Why Everyone* Was Wrong About Castlevania II: Simon's Quest!
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- Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
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CASTLEVANIA II: SIMON’S QUEST RETROSPECTIVE: Why Everyone* Was Wrong About Simon’s Quest
#SimonsQuest #Castlevania #SimonsQuestRetrospective
Common Gamer Knowledge: Castlevania is a masterpiece, and Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest is a disgrace of a sequel, a steaming pile of diarrhea dookie farts, and only with Castlevania III, Konami course corrected to make a “proper” sequel.
It’s hogwash, and largely the result of the massive influence of early video essayists and UA-cam game critics that has invaded and usurped the collective unconscious.
Time to talk about Simon’s Quest and how incredibly forward thinking, innovative and trailblazing it really was when it came out in 1987.
* The Asterisk in the title:
A lot of people were actually right about it. Game Journalists at the time and the player base at large really revered this game for what it was. Until the UA-cam Hivemind took hold.
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You should play infernax it's pretty similar to this game and zelda 2 it's to this game what tunic is to the first zelda
now do the same for 64
I actually picked up and beat this game for the first time ever after watching this yesterday. All I one sitting. First time playing the game too.
Thx for the inspiration Ragnar 💜
I’d like to point out the irony in ribbing on all of the angry UA-camrs that followed AVGN’s example, while making The 1,396,465 video about how AVGN ruined game reviews
I can't help but be charmed by the line "What a horrible night to have a curse."
It’s vaguely nonsensical but definitely charming in its brevity. And like, would ANY night be kinda horrible to have a curse? So glad these bad translations exist.
Dun dun dun DUN dun dun...
@@ASSLEVANIA being a werewolf or a vampire are pretty sweet curses
@Broomer52 yeah but you gotta give up garlic bread
@@ASSLEVANIAwell I guess a night where you have to storm Dracula's castle is particularly bad, curse-wise
im reminded of the opening minute from when the grumps did their lets play of simons quest:
Danny: "welcome to Simon's Quest! The game I loved as a child, and Arin shit on as an adult!"
nuff said lol
Arin Hanson has always come across as very arrogant and narcissistic to me.
my mom has told me when I was a wee bab she and my dad would put me between them as they couch co-op'd Simon's Quest lol
Cool parents
Family goals fr
I was born the same year as Castlevania first released so when you said it's nearly 4 decades old, that did major emotional damage
I know right, I'm 2 years behind( ahead '88?) Ya
I was born the same year the original Ghostbusters came out....
Don't feel so bad. I was born before the first game in '87. I remember renting this when it was brand new from the video store.
I know your pain, friend. I'm 37 next month. Who hit the fast forward button on the flow of time, I want words with them.
NINTENDO: Mario is officially 37 years old :)
ME, BORN THE SAME YEAR AS DONKEY KONG: No he's fucking not
My biggest problem is while the world before reaching the dungeon is swell enough the dungeons themselves are underwhelming and the bosses seem unfinished.
I do like the concept of Simon quest and maybe an other game that pushes the idea even further.
There's a Castlevania fangame called Castlevania: The Lecarde Chronicles 2 that does feel like a more fully-realized version of Simon's Quest.
Infernax is what you're looking for.
@@RiflemanIII I mean there is also Castlevania Chronicles II - Simons Quest Fangame that's a straight up upgrade of Simon's quest.
I can't remember the bosses except for the Grim Reaper that was similar to the first game's. And I can't remember much at all about the dungeons, either. This is why I say this game wasn't actually fun to play. It had objectives, and sense of accomplishment, but it was not fun in the moment like a Mario game for instance. Games like this which worked better for the NES had more varied weapons and game play: Mario 3, Zelda 1 and 2, Blaster Master, Mega Man. They also allowed for more expressive movement.
@@-taz- "I can't remember the bosses except for the Grim Reaper" That's probably because you could literally walk straight through their fights and not engage with them at all.
12:51 Ah Sequelitis. The short-lived franchise where Egoraptor insisted tutorials were completely unnecessary in game design... and then spent the next decade and a half of his career as a professional LP'er proving that premise astonishingly wrong.
Granted there's a fair number of points in sequelitis that I don't agree with, but what you said is put forth either entirely in ignorance or bad faith. Arin used the example of conveyance in Mega Man X to show how a tutorial could be integrated into the gameplay seamlessly. The entire point is that most (nearly all) games **don't** do this, and settle for telling you all the mechanics in long dialogue boxes or with a splash screen, which means that simply playing the game without the reading the tutorial isn't possible, even for someone with a high degree of gaming experience and literacy like Arin. His refusal to read tutorials is done in the hope that one day, tutorials in their current form, won't be necessary, because that's when we'll have well-designed opening levels. Granted, there are perhaps mechanics that can't be taught just through playing a beautifully constructed introduction, such as in RPGs/RTS/Fighting, and other more complex genres, but we can still do a lot better than we've done for the past 40 years.
@@agroed yeah but the guy won't even read the text boxes indicating what the buttons in the controller do and then rage when he discovers half-way through the playthrough that he had an ability at his disposal that he never used, there's certain things that a designer can usually count on the player reading.
I mean, it took Arin how many games to learn and remember that he could keep the boost button pressed down to run through enemies in Sonic games?
@@axelprino Saying this as someone who has watched Game Grumps religiously for nearly 10 years, I absolutely agree that he refuses to meet developers halfway, and a lot of his frustration is self-inflicted due to negligence. He is oftentimes an excellent example that you can certainly play video games the "wrong" way, plus it can be hard to tell when he's doing it for content or out of genuine disdain/stupidity, but that's also what makes it funny for a lot of people. There's also plenty of times that frustration could be avoided with a better control scheme or better-integrated tutorial though, and that's his point. For example, I was recently playing DKC for the first time and didn't know the controls (they don't tell you anywhere in-game to my knowledge). I was getting annoyed at a jump in Temple Tempest because I couldn't figure out how to clear the last jump with the Gnawty millstone, I was always too short, even with Diddy. Turns out, I didn't know how to sprint for the whole game, because you sprint by rolling first, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Sprinting isn't a natural evolution of rolling, ergo it doesn't make sense to sprint by holding down the roll button. By contrast, charging up your buster by holding down the buster button does make sense. Meanwhile, sprint could have just been mapped to one of the unused facebuttons to avoid confusion.
I remember when those videos were new and hot shit and the kind of thing everyone was like *supposed* to see, but at the time feeling the arguments in them were kinda off but in a way childhood me couldn't put a finger on. For whatever reason my mind absolutely refused to let it go and those old videos have been slowly rotting in my mind for over a decade as this weirdly omnipresent annoyance every time I think about Zelda or Megaman.
@@agroed oh, I never thought about it but I believe you're right in that DKC1 never bothers to explain how to sprint in-game.
It's a combination of back then games expecting you to read the manual that came in the box and DKC lifting a number of its mechanics straight from SMB 1&3 (in those run and attack share the same button). So yeah some design practices from 30+ years ago haven't aged all that well.
If you liked DKC1 I can wholeheartedly recommend DKC3, it's by far the most polished in the trilogy and my personal favorite but it gets often forgotten because it came out really late in the SNES' life cycle.
Simon's Quest features a time limit, in which Simon must remove the cures within seven days in order to get the good ending. Wasting the players time to gather hearts and buy upgrades is very much the point, the player is going to need to budget their time and find an optimal route through the game if they want to clear it within that 7 day time limit. For all the problems that Simon's Quest has, using the temptation of grinding to eat away at the limited time the player has to complete the game was an absolute stroke of genius.
When the game was released people didn't know there were different endings. I remember when the equivalent of Nintendo Power in my country stated they heard a rumour that there are different endings in the game and they were investigating it.
I never understood this as a kid. That actually is brilliant
That's nice and all, but that's only really useful for later playthroughs once you realize, of ever, that there's multiple endings to begin with. I know that nowadays it's immensely easy to know that beforehand, but if I were a kid in 87 playing this, I doubt that'd be on the top of my list of things to really think about.
Castlevania II was and still is my favorite Castlevania game.
But the timer doesn't advance while you're in a mansion or house, so you can grind in the mansions as much as you want and still get the good ending.
Here's the thing about the original AVGN review. As someone who grew up loving Simon's Quest, I saw the review as a purposely playful bash at the frustrations of a beloved game. I even remember seeing James Rolfe having said as much, though I think it's been lost to time, so I couldn't provide you a source. So I thought the review was hilarious as someone who thought he was "in on the joke." But now there are plenty of people who either haven't played it, or whose modern perceptions of it have been skewed who've, as you said, take all the criticisms at face value.
So despite having laughed at this new Angry Nintendo Nerd guy's review, I still always went back to playing Simon's Quest through again every year or so because it really was a great game to play. I'm also excited whenever I see something like a fan remake of it so I can enjoy it again with a more modern take.
Exactly. He did make fun of a few great games that just have some really bad aspects. I'm cool with it.
He definatly mentioned that he actually liked the game, your right.
You obviously didn't play it before walkthoughs either. YOU NEEDED NINTENDO POWER TO PROGRESS, NO WHERE IN THE FKN GAME DID THEY SAY TAKE THIS FKN CRYSTAL! SHOVE IT UP YOUR ARSE AND KNEEL IN THE WEST OR LEFT CORNER AND WAIT!
@@dreadequation7320 are you okay?
Couldn't understand a single thing that was happening in this game (I was 5 at the time without any understanding of english), but it was the first time I felt that oppressive atmosphere of venturing into the unknown.
Don't worry, the game didn't make much more sense in English with the original translation even to native speakers.
Simon's Quest is one of my favorites, always has been. Dark Souls 2 also gets a bad rap. Opinions of others, while sometimes valuable, should be verified by oneself.
the critics made good points. the holy water mechanic was kind of lame, each of the mansions should have at the very least had a boss that was non-optional, the use of crystals to progress genuinely was cryptic, and the final castle/boss was a joke. still one of my favorites but it could've been so much more.
Cryptic? The game never told you how to use the crystal you needed Nintendo power to find out.
Yeah a crack on breakable blocks like zelda would make a world of difference
Truly appreciating something, means acknowledging the flaws and greatness in something
I haven't seen the Nerd's review in ages, but I thought he made fun of the game's flaws. I didn't think he regarded it as a total peice of junk, like those other games he showed. I even enjoyed Top Gun at the time, but always crashed my landings for no clear reason, so he was right about that!
Thought once I liked something, it became perfect?
I absolutely agree that the game, minus setbacks due to translation errors, is a pioneer in the genre. But you can’t disregard the fact on how insurmountable it was to progress without modern knowledge of fan translations or available walkthroughs. Simon’s Quest as a whole is a fantastic addition, but when basic progression is hindered to even get the very first orb (equip that oak stake, which you’re supposed to know that, how?) you have to realize that there were unsurpassable mountains for those without access to readily available knowledge on the matter
I played it when it was new as a kid. like, yeah, the poor translation certainly made things weird, but the internet did not exist, there were no fan translations, and I beat it as a 7 year old.
I would disagree with the assessment that it was "insurmountable." I'd agree it was definitely obtuse, but honestly, it wasn't that much more obtuse than a lot of other contemporary games. metroid was not exactly straightforward in 1987, it explains almost nothing to the player, but it's not retroactively considered some sort of esoteric impossibility.
I played it as a kid when it was released and I didn’t have an issue beating it.
The devs are probably speculating about kids talking about the game on the schoolyard, and one kid who has by chance equipped this and that item and succeeded would tell the others. Either that, or video game magazines which often had hints at the time.
Games came with manuals back then to give a more in depth story and how-tos. Sometimes even small walkthroughs for early in the game. Didn't help with the kneel at the mountain, but helped with said oak stake.
Lol tons of us played and beat Simon's Quest upon release. You're trippin
What i remember from Simons quest is that most people in my country werent good enough at english or used to read and remember the text boxes. They had demo stations outside the toystore and it was probably the worst way to experience the game getting stuck and not knowing what npc to talk to advance
The English translation wasn't very good either. The game was less cryptic in Japanese
The English translation might as well be unhinged scribbles by asylum inmates.
I remember yelling aloud my first time playing Dark Souls: 'This is Simon's Quest!'
This is my favorite game of the series on atmosphere alone. The world feels immersive where the Actionvanias all FEEL like levels (which is fine for what they are) and the Metroidvanias all have areas that literally feel like texture swapped levels with randomly chosen enemies in them instead of real areas with dedicated thematic enemies.
I was hoping the author would touch on this, particularly with the Dark Souls comparisons. Both absolutely thrive on *mood* and I can't recall any game from that era absolutely nailing that sense of dreary, depressing mood, where the only light shining is your will to go on.
"areas that literally feel like texture swapped levels with randomly chosen enemies instead of real areas with dedicated thematic enemies"
lol on what planet does that describe the igavanias and not Simon's quest
They were wrong about Dark Souls 2 video next
HBomber already did that.
@@sonicpsycho13 Eh... He didn't do that great of a job to be honest.
@@sonicpsycho13 A poor job. Dark Souls II is a critically flawed game. I hate the very way it feels to control.
Dark Souls 2 is much more deeply flawed than Castlevania 2 ever was.
But, everyone was right about dark souls 2
The version of the game you are showing was rebuilt and remade, fixing a lot of the frustrating aspects of the original, which had horrible missteps in it. The clues were horrible, the transitions were slow from day to night, and a lot of people thought the game made no sense.
Simon's Quest is mediocre at best. I remember the first time I go to the final dungeon (which is entirely empty for some reason, save the final boss). I equipped the Golden Knife to be ready for the boss fight, saw the final boss, threw a knife, the boss got stunned, threw another knife, the boss was still stunned, threw more knives, and the boss died before it even had a chance to move.
The exploration stuff was neat, the in-game clues were bad, and the boss AI was trash. At least the music and atmosphere were good.
Dracula's mansion is barren, because you decimated it in the first game, so there are monsters everywhere but the place you demolished, the last time. I honestly can't remember if that was in game, or the accompanying writing, but it was covered.
As for the gold knife, versus any other weapon... it happens. Most people were not that prepared. I beat Link’s Awakening with the boomerang equipped, coincidentally. That turned the last boss into 1 single hit. Instead of, like, 18(?), or ~9 with arrows. I accidentally used the kryptonite, without realizing it.
Leveling to the degree where the fight was simple generally meant that you were getting the worst ending, in SQ, unless you had it down to a science.
@@SeanJMay There's more than one weapon that can trivially stunlock Dracula and you don't have to go that far out of your way to pick one of them up.
The endings don't make sense in game (the "best" ending has Dracula come to life, the "neutral" ending has Simon die, and the "bad" ending says "the people are free of Dracula's curse forever", though this is probably due to a botched translation as that good-sounding ending is delivered on a monochrome background.) there's nothing in the game to suggest that you're on a strict timer, and the timer even pauses in dungeons.
Nintendo Power even did an entire 2 page Howard and Nester comic on the "kneel with red crystal at a dead end" requirement--probably to reduce the number of angry kids staring at a blank cliff.
It's an ambitious game, to be sure, but it's still very, very clunky.
The reason behind the Clues being bad is because of translation errors during the localization.
@@Psychokyuubi666 There were misleading clues in the original Japanese. The translation didn't help any, of course, but the clues were never meant to be 100% reliable.
@@onlylettersand0to9 Uhuh, I know that already. My fanservice of this series started over 24 - Years ago.
All I was writing is that the translation in the U.S was mistranslated. I’m fully aware of the Villagers capable of lying to you during talking to them. Anyway to each their own my guy. However I’ll throw a nod to that game players hint tape someone I knew from School had 😊
Honestly, the town NPCs straight up lying to you in some of their dialogue re-inforces the animosity they feel towards Simon. They want to mislead him because they don't want him to make matters any worse than he already did whne he killed Dracula the first time. You know, at least in their minds. Poor guy can't really help Dracula's nature as an indestructible force.
You know if that was the intention, granted I'm working with hindsight here, I feel like they could have maybe indicated that more clearly by maybe making the villager text boxes that are showing animosity or straight up lying to Simon be indicated by the text box outline be red instead of blue? Could also play around with purple and white text boxes to indicate like dubious and truly helpful respectively and have followup text boxes, but I don't know if the limitations would allow it.
@@toonman5099 That would actually undermine the whole thing. People who genuinely hate you can often pretend that they like you, just to stab you in the back or try to lead you into trouble. Marking the lies clearly with different text or box colours kinda ruins the whole question of "Can i trust these people?"
@@Bloodfencer1990 Fair, but would having like follow up text boxes also undermine the point? Mostly in a "you tried out the hint, or at least feel like you did, then you go back to the hint giver for clarification, and it either confirms if they were lying, being helpful, or if they continue being vague" kind of way.
Hindsight is 20/20, but I'd preferred they made this clear with a few more villagers being outright hostile and some refusing to talk at all.
@@ZeroDarkMidnight I FEEL like the latter is the case in the game with some just not being interactable? It's been a while since I last played so I'm not sure. But yeah it would kind of help better sell the idea of the Belmont's being viewed as outcasts or the reason why everything is as bad as it is and that they're the problem. Although I don't remember if that was the intention for the games back then during Simon's time or just for those first few games up until SotN.
I never needed AVGN or Egoraptor to convince me Simon's Quest wasn't a game I was ever going to like, I've always had trouble getting into this game since I was a kid and it was new. All they did was reiterate most of what I always disliked about it and played it up for comedy's sake. However, you make a good argument in favor of it and I can respect that. The game is not without it's intrinsic value to the franchise. I don't know if it's so much a prototype for Symphony of the Night rather than it is the planting of the seeds for what would become the foundation for it.
Iga knows the hidden potential of Simon's Quest, despite the flaws.
@@MidoseitoAkage Koji Igarashi is among my favorite game producers & Directors.
Anyway, as people are entitled to what they enjoy or dislike, much of the criticism comes from the mistranslations from the Hints that the Villagers will give (Which they’ll lie as everyone knows) due to the localization of Simons Quest. The game has flaws of course. But as you said Iga took some of the formula of Simons Quest and made it fun to play.
In James Rolfe’s (AVGN) latest video, he states that he replayed Simon’s Quest since and no longer dislikes it.
I usually like your work, Ragnar, but I really think you missed the mark on this video.
Lots of arguments that linger on and on and go nowhere, and a lot of "ifs" that don't exactly help to paint Simon's Quest as this misunderstood gem - I think you ended up proving that people are actually right about CV2, which is quite humorous in retrospective.
I'm really glad that you like the game - it's a classic, and we wouldn't have a lot things in this franchise without it, but again, I think you tried a little too hard to prove people wrong.
Really dislike the clickbaity title as well. I understand why you do this, but it ends up painting you as someone very arrogant.
Still, happy to see more CV content. Cheers!
I have a funny story about Castlevania 2: I was a kid living in Riverside, California with my parents and was on the final boss, (Dracula), and he was basically impossible! The game was brand new so there was no internet to look for clues back then. My mom came in to the room to tell me to get ready for church and saw that I was getting frustrated, so she said to look for clues in the instruction manual. Keep in mind my mom knew absolutely NOTHING about video games, and still doesn't. I was being a spoiled, bratty kid and rolled my eyes, basically saying something like, "ya ya mom, the instruction manual is not going to tell me how to beat this IMPOSSIBLE boss!!!" But she confidentially, and somewhat naively started going through the NES instruction manual for the game and came across the item description section. Upon looking at the description for the "Golden Knife", (or maybe it was "Golden Dagger"; I can't remember) she started reading from the manual, "contains a mysterious power." She basically said with excitement, "It says here that the Golden Knife has mysterious power! I bet the mysterious power is that it can beat Dracula!" But I wasn't hearing any of it because what does she know about video games! I was just getting more and more frustrated. Finally she kept suggesting it enough where I just said I would do it so that she would stop bugging me about it and I could show her that she is wrong. Well, the Golden Knife killed Dracula in one hit!!!! I was in complete shock; I couldn't even respond. All I could do was stare at the screen in total disbelief, feeling like a total jack@$$. My mom just had a smug smile on her face and said something to the effect of, "see, your mom knows best." Then she walked out of the room very satisfied at my total ego defeat. I never questioned her mom wisdom again. It's one of my favorite memories. =D
Simon's Quest was one of the first games I ever played when I got my NES as a kid. Never really understood all the hate outside the bad translation. I spent hours playing the game, making no progress because I didn't have the Nintendo Power guide, and I loved every second of the epic gothic horror adventure. Simon's Quest is probably one of the biggest influences on my tastes in games, music, fiction, and etc. Thank you.
I played it as a kid, without any guide magazines or anything
The English translation made it unplayable beyond a certain point. Like, “can not proceed further” unplayable.
Yep. I eventually ended up doing random stuff on different screens just trying to trigger something, anything lol. It did feel good finding something new but it sucked never knowing where it was relevant.
It's the one about "praying" at the cliff. My entire family gave up. I was about to give up but was a very stubborn child with lots of free time. I'm not sure what the original text said and maybe it was confusing too (it makes sense *AFTER* you understand what you have to do, but figuring that out is the tricky part.)
All along the clue just meant kneel for a bit.
Ironically they reused this mechanic in a few later games almost like they were thumbing their noses at everyone, lol. (Rondo of Blood has at least one point where you do this for a bonus item for example. And you aren't even told to do it. Mostly I did it by accident while waiting on enemies to move into place.)
"OH what a horrible night to have a curse" will be seared into my nightmares forever.
The NES was the first console I owned and Simon's Quest was the first Castlevania game I ever played. Due to a mix of "I'm too young to have the disposable cash to buy my own games, so this is all I've got" and the oodles of free time that come with being young, I pumped hours and hours into this game and I loved every minute of it. Yes, some of the puzzles (like the infamous tornado) I survived with help of word of mount and/or Nintendo Power, but never did it annoy me. The bad translation likewise didn't bother me as I'd only started reading a few years earlier and English wasn't my first language anyway. Then, when decades later AVGN and Sequelitis came out, I could see their points, kind of, but I just never agreed and Simon's Quest has always just been one of my favourite NES games, to the point that when I finally got around to the first Castlevania game, I didn't like it because it wasn't like Simon's Quest and I could never make it past level 3. Nowadays I still enjoy Simon's Quest and will occasionally play through it. Since I know what I'm doing now, it's never that same epic, sprawling adventure I played that first time, but I do still enjoy my time in the game immensely.
I certainly just borrowed that game from my friend. Also, I bought Kid Icarus, and he bought Metroid. The plan was that we can trade after awhile. But Metroid was so much better, I eventually got a copy myself.
There should be a scientific law that states that given enough time, there will be an essay about how any panned game was secretly brilliant all along.
It's the only real clickbait left. No one needs yet another video crapping on say DS2 or, well, Simon's Quest.
What a pointless comment, this game wasn't panned at launch. This video is just pushing back against the negative reappraisals that shaped the narrative around the game, while still discussing the game's flaws.
@@DergonQuert I didn't say it was panned back then. I was there, after all. My personal review is that it was a fun game and a crappy rental. My point was that everything is beloved to someone. Some 14 year old is gonna do a 2 hour video about how great Forspoken is in about a decade.
I really wish to find a video about how good Deus Ex: Invisible war was.😢
@ejchelette5986 you said "any panned game was secretly brilliant all along" which certainly implies the consensus was always that it was bad. As for the suggestion your comment was meant to about differing opinions and not implying the only reason for this video is to be contrary for clicks... LOL
People can be pissy and hateful when they talk about the game, but it'll never take away the enjoyment and memories of 10-year-old me playing it for hours, learning the way though each mansion, and ultimately earning every ending. Things in the modern age are easy to love/hate because the Internet prevents you from living in a vacuum - there is always another opinion and if you hear enough of them, you start to fall in line with them. It happens with games, cars, TV/movies, politics - everything. I have to wonder how many people that hate on SQ actually played it when it was new, in the world before game reviews and such.
It'll always be one of my favorites, just like so many other games from NES-era. MY opinion influenced by childhood freedom to enjoy things without looking for flaws like we all seem to do in modern games.
Definitely true. I got this game when it was relatively new, and it was my favorite for a long time. I literally had no idea it was considered "bad" until I watched this video.
I miss living in a vacuum sometimes.
Childhood neutrality is a blessing, with a generous helping of patience and nothing better to do of course.
I played it when it was new. Disliked it then, dislike it now. In a minute to minute sense the game just wasn't fun. As an adult I can appreciate what they were trying to do, but it falls short to me. I am happy that it's existence led to symphony of the night and many other games that fall into whatever you wish to call the genre. I can't say I hate Simon's quest. But I certainly can say I dislike it
Your nostalgia for the game doesn't make it not suck for me.
Funnily enough, a lot of movie reviewers like nostalgia critic or cinema sins are utter bs in the same way. They drag movies through the mud with nitpicks, and criticisms that are simply untrue but a large audience believes them. And suddenly people act like a lot of the movies we liked back in the day are actually utter shit.
As someone who fell in love with video games and storytelling through this title and Ninja Gaiden:
Thank you 🔥
THANK YOU!! I've been saying for years that Simon's Quest - while flawed - isn't as bad as the internet makes it out. I remember playing it as a kid and being frustrated, but as an adult I really appreciate all that it did. It may not be the first metroidvania - that honor belongs to "Vampire Killer" on MSX. But, it definitely laid a lot of the groundwork... That said, I didn't realize until your video that there was a level up system in Simon's Quest. At all. lol
Honestly, if I were to remake Simon's Quest. The only thing I'd do, is make the hints slightly easier to understand. Add some difference to the textures of fake & breakable floors and walls. And an in-game map. Because the gameplay? That's still immaculate.
Remove the holy water floor hunt too. I don't understand how ANTONE could think of that as fun.
I never played Simon’s Quest, but I always defended their move, because of Zelda II… I always felt that at that time, we didn’t have a certain way that sequels HAD to be, and what they did was actually ahead of their time, and used a lot of ideas and mechanics seen in games today. And regardless of the games being good or bad, they should be applauded for it…
Also, Nine Inch Nails, aaaah….lovely….!
I think the problem most NES games have, is that unless you're willing to try them on their terms, they just seem really dated by modern conventions.
Home console gaming was still a new concept at the time, and developers recognized that they had to make a game that felt worth your money with the limited space they had.
So, being cryptic, and even outright deceptive at times was the way they did that. Grinding was another way to accomplish this.
And so, you have games that were just trying to figure it out. Not all of the tropes and conventions of this time aged well, but they did at least lay the foundations for things we think of as intuitive in modern games.
Which is why games should be judged based on the time they came out.
Judging something made in 1987 by 2024 standards is unfair and silly, as if the folks of 1987 should have seen that 37 years later, someone is going to stumble across this and judge it based on standards of the time.
When Simon's Quest came out I was in first grade and my parents would occasionally rent an NES over the weekend. I absolutely loved Simon's Quest even though it was too hard for me to get very far. I loved the open-endedness. I would draw pictures of it between playing. I went to school one day and a kid I looked up to who was a fifth grader told me "Simon's Quest Sucks" but could not tell me why. It was a common sentiment at the time and I still don't know why to this day. I think looking back it may be because it had words to read.
Good video Ragnar. I live in the far north. Back in the day my Reservation was very isolated. Games were sold at the local Hudson Bay outpost. This game was introduced to me by a friend of mine. Yes, I played this before Castlevania 1. My brothers and I played it many times. We also eventually figured out how to finish it as well. No GamePro or magazines to follow. By chance and accidental gameplay we found all weapons, items and all of Dracula's Remains. Good times. 😊
I think you make some fair points here, especially about the art direction, environments, and the power of exploration and RPG elements this game had; however, I think there are still many completely valid critiques in the (admittedly exaggerated) AVGN videos (his second review of it, as part of the 2009 "Castlevaniathon" is a far more serious look at the game) about Simon's Quest. E.g. the bosses are not really redeemable; no amount of trying to wiggle that one around is going to save it. The boss designs are all far less creative than those in the first game, there are fewer of them, and their sprites are terribly plain, some without anything in the way of meaningful animations, not to mention how bafflingly easy they are. I don't necessarily hold the original translation against it, though it was certainly not helpful.
On the other hand, it has its virtues: the sense of scale is great, the backgrounds are cool with the huge, all-covering trees, and the towns and mansions all have much ground and multiple floors, but the journey itself doesn't quite equal the rest of the game. AVGN's point about the final area is correct. Compare walking through a place completely devoid of foes to the final stage of the first game and the now iconic march up the tall stairway, through the hall, and into Dracula's throne room makes the area in Simon's Quest look pretty dull. Further, between the two encounters, in Simon's Quest you have Dracula, who not only looks very much like a classic grim reaper, has no movement or animations, and no second form; while in the first game, Dracula has multiple forms, different attacks, and much more spectacle (as much as an 8-bit game could produce spectacle, that is).
So is this game much better than the wider internet would have us believe? Absolutely. It has some very cool elements, excellent music, visually it's a gothic feast, and aside from the bosses, it has a varied cast of cool enemy sprites. The RPG elements are my jam, the various weapons and utility items are cool, and I liked the puzzles. The very fact that without Simon's Quest I would never have gotten to play Infernax, Symphony of the Night, Blasphemous and its sequel (probably) or even Demon's Souls, is a testament to its importance as a game, if nothing else.
I think you are half right - everyone is wrong about some things they say about Simon's Quest, but it is a far, far better game than people think it is, especially today when it's not only been modified by various cool romhacks, it's been lovingly remade by Warmachine, who did a nice job in my opinion - like that remake or hate it, the game inspired someone to rebuild the game out of love of it, so that's a sign in favor of Simon's Quest if ever there was one.
Finally, I will never, ever respect the term "search action" - Metroidvania may be terrible, but "search action" is about as dumb as "character action" in my view.
A tip for those invisible pitfalls: just watch how the enemies move.
They won't walk across pits either, so if they seemingly turn around on some random tile on the platform, that's where your pit is.
No need to just throw holy water over and over and over.
I played the heck out of Simon's Quest when it came out. Its crypticness and obtuseness were compelling. Even back then it felt like it was doing something completely different and important.
Thank you RagnorRox, you made two great videos highlighting my two favorite Castlevania games.
As a 41 year old man who has been a Castlevania fan since 1988, since I was 5 years old and first discovered Castlevania 1 and Castlevania II Simon’s Quest.
Just those two games made me a diehard and long time Castlevania fan, I managed to beat Castlevania 1 at 6 years old, but Simon’s Quest took me 10 years to finally beat, and it was because of figuring out how to find all the items and beat the game the right way, because there was no internet or quick cheat sheets to help back then.
I’ll just say this. Castlevania Symphony of the Night is not even in my greatest and favorite Top 5 Castlevania games of all time, and neither is Rondo of Blood, yet Castlevania II Simon Quest and Castlevania Legacy of Darkness 64 are.
That’s how much both of those games resonated with me, and I still play them from time to time, along with my other 3 greatest and favorites in my top 5.
angry reviewers ruined videogames criticism for a lot of time
word
Thankfully I had played, enjoyed and beaten Castlevania 2 before ever seeing the AVGN video about the game. 😄
I mean, to be fair, they also did shape the course of UA-cam video essays and analysis, so, eh. Necessary evil, I guess?
@@davidrevillii5353 I agree, and I would be lying if I didn't say that I really enjoyed AVGN when I was younger, like 15 years ago. Man, that is a lot of time...
Video essays are where it’s at.
I was little when I played castlevania 2 for the first time, I cried and shut the game off when it cycled to night. A few years later, I tried it again and absolutely loved it, but didn't beat it. In 2002, when I was 18, I finally beat it and said, "That was a lot of fun." I didn't use a guide or the internet for anything. Playing it again on the castlevania collection, I had a blast. I think this game gets a lot of unearned hate, but that's just my opinion.
Simons Quest walked so Symphony of the Night could run. I'll always hold fond memories of playing Simons Quest as a kid. Maybe not as vivid in mind as SotN but its soundtrack and designs will always be firmly in memory
Some constructive criticism from a huge fan. That first example of music around 8:20 came on incredibly loud, and again at 14:50 the audio volume increased significantly where it really didn't need to. At 18:00 a clip of someone talking about the game came in with audio levels significantly higher than your voice track. You've got a great mix for most of the video, which unfortunately means these audio mixing issues stick out that much more. It can be quite jarring through headphones, or for people listening in a relaxed state.
Feel like it's a little unfair to use footage from a heavily modified CV2 romhack.
He literally talks about different romhacks vs the original and how they address the original English releases flaws in the video.
@@DergonQuert Still takes a while into the video to get to that acknowledgement (and even then doesn't properly disclose the important changes), I understand that he needs B roll footage to play in the background as well, but using stuff like the cutscenes and readable clues feels like foul play.
Castlevania II is most certainly not a bad game, but this video puts it on a -far too high- pedestal.
Yeah, my version of the game had no cutscenes and "prossess." The game mechanics are innovative. The translation was garbage.
@@hopeyouguess9850 He does raise a good point about the writing in the original JP release also being... misleading. However, that doesn't make it good or acceptable.
@@sleepyren_ True, but there was very little chance to discover the red crystal hint and interpret it correctly, and that's not even counting the blue crystal kneeling part. I mean, it's still a favorite of mine, but having to use a guide to finish a game (in the pre-Internet before-fore times) is a rough deal. Still... first Castlevania game I played (apart from the Tiger handheld version), so it gets love from me.
I have vivid memories of this game. From my dad bringing it home to me without me asking and for no particular reason as that rare "just because" gift that happened once every few years in their awkward boomer way of expressing affection. I remember playing it the first time and immediately falling in love with the music and absolutely HATING how obfuscated the game's objectives were. I actually put it away after a week or so and wrote it off. It was only when I came back to it about a year later that I fell in love with the mystery and challenge of it all. It's the game that made me fall in love with gothic fantasy - from Ravenloft to the original Dracula novel - it all began when I set off on Simon's Quest.
29:00 I remember this game being really popular when I was a kid. People talked about this game a lot more than they did about the other games in the trilogy.
I'd say even more: it is possible that day/night cycle in Simon's Quest could have been an original spark for Silent Hill Dark world.
Summary: Game is not good, play the patch
I still get notifications because on a bloody tears upload here on youtube I pointed out that in the simons quest cover art, the whip is in the shape of a 2, that was over 10 years ago
With Deborah Cliff, the Japanese version doesn't tell you to kneel. The only hint that you need to kneel in either the ENG or JPN version is the fact that you also need to kneel with the blue crystal to get past the lake. Basically, if kneeling with one crystal gets you past a roadblock, you can guess that kneeling with this is also necessary for this roadblock.
Yeah, I’d seen angry reviews and people talking about the tornado cliff as if it was super random and made the game unplayable, but it made sense when playing it. It took me longer to find out the water needed you to kneel than the cliff cause it had already been established at that point lol.
That "you had to kneel with a crystal for the lake so it's the same thing here" concept didn't work for me personally. I only ended up getting it through just trying everything for hours and hours.
I loved Simon's Quest when it came out. It remains my favorite in the series because of it's odd rpg'ish mixture.
Hi Ragnar, i have been watching you ever since the forgotten gems were the series of the day. I always have wondered why they stopped, and i miss them. I'm honestly shocked they didn't get views! To me, they were the reason i subscribed.
That makes me happy to hear. Yeah, they kept brutally underperforming - people really liked them, but everytime I released one (except when it was a more well-known game that had a draw on its own, like Soul Reaver), it pulled down the channel's performance so drastically that it felt like all the progress made before was voided. Felt like Sisyphus.
Kinda sad, because I love talking about the most obscure games out there. But I always tried to incorporate the spirit behind it into other videos.
@@RagnarRoxShow yes, I can definitely see the spirit continue. I should mention, it's not like I don't like everything you've done since. I'm always happy when a new video releases!
Whenever I play this I think of Blondie's "Heart of Glass", but change the lyrics=
"I once drank blood, it wasn't so bad.
Soon found out, I had the heart of Vlad..."
I can happily and honestly say that I never agreed with AVGN and detractors of Simon's Quest. This game was one of the first couple of video games I ever played, and I always liked it for it's action, music and graphics.
The only thing that frustrated me was how damn hard it was to figure out how to progress in it.
It took me years to finally beat it, because back then I didn't have internet access or walkthroughs readily available, and my english skills weren't that great at the time either, so clues from villagers in the game didn't help me all that much.
A lot of the puzzles and riddles I figured out by dumb luck and trial and error. Like that part where you come to an impassable big lake, and in one playthrough I accidentally ducked at that spot and revealed the hidden path under it.
My mind was completely blown at that moment. 😆
Always thought that classic Castlevania sucks massive balls (aside from bloodlines, that was more like contra with a whip). But Simon’s Quest was awesome. It was smart, it made me think. Not that many games did that back then.
How old are you? Because I was 10 when this came out and was super disappointed when it wasn't like the first one and I kept getting lost and didn't know where to go or what to do next. I think it's more like you enjoyed it so you've convinced yourself you're right and others were wrong. This was a decisive game back then no matter how much you pretend the hate is only UA-cam manufactured.
As a boy born in 1981, my small town in Michigan was behind the times by a few years. Getting games was a trip to the city and cost a lot. $60 dollars in 1987 was more like what might be $110 now. As a result, we rented a lot of games. Our little country store had a wall of NES games and I rented Simons Quest a lot. I didnt have the benefit of the manual, since rentals often were just the cartridge. Power magazines weren't a thing I got either; convincing my parents to get a me a subscription was nigh impossible. So playing this game was very frustrating as a young boy. That didnt stop me from loving this game.
The music, the atmosphere, the feeling of unease when night came... it was great. It had all the porblems that everyone knows, but back then, and even still, I will love this game. I wil also forever remember the time i button mashed random characters at the pawword screen and it was accepted! The random passcode catapaulted me forward, im guessing somewhere around day 5-6, deep into a castle far beyond that cliff that stopped me before. I never knew what that password was, but it was a pretty awesome moment for an 8 year old kid. 😅
Simon's Quest was h - u - g - e in my childhood. I loved spending loads of time playing it. Egoraptor was dead wrong about the colours and the environments. Those backgrounds with the wooded horizons, pale skies and mountain vistas were beautiful!! (I still think they are, seeing them again in this video). It really gave a sense of you being deep in some Central/Eastern European wilderness, just filled with rugged terrain and hostile monsters. And the different colour schemes for towns and other regions not only helped locate you but could also be really evocative. Just look at the forest area with grey trees/rocks and orange canopies - it's like you're going through a dying woodland supernaturally afflicted with autumnal decay. And the final town before Dracula's castle that's just completely grey and almost entirely deserted... That's brilliant - the kind of environmental storytelling that games like Bloodborne are praised for.
To Egoraptor's credit, he did actually do a great job of articulating the very real sense of you being up against some intangible force, as if the very world itself was trying to destroy you ("Silent Hill did the same God-damn thing and y'all love it so much!"). I felt that when I was a child, and was simply too young to comprehend and articulate what that feeling was.
Several years ago, I went back and played it again for the first time since I was a kid. And I still loved it. I didn't find the clues as obfuscating as I remember people saying.
I adore this game.
Saying that I love Simon’s Quest would be an understatement. It’s literally my muse most of the time lol, I draw about it a lot.
It feels to me that the constant feeling of being lost is very intentional, especially in the context of the story and setting. Simon did win, but also kinda failed his last attempt at properly putting down Dracula. The curse itself is not only on him, but on the nearby towns as well. The closer you get to the castle, the more bleak and dangerous the game gets, the last town being nearly empty and grayscale. Simon hasn’t been out doing anything about it for 6 years according to the time skip and the townspeople are starting to hate him. The game’s story literally starts out with Simon going to the family graveyard to contemplate his life, perhaps he has tried to break the curse and everything so far has failed, or maybe he hasn’t out of shame or simply not knowing he’s cursed and not just sick, but from the first two lines of the story we know our protagonist is near death, at the end of his wits, and might have given up had a ghost woman not tell him to do something. That’s intense!!! And the plot past this point is about finding and carrying around pieces of a deadman, slowly rotting alive, and desperately trying to get some directions before your time runs out. Oh yeah! The whole game is basically timed! Simon is actively trying to beat a clock! I really think some of the vagueness of the game is meant to make you feel like you’re wasting precious time, to panic you a little, especially when you get lost or hit a dead end and realize you’ve thrown away a whole day. I also love the contrast of washed out color palettes in the day time and high contrast neon fever dreamy color palettes at night. And the fact the game gets emptier the closer you get to the end with the castle itself being practically a liminal space is unnerving!!! This game I think it’s supposed to unsettle, it feels more horror focused than other classicvanias, and I love it so much for that. And oh my god it intrigues me so much that the text for each of the endings are all nearly interchangeable eulogies for Simon while the song requiem plays, I could just go on about what the endings might mean, but that’d be way to long for one comment lol.
Is it perfect? No, but I don’t expect perfection from any game and it’s still damn good. One of my favorite games of all time for sure :3.
Honestly Chibi, I enjoyed your comment more than the actual video lol. Well said!
The first game had you destroy Drac and his castle. In all fairness, what else could they do? They took a chance and expanded the world. You went out into the land and towns. It felt gothic and immersive. Flawed sure, but they had to start somewhere. I always found it petty that people would bash something in hindsight when back in the day my friends and I had fun with it. And why? Because we had no other choices. We weren't spoiled with twenty different systems or exclusives only from Japan which are now available but impossible to obtain back in the 80's.
Sir, you're making me finally pull Simon's Quest out of the shelf and give it a spin. I've been reluctant in the past out of the impression that it's nigh impossible to make progress without resorting to a guide, which is something that I don't enjoy. How true is that? Is it really 100% impossible to beat the game without a guide?
@@HEROplasticIt's statistcally extremely improbable unless you know one thing. How to summon the tornado.
@@PurifyWithLight Well, I do know that one because it has sort of become a meme at this point haha. I was wondering if there were other instances of that level of obscurity elsewhere in the game
The problem with Castlevania 2 is that it's not a sequel to Castlevania, it's a sequel to Vampire Killer
I am certain nobody told us that back in the day. :)
The problem with it is lack of any difficulty, lack of any kind of bosses beyond 1 which can be easily stun locked, the awful day night transitions, so many screens of nothing, so many empty castles of nothing. The problems aren't that it was on NES soul they couldn't but just that they didn't for whatever reason. It was never a bad game, its an extremely uninteresting game
@@lutherheggs451 Hey now, that's not true. There's a whopping 3 bosses (1 of which is optional but fairly useful) which can be easily stunlocked.
Castlevania 2 was one of the first NES games (and the only Castlevania game) that I owned - in fact I still have the cart somewhere. I really loved it for all the reasons you mentioned, and even dressed up as Simon Belmont (my mom sewed me the red outfit) in elementary school for Halloween. As a lover of the Souls series, it really does feel proto-Souls in many ways, from the melancholy crumbling atmosphere to the cryptic dialogue. It was, admittedly, a game that pretty much required Nintendo Power to figure out in the day, but as someone who beat the game at probably 8 or 9 years old, its complexity is way overblown. I also remember that original AVGN review, and how it struck me less as an indictment of Simon's Quest specifically, and more as that sort of phenomenon with many old Nintendo games where you might rent them, not have a manual, and have no internet or any other way to figure out what was going on, and often as a kid not understanding why, only to realize later as an adult that it was the designers' (or perhaps in this case the localizers') fault and not your own. I've returned to Castlevania 2 a couple of times in the ensuing years and always find it enjoyable to play, and it honestly remains my favorite of the NES Castlevanias.
I've always maintained that this game was ahead of its time, but... not in the way it's usually said. It wasn't a game that came out hearkening a future by being an early precursor unappreciated in its time, but literally a game that could not and should not have made it when it was made and released. Everything about Castlevania II speaks volumes about upcoming things in the game industry that just didn't exist in the late 80's; from a day/night cycle without a parallax scrolling background warning you as the night approaches or changing so that you can visibly see how much more dangerous it is, to untenable English translations and limited size text boxes that made the game miles more cryptic and indecipherable than it had to be.
This is never a game I wanted to play; I spent much of my youth playing Nintendo-hard games on the classic Nintendo-hard systems, including core memories of foundational titles like Double Dragons, Contra, and Battletoads. And, yes, the first Castlevania. Through all this, I was fortunate to grow up around a classic Gen X gamer who didn't like Simon's Quest, but himself was able to give it credit for the things it had attempted to do. I watched him play it, I took notes, and I tried to understand its differences from the first game, but I grew up in time to be weened on Link to the Past and grow into my solid gaming years with titles like Ocarina of Time and Symphony of the Night, so it felt less revolutionary to me at the time--like an early attempt at some of these core mechanics done wrong. But when you realize that nothing like it had really been done at the time you start to understand the soul of the game itself.
Looking back these days, especially as massive a fan of the Metroidvania genre, it's easy to see this game's place as a brick in the foundation of gaming, but also why it's always been so divisive.
Castlevania 2 was the first Dark Souls...Prove me wrong...
Metroid came out a year before
Prince of Persia, maybe.
It was actually D&D.
Demon's Souls took heavy inspiration from it.
@@TheMilhouseExperience I would say Prince of Persia was more revolutionary given the time it was made... by one guy. It also operated on weaker machines but with better animation and style. There's a good book on it.
Kings field, Shadow Tower, Evergrace, all these games predate Dark and Demon’s soul
Thank you Ragnar. I am a Castlevania fan who never tried Simon's Quest because I believed the discourse surrounding it and thought I wouldn't like it. And now you made me excited to finally play the game and expand my knowledge and experience about the series.
I liked it a lot as a kid and it's my favorite game of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection.
As a second son, I always loved Simon's Quest. I could never beat it as a child but man did that not stop me having fun in it. :)
Totally agree that this game has been given way to much shiit. Personally it is one of my absolute favorites to the NES. And it is far less cryptic then made out to be by its critics. The only thing I can really complain about is the "duck-with-the-red-crystal"-thing.
In order to visually see the clue book in Brahms mansion, you have to have a certain equipped. And nowhere does the manual explains that this one item makes you see clue books visually, when equipped. That is virtually impossible to know, and once you finished that mansion, you have no reason to go back.
This is virtually my only complaint regarding this game, at least as far as the cryptic part goes. This game is perfectly manageable to finish without a guide, except for the duck by the wall part.
I love this game!
I just love Halloween III: Season of the Witch. But people refusing new things doom the series to stagnation.
Dude same!!! I’ve always felt the Halloween series should’ve been an anthology past 3 with other different Halloween stories, maybe keeping the theme of masks throughout. Michael’s story feels completed in the first two movies to me.
@@chibishortdeath Thats why im so sad that people prefer to watch anabel part 22 and Paranormal Activity part 50 instead of demanding more movies like Trick 'r Treat or scary stories to tell in the dark. Perfect movies? No. AMAZING movies to watch on halloween? Fuck Yes.
I love so much the anthology trope on halloween movies.
19:03 its really strange how so many games get a reputation as a grindfest when youd naturally get the right amount of experience through just playing normally
Like less old rpgs than youd think are actually like this, though i cannot speak for dragon quest and final fantasy themselves as someone not that into either
Dragon Quest was really bad about needing to grind in the old days, but by 4 it wasn't horrid. NES Final Fantasies always had "points" where you had to grind a little to go foreward reasonably but they were never grind fests. Well unless the bugs made things hard *glares at FF1*.
I feel like the old school rpgs are hit hard with a grinding reputation they don't generally deserve due to the Marsh Cave in ff1. It's early on in the game so most people get there, and the dungeon is too big, probably with the intention that you'll accept not finding everything. But commonly, players will stop and grind until they can somewhat comfortably explore and get all the treasure in the Marsh Cave...
.... And then they are consistently overlevelled and not really threatened by anything for the rest of their run, maybe not counting the final boss and a specific optional boss.
First of all thank you for this video. Simon's Quest literally blew my mind as a kid. And still is a part of me today. From the very beginning the soundtracks, the atmosphere and the new designs compared to the 1st Castelvania ( which I finished multiple times before), made me feel that I was about to go through an epic and rough adventure exactly as said in your video. As a french kid with an english level below 0. I had absolutely no clue about what was going on and what I was supposed to do. And now knowing that the translation from Japanese was ( intentionally or not ) bad. It makes more sense or less I don't know. But that never affected my determination and the aura of the game to me. We finally played hours and hours with 2 of my good friends trying random things. And trust me or not. After about a year without internet or magazines helps we found one by one the unlikely tricks driving us to the end. Then guess what... Decades later I discovered and fell in love with what is my favorite band of all time. The masters of new death metal The Black Dahlia Murder. At the very first listening their music kicked my ass and made me drop my jaw. With hindsight I actually can tell that I felt the way I felt with Simon's Quest. A sort of epic, existential and profound feeling. After a few years listening and discovering the band I found out that the frontmen Trevor Strnad (RIP dude we miss you) was a huge fan of retrogaming and that Castelvania 2 ( among others but mainly ) inspired him a lot on how he wrote and composed his songs. All the stars aligned in my mind. Understanding why his music blew my mind right away. Taking me back more than 20 years ago. This game will dwell in me forever.
I seem to have a special place in my heart for black sheep, and I've loved Simon's Quest from NP issue 2 on (the cover-spawned outrage delights me, almost as much as Bionic Commando's ending). Sometimes the oddities of translation and inscrutable design decisions are held up as flaws, but (as mentioned here) we all shared the challenges with solemn determination and there was something amazing in being the one to bring the newly deciphered secrets to the playground. It's truly a classic and anyone who says otherwise is sadly misinformed.
The big reason people on the internet disliked Simon’s Quest is that they weren’t playing it on original hardware on a CRT. Emulating the game had a weird drawback where it cut part of the screen off. On original hardware and a CRT, you could see the tip of the blocks under the fake lake indicating there was something down there. Leading to you naturally crouching down at the edge, and if you had the blue crystal equipped you would start the animation to reveal the hidden staircase. That doesn’t happen on modern hardware. The lake looks like every other lake in the game. Crucial detail is missing.
This is cool to know.
I play the game on the phone and the emulator I use does give an option of how I want to crop the screen .
So to me it was never a problem .
I played it on a 32" RCA a few times back then. It seems to me emulators show more not less. But old CRTs with a real NES certainly have less lag and better experience.
I didn't realize how much people were parroting the 'Nerd... Who is a parody character. I remember being a kid and everybody who had an opinion of SQ was that it was great, but had a few absolute head scratchers, like Deborah Cliff. I thought everyone got that.
I love seeing more and more of THESE video analyses both SUPPORTING Simon Quest as an excellent (if a bit flawed) game of its era, AND confirming that it’s play format ended up leading to the heralded GREATEST game in the series, Symphony of the Night, the game that launched a genre still widely respected and appreciated today. Excellent discussion - specifically love the idea of a game that is unpolished having charm as a result. Sure, unbalanced games can hit difficulty spikes that turn the player off, but it’s a bit more reflective of LIFE- not every new chapter is going to be as steadily increased in difficulty as the last.
Wonderful video!!
I remember playing Simon's Quest before I had internet, and when I saw Egoraptor's review, that's when I truly learned that not all sources on the internet can be trusted.
18:13 Fun fact about me: It took me LITERAL YEARS to wrap my head 'round "grinding bad".
I still half-remember really internalizing that I'm the weird one for being able to honestly say I'd pay good money for "Pokèmon: Just Tall Grass" Version
Like, imagine a game that's all grind no payoff, to me that'd actually be enjoyable would.
I so long struggled with "But isn't the thing you're complaining about literally the entire justification to play at all?"
To me it was literally equivalent to complaining that the game EXISTED PERIOD.
Even to this day I only know so much better, doubt I'll ever *truly* understand completely.
You're not alone. I always enjoyed the grind of both pokemon and simone's quest. And that's one of the reasons I always disliked gen 5 because they actively punished you for grinding.
Playing Ragnarok Online is only possible with a mindset that "grinding fun". Some of us did it for years.
Grinding can be fun!
@@ragingrat7670how exactly does gen 5 punish grinding?
@@thesatelliteslickers907 The higher the Level difrence between your Party and the enemy Pokemon, the smaller the ampunt of exp you get. This makes the pay off of Beating a Gym leader smaler becous suddenly the Ace You grinded to beat give les EXP then the Audino you grinded the last 15 min.
I have a friend who can probably relate to you OP. His idea of a good time in DnD is to make it increasingly granular. Individual AC values for armour pieces, tracking gear damage based on how much damage it hypothetically blocked, finding herbs during travel and having a whole secondary alchemy system, starting a campaign at an academy where the players achieve level 1 upon graduation.
The "quidditch system" became infamous among our friendgroup. The way I heard it, they spent like 6* hours playing less then 15 minutes of in-game quidditch. There was some kind of three-dimensional mapping involved.
*Or was it 16?
Now that I actually understand where he's coming from I want him to have a good time and be happy, but most of the stories I have are of the many times his love of doing every single step manually came into conflict with basically everybody else's idea of fun.
Dang it, Rox, I only just got out of my last "listening to nothing but NIN" phase.
I loved the remix of “A Warm Place” in the soundtrack!
I was a kid when this game came out. It was much loved back then, and I still think fondly of it now (flaws and all).
Thank you for making this! I never really watched UA-cam video essays on anything until the pandemic so I totally missed the early UA-camr discourse on Simon’s Quest. This was one of my favorite games as a kid, up there with Zelda and Mario Bros 3 and Final Fantasy. So when I found out a few years ago people hated it I was really surprised.
For me it's like the Zelda 2: Link's adventure which I rather play than the original. When we were kids I don't remember anyone saying Castlevania II was bad or wanted it to be like the first one. I think we found it to be fascinating. The mansions/castles don't stand out from outside world. They kind of feel like they were a bit unfinished or that the developers didn't quite nail the vibe that they aimed for. Maybe that's just me
It's not just you. That's exactly what I always thought. (But I like Zelda 1 the best because I really didn't like how the overworld on 2 was so blocky and had no real play value.)
When entirely new genres are being developed every few months you don't have quite the same attachment to the idea that a sequel needs to be identical. It was generally a more wild, experimental period of game design.
It wasn't influencers and memes that soured me into this game. It was playing it the way it wanted me to, running like a headless chicken on the absurdly esoteric advice of hobos and hidden books, throwing holy water at every other brick to uncover secret walls and avoid invisible pitfalls.
What for? The bad ending.
I love Circle of the Moon, the genre itself is not the issue, the shift is. I understand everyone who was resistant to Simon's Quest and Symphony of the Night on release. Castlevania was a milestone in gaming, having it followed by this was incredibly disheartening. Specially seeing so many other developers, eventually including Konami themselves, fail to scratch the classic Castlevania itch.
Giving up on the intentionality of movement and the cruel fairness in level design that made the original game worth emulating is giving up the sensation of playing at the edge of hope and despair that made this Universal Horror rock opera fever dream a gothic masterpiece.
I was in high school for the NES years. I had a Nintendo Power subscription. I LOVED Simon’s Quest, even though I never owned my own copy. The game’s atmosphere really captured my imagination.
Sequels were an almost unheard of thing in video games back then, and most prominent ones changed the formula (eg Zelda and Mario) so CV2 didn’t seem so out of place. That’s just what games did back then. It was all new ground then.
Just wanted to say thank you for chaptering the video. I appreciate when i can just focus on the video's content and skip the sponsor, since 99% its something I'll never be interested in.
I loved this game so much as a kid and never understood all the hate it got.
These bloody tears fall blinded, for ten thousand years...
this nightmare just keeps getting worse...
WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE.
"Search Action" < Exploraction
Eh, I think that "exploration" could fit games like this, but it could also fit games with absolutely no combat or enemies of any kind. Search Action sounds clunky, but it absolutely gets the point across with no room for error.
@@alackofgames913 exploraCtion
I love your work Ragnar, and I simply adore how much Nine Inch Nails music you use in your videos. It's always a lovely treat!
I actually played this game before the original Castlevania. I found it really intimidating at first. The day/night cycle was chilling as a child. I remember getting frustrated when I got stuck at one point only to realize after several hours that I simply wasn’t kneeling in that one particular spot LONG ENOUGH. I was so exhausted that I gave up on playing the game blind at that point and used a guide for the rest of the game. That made it outrageously easy. I happened to borrow it from a friend so I had no real time limit to complete it and didn’t have to pay money for the experience. If I had rented or purchased it rather than getting to play it for free I probably would have been disappointed. I think the final fight with Dracula was a letdown. I can see how someone out there could enjoy this game, but it didn’t leave me with any warm and fuzzy feelings as a child.
I actually like the portmanteau Metroidvania 😢
Aww shucks, the video got released a bit too late for me to watch it out by the lake today. :/
Will most definitely give it a full watch tomorrow though, and load up with some beer and whisky for the occasion.
Great job, as always
This was my favorite game as a kid. It was huge, open world, dark and horrifying, and it made me love it. I even accidentally discovered the trick for getting past the mountain cliff. Collected the flame whip at my earliest able to find it, and it’s probably my first experience as a completionist.
Ngl I'm only 27 minutes into the video and I wish you spent more time elaborating on why the ideas this game tried are good and well executed instead of complaining that other content creators are wrong. I have not played Dark Sould man just saying "dark souls did it and people like that one!" is not enough to make me understand your point
The comparison with Dark Souls is about how it handles its open world and its inherent criptycness. On the other hands most of the important points on the game are explained, the day night cycle, the upgrade system, the exploration focus, etc. I don't know what you feel 'unexplained'
Castlevania II was one of my favorite games growing up despite its flaws.
Great timing. I just started playing Simon's Quest and already found out, that one has to finish it in under one (in game) week to see the good ending. Your video was a great reinforcement of my good first impressions of the game. Thanx for that!
"Search Action" - I like it !
I love AVGN. He’s a literal parody. So if you take everything he says at 100% that’s on you.
the frustrations are fair. it's a good game. finished it many times as a kid.
"Nobody is invalidated, but nobody is right"
The Colonel, MGS2
Thanks for another video! Excited to dig into this one!