Konami

Mendelism is the basis of familiar structures, relationships, and hierarchies. Our outlook and belief in life are reflected in our family’s experience. Whether these are positive or negative, Castlevania brings a series of these factors to the physical outlook. The curse of Dracula’s resurrection, or for the second game, is the curse Simon has and looks for on his quest to relive the conflict his lineage had to overcome many times before. But we must look at the gameplay and visuals to judge whether this game’s articulation of these events is truly effective and worth playing.

The combat and gameplay flow have come under fire due to either indistinguishable gameplay style from its predecessor, or the watered-down mechanics of other RPGs during that time. Aside from a few additions of sub-weapons, the gameplay style has stayed the same. The two biggest criticisms come from the purposefully confusing puzzles, which forced me and many others to search for and keep walkthroughs by them at all times. Between this and the “hints” from NPCs being poorly translated, the game doesn’t offer much. Also in between these puzzles, you will have to travel between towns and this game’s version of dungeons (loosely translated to mansions) to progress the game. In comparison to Final Fantasy’s exploration system, the towns are the same and the mansions are the same as well. This brings a lazy rinse-and-repeat flow, which is more disconnecting than GTA’s combat. Between this and the lack of bosses, the only fresh thing this game has to offer is the world tendency mechanic which changes wherever Simon is to buffed versions of enemies. Medium Journalist Vincent Davis believes that the puzzles are very hard to figure out,

“One of the bigger problems with Castlevania II’s world is that it’s impossible to understand many of the nuances,” They continue by stating. “Several secrets held within its walls are, objectively, impossible to figure out by a normal human adult.”

The visuals have remained the same in its 64-bit quality. My only problem is the color palettes with the same bit of colors for the entire game.

Overall it was just a very odd experience. I just wish they had more time to develop and flesh out certain mechanics and the flawed ones, have the same DNA to be great.