Is Castlevania II As Bad As They Say?
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- #castlevania2 #castlevania
Simon's Quest has garnered a lot of mixed opinions over the years. Is it another NES sequel that deserves the criticism it gets or is it simply a result of wasted potential?
Thank you for watching.
In this time it blew my mind. It felt like a big open world to explore. I loved trying to figure out which villagers were corrupted by evil and lying and which were telling the truth. It’s crude but it’s an idea that was ahead of its time. If you were playing this in the late 80’s you were having a good time
Thank you! Yeah, some of the Japanese to English translations were...off. Some things didn't make sense, BUT, we figured shit out. Sure, we got little bits of help from Nintendo Power. But the younger generations need everything spoon fed to them. Otherwise, apparently they call it "bad".
79' here, hells yeah.
I loved this game to bits, still do today. The atmosphere is forboding, most villages have an eerie feeling of desolation, cryptic messages making it hard to progress. The finale is a bit anti climactic but still remember dreading the long walk across the empty final castle
I have to also second this. This game felt so large and mysterious when it was current!
Edit: also, the sound track!
I remember seeing this game playing in a demo kiosk back in the day and being blown away that it had a night and day cycle.
I do enjoy this game. But more importantly we wouldn’t have had one of the greatest songs in NES history “Bloody Tears” without this game being made. An absolute classic!
Not technically true, but at the same time, hardly anyone played Haunted Castle. 😋
If you played it when it released you would love it, everyone did.
This revisionist history stuff is lame. This game sucks according to people who weren't alive when it came out, and are comparing it to games that used it's formula after the fact. The context is lost on them, and they likely played the whole thing with a guide so they never needed to backtrack or check every corner for themselves. Most of us played it along side out friends and had to talk shop at school about what they knew as it was a community event to beat games. They didn't experience any of this. Yes guides played a role, but NES players worked out alot of these games on their own due to patience and previous knowledge of gaming.
@@Lastjustice I blame AVGN, his sarcastic and (frankly he isnt that good at nintendo rage about how hard it was) set the tone for the whole next millennial generation. They did my boy dirty.
Absolutely. It was one of my favorite games on NES
This is gonna be essay length.
I don't want to parrot everyone else...but I will. You had to be there. Graphics. IDK anyone who every complained about graphics on anything. We came from a generation that had NO graphics for so long that ALL games looked like movies to us! They looked amazing! Our minds were very good at filling in the blanks and smoothing out the pixels. People only play games of this era now as speedruns. We lived in them! We were only a few years past text adventures for games with ANY depth. We had Atari games for things like Breakout and Asteroids but for any story you had things like Zork to play. You may have been playing Zork in middle school and Simon's Quest in High School!
People talk about how hard a lot of NES games are, well, we were fine with that! Sure we wanted to finish them but we wanted to play them for a year even though most can be completed in under an hour if you run through them.
Things like the kneeling cliff puzzle. It only took one kid to find out and then that knowledge got passed around and it felt special. ESPECIALLY to that one kid that first knew about it in your school. And OMG if you figured out something like that in a game?!?!? You were screaming, "NO WAY?!?! OMIGOD!!! NO WAY?!?! DO YOU SEE THIS?!?!" and calling your friends to come over and refusing to tell them why!
Figuring out the clues from the townsfolk. We were all playing Carmen Sandiego at school during the day and NES at night. We were used to this. We had a nose for it! I hate to be Gen-X, old man here but we thought different back then. Things were slower. We questioned authority a bit more, Gen-X wasn't as "gullible" as thinking Kanye is a clone cause we saw it in a TikTok video. Sure, we thought there was a member of New Kids on the Block guzzling man juice and getting his stomach pumped but it only took one look at them and you thought, "Yeah, I can see that!" But we automatically didn't believe the townsfolk!
Alternate endings were the same as the puzzles. We didn't know about them...until that one kid got one! You would usually beat the game, THEN see how fast you could do it once you knew how to impress your friends. Speedruns were ALWAYS a thing. Then you would do it quick, see the ending, and again, blow up! Tell all your friends, they said you were full of it, and they did it, and you were the playground hero again!
Again, you had to be there. These weren't the days of playing a ROM for 2 minutes and saying "this sucks" and playing something else. In today's money these carts were like $100 and you played that game, which was not a bad thing, cause you liked it!
Spot on. For being a horror fan this was like being in a Hammer movie with you in control. There was nothing like it at the time. I'd spend the night at my friend's over the weekend where we'd trade off the controller to see if the other player could do better.
Not all of our parents could afford Nintendo Power with maps. I used to play D&D and would graph out rough versions of the mansions.
You have look at the game as a product of it's time. No one had worked out the formula for metroidvanias yet. This game needed to happen to get there. This game made some massive strides toward creating a more openended game. Sure you played it with a guide, but most of us didn't out the gates and had to learn the game as it was presented to us. You were just going thru the paces following the checklist/script, and you likely didn't have as much fun doing it as people playing the game the first time did.
Getting stuck is part of the process you didn't get to experience. When you play with a guide that never happens. You didn't get to work out the game, and have that breakthru of learning the answers for yourself. You and your friends would talk about the game, and slowly get thru the game, as it was a community experience you did together. You didn't talk to the NPCs, so you basically didn't get feel the world of the game. So no wonderful you didn't enjoy the game as much as people who played in the late 80s and early 90s did.
While I will agree guides helped most of us complete the game, but we put in the work to learn the majority of it on our own. We weren't concerned about getting the best ending on our first playthrus because we didn't know there was multiple endings. That was something you did later as it gave the game replay value, as the game isn't that long complete , and you can use passwords to start with better weapons if you want. Most people who played this game liked it alot, as it really only gets dragged by people who weren't alive when it came out or played after the fact who lack the skills to take down oldschool games. (The AVGN isn't good at games, so it's weird people put stock in his takes on them.)
Well said.
I was born in 79, let me explain to you what you and every other genz reviewer is missing. The thing the AVGN was so mad about because he hates games like this.
We played it.
There are only so many items and so many dead ends and the hints were very vague but not too vague if you played as much as we did back then. (remember no internet, I played SQ for like hours and hours at a time) then when we figured out the two really hard ones (kneeling at the cliff and lake) we talked to kids at school about it. We would gossip about it and it was a real bonding experience.
The game feels bad today because years and years of game design knowledge and advancement has made this particular type of game feel the most broken to those raised with the newer concepts.
The idea of trying random items on every screen, or trying to trick jump on top of that very tall wall at one dead end to the west for hours turns modern gamers off hardcore but in the world where the alternative was mario brothers for the 100th time or other linear games this was novel and good.
Theres no comparing playing this now to when it was released. All my friends had it and we used to all find different secrets. Thats how we got thru the game. Also u dont need the whip for the blocks. U jump on the upward motion. Lastly the graphics and artwork are amazing. Top 3 game for me!!
I have a lot of nostalgia for this game. I think it's a classic and gets too much hate. I beat it about a month or so ago and had a blast. It's definitely flawed but I think it's got some really good things going for it such as graphics, atmosphere and music. Also, the flame whip is awesome.
Kid... look at everything else released that year, and the years before.
This game was foundational. My parents played it daily for over a month (I could hear it at night through the walls), and made sure that my brother and I got help when needed to beat it. It was a pretty damn cool game for it's period.
Then again, so was the Adventure of Link.
A terrible night for a review
Can we talk about this soundtrack? So good!
I beat this game when I was a kid. I didn't have to call a helpline or buy a Nintendo Power, or anything like that.
Hard disagree. But to each their own
The game is awesome and its only flaw are couple of puzzles that are near impossible to "just figure out" - especially since the translation sucked. One of them is obviously the whirlwind thingie with crystal selected and kneeling down. Other one is that place where you have to kneel down for a while in front of lake for the screen to shift and reveal stairs going down.
I played this game a lot as a kid and never finished since the puzzles. But I rally liked the fake blocks, destroyable blocks, dropping garlic at night at certain place. It always felt that theres tons of secrets I have not discovered.
“They”
“AVGN”
You keep calling it linear and say it gave you no reason to explore... because you went straight to the guides. I wish more youtubers would accurately consider the era if they want to make a legit review of retro games.
Say what you will about Simon's Quest, it is still the best Castlevania before Symphony of the Night.
Also the best Castlevania on a Nintendo pre-GBA
If you…
A. Take out 90% of invisible blocks
B. Clear translation
C. Mandatory bosses
It’s a top 5 game on the system.
Alas…
Invisible blocks are visible if you equip one of Dracula's items iirc.
@@Matisaro Might have meant the fake blocks?
I played this when it first came out as a kid. No, it wasn't that bad. Yes it sucked to lose all of your money or most of it when you died. And it was too cryptic. But it wasn't as bad as AVGN made it out to be.
I owned the original and I remember renting Simon's quest and being a little disappointed at how different it was from the original but I also had the Nintendo Power Simon's Quest edition so that certainly helped.
All the criticism of this game is valid, but I damn near lived in this thing as a child after I was done with homework and before my parents made dinner and watched the news. I either found the shit out by myself or we helped each other through schoolyard gossip (the original internet). I liked the grind and time sink because I bought it with saved up allowance over weeks, and it was damn sure worth 50 bucks. I only bought the NES mini to play this and the original Zelda again.
Also, not talking to NPCs loses a lot of its fun. Towards the end, there is one village where everyone hates you for pissing off Dracula in the first place, and another that is full of nothing but women who are trying to fuck you. Did I remember this from being a kid? Hell no. But adult me had a good laugh.
Nah, it's not that bad.
Nope. No guide. Didn’t have Nintendo Power. Just a constitution of steel and a whole crap ton of notebook paper! 😂 It took me like three years of playing it to beat it, though…
I LOVED this game back in the 80s. I do remember getting stuck for a very long time and someone else told me that I had to speak to the Ferry Man while holding Dracula's Heart (I think this was actually the ONLY tricky access that did not have an in-game tip somewhere). Now, I was always confused as to why the endings get WORSE the faster you beat the game...? The one with Dracula's hand clawing it's way out of his grave was the ending you get when beating it under 7 in-game days. The mid-ending shows Simon at Dracula's grave and he dies of his wounds. The best ending story-wise is black and white and seems to describe a successful end to the curse, but there may have been translation errors...
it's a great game. avgn is satire at best, there really weren't that many bad games on the NES. only notable ones would be x-men (which the AI runs your spare into an electric fence seconds after starting the first level) and a handful of japanese titles like hells bells that didn't transition too well.
Castlevania 2 is the best NES castlevania :-) it was basically symphony of the night with the tech of the day.
Honestly, I agree. I played all three NES games for the first time 5 years ago, and I legit had the most fun with 2. And yes, beat all 3
I can tell you how it went! This was one of my first games and I barely spoke English. I had to call the hotline for the ferryman, the river and the tornado. The rest was doable. Your first playthrough will take a ridiculously long time, but once you know it, it's incredibly easy to get the fastest time. I could do it without breaking a sweat now by skipping the thorn whip and buying an oak stake exiting every mansion to save time. It is not a great game by today's standard because it feels barren and there are not many bosses... but the lonely feeling it evokes is also unrivaled. Very atmospheric. And surely challenging enough for a child.
Next year “The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest” is coming out which is supposed to be a *Not* Castlevania 2 remake
I played the crap out of this game as a kid and I think if you ask people who were kids at the time, they’ll tell you that this was their first Castlevania game. Without this game, the series may not have taken off in America. Because we all played SQ first and wanted more so, we then got the first one.
This review is satire right? Nobody's out there sayin simon quest sucks.
I always appreciate a good video. I wanted to see if you had something to say that hadn’t been said. It’s funny to think that there wouldn’t have ever been a single Simon’s Quest video on you tube if it wasn’t for James, the AVGN. I never bothered to make my own video on this. I grew up with Simon’s Quest at its release. I played it before part 1. So for a while it was all I knew. James summed up everything I thought back then. There was no need to say anything else. I like how you did a your video as more of a tip and walkthrough.
This is just my opinion, but I think this is the best game in the entire series. It paved the way for other Castlevania games to be more open world like. It had a day and night cycle, a big open world that encouraged exploration, and very creepy and dark. The day and night cycle made it feel more realistic because it made it felt like the whole adventure didn't last just in one night. The open world was alive with NPCs and other towns and other places to fight in that encourages exploration and choices. The vibe of the whole game was dark, brooding, and mysterious that reminded me of Stephen King 's Salem's Lot paired with the sound track, oh man! No, this game was terrifying for the time. And Simon's new look was even better than the first one. He wasn't a half naked Conan clone running around without pants, but rather a knightly armor which made more sense for the era that the game took place. Lastly, for the premise of the curse placed on him by Dracula, when I was a kid, the curse was that he could never die like a normal human being. That was the reason why whenever the player dies, Simon would just continue right where he left off. It was meant to be a torturous existence for him. Like being in hell where you'd die over and over again without end. That was the reason for the unlimited continues. Well at least that's what I was told and how and why I imagined it. Sorry for the long winded comment, but I think that this game is really misunderstood and really ahead of it's time. But again this is just my opinion. Thanks to anyone that managed to conjure up the endurance to read this entire comment.
The MAJOR FLAW was simple: the final "castle". 🔥💩🔥 Seriously, how. HOW could they F that up so badly?! It could not *possibly* have been difficult to do the following:
1. Add a bunch of the toughest enemies all packed in tight (almost unfairly so).
2. Force you to do some hard platforming over water or lava or spikes whilst navigating enemies.
3. Make more usages of the holy water breaking bricks and revealing passageways.
4. Make "Dracula" less of a one-screen boss, allow you to scroll the screen L & R, and certainly NOT make him stun-lockable via the flame secondary.
Sure, sure, the fake bricks were already too stupid. Yes, the villagers were cryptic and useless. Of COURSE the day2night shift was poorly executed. But, whatever. Those could have easily been fixed or left alone.
"Guide games" weren't a thing in the 80s. Guides cost money, or maybe you were lucky enough to have friends who could give you tips. Either way, it wasn't cheating, so you didn't count it against the game for being cryptic. And while you can beat this game in a couple hours, back then it took 1-2 years and no one complained because we only had 15 NES cartridges and we savored them.
I actually loved this game. I’m a big rpg gamer. Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior were my favorite games at the time. Simon’s Quest is arguably the first Metroidvania game before SOTN. I also enjoyed the soundtrack to Simon’s Quest
Castlevania was one hard game at the time. Simon's Quest was super easy with codes but without codes going all the way through was fun. Only one that was nerve wrecking was Dracula's Curse that one was and still hard.
I actually have fond memories of this game. It was one of the first nes games my brother and I got as a kid.
What this game needed was a map screen.
I love the “it got favorable reviews at the time of its release” Shows reviews from Gamespot, IGN and Gametrailers (alright Famitsu and Nintendo Power were around in 88’) in all seriousness though I can see why modern gamers would find some of the praise surprising. There’s some seriously obnoxious problems with this game. Even in 88’ as a kid I was pulling my hair out over some of its issues. But there was always something uniquely special about it too, something that compelled me to come back to it again and again. For one it’s an incredibly ambitious game for its time as others have said. The aspects of the game that work, work really well. The poor localization and ambiguous nature of the level design do not help each other. That said, In a weird way it gave the game a mysterious quality that, as I said earlier, compelled me as a kid to keep coming back to it until I finally completed it. Playing the game the first few times without a guide was an invitation to madness. Of the NES trilogy I still think Castlevania 1 and 3 are the overall better games but I do have a fondness for Simons Quest all these years later- there’s definitely an appreciation for what the developers were trying to do with this game.
Simon's Quest was bad ass back then and still is.
Simons Quest might not be a 10/10 game but the sound track definitely is.
We had this home when we were kids. And since there was not that much games to play, we played the shit out of everything. Now as an adult I still know it back and forth, and I enjoy playing it every now and then. If I tried it the very first time today I might not like it
Nice video!
It is a great game. If you know what your doing.
You missed the best part: the music. It only has a few tracks. And they repeat, soooo much. But they were so good and awesome back in the day!
Simons quest is my all time favorite castlevania game
This was the best castelvania ever to be released
He said the ugliness of the game is a disappointment. But if you think about it, the game is meant to be a darker version of the first, just like majora’s mask.
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion... but I wholeheartedly disagree with almost everything you said in this video.
You couldn’t figure out where to GO! There was no continuing… you couldn’t know how to get the world wind… it was DEAD END….. as in end of game nothing else to do with no clue…. So a waste of $$…. If you know about the whirl wind… then it’s different BUT there was NO WAY to know that…it took my time with NO WAY TO WIN
9:50 It's not the whip. When you jump on these platforms while they are rising, you get extra upward momentum.
Maybe you just don't know how to play the game?
Why does he look like a Mortal Kombat character on that Nintendo cover?
Are you gonna cover the entire series?
Has anyone seen my pants?
I like this game
This game sucks
#iykyk
Worst game but it has one of the best music that even anime series uses..... bloody tears.