Forums > Submission Feedback > JoeTheDestroyer's Castlevania II: Simon's Quest review

I can get into this. When I was younger, I liked Simon's Quest (I wasn't the rich kid, but I still had Nintendo Power...didn't have it when they specifically covered this game, but I think it was a Q&A in a later issue that gave the answer to the whole "duck and hold position until tornado carries you off" deal.

I'd say it's a game that aged badly, but I think the problem was more along the lines of how it never was a good game, but by NES standards, the production was good enough to put it above a lot of others I had. It had good graphics for the time and no horrid glitches. And a good lazy day game back then because it was so easy. I can't imagine how dull and annoying it'd be now, though.

I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

I didn't realize how weak this game was until I played it about five or so years ago when I was still in college. I wanted to finally finish it once and for all, and I almost didn't make it through because I grew so bored of it. I had to dig up my copies of Symphony of the Night and Dracula's Curse to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

I rented it a lot as a kid because I really had no idea what going through the entire game was like. I just wandered, whipped things, happened upon mansions, and thought I was having a blast. When it occurred to me to try to finish the game, that's when I found out I wasn't doing squat. I had only seen the tip of the iceberg.

The only thing my milkshake brings to the yard is a subpoena.

Good work. You are kinder than I am.

The other NES titles you listed are certainly better than this game, but if you manage to get a hold of Night Creatures for Turbografx-16, you'll be playing something that feels far more in keeping with what Konami was going for here (not that that game is perfect either).

I don't have to prove I'm refined - that's what makes me refined!

Thanks, Marc. I have seen Night Creatures, but never did play it. I've considered it, though. I've been meaning to retry Faxanadu and Battle of Olympus, so maybe I'll add Night Creatures to the list as well.

The only thing my milkshake brings to the yard is a subpoena.

I need to get around to replaying Battle of Olympus sometime. I loved everything about that game in high school except the damn passwords. Weren't as bad as the Guardian Legend's but they still resulted in at least one frustrating "go back to last one because I mis-wrote one of the ungodly long string of letters/numbers" day.

I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

I need to get around to replaying Battle of Olympus sometime

Same here. I alternately loved it and hated it. I really liked that whole side-scrolling adventure/RPG thing, but I found Battle of Olympus really difficult.

I never got very far into it. I seem to remember getting lost frequently, so any time I went back to it after a couple of weeks or months, I couldn't remember where I was or where I was going, so had to start over.

Anyway, on topic, I think this review does a good job of bringing to life the reasons Simon's Quest doesn't work. It's become such a reviled game (largely thanks to AVGN, I suspect) that it's nice to see someone give it a fair shake, put it in the context of its time, and bring a different eye to proceedings (even if the conclusions are roughly the same).

I've learnt that you're a reasonably consistent reviewer, in quality terms. Well done in general, as well as for this.

'There would be tears and there would be strange laughter. Fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings. And dreams, and violence, and disenchantment.'

I enjoyed Battle of Olympus, even got pretty far at one point, but god is it tough as nails! I tried replaying it a few years ago and gave up before long, though I wouldn't mind putting my more refined action/platformer skills to the test again, possibly even finish it this time. Same goes for Faxanadu, which I was never able to finish despite enjoying it for the most part.

Sam:
Thanks! I wanted to avoid covering the same ground James Rolfe already did, but the two of us share a pretty common dislike for the game. I mainly didn't want to trash the game as horribly as he did. It could have been a capable adventure title. It sported decent graphics for the time, a great soundtrack, and some interesting ideas. I couldn't completely trash it for at least trying and getting a few things right.

The only thing my milkshake brings to the yard is a subpoena.

Yes, that's one of the things I appreciated here. Simon's Quest at least had good ideas, it just executed some of them poorly. I'm a sucker for a balanced opinion.

'There would be tears and there would be strange laughter. Fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings. And dreams, and violence, and disenchantment.'

The first thing I thought when I saw you guys talking about how hard Battle of Olympus is was to make a vague "MAN THE EFF UP" insult. Then I started thinking and, yeah, that game is hard. I just played it so obsessively that I got through it in a couple weeks and played it so much that only a few areas were still hard for me. It'd be interesting to see how quickly that game would break me and cause me to ABUSE freeze states nowadays. Things I remember being evil.

The first Lamia boss by Athens.
The one cave where you have to pick the right pit to fall down for something. Other pits are bottomless death traps.
The Gracae (sp.-- the three witches with one eye between them) fight.
Those two late game areas. The first has you in the mountains on the way to get the golden apple in the flower garden area. The second was absolutely hellish where you'd go in and out this building and EVERY TIME you went outside, you'd be fighting a big snake monster that'd utterly slaughter you if you didn't immediately assault it.
And the most hateful of all: the Cerberus fight where it regenerated at WAY too fast a speed.

They don't make them like that too often anymore. That might be good. My patience and blood pressure probably aren't what they were when I was in high school.


Back to SQ. Yeah, that was the heartbreaking thing. It did some things right and had good production values. But the finished product was just disappointing. Death looks at all his overly easy Metroidvania forms and blames his utterly punchless incarnation here for that. And Dracula wonders why he only was able to spin around the room and take whip lashings meekly.

I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

And with the right weapons, you can kill Dracula before he even moves. What's up with that? And there are no enemies in the final area. Did Konami just give up at the end?

The only thing my milkshake brings to the yard is a subpoena.

This review hit all the right notes.

I think a lot of NES games that get a bad rap (like Simon's Quest) for using obtuse logic weren't meant to be played in isolation. NES games, even the single player games, were a social experience. That was the only way to get through them, to talk to your friends and play together. Some games, I look back on and realize that it wasn't just the game that was fun but the people I played with. I almost feel like that's something that lacks in games today, when all the answers are on GameFAQs and you play with friends online instead of on the couch.

I'd probably be kinder to Castlevania 2 for that reason, because we can't really play it any more the way it was intended, but on the other hand, it is totally not fun. I traded my copy to a friend for Karnov a few years ago. Totally worth it.

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