Man, allowing you to tackle any of the four castles in whatever order you choose. It doesn't really matter (you don't get any power-ups or anything from beating them), and after beating all four you have two final stages followed by the Dracula boss fight. Pretty standard Game Boy platformer stuff.

Insert "Rockman" pun here

Right off the bat you'll notice Christopher controls much better. Most annoyances from the first game have been fixed: his jump is a bit further, he auto-grabs ropes by just being near them (a fantastic addition), and gravity doesn't fluctuate randomly. Even better, when he powers up his weapon he retains the powerups even when hit, unless hit by a very specific enemy (and it gives a sound-cue letting you know). So far, so good.

I was originally dismayed, because Belmont's Revenge features tons of the same elements from the first game. Ropes still play a prominent part, as do vertically oriented sections. Enemies too, like the bouncy-ball spitters and sickle-throwers, have been kept over. But my dismay quickly turned to delight as I realized how much better things were this go around.

The game has been better adjusted to fit both Christopher's gimped jump as well as the Game Boy's capabilities. While some areas are continuous scrolling, most castles have each room be a self-contained challenge, and leaving it tosses you into another one. It's a smart use of the screen's limited real estate, and with better designed rooms leads to some really cool challenges.

This room would be hell in the first game. This time around, it's a blast.

Belmont's Revenge uses ropes in interesting ways. In the image above, the pairs of ropes switch directions (up vs down) every couple of seconds, leading to some interesting jumping challenges. Later it mixes it up by having these with enemies coming at you, but never enough to be impossible (no Medusa heads). The new grab and jump mechanics make this challenging but quite fun.

Another cool rope trick is spiders. Now, when spiders come from the ceiling, you can grab their threads and use them for platforms. Kill them, however, and the thread will end. You have to be smart as to which spiders to kill and which to use, again leading to some really fun platforming.

Explody Eyeball Bridge is also back, but actually fun.

It isn't just ropes, though. Something the original game had was horizontal spike stakes that would come out of the walls. You'd have to use them as platforms to escape a room, but the game gave no indication when they'd stick out or retract. It became a case of trial and error, and was exceptionally frustrating. Belmont's Revenge fixes this with a simple design decision: the spikes flash just before they move. Such a simple thing, but it makes the room more about skill rather than dumb luck. Smart.

That isn't to say these changes make the game easier. In fact, Belmont's Revenge is quite tricky, though not nearly on par with Castlevania III: Dracula's Day Out. In particular, the final three bosses are super difficult, requiring some pattern memorization as well as quick reflexes. The final fight with Dracula is also very hard, though he only has one form this time around.

Drac's back, in the same room as last time.

You may note in the screenshots, but subweapons are back! Sort of! There's only two this time, the axe and the water, and they act exactly as they did in the rest of the series. Here's a Nathan Protip: Use the axe, ditch the water. Axe is so, so useful throughout. The exception is the second to last boss, where the water is actually better. But I swear Dracula is impossible if you don't have the axe, he's so hard.

So...yeah. While it isn't quite as tight as earlier Castlevania games, Belmont's Revenge's gameplay and design work exceptionally well given the limitations of the hardware. It's challenging, but really fun. My only major complaint is the four castles (which have branching paths, btw, which is also cool) are a bit long for a handheld experience. Nothing awful (and I'm glad for more content), they just seem to take a while. You still get ~2-3 hours of gameplay out of it, though (depending on how good you are), which is pretty dang good for a Game Boy platformer.

Like, you can beat Kirby's Dreamland in 30 minutes. Also, this boss is cheap.

Graphically, this game looks fantastic. The enemies have better death animations, with the eyeballs particularly having some 60 frames per second explosions that look great. The backgrounds (which were the one good thing about Castlevania: The Adventure) are even better this time around, and even though there aren't a lot of different enemies they all look great, especially the bosses.

When I first booted up the game and played Crystal Castle, my ears nearly exploded for joy. Ok, not really, that would be excruciatingly painful. But hot damn, this game has some rocking tunes. Seriously some of the best on the system, I have no idea how they made it work given the Game Boy's somewhat tinny sound chip. Really worthy of the series' legacy.

Seriously like...holy crap. LISTEN TO IT. 

Point being: Castlevania II: Not Simon's Quest, but Actually (Christopher) Belmont's Revenge is a phenomenal Game Boy game, and a really solid Castlevania game. Is it as good as the greats, like the original, Super, or Bloodlines? Well...not quite. But I will say I'd rather pick it up again than, say, Castlevania III. Or The Adventure. But I'd rather take a long dive off a short pier than play The Adventure again, so that isn't really fair.

I'm genuinely sad that I didn't have this game when I had a Game Boy growing up. It's a fantastic platformer and should be part of any Game Boy collector's collection.

I'd also like to point out that Castlevania: The Adventure is available on the 3DS eShop, but Belmont's Revenge isn't. If that isn't proof that Konami hates their fans, I don't know what is.

Oh wait. Yeah...

Four out of five stars.

When I'm comin' home, son, I don't know when, but we'll kill Dracula then, son, I know we'll have a good time then.

Castlevania: The Adventure

The Short

Pros

- A Castlevania game! On the Game Boy! Wooooow

- Music is pretty decent

- First and second levels are decent amalgamation of the most basic core Castlevania concepts

- It has giant exploding, never-ending, rolling eyeballs.

- The cover art is super badass

Cons

- Everything else

- No subweapons

- Platforming controls are somehow even more ridged than the original Castlevania

- Getting hit loses whip power-ups, in the worst design idea in the history of the series

- Four stages. That's it.

- Cheap deaths and beginners traps galore

- Level design and enemies are thoroughly uninspired

- Quite possibly the worst Castlevania game in the entire series

Oh boy, it's my ruined childhood.

The Long

I'm a Castlevania nut, it's no big secret. I rue the day I passed up Dracula X on the SNES at a local game store, and cringe every time I realize my DS Castlevania collection is not complete. There are few things in life I enjoy more than whipping things, specifically whipping things good. And yes, I know I've made that Devo joke multiple times before, but I ain't gonna stop now.

Castlevania: The Adventure (though the title screen looks like "The Castlevania TM Adventure") is famous for being the first and only Castlevania game that Konami hired a highly-trained team of spider monkeys to code. As a sort of an emulation of a Castlevania game it kind of works, being that on surface level one would confuse this game for a good game when looking at static images in Nintendo Power. But upon playing it the horrible truth becomes evident: this game is a disaster.

I am tired of these monkey-fighting eyeballs on this nine-to-five bridge!

As stated before, on the surface this appears to be standard Castlevania fare. You have a jump arch you can't cancel, all well and good. You have a whip you power up. You have a host of monster-style enemies. And the music is actually pretty decent. But other than that, everything about this game is bad. Everything.

You'll notice it in the first level. "Why is my character moving so...sluggish?" you wonder. "He was slow in Castlevania, but here it seems even more stunted." Then you spot the brown poop-goos dripping from the ceiling. "Why is there ceiling poo?" you think to yourself. "And why is it forming the shape of a...ooooh. Is that...an enemy?"

Yes. One of the five different enemies in the game (not even kidding), the first one is a dripping sky-turd creature. A great sign of things to come.

Cleanup on aisle three.

The first two stages are exceptionally tedious. Enemy placement is a joke, so much so it makes Simon's Quest seem inspired. The real frustration comes from the sluggish jumping and whip controls. Whereas before they added to the challenge, here they just feel tacked on to make you furious. Birds, which thankfully only appear in the first stage, are difficult to kill. Bats, which appear more often, are even more aggravating, with random zig-zag patterns that are randomized even with Save States. Yes, I used an emulator to replay this game, how do you expect I got screen shots? The Game Boy Printer?

Boss number one is a dude who just stabs at your crotch the entire time. If you have managed to keep your whip powered up, he goes down in a few hits. Boss number two is an even bigger joke; he's a collection of one-hit kill enemies that pop out of holes in the wall in a pattern. Should you have the third whip upgrade (which grants each attack a projectile), you'll off them easy.

Stage 3 is a nightmare. We'll talk about that in a minute.

Let's talk about your weapons for a second. Subweapons - you know, the core gameplay element in the original series that diversified enemy placement and helped alleviate the intentionally-frustrating jump and delayed-whip controls? - aren't in this game at all. Your whip, like most Castlevania games, has three stages of power up: base (which sucks), second (which is a little longer and does double damage) and third (where you get a weak projectile with every strike). Sounds decent, but every time you get hit you downgrade a single step backwards. Yep, getting hit twice from full power leaves you craptasticly weak. Whoever thought of this should probably have been fired.

This is only exacerbated by bad enemy placement (and the poor controls). In Castlevania (the good ones), getting hit was your own fault. Every challenge felt like if you took it slowly and timed things right, you could defeat it. Enemies didn't randomly appear, and if they did (like Medusa heads), you had fair warning to react.

This is not the case in The Adventure. In fact, the game is designed to be a massive beginner's trap. Enemies fire some projectiles that you can destroy, others you can't (the sickle-men). Towers fire randomly bouncing giant death balls that randomize even with Save States (yep) and never disappear, meaning at one point half my screen was full of bouncing suicide balls. Stage 3 has an area where it teaches you that platforms with enemies on them are the right way to go. But the final platform with an enemy on it is a trick, and by the time you realize it it's too late; you've died instantly. The whole game is like this.

This room can burn in hell.

Of the four stages, you'll be lucky to make it past 3, and even luckier if you attempt 4. Stage 3 has insta-death spikes appearing from both the floor and later the right hand side, meaning a single misstep and you're a good ways back (plus it has beginner's traps, as mentioned before). Stage 4 is even worse, with tons of platforming throughout with a controls that aren't well adapted for platforming...well, to be fair they aren't good for much of anything, but platforming especially. Learn fast that Simon doesn't jump off ropes when you hit the jump button, he just sort of falls off of them. And considering gravity physics in this game literally fluctuates (you fall much faster when stepping off a ledge vs jumping off), mastering it is almost impossible.

So this doesn't turn just into an angry rant, I'll leave gameplay at that. While it has a decent (if boring) first impression, the first half of the game (it's only four stages long) is do-able by most. However, the second half takes the frustrating portions of the first half and cranks it up to eleven. It's bad game design in its purest form.

The man himself. His first form is actually a cakewalk.

Graphics are fairly mediocre, but it's an early Game Boy game so I can't fault it too much. It manages to avoid trying to have a lot of "darkness," which was a problem for a few early Game Boy games in terms of screen visibility (something the later Circle of the Moon on GBA had problems with). Backgrounds are faded and it's easy to tell platforms from background objects. Animations are fairly bad, but I found if you tap to move Simon instead of holding forward it never triggers the two-frame "stepping" animation, meaning you can play the whole game having him slide along like he's on roller skates. So that was pretty great.

The music is the only good thing about the game, aside graphical clarity. It isn't exceptional, by any means, but it maintains the spirit of the series on the Game Boy's tinny speakers. I didn't hate it.

 

For the Game Boy's first Castlevania outing, The Adventure is a disaster. Stripping the series of the core elements that made it good, it leaves only a flaky husk behind. While first impressions might lead some to believe this game is decent, extended platforming segments and unfair level design takes its toll fairly quickly. This is, hands down, the worst Castlevania game I've ever played. Yes, even worse than the Castlevania PC port and Castlevania 64.

And this is coming from somebody who enjoys bad games (and actively seeks them out). One out of five stars. 

Bonus: somehow this game ended up on the 3DS eShop, and even got a remake. But that's a conversation for another time. 

Dracula's final form is a giant bat, whose only attack is spawning baby bats. Yep. Great game.