sho's Castlevania II: Simon's Quest review

I totally remember the cover getting pulled. Don't recall what it was replaced with or if it just got swept under the rug along with Nintendo's other dirty secrets... like the corpse of Atari.

You probably already knew this, but the infamous graveyard duck confusion is generally understood to be the result of TWO hints displayed together without interpunction, namely "get a sillk bag from the graveyard" and "duck to live longer" - whether the latter is just advice to avoid projectiles or somehow intended to let you know how to summon up to the tornado, I wouldn't presume to say.

Funny bit of nostalgia: this is the first Castlevania I played, and I enjoyed the RPGish elements of exploration and levelling up (and never played long enough to get annoyed by the game's very real problems). When I later obtained Castlevania 3 for my NES, I was initially disappointed by its "dumbed down" gameplay, not realizing at the time that this was a return to the original's mechanics.

Great review. This is a game I've been meaning to play through and review, but never have gotten around to it mainly because it's one of those games that has a certain amount of nostalgic value to me as...well, when it's the only new game you have for 3-4 months when you're younger, you're going to play it like a religion and force yourself to overlook some of those flaws.

But yeah....

1. Extremely easy. The exploration idea was nice, but nothing battle-wise was challenging.
2. I HATED those invisible trap floors. Cheap and stupid. And invisible platforms, too. You needed the Eye of Dracula to see them and you need to jump on a couple to get into one mansion.
3. I played this game before the original CV or CV 3. Yeah, I noticed a "slight" difference between the Grim Reaper in this one compared to those two. And in Dracula, come to think about it. In most games, he had better ideas on how to fight other than floating in a circle around the room.

That tears it. I'm going to re-publish my second draft. I'm tired of everyone trashing my second favorite NES game.

In all seriousness, I did enjoy reading the review despite completely disagreeing with the verdict. Enjoy the lively word choice and the research done about how the box art is a blatant rip off. Still like that picture nonetheless.

A few things however:

It's well documented that the Japanese consider us to be veritable gaming supermen,

Huh? I thought it was widely considered the Japanese consider us to be inferior gamers, hence why we usually get verions with the difficult toned down. Or were you being sarcastic here?

As for the difficulty, I disagree that the game being too easy is a black mark. Considering most of the old school Castlevanias are among the hardest games, having an easier romp is a breath of fresh air.

Yes, most of the "hints" are useless, but some of the villager babble is humorous and charming, such as the old man who begs you to take his daughter.

Sure, if you try to take this game too seriously and beat it as quickly as possible, you're not going to enjoy it. If you just take a time out, sit back, and smell the roses, you'll find this can be a pleasant experience.

Huh? I thought it was widely considered the Japanese consider us to be inferior gamers, hence why we usually get verions with the difficult toned down. Or were you being sarcastic here?

When I comes to action games, I can mostly think of games that became harder upon localization (Contra: Hard Corps, Castlevania III, Devil May Cry 3, Bayou Billy).

Castlevania 3 is harder? In what way(s)?

The amount of damage you take is different:

"In the North American and European versions, each enemy takes away the same amount of energy when the player is hit. But as the game progresses, damage taken from enemies increases (capping off at 4/5 bars, depending on the player character, in the North American version, and 3/4 bars in the European version), Instead, in the Japanese game, each enemy takes a different amount of energy away from the player. Many fans believe this factor makes the Japanese version easier."

You probably already knew this, but the infamous graveyard duck confusion is generally understood to be the result of TWO hints displayed together without interpunction, namely "get a sillk bag from the graveyard" and "duck to live longer"

Actually, the hint in the Japanese version also included something about a water fowl. Castlevania II just likes to screw with people. :-)

To elaborate on the damage question, damage caused by enemies in the JPN version of Castlevania III depends on what critter it is, whereas in the US and in Europe the damage is tied to what stage you've reached. Early on this may provide a small advantage but it means that in the late stages of the game, a few hits from anything will kill you, when that wasn't the case in the original.

Another Castlevania that I observed a major difference in difficulty on, but between the US and Europe this time, was Bloodlines (censored to The New Generation in Europe as apparently having 'blood' in the title was too much). I think this is a 50hz/60hz thing in that the European version runs noticeably slower, and suddenly switching to the US one meant I kept getting hit by enemies that gave me less time to react than I was used to - and I reckon there were more of them as well. Given that in Castlevania even ONE bat is too many, being attacking by them from both sides every time the floor isn't stable gets old fast.