BELMONT'S Revenge
ULTIMATE GUIDE CastleVania II
IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A QUICK BLAST OF TRADITIONAL 2D CASTLEVANIA, KONAMI’S SECOND HANDHELD ENTRY BELMONT’S REVENGE TAKES SOME BEATING. JOIN US AS WE REVISIT THE 1991 CLASSIC THAT PLAYED OUT AN EPIC BATTLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL ON A TINY MONOCHROME SCREEN
Castlevania is a series with very few misfires. Despite more than 30 games appearing over almost 40 years, we can’t pinpoint any truly terrible entries. Those games that didn’t land too well at the time, such as the 3D Castlevanias for the N64 and PS2, are now ripe for reappraisal, and even ill-advised spin- offs like Judgement and Harmony Of Despair have their fans.
If there’s one game that tends to sit at the bottom of the pile, critically, it’s Castlevania: The Adventure. This 1989 series debut for the Game Boy is widely denounced for its uninspiring visuals and leaden pace – playing it feels like protagonist Christopher Belmont is wading through molasses with two broken ankles. We could perhaps blame these shortcomings on the Game Boy’s limited hardware – except that two years later, Konami released a direct sequel that improved on the original in every imaginable way. Belmont’s Revenge was Konami’s redress and our reward.
Although it’s obvious the team identified the original’s flaws when designing the sequel, this was confirmed with the 2019 release of Castlevania Anniversary Collection. In the compilation’s history section (a real treasure trove for fans), Konami shares the original design documents and this includes notes of an internal meeting dated 29 September 1990, where the development team discussed the original game’s “weak points”. There were quite a few. Top of the list, unsurprisingly, was “slow player movement”, which they addressed by making Belmont more fleet of foot. Highlighted next was “bad checkpoint positions”, and indeed there weren’t enough in the original, meaning you’d get thrown back several screens when you died. The sequel solved this by saving your position when you passed through doorways.
The castle guardians were third on the list, with the comment “need more variations/ ideas for the bosses”. The bosses in the original were rather routine and they were upgraded for the sequel to be more imposing and dynamic (see the Boss Rush panel). It was also suggeste
