The game that started it all! Well not really since most of the Castlevania games are born of SotN, but hey, I've never played this game beyond maybe the second level, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Simon's Quest was a favorite of mine when I was younger, and I loved Dracula's Curse despite not owning it, so it's about time I gave this one a go.
Okay, so the intro screen isn't as good as III or IV's, but II didn't even have one, and this is the first, so we can give it some leeway. Right off the bat you're in the castle. I never liked that most of the games make you stay only in the castle because the outdoor areas in Simon's Quest are so awesome, but I suppose they need to be true to the franchise title.
The game quickly introduces you to the trick to finding secrets: whip every block you can. In the first room, there is a candle you have to jump to hit, and when you do this, you'll also break some bricks that drop a powerup or health or something. Hey, this is kind of like Mario!
The game never taught me what the roman numerals are for however. I figured pressing the select button while I had one would do something since the select button is usually for weird stuff like that, but I could not figure out anyway to activate these things or any bonus attributes they give me. I guess I would have to read the manual to find out.
Remember in Simon's Quest when you had to duck at Deborah Cliff or some such nonsense to get picked up by a tornado, and who the hell was supposed to figure that out but it didn't matter because we all had Nintendo Power anyways? Well this seems to be the start of it. You can break a block here and get down to a ledge, but you can't do much down there. If you duck, however, a 1,000 point flashing bag appears. Get it quick because those things like to disappear in the time it takes to snap a screenshot.
Alright the map screen. I can't change my path or anything, and it looks shitty, but it's good to know that Simon was thinking ahead when he set out to slay Dracula. The tattered edges suggest that this boxy map has been passed down through the Belmont family for generations. Luckily Simon's ancestors remembered to mark off where the bosses hang out.
Here's another trick where you have to duck to get the good stuff to appear. At first you think you're getting ripped off with an empty hollow wall, but if you go in there and duck (or prayer or whatever it is they say in Simon's Quest) you'll get... a crown! Yes, worth 2,000 points this time! I think getting extra points might net you an extra life because I did get an extra life out of the blue at one point, but I can't be sure.
This picture is important because it marks the introduction of my most despised Castlevania enemy, the floating medusa head. The fleaman might be more annoying in this game, but he becomes a pushover in the rest, as the medusa heads only get more annoying.
Uh oh. I braced myself for the worst when I got here, but there are only three spike presses, and I only died once. They never return, there are no enemies giving you a hard time as you make your way through, only some candles to tempt you which will probably just get yourself killed though. In the other Castlevania's the candles between the spike presses would be easy to get, but in this game, your whip doesn't hit iinside your own sprite, so if you are standing so that the candle sprite is ecclipsed by your Simon sprite, you won't break it open.
This is about when I started to hate the game. It starts to get really cool by dumping you down into the basement dungeon of the castle, but riding the floating platforms is much tickier than I wanted it to be. I continued so many times. See those skulls that look like they make up a thing you can step on? No, that's just background, so don't try to walk on them. And see those stalagtites? Well you better duck because if you don't you're going to have to do that goddamn section over again.
I pressed on and eventually made it to death, but the game just gets too hard for me here and I had to start save state cheating. Even then it took me a while to beat Death. I mean, I guess yeah, it would probably be pretty hard, and it once again raises the question of why the hell Death isn't running the show around these parts. Shouldn't Dracula be his bitch? If you toss enough holy crosses at this guy he'll drop, just make sure to keep destroying the reapers because they accrue and when there are more than two on the screen, you're probably going to get hit. Death wins hands down for best sprite in the game.
Wow. Worst Dracula sprite possible I think. Apparently he is not beautiful, but instead he has a gigantic nose and chin with purple skin. Worst than that, he's a really shitty last boss. Every boss up to Dracula was sort of fun and fair, but he's a bitch. He disappears and reappears, but you never know where he's going to reappear, and if he reappears on top of you, you're going to take damage. When he's in his second form he jumps back and forth, and you have to run under him, but you can only make it under if he decides to jump a little higher. Even the boring Simon's Quest Dracula is much better than this one.
Oh you jokers.
Oh ho ho! Konami has quite the funny bone!
Whoops.
No, thank YOU, Konami.
lol lonely game:
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