Castlevania II: The Belmont’s Revenge (Game Boy Review)
October 31, 2024 3 Comments
Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge
Platform: Game Boy/Game Boy Color
Released July 12, 1991. Missed my 2nd birthday by a day.
Designed by Toru Hagihara & Yukari Hayano
Developed by Konami
Included in Castlevania Anniversary Collection
Included in Konami GB Collection Vol 3 (JP) or 4 (EU)
“Are you sure about that? The sickly yellow background has me quite motivated!”
It’s not like Konami had a massive hill to climb when it comes to improving Castlevania Adventure. “Don’t be so bad you’re in the discussion for worst video game ever made.” No biggie. And Castlevania II isn’t. If anything, it might be the best Game Boy title I’ve reviewed yet. Does it feel entirely like a Castlevania game? I’m not so sure. At least you encounter a skeleton this time. I mean, as a basic enemy. There’s also a double skeleton dragon boss that feels more like a Gradius boss repurposed as a platforming boss. Otherwise, that’s really it. One skeleton. No, bats and ravens don’t count. Neither do the mermen or mudmen. “There’s Jellyfish!” 
Seriously? Why are those even in Castlevania at all? “They’re evil jellyfish things!” Sigh.
By the way, maybe the best looking Game Boy platformer. Stick with the black & white version, which fits, right? It was a black & white movie that made Dracula a major pop culture icon, after all. It works so well for Castlevania. Dare I say, the lack of color actually benefits the theme. I wouldn’t want this EVERY game, but it sure does a better job of setting the mood than the choice of enemies does. Speaking of choices, whoever picked the color schemes for Konami GB Classics in Europe really did a lousy job. It’s not having color, but the choice of colors, that really hurts Castlevania II more than it helps it, in my opinion.
Come on! I want to fight the undead! That’s the whole point of Castlevania, right? Spooky settings! Without that, it’s just any other action game, right? Well, I suppose ANY monsters count, but for some reason, it’s the ghouls, skeletons, and the Grim f’n Reaper that make it feel like a Castlevania, at least for me. Sadly, in terms of setting and atmosphere, this could mostly pass for any other generic action game, albeit one that happens to have a whip, candles, and a pair of sub weapons from the famous franchise Castlevania. It still has a bit of an off-brand Castlevania vibe, like the Master of Darkness people were given the rights to try making the real thing. Actually, that’s not entirely fair. Master of Darkness, lame and overrated as it is, feels closer to Castlevania than this does. But, this is the better game, and that’s all I care about.
This is it. The one skeleton enemy, and it’s a wily thing that jumps from rope to rope. Yea, yea, it’s a petty thing to bitch about.
The tone really isn’t helped by the lack of grit in the first four levels. The unfathomable decision was made to make the first four levels non-linear, Mega Man style. So, this Castlevania doesn’t scale at all until the game is over halfway finished. A vastly underrated aspect of Castlevania 1 and Castlevania III is the stellar job they both do of building the challenge. Scaling, when done properly, builds the excitement. Well, that’s gone here, as the first four levels lack anything resembling a sense of progression. Mega Man gets around that by adding abilities. What Castlevania II should have done was remove item drops and have you gain a new sub weapon with every boss defeated. The knife and stopwatch aren’t in this. It would have been so easy to both add them and add sections just for them. Without something like that, being able to take the four levels in any order turns them into nothing more than a checklist. And since I’m being nit-picky, one understated side-effect of this is there’s no opening level. Castlevania games often tend to have amazing first levels. That’s gone too, and for no good reason.
Apparently the ritual that revives Dracula involves four non-Vania castles which are, I’m not joking, Crystal Castle, Rock Castle, Cloud Castle, and Plant Castle. So uh, where are these in other Castlevania games? How come nobody ever tried this ritual before. Wait.. hold on.. is that what Atari was doing with Crystal Castles? Is the bear trying to bring back Dracula? They need to make this canon. And I want to kill the bear with a Belmont. I’m dead serious, and possibly mad.
Unlike Castlevania Adventure, you have sub weapons this time. Two, in fact, and like the two non-awful NES games, they’re insanely overpowered. With them, the first four bosses are total pushovers. If you play the US version, the 5th boss is too, provided you have the axe. If you play the Japanese or Game Boy Color version included in Konami GB Classics Vol 4 (in Japan the order is different and Castlevania II is in Konami GB Classics Vol 3), the 5th boss is the first instance of Castlevania II showing its teeth, but then the 6th boss is a cinch, provided you have a boomerang. Why not just bring the axe to the fight in Japan. Because the sub-weapons are different depending on which region you’re playing. Of all the stupidly weird, unfathomable design choices, this is.. one of them. The holy water is in all versions, but only Japan and Europe got the boomerang. The United States got an axe, which can hit the 5th boss when he’s inside a wall. The boomerang is big and covers the full screen, so you don’t have to be very accurate. Until the 5th boss, it really was a wash which version got the better deal. After that? Nah. I’d rather have the axe. Except, wait, the boomerang is better for Dracula. GODDAMMIT, see, this should have been a decision players get to make IN the game, not when choosing which version to play.
This was my only death in my second playthrough. The fifth boss is an auto-scrolling segment with a dragon that jumps around to different entrances. You have a very brief window to hit it, but its body is so long that it’s hard to avoid taking damage from being auto-scrolled into it. Except, in the United States, the axe can damage the vulnerable head even when it’s not in the gap. It significantly nerfs the boss. That’s not an option in Japan or in the Game Boy Color version.
There’s really only two “tough” segments, and maybe three, in the entire game. The dragon above (and only in the JP/EU builds), the 6th boss (and only in the NA build), and the final fight with Dracula are the only parts that ever made me sweat. The rest of the game is built mostly around rope-climbing set pieces. That sounds absurd, but trust me, it’s better than it sounds. While this Castlevania still feels slow and heavy, it’s not to the point that it’s unenjoyable. It’s fine now. There’s little in the way of last-pixel jumps, and there’s no ridiculous extended escape sequence. All the new ideas work. There’s an extended sequence with ropes attached to pulleys (don’t worry, they’re evil pulleys) that’s based around precision movement and timing and it ended up being one of my favorite Castlevania set pieces EVER. It’s really good. In fact, all the rope stuff is really well done, pulley or no pulley.
Dumping the notorious Castlevania staircases was probably the wisest choice in the game. The ropes just make for a more fun game, even if it logically closes off some more complicated design options. The only thing missing is a boss that you fight while on the ropes. I think they probably should have tried it. They did a good enough job with the level design, which legitimately is about 50% rope-based, that I have faith they could have come up with a clever and intense boss battle on the ropes.
Even the spiders are awesome, which is a sentence I never imagined I would say. The spiders apparently spin rope instead of silk, because whatever they’re pooping out can support your weight. The twist is, if you kill the spiders, whatever length of rope they made is all you have, and sometimes, you really don’t want to kill them. It’s very clever. While the combat never really impressed me, all the platforming stuff is top-notch. If the first Castlevania game was really a combat-focused game that occasionally had platforming bits, this is the platforming Castlevania occasionally interrupted by combat. I found Castlevania II’s offensive game to be mostly underwhelming. Not fully, as there’s some intense moments, but it was still off. The fireball from Adventure returns here, I guess because they couldn’t do the length of the whip upgrades. They even returned a few creatures from Adventure, like the fireball spitting stumps (don’t worry, they’re evil stumps) and the Night Stalkers. Bringing them back was probably smart, since those two creatures are the only ones that ever pose a legitimate threat. Most of the action is timing-based, but like with Kid Dracula, it just works.
Killing the spiders leaves the ropes, but the jumping is still tough to judge, especially off the ropes. Speed jumping off the ropes is a big part of the level design in multiple sections.
While the bosses are still mostly push-overs, Castlevania II does a much better job of making them feel like “moments” than Castlevania Adventure did. However, there’s a few missed opportunities. Not one but TWO bosses are actually two different creatures that are fought at the same time. In both instances the dual bosses share one life bar, so killing one wins the whole battle. Weird thing to complain about, maybe, but it just feels like they’re not quite as immersive as you’d hope. Also, the final battle with Dracula is pretty ridiculous. He surrounds himself with huge spinning orbs that fly off in all directions, but in a circular way that makes them hard to dodge. It’s the only point in the game where I felt the collision wasn’t spot-on. But, in my second playthrough, I beat him on the first try. I lost to him so many times on the black & white version I had to reload my save state, and I had like eight lives going into it.
It’s funny that Konami was on such a cold streak this year at IGC. Parodius on the MSX got a NO! Monster in my Pocket got a NO! The DOS version of Simpsons Arcade got a NO! along with the US ROM for Simpsons Arcade Game. Rollergames got a NO! twice in one review. The Lone Ranger got a NO! Even NES sacred cow Tiny Toon Adventures got a NO! In fact, before the Contra/Castlevania marathon I’m on right now started, I’d only given one Konami game a YES! in 2024. It was for the Japanese version of The Simpsons Arcade Game. This marathon reminded me that Konami was once an elite developer. I’m not a huge original-generation Game Boy fan. It’s just not for me. But Konami has absolutely proved their bonafides this week with THREE elite games, and honestly I think Castlevania II is the best of the three. Better than Operation C, easily, and I think better than Kid Dracula. It might not completely feel like a Castlevania game, but as a one-off spin-off based around ropes, it’s a LOT of fun. The ropes and the focus on timing and accuracy means you could just as easily replace the “scary” stuff with Indiana Jones and it’d work as an Indy game. Not just that, but probably the best Indiana Jones game ever. You can even keep Dracula. Hell, if Indy can fight aliens, why not The Count too?
Verdict: YES!
Indie Gamer Chick 
I mean, if they’re evil immortal jellyfish, that’s a sort of undead, ain’t they?
It’s unclear if they’re immortal or not. Surely not in the literal sense, as I killed ’em dead.
Picked up the Castlevania Collection cuz is going cheep on Steam at the moment (the Contra one isn’t sadly, not in Europe anyway) and have been mostly playing the first game but will have to give this one a try now as well. I gather the other GB one isn’t really worth the effort.