Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (GB)

Not to be confused with Castlevania II: Simon's Quest on the NES.

15 years after the first Game Boy Castlevania, Christopher Belmont finds that his son has been kidnapped by Dracula and turned into a demon. This makes him a very unhappy Belmont, and he sets off on a roaring rampage of retribution.

A stage select! That's pretty damn unusual for a Castlevania game so far. These locations look pretty damn unusual too now that I think about it. Looks more like sci-fi fantasy on an alien world than a trip to Dracula's castle.

I'll go with the first castle, because it's the first castle.

You know, this 'crystal castle' looks supiciously like ancient Greece to me.

Damn, I start off going right to left in this one? This game's messing with my mind!

I see hearts are back to being sub-weapon ammo, instead of health like in the first Game Boy game. Plus the game feels slicker somehow.

Damn, the first enemy is a bird? But I'm hopeless at dealing with these things! At least there's no holes around for them to knock me down. Yet.

I gotta say that I am liking this music though. It doesn't sound like typical Castlevania music, but it's cool.

Hey, I've got my fireball firing whip back! And this time it doesn't lose its power when I take damage! Which works for me, because being able to make ranged attacks is incredibly useful, as you can imagine.

Damn, I was kinda hoping I'd never have to dodge falling eyeballs again. The ropes have made a reappearance too. I haven't got a clue why there are ropes instead of stairs in the Game Boy games, but considering how much of a pain those stairs could be I'm not complaining.

Oh shit, I think I've found a downside to having ropes. I don't remember the walls trying to kill me in any of the other Castlevania games so far.

Well, okay there was the one in the arcade game that came apart and threw bricks at me, but that's totally different. Also thanks a lot for reminding me about that damn wall.

Bloody spike walls. I haven't got enough health left to survive being crushed again.

Climb faster you slow bastard!


LATER.

On my way back after dying I learned that I could drop faster on ropes by holding the jump button. And now I've found myself a nice sub-weapon to use!

Hmm, two paths to choose from? I think I'll try going down.

I mean up, I'm going to go up!

I hate these things. They're like the skull heads from the other games, except they fire bouncing projectiles that rebound off everywhere. It even got me up here in my little hiding spot.

BOSS FIGHT! I seem to be up against a guy with the power of storms. Annoyingly he's also got the power of being immune to all my attacks.

He appears in a crystal, floats around for a bit, then disappears to 'Independence Day' me with an expanding wave of fire from his storm cloud.

I can dodge the fire... sometimes, but it's no good if I can't hurt the bastard. Oh wait, I just hit the crystal as he's appearing. Stage complete!

Plant castle, great. At least the music is still good.

Wow, I totally didn't miss these assholes. You'd think that they'd eventually run out of bones to throw, but nope.

Also like in Castlevania: The Adventure, enemies respawn off screen, so it's possible that I'll keep running into guys like this even after I've killed them once.

I don't know why I'm wasting all my holy water on these eyeballs, I might as well just hit them with my fireball whip. There doesn't even seem to be much point in having holy water. It only burns one tiny piece of the floor and doesn't even have much range to it.

Oh crap, eyeballs explode when I hit them with the whip. But I didn't expect them to blow pieces of the floor away too. I guess I know what the holy water's for now.

Crap, I got knocked back into the instakill pit. There's still no way to steer mid-jump in this, so there's nothing I could do but watch him fall. I think I liked the top path better.


ONE CONTINUE LATER.

Ah, very clever. There's no way out of this path unless I use the exploding eyeballs to create a hole for myself. This game seems far more imaginative and varied than the first Game Boy game. I'm always finding something new to deal with.

Like a room full of spiders for instance. I immediately jump in and start killing them with my whip before realising that maybe having some ropes around might be a good thing for me. If I just wait a second and kill them when they're near the floor I'll be able to get around a lot easier.

Eyeballs and bouncing bullets... it's too much! I had plenty of life left, but that didn't save me from getting knocked down an instakill pit.

Crap. I could use up another of my infinite continues, but I'm tired now so I think this is a good place for me to stop.


Well, like the rest of the Castlevanias I've played so far it can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but this one's got some charm to it. I gave Castlevania on the NES a gold star, so it seems fair to give this a star too.

1986 - Castlevania (NES)
1986 - Vampire Killer (MSX2)
1987 - Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
1988 - Haunted Castle (Arcade)
1989 - Castlevania: The Adventure (Game Boy)
1990 - Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (NES)
1991 - Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Game Boy)
1991 - Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
1993 - Akumajō Dracula / Castlevania Chronicles (X68000)
1993 - Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo / Rondo of Blood (TurboGrafx-CD)
1994 - Castlevania: The New Generation / Castlevania: Bloodlines (Genesis/Mega Drive)
1995 - Castlevania: Vampire's Kiss / Castlevania: Dracula X (SNES)
1997 - Castlevania Legends (Game Boy)