(I started this one a while ago, but I only came back to revise it after reading about Crab's "Unloved" series.  You gotta bring that back, man.
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Every game series seems to have a black sheep; a game that while may not be all together bad, is generally looked down upon compared to the rest of the series.  Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (CSQ) is not one of those games.  Being an example of early non-linear game design on the NES, CSQ is packed with features that are commonplace in modern gaming, such as a day/night cycle, towns with conversant NPCs (who retreat indoors during the night), and a fair-sized world fully realized in 2D with no overworld movement.  While the game certainly wasn't alone in the non-linear arena during it's day, it was certainly one of the more unique ones, featuring a story that is, well, dark and bleak.


The game finds Simon Belmont, protagonist of the first Castlevania game, broken and wounded from his battle with Count Dracula. Seven years have passed, and the land has become a cursed place, full of roaming monsters and zombies. Transylvania's only hope is for Simon to take up his whip again, gather the scattered parts of Dracula, resurrect and destroy him once and for all.

What actually follows this is several parts unconventional game design and several parts bad translation (which in my opinion is the games worst "feature"). While the game has some typical "Engrish" statements that were common during the early days of the NES, CSQ's translation made the game quite difficult to beat, as the hints provided by certain townsfolk often made no sense, though in an interview on G Wie Gorilla one of the series creators, Koji Igarashi, revealed that the townspeople were "liars", deliberately dolling out bad information to an unsuspecting Simon (and CSQ players as well).  Still, despite this the game remains very playable even to this day, possessing an atmosphere of doom that has never really been duplicated again in the series.

As far as game design is concerned, CSQ took many of the arcade-style aesthetics of the first Castlevania and "Nintendo-fied" them.  Remember whipping candles to get weapons?  In CSQ weapons have to be bought or found, with a few are in hidden locations. The points system is also gone (which served nothing more than providing extra lives anyways) and since the game world is linked together in a non-linear fashion, there are no traditional level bosses, opting instead for a design similar to Metroid, but with less verticality.


Over the years CSQ has taken quite a critical pounding, and in some respects the critics are right.  There are many flaws CSQs design that, in retrospect, may have been bad choices.  The lack of direction, for example, can leave the player wandering the environments in confusion.  One clue, the notorious "Deborah's Cliff" clue, requires the player to do...  Well, no spoilers, I guess.  Pundits have blamed the translation, though re-translation of the original Japanese game has revealed most clues add nothing helpful.  Another common theme amongst haters is the difficulty, or lack thereof.  In fact, once one figures out the vague clues provided by NPCs and found all the relevant hidden items, the game is ridiculously easy (though it will still take you a couple of hours to beat), with much of the remaining difficulty in either enemies taking advantage of Simon's "knock-back" flaw (that could drop you in the drink multiple times in a screen) or  the strangely large amount of false blocks throughout the games' mansions.  Also, things can be a bit grindy.  In order to progress you will have to "farm" hearts (currency, remember) from enemies, which can take a while.  In the first town alone you will need 200 hearts to purchase the required items (you start with 50).  Granted, after the first mansion you'll have plenty of hearts, but if you have to continue you'll loose all of them (even though you respawn wright where you died).  Yet even with that, in my opinion, CSQ manages to hold up better over time than the original Castlevania (and in some respects, better than Castlevania III) due to its original design.

So I beg of you, especially if you carry either an old grudge from childhood or one based on some no-talent dink from Youtube (*cough* angrynintendonerd *cough*)  take another look.  Approach it with an open mind old school-style (maybe even get paper and a pencil and make maps with notes) and if you do so, I think you'll find that CSQ is worth more than a short look by even the most jaded gamer.

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