Newest Castlevania: Castlevania Belmont’s curse is already out. On the other hand, I play Konami’s Castlevania II - Belmont’s revenge (1991) on Gameboy for the first time. At least both games are Castlevania with Belmont’s word on the title. Heh!
I shouldn’t expect something grand from main menu on Gameboy’s game due to small screen on the console itself. But this main menu is done pretty well. I’m impressed. No option menu. There are only start and password. So, let’s just hit start.
Well. This is unusual for Castlevania game. I got to choose stage first. There are 4 castles here. I go with the top-left castle: Crystal Castle.
The control is pretty typical for Castlevania game. D-Pad to move the vampire slayer around. ‘A’ button to jump and ‘B’ button to swing whip forward. Holding up on D-pad and pressing ‘B’ button will activate sub-weapon such as axe like in the screenshot. What’s kind of new in this game is: the ability to climb rope. I think I know why there’s rope for this Castlevania game. It’s there to save space compared to stairs.
You can break candles to reveal coin for score, heart for sub-weapon ammo and power orb to upgrade the vampire-slayer whip. First upgrade changes the leather whip to chain whip with ball at the end which slightly longer. Second upgrade makes the whip has ability to shoot fireball. But you can only have 1 fireball on the screen at the time.
I accidentally, find extra life item by destroying wall above this door! Medic_mvm_loot_godlike02.wav
Dammit! Spiked wall tries to kill me. I can’t descend the rope fast enough to avoid getting spiked. Turns out, I can slide down the rope by holding down on D-pad and holding jump button.
There’s rope that leads to either top or bottom floor. On the bottom floor, I get hit by my bro in Magic Sword: the winged lizard man! If only I have diamond ring to bribe him into my side. So, bottom floor is not good. Let’s try top floor.
I choose the top floor which is safer route. It ends up in a room with rope that connect to both top or bottom route. So, either route will end up in this room. On the room, there’s a door to the left side that leads to this outdoor part with different music. Perhaps, boss is nearby.
After jumping through brittle blocks, I arrive at the first boss. It’s a wizard that summon thunder from cloud. The thunder will burn the ground for a while. Hitting the wizard head on is not the way to do it. You can only do damage if he’s in crystal form which before he materialized into human form and start summoning the thunder. The wizard is not horror staple or anything so it feels odd to me.
For the next stage, I pick the castle at left-bottom which is called Plant Castle. Once again, plant is not exactly horror staple but let’s see what they have here. I encounter hopping frog. I thought it was Castlevania’s staple fleaman but apparently not. Young me afraid of frog but that doesn’t mean it’s horror staple.
Then there are bats too. The fireball upgrade is really helpful to defeat bat that still hanging on ceiling before they fly around and thus harder to hit.
There’s no bone pillar, the Castlevania staple. Instead, we got this monster sentry that can fire orb in two angles. I always panic when fighting this monster because its projectile can reduce my whip upgrade by 1 level besides reducing my health. Although, you can destroy the projectile with your attack.
This is new skeleton enemy. He also has ability to climb on rope while throw bone. He will jump to other rope once he finishes throw a bone. So, you can ambush him with perfect timing.
Lucky, I find wall meat above the door. Whipping anywhere seems paid off. However, I never witness hidden item revealed in normal corner wall like in other Castlevania game. Maybe this game is meant for veteran player. As for me. I much preferred Super Castlevania IV on SNES where I can find chicken drumstick inside candle which is easier to find. It doesn’t heal as much as wall meat but it works quite well.
I arrive at this bridge section where giant eyeballs constantly roll along the bridge. If you instinctively whip the eyeball, it explodes and some part of bridge get destroyed in process. If you fall down to that floor full of vegetation, you will deal with the constantly spawned plant zombies while your jumping becomes weaker due to bad footing. So, I suggest you jump over the eyeball instead destroy it.
I encounter spiders in this section. This is quite neat part. You should let these spiders to descent at lowest height before killing them, so you can have more rope to climb. If the spider returns to the highest point after descending, they will shoot slow fireball at you.
The boss of this castle is this goat statues armed with trident. If you stand below one of them, they will drop down and you will get hit by the spike ceiling. You should stand on the center platform that constantly move up and down. Not only it’s the safest spot but also you can only hit the boss’ head by using it. The goat statues can fire 3-way fireballs from their mouth. You can whip the projectile along with their mouth. So far, this is the easiest boss.
Next, I choose Cloud Castle. There’s barely any hint of cloud in this castle. Only spikes. Including this spike floor that constantly move up and down.
I like this part where there are gears with moving belt that periodically change the direction. You need to calm and perspective when navigating these belts. There is also part with pulley that you need to climb on first chain, giving weight so the chain on the other side become pulled up. You need to time your jump correctly to reach the other chain.
The castle’s boss looks origin to the horror theme but what the heck is this, exactly? This boss should belong in Gradius or any shmup games. I was confused with the boss that I died quite fast here. Here’s the thing. The skeleton heads on upper and lower will alternatively transfer spinal bones to each other. The trajectory of the spinal bones is in parabolic curve. I mean in U-shape, with the curve’s peak at left side and the open ends at both skeleton heads. If you crouch in this spot like I do, you’re completely save. You can hit any of the head including the human face in center if you can reach it with the whip’s fireball.
On to the rock castle. The frogs are back. This time they ambush me from the hole in the wall. I don’t think that’s what real frog does. But what do I know about frogs other than I hate them because they make young me scared.
Demoman_paincrticialdeath02.wav. Right in the groin. There are these spikes that will shoot out after traffic-light kind of thing blinking. You have to jump on top of them to reach higher place.
Oh, come on! This is barely fair. This room was fine and all but suddenly become dark. There’s a pitfall right in front of me but I’m afraid I can’t jump over it because I can’t see it. Moreover, there’s rock bug enemy. He is chill as rock but when the light is out, he turns into harmful bug. Oh, I see. I’m not supposed to break candle. That makes sense but also counter instinctive because if you play Castlevania game, you should break candles for item. This is sudden test of holding your instinct and/or greediness. If you don’t break any candle around this part, you’re super fine.
What the heck! The steel bar part of the crusher hurts me as well? How does that make sense. I know that the game doesn’t allow me to walk on the crusher thus making the game too easy. But this still doesn’t make sense in logic context. So, I’m forced to walk on the floor and crouch whenever the crusher drops down.
Eventually, I encounter the castle boss. From someone reading Nintendo Power, this boss’ name is Clay Doll or something. At first, he’s not so bad to fight. He walks slowly and swings his sword overhead once in a while.
His armor falls off when his health is down to half. He becomes more dangerous because he’s faster and gain ability to shoot anime slash wave. He jumps around to left and right corner. As per usual skin contact with any enemy is lethal and this boss take advantage of it. What an irritating scumbag! The only way to avoid his skin contact is hanging on the rope like what I do here. But you have to jump out of the rope immediately after that because he like to jump and shoot the anime slash wave. I can’t dodge his sword slash by crouching because it hits me even though there’s quite big space between the sword and floor. There’s so little window of opportunity to hit him with whip because how long his sword is and also how slow this Belmont is. Luckily, I carry axe in this moment. It’s much easier to hit the bastard with axe that fly high and eventually land on either his head or feet.
Once all castle destroyed, the Dracula’s castle emerges from the lake at the center of the map. Demoman_sf12_badmagic10
Drac has some good taste for artistic statue. It should belong in outdoor of Versailles Palace or something. There’s new enemy: It’s mini Death or just some hooded guy armed sickle on each of his hand. He throws the sickle either middle or low height. However, the sickle returns in the opposite height from the initial flight. It’s quite clever design for enemy’s attack.
The spikes with traffic light are back. But now, I have to time the fall correctly into that moving platform below. Otherwise, I fall to my death.
Another branching path. I have learned my lesson so I take the upper route this time.
This is more complicated platforming section with the traffic lighted-spikes. This time I have to jump on them twice in order to reach that rope. You can take that moving platform to the right corner. But as far as I know, it’s not worth place to visit. You can only get a heart item from candle over there.
After a room beyond the one in previous screenshot, I’m return to the branching path? I try move to right but no response. So, I try to climb up 3 rooms like before and I arrive at this room with branching path. Sniper_sf13_magic_reac01.wav
So, I have to take the lower route and keep climbing rope downward until I meet this room that I never seen before. I make progress but I hate to encounter the 2 head pillars that can reduce my whip power.
The boss is skeleton dragon which feels home at Castlevania game. But he flies from creeks in either floor or ceiling which is unusual. The usual boss fight would be he flies around in open area with some hanging platforms for me to jump around. That’s just my theory. Anyway, the screen constantly moves to the right and quite often there’s moment where there are 4 creeks on the screen. For the first and second routine, you will be safe if you run on the left edge of the screen. But other time the dragon will appear on the most right so you must not stand there. You can only hit the boss on the head.
So, there’s like transition map on Dracula Castle like in Wily’s base in any Megaman. Come to think of it, I think this Castlevania game adopt things from Megaman with level select and final level appears after finishing all levels! I hope I don’t need to deal with yellow devil, then.
Here’s another section with blasted crusher. I came from left bottom corner. I have to go to the rope on left top corner but how do I get there when this stupid crusher is in the way. Turns out, the steel bar makes a hit sound when I whip it so I can destroy it and proceed to that platform! The crusher permanently down but who cares?
The vertical conveyor belts are back. I’m glad they are here too.
Who the heck is this bastard? He wants to revive Dracula and he called me father? Wait! What?
He does have whip and he’s not afraid to use it against me. He can also throw daggers in diagonal direction that later fall straight down or fly in other direction. I should keep the axe for this boss fight. It makes my life easier. Actually, I always prefer axe in any situation. I don’t like holy water that much. I think I blame Ghost n Goblin games for hating weapon that create flame on ground.
Like in any anime or game, the mind control worn off as I beat up the recipient. Of course, this Belmont junior’s mind is under mind control by Dracula himself. If Richter Belmont who’s acclaimed to be the strongest vampire hunter can be taken under control by Dracula, why not this minor Belmont too. It’s revealed that Dracula can’t use the junior’s power to revive himself so he uses the power of the castle spirits. Castle spirits? Does it mean those bosses I fought are the castle spirits? So, I’m helping revival of Dracula? But to be fair, they attack me first so it’s self-defense. You can’t totally blame me.
Off we go to do our main objective: defeating Dracula. I like these skeleton statues. They’re so artistic.
Here’s the Drac himself. Hey! That’s not your usual attack pattern. The villain still teleporting around randomly but the projectiles are very unusual. They’re no longer simple fireball or something like that. They’re bunch of eyeballs that shoot out while circling in clockwise motion. They’re so hard to dodge! >m<
I died several times just to learn how to dodge these bloody eyeballs. I learn few things, at least. If Drac is on my right, I can dodge the projectiles by jumping toward him when I hear the sound of projectiles being shot out. If Drac is on my left, I have to move to the right corner as soon as possible. Hopefully, I can dodge the projectiles. They not only have bad pattern but also too fast for this Belmont. I wish he moves 25% faster. I also wish I can move on to the floor on bottom corners but the only I can get into it by getting hit by Drac’s projectile. The fight will be fairer if I can drop down to that corner by holding down on D-Pad and pressing jump button but no. On the other hand, it’s hard to hit Drac. I can only inflict 2 blocks of damage on him by whipping his head and the window opportunity for that is minuscule due to his projectiles and how fast he teleports away. Unless blocked by his projectiles, I can hit his head with the fireball. Luckily, Drac only has 1 phase in this fight.
“With the combined power of Christopher and Soleiyu, Dracula is defeated”. What are you talking about, game? Soleiyu the traitor does nothing to defeat Dracula. Instead, he does the opposite, clearly. Soleiyu must be grounded along with some whip punishment. The whip’s use is not only to exterminate Dracula and his minions, you see. Thus, the end of this era Belmont’s story. The end. Then the game loops to stage select. I pass.
Konami’s Castlevania II - Belmont’s revenge (1991) is okay game, I guess. But that’s opinion comes from someone who is not expert at Castlevania games. My main complaint is how sluggish Christoper Belmont is. His slow speed is not up to task to dodge enemy’s attack in later games. His movement speed should be 25% faster as it is. Might as well as put ability to drop down platform to ease things up. Other than that, the gameplay is fine. Although I wish there’s more health refill item but that’s just me being sub-standard Castlevania player. I like the fireball upgrade on the whip. The projectile is useful. Unlike in -say- Castlevania Bloodline on Sega Genesis, where the whip upgrade is basically just keep adding attack power on the whip. There are only 2 sub-weapons in this game: axe and holy water. Or in Japanese version, the axe is replaced with flying-like-boomerang cross. I’m glad I play this version because I always like the axe. Some of bosses required bit of nerf in my opinion. I’m talking about the clay doll and Drac himself. The game is pretty short for Castlevania game and you can continue your progress with password which is very nice of Konami. On top of that, you can get extra life if your score reaches certain points. Sadly, there’s not many of mainstay adversary of Castlevania such as medusa head, axe armor, or Frankenstein’s monster. Same complaint also goes to the music. There’s no Bloody Tear or anything like that. So, the music in this game is not that memorable. The sound effect is adequate.
Castlevania II - Belmont’s revenge (1991) is short but also quite hard game. I don’t know many other Castlevania game on Gameboy, so I give this game A rank recommendation for Castlevania Gameboy game. I could be wrong though.
Note: I know this is November but I decide to extend the Halloween-theme review longer. I hope you’re happy about this news. Take it as compensation for my business in October because I worked on Zoids Legacy achievement to mastery, review Gunstar Heroes, and then there’s SpringRO.
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