Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is an Awesome Mess
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- The Castlevania retrospective is back, this time with Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, the black sheep of the NES trilogy! I like it.
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The fact that this game gave us Bloody Tears is enough to secure its legacy in the history of gaming.
It's not a good game. But I actually had some fun with it.
True
And later, Iga has used the base of Simon's Quest for making Symphony of the Night. He knows the game isn't bad, it was just a mess.
the entire soundtrack is easily one of the best on the NES. konami absolutely dominated at that time, I really hope they can make a comeback with the upcoming SIlent Hill titles
I just used the code and went straight to Dracula like 10 times
I loved Simon's Quest as a kid. It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized it was generally not well liked. I loved the exploration and the upgrades, and the overall vibe. I was disappointed to find that the next couple sequels didn't follow this pattern.
The fact that you can literally die in the very first town, in the daytime, by falling into a pit two steps from where you start the game still gets me, though.
Same thing with me and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link. Both great games which have saddly gotten a bad rep because of difficulty and "breaking of the formula" from it's predecessor leading to one of the most unique games in their respective franchises. I'm still hoping Nintendo and Konami will reconsider remaking both games someday for i feel they could be reinvented into high quality Metroidvanias on par with modern Metroidvania games.
@@javiervasquez625 My only problem with Zelda 2 as a kid is when your NES would battery reset and you wanted to scream and cry to the high heavens losing your progress especially when you were nearly to Death Mountain.
@@bartsullivan4866 All while having to die to save the game due to Nintendo dismissing a save feature without need of a gameover to do so.
@@javiervasquez625 pretty much, the simple passwords were sometimes better than the in game battery metroid and this game come to mind having to die to get to that feature was irritating for sure.
@@javiervasquez625 Same here. I loved it as a kid. Plus I knew all of the shortcuts and learned everything that needed to be done by word of mouth since I didn't have Nintendo Power or a strategy guide. People talked at lunch and then you went home and applied what you learned. Nothing really bothered me and I felt a sense of accomplishment when I beat it. It was the only Castlevania game I'd ever play until Symphony of the Night.
This game is badass and the soundtrack is one of the best to come from the NES
I actually borrowed my mom's tape recorder and hooked a cable from the tv's headphone jack to it so i could make a mixtape of the songs from this game and mega man 2
The music usually loops in like 30 seconds but its still so good
I think the fact that the final mansion is completely bereft of enemies to be incredibly creepy and off putting. I loved it.
Honestly same. It's definitely spooky
especially with that music
The town you go through before the final mansion is also empty too if I'm remembering correctly. I also love the fact that some townspeople lie to you or spout nonsense. Pure genius
I always thought the same! And then that weird part that you can’t climb out of after falling down it
@@claudeyanly5356 I think the idea is that Simon's trying to collect all 7 scattered pieces of Dracula so he can permanently kill him but townspeople who catch wind of this understandably don't like the idea that you're _reassembling Dracula_ so they feed you lies to hinder you
I was by no means an above-average intelligent kid. I had trouble paying attention, doing simple things, even just sitting still. I was obsessed with playing nintendo and if my parents let me, I'd probably play NES for days on end before I nearly starved to death because I'd forget to eat. Despite all of this, I actually managed to figure out the tornado part and most of the other cryptic parts of the game when I was a young kid. To this day I have no idea how I did it, but I'm pretty impressed with my younger self.
What a horrible night to celebrate Christmas!
It's still funny to me how the "bad ending" is better than the "normal ending", and ironically the "good ending" is the only one where we see Dracula rising from the grave :P
Their are 2 ending in this game?
I know! I worked really hard to get the “good” ending as a kid and was like, “what?“
@@russellmania5349 yessir. The “good” one is unlocked based on a timer.
@@russellmania5349 there actually 3 ending not much change but still 3 possible ending
I thought that was a coding error that resulted in the endings getting screwed up
My dad made a legitimate map and guide for Simon's Quest when I was a kid. It was very detailed and spawned my love of maps.
My dad did this for lots of games, but I think my favorite was renting Shadowgate on multiple weekends and leaving our "guide" in the plastic rental case under the instruction manual so that anyone else who rented the game could have a leg up if they wanted it.
@@Darkkfated I like your dad
@@Darkkfated class act!
@Darkkfated that was humble and dope of ya to do for other gamers, hopefully they paid it forward 👌🙌
@@ThejokerNSorrow99 It was also back in the mid-80's - no way to look up solutions since the Internet was a full decade away. I hope it helped somebody, but who knows? We might have been the only people renting the game!
I always loved the production values on this game. The tile sets are so atmospheric and the music is incredible. It's too cryptic though with no real way to intuit solutions to certain progress gates. Zelda 2 delivered this approach successfully by actually having some clues that players could use.
Two of my favorite games. Tell Brak and Gorak Happy New Year for me.
I am error that was some helpful hint lol
The problem was that the dev team wanted to have townsfolk who were untrustworthy and would lie to you or mislead you - but in the English version, this is never communicated to the player in any way (aside from maybe a vague hint about it in the Instruction Manual?) and you chalk up all the lying townsfolk to standard 80's Engrish transration. This is something that might work today with a proper localization effort, but on the NES? No fucking way.
True, but Zelda two had its own rather cryptic moments with hidden places or that one run-around dungeon.😉
@@Darkkfatedthere's a romhack with the translations fixed and a map and other improvements. It's easy to patch on a rom, there's a website you can patch it with without having to download any executables. Easy to google
"I got the shit ending"
You just described my entire gaming experience throughout the decades.
This game had three endings.
Some special fact I read. In the Famicom: version if u beat the game 69 days in, it will add "see you next time" to the credits. Wow 69 was a special number in japan too in the 80s too huh lol
As a kid (when this game was new), it was amazing and we loved it. Most of the secrets we found by accident.
I love this game, and unashamedly, so this was cool to see! One thing you might find interesting in the game is that time freezes in mansions - so if you want the best ending, do all your farming there (even the initial farm). I also tend to use an oak stake, then buy another from the same vendor to use in the next mansion, then buy the oak stake in that on for the next mansion, etc.
With you 100% including the stake thing!
@@BigBearHgX Yep - for me, it's one of those games that's fun to come back to after you know it well enough. I probably play it once a year or so.
@@jamiekelley5856 every time I see someone talking about it I end up doing a run! So once or twice a year. This game created my love for metroidvaina
@@BigBearHgX Same, on both counts! I always wished they'd made a Castlevania All-Stars the way they did Super Mario All-Stars (or even Ninja Gaiden Trilogy)for SNES.
@@jamiekelley5856 I suck at 1 and 3 but still love them. Shame we had to wait until the castlevania collection but it is still excellent
I have been waiting for this video ever since the first castlevania vid dropped, it got me really into the castlevania series (except 2 but I hope this video changes my mind)
you make great videos prof keep up the good work :)
Although we expect games to be fully self-contained experiences now, games from this era-like Zelda, Metroid, or Castlevania 2-were designed with hint guides and gaming magazines in mind.
Souls games provide a similar level of obscurity. Rushing online to find hints for Elden Ring reminded me of those days reading Nintendo Power for gameplay secrets.
When I was a kid, we didn't use a strategy guide for Zelda, but instead the necessary secrets were shared by word of mouth. When I did eventually beat it (decades later), I don't think I used a guide, but I sure used save-states.
Dude, did the same for Simon's quest. I discovered quite a lot by sheer trial and error, but somebody dropped hints in the schoolbus about kneeling with a crystal in different places. I finally beat it after having ditched it to begin with 😁
Back then, any secrets I learned were from trial and error, off the school playground, or Nintendo Power. Those twos were good enough to beat both Simons Quest and Zelda 2.
I replayed this game yesterday on the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. As a kid, i had no idea what i was supposed to be doing after the first mansion, i didn't know holy water broke walls and revealed "clues", and i didn't know you could level up. Having said that, i still really enjoy this game for its iconic music and creepy atmosphere. A lot of the enjoyment also comes from knowing all the things i didn't know as a kid. When i got to the first area where i kneeled with the blue crystal by the water, i laughed to myself because despite talking to every villager up to this point, nobody had said a word about kneeling by the water.
I have no idea where (in game) you are supposed to learn this and I think that sums up CV2 perfectly. It can be a lot of fun as long as you go in already knowing exactly what to do 😂
Yeah I feel like that's the big problem with this game. If you play it with a guide, it's fine, and kinda cool even.
Without a guide, it's a mess.
@@ZeroKitsune Exactly, that's the problem, the translation issues make the game unbeatable. Plus, the day/night transitions get annoying due to how long they take.
The horror is they are random vague hints from folks in town mostly. That or a lot of trial and error and error and error and error.
Wish this game was bigger and more well done but its very cool and unique as it is could have been epic as fuck though
I don't know anyone who could possibly have thought to crouch for 5 seconds by the wall to summon a tornado. Or use a certain crystal and hold down to reveal a lower level without looking it up. The quote from star wars also.
these must be the same guys who translated the warning signs like "caution: you are stairs"
Yup, everyone can bitch and moan about this game that's 100% fine. However, this was the first Castlevania game that introduced RPG elements, not "Symphony of the Night"(which is a really great game). "Castlevania II: Simon's Quest" STILL and always WILL be my favorite game in the massive franchise.
I'm the only one I know who LIKED this game, because I was way more into RPGs and strategy games than action games.
To put it into perspective, I have 100's of undocumented hours on "Shingen- the Ruler" and that game is hard to understand if you don't have the patience.
Though I did love this clue:
Hit Deborah Cliff with your head to make a hole
I don't know why this 'clue' exists. I walked endlessly into the cliff but it didn't do anything. But somehow I knelt with the crystal and figured it out without a strategy guide. I was a very persistent player.
It's def a very cool game imo, but the cryptic bs puzzle keep it from being the all-time classic it could have been. The ingredients are all there for greatness (mechanics are solid, production is top notch for 1988, and audiences were primed for complex open world action-adventure style games from cutting their teeth on Zelda 2 the previous year) so it's unfortunate that its flaws have left it less fondly remembered than it could have been.
@@spaceghostcqc2137 it just needed a better translation team, and the transitions from day to night should have let you skip the dialog and should have been swifter.
Time doesn't pass in mansions so those are perfect to grind your 6 levels.
The graphics, music, and settings in this game are what make it good. For me, the main drawback is the translations which make a game guide necessary. Everyone craps on the map from Nintendo Power at the time, but it does make total and complete sense in terms of locations and pathways. Legit boss fights would have helped too.
Just started playing this game a little after Halloween. Couldn't agree more with the video title!
You know, with the way you talk about this game... Have you ever played La-Mulana? Its punishment is arguably more real, but the gags and pranks are equally present, and the hints, while cryptic, are MUCH fairer. That said, I strongly believe there's a LOT of shared DNA (and for reasons beyond just all the Konami references). But more than that, the game feels like a perfected version of what you describe this game as doing. (That said, I'm probably heavily biased because my friends and I played through both LM and its sequel actually blind, and absolutely adored both of them.)
This was the first game I played as a child. It was my favorite out of the NES games that were at my grandparent’s house. I was the only one in the house who could get anywhere in the game; the adults had no clue what to do🤣
So excited for you to get to dracula's curse! That's always been my favourite, even if I still can't beat it without savestates... but I absolutely love the ost and characters so much. It's one of the most complex and creative NES games.
I needed savestates to beat the final boss of super castlevania. I am ashamed of this fact, especially since Dracula only has one form in that game.
I've only ever beaten any classic Castlevania games with save states. I can beat the Igavania games fine but the classic Castlevania games kick my ass
This game really is fucking crazy. You can probably count on 1 hand the amount of games that had a town with a shop that you could buy items at in 1987, let alone a game with a day night cycle and random NPCs you could talk to. It's funny to imagine somebody being like "woah this game is so realistic" but it kinda is head and shoulders above everything thing else at the time.
Also I was looking up the release dates of this vs Legend of Zelda 2, and it's pretty funny that both games came out in '87, have basically the same title (Simon's Quest vs Adventure of Link), both have some of the earliest video game RPG mechanics that aren't in a strict RPG, AND they're both hopelessly cryptic. I'm assuming Konami just copied Nintendo's homework for their Zelda-esque adventure game, but it's pretty uncanny either way.
I usually skip the Thorn whip and go to the Chain Whip because of how big the difference in difference in dmg boost you get form the Leather Whip to the Chain Whip on top of saving 100 hearts in the process. Yeah according to IGA the head dog behind the Metroidvainia games including Symphony of the Night it was Simon's Quest's success that helped them get the green light from Konami to make Symphony of the Night. Also thanks to rom hacks of this game there are massive improvements from the OG game.
I don't know, I always liked Castlevania II. I wish more were like it. Grinding was just a mechanic of early games. I even enjoyed the cryptic messages to solve the confusing puzzles. Honestly, until now, I didn't even know they were supposed to be blatantly obvious that were only confusing due to mistranslations. Learn something new every day!
But then I also liked Metroid. Sure, maps were confusing and death was punishing, but you were "rewarded" for speedrunning, so memorizing the madness and getting good were intentional parts of the game design. It was intended for replayability. It worked. No complaints.
Lovely video! Hope you're staying warm, Bopper.
Actually no it doesn't hold up better than metroid. You just really suck at metroid, and km going off the footage. You had low energy and skipped energy pickups, you know that metroid must be frozen first yet you run further with your missiles on knowing full well it will get you killed. I hate to be the guy that says you just suck, but you kinda just suck. The only thing that I hate about metroid 1 is grinding for health and ammo but farming metroids actually makes that a non issue as they usually give way more. If the game required good translation to be beaten by most people and it failed at that, it instantly doesn't hold up to metroid. Metroid didn't require any of that. Just some persistence, map drawing and exploring. Also having the manual helps.
Whether you want to call it a good game or a bad game, it's hard to ignore the fact that it just doesn't feel like a *whole* game. Like, maybe it's 3/4 of a game. 3/4 of anything can be really frustrating but when those 3/4 are pretty good, then it becomes that much moreso. It's a notable game because the developers tried to do things that - at the time - were new and different. And they were definitely onto something because the formula they came up with - once it was refined a bit more - became an enduring trope. But this game itself, whether it's a good most-of-a-game or a bad a whole-game, kind of falls flat on its own merits despite that incredible legacy.
I have so many fond memories of this game as a kid. I remember wanting to shout it from the rooftops when i finally beat it. It was the first nintendo game i ever beat with a little help from the nintendo power issue, of course.
I just beat this game in like 4 hours got lucky without getting stuck and I remembered the Red Crystal wall thing. Still I can see how you could take 10 hours to win
even if you knew all the secrets
I compare this game to Elden Ring. When you first play it and have no idea what to do, it falsely presents itself as a massive, secret filled, explorative masterpiece. But once you know what to do, it's more like wow what a lazily developed piece of trash. Exploration is only good if what you find is worth looking for.
CV2 is only "underrated" in the same way that Megaman X6 is "underrated". They may not be quite as bad as most people make them out to be, but god damn are they still ass to play for their own reasons.
No, just a mess. But with a great soundtrack. It’s only redeeming quality.
I borrowed this from a friend and beat it, because I liked certain things about the game, and that was enough for me to put up with the crappiness of the bad parts of the game.
I must respectfully disagree....Metroid is the best game known to man kind.
This was one of my first and favorite NES games! Seriously, though, try the improved "remix" version - Simon's Redaction. Improves the game's few flaws, makes the villager hints useful, and makes it so you can finish it without a walkthrough.
I’ve never heard anyone glorify Metroid. Most people agree that, much like Castlevania 2, it’s only a dated precursor to the genre that would be born with Super Metroid.
As a kid during that time (born in 84) other kids never spoke of metroid fondly, only discussing its difficulties, passwords and glitches. It wasnt bad, but it sure wasnt anything great either.
What the hell? What a bizarre thing to say. Look at any NES ranking?
@@BGGardner Most of the video reviews and “best NES games” lists I could find mention how the game is “tough to return to today” and that Super Metroid and Zero Mission overshadow it.
The game does have a better reputation than Castlevania 2, but “glorify” isn’t the best term to describe a game who’s remembered only as a pioneer, and whose merits are limited to its atmosphere and soundtrack.
@Nicolò Enrico Rimoldi I think you are speaking for a tiny minority here. As shown by nearly any reputable list. Again, no shortage of bad takes or people hungry for attention by dunking on classics.
@@BGGardner I had genuinely never heard of much praise for Metroid 1 before, so I didn't find it very fair to prop up Castlevania 2 by treating it as an underdog compared to Metroid.
Even the official Nintendo magazine of my country back in the late 00s/early 10s recommended playing Zero Mission instead of Metroid 1 because of the latter having aged badly, so that among other reviews affected my view of the game's reception.
If I really cared about attention, I wouldn't seek it on a video with barely 7000 views, I can tell you that much.
I remember getting this game for Christmas. I beat it in 3 days with no guide at the age of 10. i have always absolutely loved the castlevania games. I was stoked to beat the game that quickly but also sad. Sad the fact that I didn't. I also received the PXL2000 camcorder that used regular audio cassettes. I would make these black and white home movies. It was my most memorable Christmas as a kid. I only got 2 gifts other than clothes but they were two memorable gifts for sure.
The problems this game had are exactly what the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" review process should have been correcting prior to publishing. The translation problems, poor spelling, and obtuse design choices (like kneeling in a certain spot for several seconds with a crystal selected) should have been unacceptable. Looking back it's obvious Nintendo only cared about religious symbols, boobs, microwaved hampsters (maniac mansion), and whether or not the check cleared.
Indeed. Although, some of that shit, until 1990, was intentional. Because it also helped to sell videogame magazines, and vice-versa. There were also phone numbers to which you could call, to ask for help and clues regarding certain games. It was a marketing cycle. Cryptic games like this had constant references on magazines, for these reasons.
@@HeathenDance I like the way you think ;-). I honestly think with Castlevania 2 the problems came from rushed development, corner cutting the translation and localization process, and the fact that this was a very early attempt at a Metroidvania (although Faxanadu came out around the same time and got it right). But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if what you described happened at times, possibly even with Castlevania 2 assuming the Japanese version is still cryptic even with the Japanese language.
@@themidcentrist There is even one Megaman game (either the first or the second), that you need to get some hidden special item throughout the game, or else, when you get to the final level, you can't progress and simply get stuck. And Legend of Zelda, for example, it's literally impossible to know where to find some stuff, like the entrance to the 9th level, without outside help. That being said, I think Castlevania 2 is still boring, as a game. Even if you know where to go and what to do. Unlike the mighty Faxanadu! Great game. I'm very glad I got that one as a kid. Just because I found the cover art to be so cool. And the words on it, describing the game.
@@HeathenDance Yeap, in Mega Man 1 you had to use Electric Man's or Gut's man's weapon to get the magnet beam in Ice man's stage. Funny story about legend of Zelda: In middle school A friend of my best friend drew from memory maps of some of the dungeons (including the last one) on graph paper including the items and final dungeon teleports. Needless to say, we were impressed (and beat the game using them).
I came upon these and loved them. But there's no CV3 video yet
I know it's a mess, but it's been my favorite for decades.
The Super Mario Bros games’ theme tunes are for sure the standards of video games but my all time favorite has always been Simon’s Quest.
The sad fact is that AVGN has shaped many gamers' opinions about this game, wether they played it for themselves or not. Many other games have experienced that exact same fate. Before his video I don't recall anyone saying anything negative about Simon's Quest. In fact back in the day people were blown away by how much bigger the adventure felt, only to be disappointed how Castlevania 3 took a step back and returned to the style of the original. The game has its glaring issues, there's no denying that, but it's still a good game well worth playing.
It was frustrating when I was a kid but, it was still a lot of fun! Once I figured out what to do it became my favorite in the franchise! Endless replay value on it to this day.
I always used the diamond that bounces off the walls to smoke Dracula. I beat this game several times as a kid...
...of course, I had Nintendo Power, though. Also, I had no idea that there was more than one ending. O_o
Games pretty great, it's just a little too obtuse for some people these days. The same people wouldn't be able to finish Zelda 1 either.
There's a line. Zelda 1 and 2 could be finished with enough dedication to exploration and experimentation. Simons Quest basically can't be finished without a guide or knowledge of certain progress points. That really holds it back imo, though I agree that it's great in many ways.
This is the second game I beat in the series the first was aria of sorrow.. it's a unique title but I rushed instead of taking the time to talk to the NPCs and getting the best ending. Would be nice if we can get a remake but Konami just doesn't care about the fans anymore
I thoroughly enjoyed playing this game last year - the first Castlevania I've finished. Admittedly I used bisquit's excellent retranslation patch with its built-in map feature enabled 👌
enjoyed the game through and through. grinded, felt powerful, but some time later found out about the kneeling and finally beat it. the game was a whole different animal after that, trying to get the good ending. well worth playing.
It might not have been the most popular game of the series but it's the one with the most iconic music of the series.
Am I the only one that thinks these are hard
It would had been a great game if not for the anticlimactic last castle....
It's definitely kinda spooky lol. I wish there was more enemies that were more like 1 and 3. It's hard to place, but something like the skeleton snake from cv1 in cv2 would really add and might make it closer to the original.
Even seeing the two bosses they have in the dungeons, you realize they don't have a lot going on.
My favorite enemy is the shadowy skeleton in the swamp. He makes you a bit afraid of him with his movement. Even if you do get hit you, by him, you feel like he's a friend not foe lol.
The Gameboy Castlevania 2 Belmont's Revenge is a damn breeze compared to the other games you mentioned. I just got the NES classic and am looking forward to completing this game.
As a creepy kid in the 80s and 90s this was my zelda. And people complaining about needing a guide, first it was horribly adapted, second, I knew plenty of kids who used guides for Zelda. It was a bit like Dark Souls in that we shared what we knew among ourselves (at school instead of on reddit).
What a wonderful night for a lecture!
Thank you kindly for the structured thoughts, Bopper! The nuance you put into explaining your enjoyment of the game while not only acknowledging but exploring the flaws is, for lack of a better.. uh, comparison? Cultural comparison point, I guess? - the elixir to the discomfort people feel when something they like gets dismissed as "mid." I get flowery with my language when I should be thinking about word economy a bit more, but yeah, if it helps serve the sincerity of what I'm trying to say, while I am aware you aren't the only person on RUclips who puts this much care into what you say, the fact that you do is admirable and a lot more creatively nourishing for other writers, and that's what I'm thankful for this old Eve.
Peace and Warmth to you, dude!
I agree that this game gets a lot of undeserved hate. While the difficulty is...
Sorry, one moment...
WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE
Where was I?
The music was awesome, the 80's graphics were great, and the gameplay was "as expected" (just like CV1)...
But the WRITING? 🤔 And the "boss battles"? 🙄 And... the cryptic, bizarre things which we all know from AVGN's hilarious roast of CV2? 🤮 Bollocks. I mean, even the item purchasing system was stupid as hell, simply because it merely meant GRINDING.
The final nail in the coffin (har har) was Dracula's empty castle at the end, *AND* the fact that he was ludicrously easy to defeat. Absolutely disappointing for what could otherwise have been a GORGEOUSLY powerful experience.
🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
Nah this was, and is, a bad game.
This game is better than it gets credit for...
Thank you for showing the love to one of my childhood games that everyone else seem to hate.
I love this game so much. It’s one of my favorite Castlevania games and I didn’t even grow up with it (heck I wasn’t alive when it came out lol). The complete change in game style was ambitious and it suffered in places from the limitations of the technology and poor translation, but still manages to be genuinely fun and atmospheric despite the rough parts. The story is insanely cool and pretty damn dark (rotting alive slowly for 6 years sounds terrible, poor Simon). And the way that it’s left so open and vague (especially the endings) adds a weird bit of mystery and unease to the game. It’s an acquired taste, but it has so much strange charm to it! I’ve found myself replaying it, drawing fanart of it, and searching for content about it online a lot lately tbh! XD
You mean angry nintendo nerd?
Thanks for giving this game a fair shake. I enjoyed it, as a child, and always felt it got a bad rap. Have you ever played "Deadly Towers"? Now there's a trainwreck. Still though, I played it quite a bit too, despite how awful it was. Maybe you'd like it (probably not, it's up there with the worst of all time).
Unbelievably boring game, even if you know what to do. Comparing similars, Faxanadu is so much better than NES Castlevanias (1 and 2, at least, I never played the third game.)
Just finished uploading my playthrough of Castlevania 2 and beating it for my first time. Having seen the AVGN episodes umpteen times already, I knew about the tornado and blue crystal tricks, but not much else. I only used the NES manual and Nintendo Power issue as guides, nothing else (and previous knowledge from the AVGN episodes, though even then, I forgot a lot of stuff he mentioned in them). There were a couple things that threw me off (getting the diamond and silk bag, for example), and I never actually got the silver knife, but I figured out the rest. It's not as bad as people say it is with the understanding that games back then didn't frequently hold your hand. Games back then were tough and cryptic and you were left going "where do I go now?" very frequently. But if you judge the game by today's standards...yeah, it's rough.
The quirky things like the localization isn't great and giving intentionally misleading clues to things is wild, but I loved the game overall. I loved they tried something different, and the feeling of becoming more powerful over time as Simon when you get weapon upgrades, level ups, etc., felt like halfway between a JRPG and most Legend of Zelda games (aside from LoZ2 which is its own beast which is actually very similar in many ways to Castlevania 2 in gameplay, design, etc.).
Video essay woooooooooooooooooooo
As a huge old school NES fan especially of the Castlevania series I recommend the Hacked Redact version if can get or have on an emulator such as Retro Pie.Although Simons quest is still completely playable especially with guide still highly recommend Redact Hack which is cleaned up real good
It was just a bad game not to mention they messed up the ending texts. I was open minded to it only to admit it was a bad game and was a letdown. Dracula's Curse and Super Castlevania made up for it.
I have a funny story about Castlevania 2: I was a kid living in Riverside, California with my parents and was on the final boss, (Dracula), and he was basically impossible! The game was brand new so there was no internet to look for clues back then. My mom came in to the room to tell me to get ready for church and saw that I was getting frustrated, so she said to look for clues in the instruction manual. Keep in mind my mom knew absolutely NOTHING about video games, and still doesn't. I was being a spoiled, bratty kid and rolled my eyes, basically saying something like, "ya ya mom, the instruction manual is not going to tell me how to beat this IMPOSSIBLE boss!!!" But she confidentially, and somewhat naively started going through the NES instruction manual for the game and came across the item description section. Upon looking at the description for the "Golden Knife", (or maybe it was "Golden Dagger"; I can't remember) she started reading from the manual, "contains a mysterious power." She basically said with excitement, "It says here that the Golden Knife has mysterious power! I bet the mysterious power is that it can beat Dracula!" But I wasn't hearing any of it because what does she know about video games! I was just getting more and more frustrated. Finally she kept suggesting it enough where I just said I would do it so that she would stop bugging me about it and I could show her that she is wrong. Well, the Golden Knife killed Dracula in one hit!!!! I was in complete shock; I couldn't even respond. All I could do was stare at the screen in total disbelief, feeling like a total jack@$$. My mom just had a smug smile on her face and said something to the effect of, "see, your mom knows best." Then she walked out of the room very satisfied at my total ego defeat. I never questioned her mom wisdom again. It's one of my favorite memories. =D
Thanks for giving it a fair shake!
I think I have an answer for the Metroid legacy-comparison, out of AVGN influence.
Metroid, the first one, was exactly that. The first. II on the Gameboy and SUPER METROID eclipsed it, cementing the solid legacy.
With CII, it is BETWEEN the 1st game and III. Speaking for myself, I always think of III when thinking of Castelvania on the NES.
In short, being blurred by the shadow of the other and arguable more iconic games. Metroid had a progressive arc, whereas Castlevania experimented more.
Sure, Simon’s quest had its flaws, specifically the nonsensical and unhelpful clues, sparse boss fights, and a completely nerfed Dracula, but it was still fun to play and had one of the best soundtracks in the series. Bloody Tears and the theme that plays when you finally reach Castlevania at the end are two of the best tracks in the franchise.
Plus, without Simon’s Quest, we wouldn’t have gotten Symphony of the Night.
I just get a nes cartridge to motivate me to play and I’m loving it so far
Maybe it lacks of dungeon bosses but I’m enjoying it
Man this is vindicating because I just thought that I was stupid for not being able to figure this game out without my brother’s help at 6 years old (my brother always calling me stupid didn’t help).
That being said, I NEVER thought of this as a bad or poorly made game. Lots of celebrated NES games were impossibly cryptic and poorly translated. This game always felt iconic and thoroughly engaging, especially for its time.
I'm weirdly proud to be like number 666. :D
This game was a staple of my childhood.
My favorite pile of mess on nes! Best Castlevania game in my opinion on nes. This is the only castlevania that has stuck with me since I was a kid.
I love Simon's Quest, it has always been and will always be my favorite Castlevania title.
Game drives me crazy. It's the worst one In the series. I want to like it....and Maybe I'll give it more tries....I can appreciate what it was trying to do....but God damn this game is AAASSSSS
Good video.
1. Zelda I doesn’t require a guide. I dispute that, I played it at 16 and while it did require exploration, most of the obscure stuff was just a bonus. Not accusing you of this, but i get annoyed at the reputation that you have to bomb every wall, burn every bush, when the one bush you do have to burn is readily telegraphed.
2. Bullshit + nonlinearity can totally work with loss of progress. ~~Dark Souls does it~~ (though imo the nonlinearity is greatly exaggerated)
I'm glad to find the 3 other people in existence who actually like Simon's Quest, the first time through you're definitely gonna want a guide but once you've played it a few times and know where everything is it's a blast. This game catches way more flak than it deserves and I'd probably say AVGN's video is at least part of the reason for that.
I would rather hear your opinion of the game based on your own unique life experience and totality of influences than one that awkwardly tries to conform to what one would perceive others would want them to say. I really enjoyed your video on CastleVania 3! Hearing bout your Catholic influence was cool! Yoou can never have too many stained glass windows (maybe😅?)! As a kid, I liked CVs 1 and 3 better, for their more straightforward right-to-left (mostly) trip to Dracula, but I think as an adult I like CV 2 a bit more.
I kind of understood your map, cause I've done a similar pathway to get to the good ending
When it came to the NES, it was the "two's" that did it for me, because either they were so different than the rest of their respective series or just an all around improvement. They were definitely slept on.
Zelda II The Adventure of Link
Simon's Quest (Castlevania II)
Super Mario 2 (US)
Ironsword (Wizards & Warriors II)
Zoda's Revenge (Startropics II)
Mega Man 2
Zelda and Startropics are kind of a hard pick for me because I like both the original and their sequels equally, but the 2nd Mario, W&W, MM, and Castlevania are definitely my favorites of their 8-bit series.
They made this game the way it was in order to sell Nintendo Power magazines (no joke). The first Castlevania was VERY popular, and straight-forward. However, they made Simon's Quest confusing, and mis-translated ON PURPOSE. Do you actually think Nintendo couldn't afford a translator? There is NO WAY of beating this game without a guide; and, that guide was supposed to be a Nintendo Power magazine.
Also, the Flame Whip having the exact same power as the Morning Star was a huge load of B.S.
Simon's Quest is fucking awesome, not sure why people are shitting on it.
Oh, Castlevania 2, what a fantastic game marred by some questionable mechanics. I was 9 years old when Castlevania 2 released, and you better believe I got it very close to its launch. I never made a map for the game, and I sort of lucked into the Tornado Crystal solution. A friend showed me how to do it and I never forgot. What is wild is I have never used a map or guide to beat Castlevania 2 before. I have never made a map for any Nes game either.
This game gets a ton of hate. The translation was so bad.
That being said...it's actually the Castlevania I would love to see with a modern remake. Imagine FromSoft putting together a Castlevania where you have to collect the parts of Dracula before destroying him in a final climactic fight. Epic. As. Hell.
Ah, nice… I remember getting this game on my first Christmas with the NES some time early 90's (German NES releases were rather late) together with Metroid and the (then new) Super Mario Bros 3. One of those childhood games I always loved getting back into, partially for the music alone. But I've never finished it. I also remember one time taking up the task, sitting there with a English to German dictionary and speaking no English trying to understand the gibberish… that ended quickly. I was so blown away by the open world and exploration and we later even learned how to use the blue crystal (by calling Nintendo, duh!). The world isn't that big in contrast, but it always felt way bigger than Zelda 2 or Metroid, at least for me.
Omg I was doing research about this game and also found many similarities between it and Vampire Killer, you just beat me to the draw I guess. I've also seen some similarities between Zelda 1 and Zelda 2, which makes sense because Japanese developer Hitoshi Akamatsu said the game was influenced by The Maze of Galious, which was itself influenced by Zelda 1, and looks similar to Simon's Quest. It's a shame that many people only look at this game from the perspective of the first and third games and dislike it because it doesn't follow the same formula.
I recently had a theory that the game was rushed, and that's what made it so cryptic, but no, it wasn't even close to rushed. The North American developers made many critical translation errors, which I think is the reason why the game got the reputation it has. Proper translations would have eliminated a lot of the game's perceived cryptic nonsense, which would make it clear as to what you're supposed to do and not get stuck, giving people a chance to enjoy it.
I think CV2 mainly has 2 issues. 1: The map is too big. It takes too long to go back if you make a wrong turn and slogging back and forth when you are confused about where to go and what to do, especially with the day/night transitions becomes a chore. 2: Movement and combat does not mesh well with the other mechanics in the game,
The slow and very intentional way of moving and attacking in CV1 works because the level design is very tight, and the sub weapons help you manage each challenge. In 2, that is all gone out the window. The controls now just feel sluggish and annoying. Not to mention, in a sort of open ended game like this, movement and the flow of combat is EXTREMELY important for the overall enjoyment of the game.
If they fixed that, i think the grinding and cryptic nature of the game would be far less of a problem. With taht in mind, i's also worth pointing out that in many ways CV2 was quite ahead of it's time. It's just too bad that most of those ideas were quite poorly implemented.
That said, i also think it's worth pointing out that there are games that pretty much did exactly that. Faxanadu is a great example, and a year later we also got Zelda 2. Both of those games, i think, does sidescrolling action/RPG better than CV2 by simply making the distance traveled, and making movement and combat more fluid, a lot morefun to play. Anyone who likes CV2 should definitely check out Faxanadu, one of the NES all time greats in my opinion :)
Best to play Castlevania II Redacted. All issue are resolved ie fast night to date and vice versa, all translations are now correct and understandable and more.
And as a child you only needed to remember one thing CTMV-W26K-R5KN-SIBK 🧛🏻♂
I was a big fan of the 1st Castlevania. I remember seeing Castlevania 2 in Nintendo power when I was in 7th grade. The day it came out I walked 2 miles in a blizzard to get it. I sold all of my games to come up with the money. Castlevania 2 was the only game I owned. I had to figure the game out with no help. I got stuck at the tornado part for weeks. One night I said to myself I'm going to figure this shit out. I spent 8 hours trying. I was pulling my hair out. My buddy was over that night. I was talking to him and I happened to be holding down on the d pad then the tornado came out. My mind was blown. I have to be the only person on the planet to figure this game out without a guide.
Bro I beat this game in the early 90s without any guide whatsoever, it took my 2 months.
Thorn whip is a waste of money. You go 1 night in the first town to get water+white crystal then straight to the first mansion it's easy enough with the L. whip, chain whip is the first you'll buy.
One thing that's funny is you start at 12:00 on the first day instead of midnight so you're already 12 hours in the hole. That why night comes so quickly at the beginning
This was the first Castlevania game I played as a kid and I loved it. It's the same as others here have stated, I didn't even know that it was kind of unpopular until I got older. If they fixed the translations to make the hints better and put the endings into the correct order this game would have been phenomenal.
Yeah. Dracula's Curse. People always mention games like Battletoads or Ninja Gaiden when talking about Nintnedo Hard™ games, but Dracula's Curse 100% deserves a spot near the top of that list.
Like Metroid and Zelda 2, this game was trying to do something way ahead of its time. And I think it executed it well given the limitations. It's actually not that hard of a game if you take your time and level up as you explore. The only issue is the bad localization leading to cryptic clues. Like Metroid 1 and Zelda 2, Castlevania II could be one of the best games in its series if it just got a remake. And I mean, I'd rather replay Castlevania II than it's "spiritual successor" Harmony of Dissonance.
Ya umm
As a kid castlevaina 2 Simons quest and Zelda 2 adventures of link are in my top 5 games form the nes.
The other 3 would be
dragon warrior
final fantasy
metroid
Star tropics is an honorable mention in 6th place.
The dislike of both of these games came as a shock for me. I can understand then not being your favorite game. But the vitriol towards them was something else. I would have expected something like wizards and warriors to get because as fun as those three games are they are wonky.
And yes I had legend of Zelda and castlevaina 1 and 3. Hint they are not in the top 10.
This was always one of my favs. I think it may have actually been the very first NES game I bought for myself. No regrets. I had previously played it at a friend's house, knew it had its flaws, but I liked it sooo much better than the first Castlevania game, and at the time, there wasn't really anything like it, except for Metroid, of course.
Gave us Silence of daylight and bloody tears, that alone makes it worthy. The entire soundtrack is bada$$. It actually outdid the 1st game on music, which was no easy task.
But as far as the flaws, and there are many, it seems almost like it was rushed to the North American market about a month too soon, maybe more.
I figured out the “red crystal kneel tornado” thing. Here is how it happened. By pure chance I found the kneel by the lake to trigger the screen shift. I don’t think I understood that the Crystal was involved. But I went to that cliff and did connect it to the “Deborah cliffs” hint. I tried the kneel thing because it worked at the lake. I guess I had the red crystal, because it worked. I sort of feel proud of that, though it might have been mostly luck.I do recall that 13 year old me pronounced it “Dee-bore-ahh” cliffs because I wasn’t smart enough to connect the game to the fairly common real world name.