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[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

I can now say I've played every mainline entry in the series pre-SOTN save for spinoffs like the Kid Dracula games or Haunted Castle, I even played the first two GameBoy games.

I knew for a long time this was the "black sheep" of the series and after briefly trying it in the past, I thought it was pretty tedious, but I knuckled down and decided I was determined to see it through to the end this time.

Unfortunately yeah, it's sporadically fun and the graphics are pretty good for a NES game I feel, but this is a slog to play to the finish, it's too bad because there's interesting aspects that if it had more polish, would be a pretty solid game, but I hate how easy it is to get lost and how cryptic it can be at times, pretty much requiring a guide for certain moments, I also heard how Dracula at the end is supposed to be easy, but that's only if you find the "sacred flame" weapon which I of course missed (I tried to use a guide only when absolutely stuck) so instead the final fight is actually quite difficult and was an absolute pain to finish, but succeed I did and of course got the bad ending because the day/night cycle is so frequent, I genuinely have no idea how even if you knew exactly where to go and what to do one could beat it in the time limit allowed to get the better endings, whatever.

I'm proud of myself for sticking with it but so, so happy to have that behind me.

Was there ever any of the inside story that came out why this one turned out the way it did? A lot of these NES tried to get too experimental with the second entry before the third one was like a "return to form" ala Zelda 2 and even Super Mario Bros 2 US to some degree (though that one is at least not a bad game)

 

[BadBurger]

I beat that game so many times on my ancient NES as a kid. I could basically beat the game on muscle memory. Great entry in that franchise.

 

[Badlucktroll]

I bet it when i did that password to get all the items

 

[CamHostage]

Could have been great (still wish there was a Konami left that could do a remake...), but yeah, lots of ideas and not enough actual content and execution. Incredibly unbalanced in level/dungeon layout and level grinding, so many items are practically useless, plus some translation errors on top of cryptic, intentionally-misleading clues tossed in to boot. A landmark game, but hard to play through these days IMO.

 

[Crispy Gamer]

Man I had that game on the Simon quest handheld back in the day lol good times I loved the music on nes

 

[Dev1lXYZ]

Waking up and playing this on Christmas Day was one of the best gaming experiences in my life. Games like it were gaining popularity at the time, so it was amazing. I have beaten it so many times over the years. Dracula at the end has a cool opening with the huge flame effect as his body was brought back together. I swear the man is wearing goggles and a flight cap

 

[Hollowpoint5557]

It was way too cryptic in what to do next. I think it's better to play now than it was back in the day when it released because after all this time it's obviously easier to find out what to do next than it was back then.

 

[Raven117]

An open world reimagining of this would be absolutely incredibke

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Much as with Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, people hated it because it tried something different.

The biggest issue with it was that the English localization was awful and some of the clues were so impossible to understand that literally needed a guide to know how to get some of the endings. And this was decades before the Internet existed.

 

[CamHostage]

Much as with Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, people hated it because it tried something different.

No, Zelda 2 was polished and complete, not much about it justified a reaction of "hate". Sure, it wasn't the Zelda people were expecting from its viewpoint or play systems or familiar mechanics, so there were complaints or confusion about that, but it was still a top-tier game in the action-platformer field and a successful pioneer of the action/RPG hybrid game design. (It also suffered from some limitations of the NES in its time, but the localization was obviously not plagued by a development team who wanted to add the extra complication of red herrings into an already convoluted English version.) Zelda 2 got freaking hard, that was something to hate for people accustomed to being able to beat a Nintendo game (which wasn't many yet, given how early it was, but the difficulty spikes were unnecessary and could have been ironed out,) but it's otherwise an undeniably great game today.

Castlevania 2 is based on the sound mechanics of the saga, and is a lot of fun to play as a whip-slinging action game, but a great deal of its frustrating choices justified some reactions of "hate". There are limited dungeons and repeating bosses, the power-ups are not all meaningful and have too much drawback of use, the puzzles are obtuse and confusing even without translation issues, the grinding is frustratingly penalizing, and the level design is rarely as strong as the original. (I actually think the jump mechanics are a little off in collisions, but I'm a C3 guy so maybe I just like that game's platforming accuracy best.) People who love it anyway or have great memories of what it does well would do well to cherish those memories, and people are welcome to enjoy it fresh today, but if you play it now, it's clear where it could have been better.

(I only recently played both with a NES Classic Edition and had played and enjoyed parts of both as a kid and wanted both but never owned either, so I came to both fresh and eager to finally finish each one.)

 

[Darkmakaimura]

An open world reimagining of this would be absolutely incredibke

Castlevania Curse of Darkness was sort of this.

I would like to see a new 2D game that has similar gameplay, i.e. traveling around the countryside while visiting different dungeons and castles. I was hoping Bloodstained would go that route in one of their games.

 

[Badlucktroll]

An open world reimagining of this would be absolutely incredibke

Yeah i thought so too. Why doesn’t Konami hire a studio like Neowiz or something to create it.

 

[fart town usa]

It's such an underappreciated game among the masses. Legit great and was a solid bang for your buck back in the day because it was so cryptic.

These days I have to use a guide but I still love it, easily one of my favorite Castlevania games and it was my favorite during my childhood.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

Man I had that game on the Simon quest handheld back in the day lol good times I loved the music on nes

I forgot to mention one positive thing about the game is the music is legit very good.

Waking up and playing this on Christmas Day was one of the best gaming experiences in my life. Games like it were gaining popularity at the time, so it was amazing. I have beaten it so many times over the years. Dracula at the end has a cool opening with the huge flame effect as his body was brought back together. I swear the man is wearing goggles and a flight cap

Dracula looks so weird, more like the Grim Reaper than the ol Bathead himself, maybe the intent was he supposed to look skeletal, like a zombie, but it also feels like it was a beta Grim Reaper model they reused at the last minute, pointing towards a rushed development.

An open world reimagining of this would be absolutely incredibke

I was thinking Castlevania as an open world Elden Ring type game would be amazing, alternatively, you could do Simon's Quest style one as "BOTW but Castlevania" basically.

No, Zelda 2 was polished and complete, not much about it justified a reaction of "hate". Sure, it wasn't the Zelda people were expecting from its viewpoint or play systems or familiar mechanics, so there were complaints or confusion about that, but it was still a top-tier game in the action-platformer field and a successful pioneer of the action/RPG hybrid game design. (It also suffered from some limitations of the NES in its time, but the localization was obviously not plagued by a development team who wanted to add the extra complication of red herrings into an already convoluted English version.) Zelda 2 got freaking hard, that was something to hate for people accustomed to being able to beat a Nintendo game (which wasn't many yet, given how early it was, but the difficulty spikes were unnecessary and could have been ironed out,) but it's otherwise an undeniably great game today.

Castlevania 2 is based on the sound mechanics of the saga, and is a lot of fun to play as a whip-slinging action game, but a great deal of its frustrating choices justified some reactions of "hate". There are limited dungeons and repeating bosses, the power-ups are not all meaningful and have too much drawback of use, the puzzles are obtuse and confusing even without translation issues, the grinding is frustratingly penalizing, and the level design is rarely as strong as the original. (I actually think the jump mechanics are a little off in collisions, but I'm a C3 guy so maybe I just like that game's platforming accuracy best.) People who love it anyway or have great memories of what it does well would do well to cherish those memories, and people are welcome to enjoy it fresh today, but if you play it now, it's clear where it could have been better.

(I only recently played both with a NES Classic Edition and had played and enjoyed parts of both as a kid and wanted both but never owned either, so I came to both fresh and eager to finally finish each one.)

Castlevania III is such a breath of fresh air after playing II.

I get back then they still wanted to innovate with games and 3 games in a similar style back to back would have felt too repetitive, but it's so nice they had the perfect excuse to return to form after II.

Castlevania Curse of Darkness was sort of this.

I would like to see a new 2D game that has similar gameplay, i.e. traveling around the countryside while visiting different dungeons and castles. I was hoping Bloodstained would go that route in one of their games.

The final "real" Castlevania game (the final one in the original continuity), Order of Ecclesia brings some elements of Simon's Quest back, a town hub with villagers you can talk to and buy from, a world map and levels like mansions.

What I wonder is if this was the influence of AVGN and his Castlevania II video, it sure felt it had to have been at the time coming out just a few years after everyone was talking about that video, but who knows whether IGA would have been aware of it in Japan, the timing feels like too much to be a coincidence, but does IGA even speak English?

It's not the only time the IGA era games referenced Simon's Quest, like finding Dracula body parts in Harmony of Dissonance, but it feels like too many to be coincidence for OoE, maybe even if IGA never saw the AVGN video firsthand, it got the Japanese internet talking about Simon's Quest, which in turn influence IGA to sort of "redo" it?

It's such an underappreciated game among the masses. Legit great and was a solid bang for your buck back in the day because it was so cryptic.

These days I have to use a guide but I still love it, easily one of my favorite Castlevania games and it was my favorite during my childhood.

The game has some charm, but after a point I just found it a slog and really wanted it to be over with.

It's interesting the way it anticipates the later "Metroidvania" games almost a decade ahead of schedule, but it's doubtful I'll have the patience to play the whole thing again.

 

[RickMasters]

I beat that game so many times on my ancient NES as a kid. I could basically beat the game on muscle memory. Great entry in that franchise.

That’s like me and the mega man games. Everything else feels easy after mega man

 

[RickMasters]

Does anybody else randomly hear the music from the first stage every now and again? I feel like I’m supposed to sample it and make a beat out of it or something…..