Castlevania: the Adventure
Konami
Initial release: October 27, 1989 (Japan)
Platform: Nintendo Game Boy (with Game Boy Color re-release)
Alternate title: The Legend of Dracula (Japan)
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| images c/o Mobygames |
Some might say Castlevania’s best years were on handhelds. It's a solid argument -- after all, some of Castlevania's most memorable games were for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS. And you can believe that or not; but before the Game Boy Advance, handheld Castlevania has humble roots in… Castlevania: the Adventure, a mediocre platformer from early in the original Game Boy’s lifespan.
Let's get the bad out of the way. As the first Game Boy Castlevania, with the first two NES games to live up to and a third one on the way, it’s obvious that much had to have been stripped away to make the game work on the limited hardware. That’s understandable, but the game has other problems. The big one is that our hero, Christopher Belmont (variously confused with both Simon and Trevor thanks to writing mistakes and the ever-shifting canon of the early games) moves slow and attacks slow, and his jump is also slow and has a short range. This makes almost every jump require near-absolute precision.
The level design is also frustratingly limited — and at times sadistic, especially the third stage. Combine this with Christopher’s plodding pace and weighty jumps and you’re going to be seeing the game over screen a lot. (Also: no stairs, only ropes.) There are no subweapons either, surprisingly enough. On the other hand, if you max out your whip, it can shoot fireballs that do lighter damage but travel the length of the screen. Unfortunately, whip upgrades are rare, and when you get hit, you lose a whip level. The game is also very short; with only four (relatively long) levels, the game can be finished in half an hour if you’re good. (This is probably why it’s so annoyingly difficult — fake difficulty was the standard of the era, to pad out a game’s lifetime and justify charging $40.)
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| Konami GB Collection vol. 1 (EU version) |
In retrospect, the fact that Castlevania: Legends, which came out 8 years later, bears almost no improvement from Castlevania: the Adventure (and in terms of soundtrack, is actually inferior) is less a testament to Adventure's staying power and more an indictment of Legend's backwardness.
It’s not all bad, though. The soundtrack is actually really good for first-year Game Boy; and the European version of Konami GB Collection vol. 1 features a Game Boy Color update to the game; it’s identical to the original, save for more color, but it makes the levels pop more. (Curiously enough, the Japanese version of this collection, released earlier, does not include Game Boy Color features.) And if staring at a monochrome game for half an hour isn't your thing, and you want something more in line with the franchise's identity post-Symphony of the Night, there’s also a Wiiware remake called Castlevania: the Adventure Rebirth that brings it more in line graphically with the later Game Boy Advance and DS titles and greatly expands the game itself. It’s basically an all-new game, though it’s still quite unforgiving.
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| Castlevania: the Adventure - Rebirth |
I didn't mention the plot yet, did I? There isn't one, not really. The US release basically doesn't talk about it at all; we only know anything about this game's story via Japanese materials and later Castlevania: II: Belmont's Revenge expanding on it. Presenting itself as the first of what would be several attempts at an "origin" story for Castlevania (with the franchise ultimately settling on Lament of Innocence) it puts you in the shoes of Christopher Belmont, an ancestor to the more famous Simon of the original game, tasked with kicking Dracula's ass. That's it. That's the story. And yet somehow Konami of America totally cocked that up, getting Christopher mixed up with Simon and who knows what else. You know what though? It doesn't matter. It's early Castlevania, grab your whip and get crackin'.