CastleVania II: Simon's Quest


It only takes about 1 minute of gameplay for the player to realize that Simon's Quest was so much different to the original CastleVania game. Konami were one of the companies that took a risk and tried something new. Their history of games were made up with a large number of side scrolling action video games and by that time it was predictable what they were going to do next. The market was fooled, just like they were when they thought they could breeze through their other games.

Before I get started I would first like to say that in general CastleVania: Simon's Quest isn't a good game. However it isn't a bad game either. The problem is, people are enthesizing the bad points of the game. A well known example is the Angry Video Game Nerd. The list of toilet humor insults and swears targeted at this game was so overwhelming people are taking his word for it. What he and many other people are forgetting is what is actually good about this game...


Graphics - 9 / 10

The original CastleVania for the NES already had a decent amount of detail and effort put into the visuals. It wasn't the peak of the NES but it was reasonably high up their. Konami were clever enough not to just settle their. Other companies producing for the NES and SEGA Master system were really beginning to understand the capabilities of 8-bit a lot better than they were earlier on in both console's life span.

Konami caught up with a lot with the pack by making a lot of enhancements to the original sprites and tiles. The biggest thing you will notice is simons sprite. In the first CastleVania simon was a orange man. Pretty much the only colors simon was were orange and white.
With Simon's Quest we witness the slightly wider use of the color pallet. They cleverly used the white to create lighting effects on Simon's shoulder pads and knee pads. And now the sprite consists with an extra obvious color.

Many other sprites have been improved. Skeletons look much better, with the shading effect they actually look 3D and stand out from the rest. All of the villages look great. They really show out the NES's capabilities. The list does go on...

So why did I give it a 9 out of 10?
While the list does go on for quite a while there are some really bad sprites like the angry bear. This doesn't bother me so much since the good sprite work is overwhelming so if it was just that I'll give it a 9.7 out of 10 but there was something else that made me less generous.

The design doesn't really work well. Some of the enemies just don't belong in a CastleVania game. Skeletons, Bats, Mummies and Medusa (stupid medusa heads!!) all belong in a castlevania game. Enemies like Bears and strange humanoid frogs things just don't suit this. While the majority of them look good all of this effort was put an unfortunate waste. I even think that those frogs belong in Mega Man somehow!


Sound - 8 / 10

We are going at 2 positives in a row so far, the sound effects and soundtrack is great in simons quest!

Again the sound effects were another thing that Konami wanted to enhance from the original CastleVania. The whip in CastleVania II sounds far more relatable to a real whip than before and the death of an enemy sound effect is just some how more satisfying. People usually take it for granted the sound effects but it is really difficult to get something sounding that good and it to work on the NES. On FamiTracker, a program to create 8-bit music that can run on an NES, it took me a very long time to even create a half decent sounding snare drum sound. Back then they probably had it even worse off then I did with Famitracker so I really do respect the effort.

Moving onto the soundtrack, it is really good. The compositions may not be as good as Super CastleVania IV's soundtrack but still it sounds great.

You are greeted with one of the games best songs just you are in DOOM and, again, Super CastleVania IV. After the town comes the first route. The church organ there really makes you feel in the mood for CastleVania and many other songs in the game do the same treat. However once that dreaded text box appears while not in a village the music changes to the night theme. 

The night theme is the same wherever you are. Not only is it bad but it really gets on your nerves since it is really over played. There are a few other not so good songs in the game but this one... oh boy it's certainly not good! 


Gameplay - 5.5 / 10

I have been praising CastleVania II a lot in the last two sections. When we push all of the fancy graphics and nice soundtrack away Simon's quest isn't a very pretty image anymore.
While I really admire Konami's ambition what they did wasn't quite right and there were a few issues that made this game bad. For the next few paragraphs I wont be comparing it to castlevania since they are very different games and it almost makes my review unfair if I did so.

So let's begin with the start of the game...

Konami went for an RPG approach. When you press start and the "Game Starting Player 3" sign fades out you are in a village. You approach the first NPC and press B to be greeted with a speech box. The text is taking some time to appear so you press B again thinking you can speed the text up but instead it disappears only so you have to press B again for it to reappear again. 
You may think at first that this isn't too much of a problem and that it just takes a bit of getting used to but you be so sick and tired of it when you are trying to find hints to progress, which you almost need to since the game is deliberately un obvious.

Staying on topic of the NPC's giving you hints. Some of them are vague riddles you have to work out and some even lie to you! Konami are well know for unforgiving difficult games but this is truly unfair. 

Ok so after talking to all of NPC's and doing all of the tasks there you are out in the open up against your first enemies. And defeating them is fun. While it isn't that hard you still need strategy for it. As you expect the game does get a lot harder towards the end yet it still isn't that difficult. The difficulty is about right for the type of game it is trying to be and it works really well.

I gave the addictiveness a 6 out of 10 since I really do enjoy whipping enemies knowing that I am making progression quickly. That is fun! Though the are a few things that ruined that experience.

Firstly there is the transition to day and night. I like how Konami were trying to be clever by introducing a day and night rotation system but the time it take to change a background is crazy!
As Demonstrated in a rom hack of simon's quest it has nothing to do with the capabilities of the NES. The Hack sped the event up! I already mentioned the slow text but with that and the dramatic fading in and out really makes the experience really boring. 

Secondly you do too much traveling which isn't much of a problem but what is, is the fact that you have to keep going over the same ground again and again. In a way you would expect this in an RPG game which is what Konami were aiming for. For instance in Pokemon you often have to go through the same routes over and over and it isn't too much of a problem since the routes that you must re visit are not too long and tedious.
Paths just go on for ages in this. It shows a lot of depth and shows off but since it is the same events for long periods of time. The fast progression I was talking about just doesn't happen anymore. You just have deja vu all of the time and it ruins the game.

What get's worse is when you see the game over screen. When you press that continue, you guess, you are back at the beginning of the game. 3 lives... no continues, you really do need the Konami code!

To be fair there is a password system to get back to where you were but that is tedious to do.


Overall - 7.2 / 10

This games has great heights yet many little flaws that build up to be game changing. I really do not recommend this to anyone even when the classic tight controlled movement is addictive. This game was ruined. I could of been very good. That hack I mentioned is good. 
You may have to travel a lot still but it fixes the other things like the slow text and the "What a terrible night to have a curse" day and night transition. I am pretty sure it also has unlimited continues as well.

If you want a good experience playing CastleVania II: Simons Quest go and play the hack of it. I am sorry Konami but this was a let down...



But hey it is still a lot better than any of the crappy N64 CastleVania games. 3D.. What were they thinking!! XD
~MechaMento~

MechaMento : I'm blown away that you actually explained the Gameplay. That alone is a major thumbs-up for this review because many people don't add that for whatever foolish reason. I also admire that you have a real title for your review instead of just doing something lazy like "Simon's Quest Review" or "Castlevania 2 Review". If there's a flaw I had to point out here, it's that the overall grammar here is terrible. Primarily, it's spelt "Castlevania" not "CastleVania". Also, there are A LOT of grammar flaws here such as punctuation and capitalization that you should seriously check over and correct. But aside from that, this review is actually kind of good. Lastly, why is the games name at the top of the review? That's just dumb.

By the way, people who dislike this game aren't jumping on the Angry Video Game Nerd-bandwagon, although he does perfectly explain why the game is so bad in such a way as to be considered entertaining. Furthermore, in Part 2 of his Castlevania marathon he does explain some major pros to the game right away, so you should check that out.