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In Castlevania II, a curse has filled the land of Transylvania since the last time Dracula was defeated. You embark on a quest as Simon Belmont to gather Dracula's parts in order to resurrect him and defeat him again to rid the curse. The game is a side scrolling action-adventure, with role-playing elements. It alternates between day and night about every 7 minutes. During the day, you will come across towns where you can gather clues and information from the town's folk about where to find Dracula's parts, hidden castles, and other goodies. You will have to buy weapon upgrades, and other items with hearts that enemies drop after being defeated. In most towns there is a healer in the church that can refill your health. At night, all the people go inside and lock their doors while evil creatures terrorize the neighborhood. This is a good time to start racking up hearts, because although the enemies take twice as many hits to kill, they also pay out twice as much. Compared to other Castlevania titles, this is one of the easiest to get through because of unlimited lives, but you probably won't make it the first time without consulting a walk through. Knowing where to go or what to do next isn't always obvious and can sometimes be very frustrating. At least with unlimited lives, you can keep trudging on until you eventually figure out what you need to do, or you summon the aforementioned walk through on the internet. There is also a password feature to save your progress. The music is some of the most memorable of the NES era. The songs are catchy and capture the mood of the game very well. Castlevania II is one of my favorite NES games, and one of my favorite games of all time for that matter. -Joe EnriquezRead full review
Castlevania II was the perfect game to play in 1988. Sitting in your basement with your NES, accompanied by a couple of friends and copy of Nintendo Power – together deciphering the game's cryptic clues and passing the controller around the room to help lessen the boredom of the tedious parts. It was a game tailor-made for what the culture of being a Nintendo gamer was, 20 years ago. But removed from that context, it's lost some of its original appeal. While the first Castlevania was a linear adventure, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest took the series in a new, free-roaming direction. Similar to the style first seen in Nintendo's Metroid, it was the first time Konami's vampire-hunting series tried its hand at a go-anywhere, fully interconnected game world – which is important, today, because that's how the core Castlevania series has continued to evolve over the years. It was a rough first step in that bold new direction, though, because while Castlevania II's attempt to present an open-ended, explorable Transylvanian countryside was daring, it also came across as incredibly confusing. You don't know which way to go. Or when to go which way. Or what to do when you do get there – wherever there is. The story of Simon's Quest is that our hero, Simon Belmont, was cursed by Dracula at the end of their last encounter and that Simon must reunite the Count's scattered body parts to resurrect the dark lord, then kill him all over again. And that's all well and good, but, in-game, there isn't sufficient information presented to you to tell you where those body parts are. Or how to acquire them when you do manage to find them. You were in good shape, in 1988, if you had your friends and your Nintendo Power at the ready – because the gaming guides and general collective knowledge of other players in that age were the perfect solution. And, again today, you can try to reclaim some of that bygone era by pointing your browser to a walkthrough or FAQ. But it's not the same. Advancing through Simon's Quest means knowing abstract answers to obtuse riddles, like how to summon the boatman to take you across the lake. Or what crystal to equip to summon the tornado. Or how to destroy the orb encasing Dracula's rib. And even if the extreme lack of direction in the game isn't an issue for you, there are still several other potentially frustrating elements introduced here that you'll need to adapt to – like the monotonous money-gathering required when you need to purchase new items or weapons from hidden shopkeepers, and random holes in labyrinth floors that look like they should be perfectly solid surfaces to walk across. Additionally, an ever-present night/day time progression system randomly asserts, every few minutes, that evening has either fallen or been banished by the rising sun – when it's night time, enemies are twice as strong and townspeople, including healers, disappear. What Castlevania II does right, though, is be a Castlevania game. In look and feel, in control and especially in its audio presentation, Simon's Quest is a true entry into the franchise series – Simon Belmont is once again the hero, he's once again wielding his whip and jumping, stiffly, through the air with unalterable trajectory, and his soundtrack is still absolutely amazing. This sequel's score is especially impressive for its introduction of Bloody Tears, the song that has gone on to become one of the signature musical pieces for the entire series.Read full review
This is a perfect example of a game so bad it's good. They did a lot of new things with Simon's quest and it may be the first game to implement a day night cycle. But that same day/night cycle constantly interrupts gameplay, dropping you into pits you're already likely to die to. In addition, the quests you're meant to accomplish are ambiguous at best, with very little explanation, and it's easy to get lost or have no idea how to proceed. To me it's an important addition to any collection, not to be overlooked or underestimated, but it's also not very much fun to play.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
This game truly is proabably the greatest Castlevania game that came out for the NES. Unlike Castlevania 1 and 3 (Dracula's Curse) it's not simply just going through level after level and defeating bosses at the end, granted I'm a fan of the other two as well. This game is more like Metroid in that you have to explore and find items to advance in the game and can go wherever your current equipment allows you to. I read another review that called it a half assed rpg... well that's just not fair! Read on! It has a Legend of Zelda element to it (Adventrues of Link NES, Link to the Past, SNES and Ocarina of time, N64, in which you talk to people to find out information and how to get items or clues as to how to find a mansion or to get past a place that is seemingly a dead end. A cool element of this game is that it changes from night to day ("What a terrible night to have a curese"). The night time enemies are tougher, thus the curse. There a franchise favorites in this one (holy water, daggers and chain whip...even a fire whip!) and the idea of the game is to find the various mansions and collect the pieces of Dracula each with on in them (heart, nail, rib...this which can be uses as a shield). Do you remember the Nintendo Power cover for this game? It was truly awesome! Apparently it was controversial. A lot of parents were writing in and complaining saying it wasn't suitable for their kids and that they were having nightmares... (It was of Simon holding Dracula's head by the hair clutched in his fist). The music in this game is great too. This is truly one of the scarier games of its time. Not only does the content of the game lend to that, but the music does a great job to help as well. There are going to be a couple times while playing this game that you just won't know what the hell you're supposed to do next... There are a lot of little subtle hints you'll haev to pick up on to advance in some areas. I remember a lot of them from when I was a kid basically growing up with this game. My dad would play this game quite a bit too, which is how I became aware of what to do in some of the parts. This game is an on going epic kind of game, but there is no save battery for this one, it's all continue by password, and the passwords are mighty long. That's the only drawback to this game, though personally I prefer the password thing over save batteries in NES games as they've been known to fail over time. Unless you're good with a soldering iron or even would know how to go about such an endeavor, passwords are great in this instance! The only thing I'd suggest is taking your time and looking over what you copied down a couple of times before shutting off the system. There is nothing more frustrating after putting in hours upon hours/day/weeks/months into a game only to have all of your hard work obliterated. I'd also suggest making a distinguishhing mark between your S's and 5's and also for your 2's and Z's. That should go without saying as to why. The password music is awesome though. I can hear it in my head right now. Haha! Oh, and the music against Dracula is pretty cool too. As I recall the final battle isn't too tough, it's getting there that is the hard part though. Although I do remember quite a bit from this game, I'm sure it will not be a walk in the park by any means. It's been quite a long time since I've played, but it's a classic that absolutely should be in any classic gamers collection!Read full review
Castlevania 2 is notorious for being pretty much the worst Castlevania game made, by most folks standards. Nevertheless, I had to have it to try to complete my collection. Don't get me wrong,I'm still had tons of fun playing it but yeah they swayed from the formula and the result is..... A crafty RPG slash 2D side-scroller piece of junk LOL
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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