The first Castlevania outing on the Game Boy was not a good one. It’s surprising that this title ever made it through Konami’s quality control. I think it’s fair to assume many gamers thought it was the hardware’s fault. After all Konami was a world renowned developer known for releasing some of the best titles of this generation. Despite the poor reception they tried again with Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge. With Halloween fast approaching I thought it would be fun to throw this one in and give it a go. I’m happy to report that the developers got this one right. Let’s put on our spooky hats and take a look!
Belmont’s Revenge is a direct sequel to Castlevania: The Adventure. You once again play as Christopher Belmont, but the story picks up fifteen years after the events in the last title. For those unaware it places this firmly in between the NES games. From beyond the grave Dracula transforms Christopher Belmont’s son into a monster, and uses it’s powers to revive the king of the vampires. This time it’s personal, apparently. Hence the ‘revenge’ part of the title. I’ve never played these games for their story, and this one’s plot is relegated mostly to the background. I say we move on and get to the gameplay.
Like all other Castlevania titles this is a 2D side scrolling action platformer. Your primary weapon is once again a whip, and your foes are various monsters mostly from classic cinema. You have mummies, creatures from the black lagoon, spear throwing gargoyles, and more. Things get a bit weird when you’re fighting rolling eye balls that explode when destroyed. Whatever, it’s Castlevania. What I didn’t like however is the lack of enemy variety. You seem to face off against the same guys over and over again. I imagine this is due to memory constraints, but it’s still disappointing. What’s there is fine though so I won’t knock the game too much.
Castlevania: The Adventure’s big problem was that the main character Christopher moved too slowly. He also had zero momentum behind his jumps. I was overjoyed to discover these issues had been fixed here. Christopher Belmont now moves like the characters from the NES titles. It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge improvement. I really like how the knock-back damage has been done away with as well. This caused serious issues with precision platforming in past titles. Because of this I found cheap deaths were a far less common occurrence in Belmont’s Revenge.
Secondary weapons also return, as do whip power-ups. By collecting glowing orbs you can increase the range of your primary attack. The final stage of this actually shoots a flaming projectile. It’s a really cool addition to the series and definitely makes some areas easier. Unfortunately you lose one stage of the power-up when you’re hit. Secondary weapons still require hearts to be used, and are used by holding up while pressing the B button. It’s just like in almost every other Castlevania game. What’s different this time around is that there are only two of them. Belmont’s Revenge arms you only with either the axe or the holy water. I was initially disapopinted by the lack of options. Fortunately these are the two most useful in the other titles so it’s hard to be mad about it.
As far as level design goes this is classic Castlevania, but it does lean a bit more toward the previous handheld game. This is both a blessing and a curse in my opinion. On one hand the stages feel more segmented. You’ll find that the game transitions to additional areas more frequently. If you fall out of the area instead of climbing the rope down you’re dead in the vertical areas. There are a lot of single rooms areas where you simply go up or down, and dodge just a few enemies or obstacles. Speaking of climbing you’ll be doing it a lot. There are an absolute ton of ropes in every single level. Much moreso than in any console iteration of the franchise.
To be fair this was also an issue in Castlevania: The Adventure. Thankfully the problem is mitigated a bit here. Thanks to the increased movement speed, as well as the improved controls it’s not nearly as painful this time around. That, and the fact that Konami added the ability to rapidly descend by holding the B button really helps. I really like some of the puzzles the developers were able to cook up related to these ropes. In several areas you have to climb spider webs. You have to wait for the arachnids to descend on their webs before you can climb them. It’s neat, but this gameplay scenario gets recycled a bit too often.
This brings me to my next point. This is level design. Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge has some really cool ideas even when compared to the console iterations. The problem is that while it has a few cool scenarios the game recycles them over and over again. This is not an exaggeration. The spikes that jut out from the walls and must be used as platforms are neat, as are the destructible floors in other places. Unfortunately by the ninth time I saw them they started to get a bit stale. It’s so bad that some areas feel completely recycled from others with only the gameplay scenarios out of order. It’s not inaccurate to say that Belmont’s Revenge is a one trick pony. Don’t get me wrong, the game is good but it could have used more variety.
With that said this isn’t a particularly long game. I was able to clear it my first time through in less than an hour. I do really like the fact that it includes a password system, and rather than being long and complicated strings of letters and numbers these are instead symbols. A battery save would have been ideal, but the password system works well enough. What’s also interesting is the fact that to my knowledge this is the only Castlevania game with a stage select. Basically this is similar to Mega Man in that you can play the first four levels in any order you wish. Upon completing these Dracula’s Castle appears, and the final stages must be completed in linear order. It’s a nice touch but perhaps a bit unnecessary. You don’t gain new weapons in the stages or anything interesting like that.
Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge looks like a Game Boy game. That is to say it doesn’t push the hardware in any significant way. It is however instantly recognizable as Castlevania at a glance. That’s a major plus in my book. Some of the graphics look almost like they were ripped out of the early Castlevania games. The enemies are recognizable from their classic versions, and Christopher Belmont is only a slightly modified Simon. The backgrounds lack detail but that’s probably on purpose to make characters easier to see. Animations are decent for the hardware but a little stiff. The framerate has some issues, and there’s a fair amount of flickering when more than one enemy is present. Honestly this is to be expexted at this point because it’s really common on the Game Boy. The graphics overall are decent but not amazing. The soundtrack on the other hand is incredible.