The Many Adventure of Simon Belmont
Feb. 11th, 2010 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestars(That's a joke, not a typo; all but one of Simon's games are usually regarded as retellings of the same quest.)
Time for the daily installment of Castlevania playthrough links! We now come to the Sixteen-Hundreds and the exploits of a Simon Belmont you may have heard of. He was the first, long the only, and still the archetypal Castlevania hero---we saw the trouble Chris had getting out of his shadow, and I once saw Amazon.com mistake Nathan Graves for him. With such a distinguished career, today's post will be covering a lot more games than previous ones.
First, a footnote. The mobile phone game Castlevania: Order of Shadows is also set in the 1600s, but the only playthrough I could find has no sound, and frankly I don't think the game worth bothering with. So we move on.
And where else to begin but Castlevania (1691), the original classic. For this one I turn again to Speed Demos Archive to marvel at their dirty tricks (you don't get to see the fishmen, sorry). I don't know if anyone understands the oddball credits sequence; I think it's a joke of some kind, but it kind of falls flat. It's a great game, but you maybe get the idea they weren't taking it all nearly as seriously at the very beginning as we crazy people do now. ^_~
As mentioned, Simon's first battle with Dracula has been remade many times, starting with Vampire Killer, a version for the MSX Home Computer in Japan and Europe, played for our enjoyment by VampierMSX. The sprites look very similar to the NES Castlevania, but the backgrounds are at times more elaborate, and the gameplay style is different, with exploration, key-collecting, even weird little characters sitting around who accept hearts as currency in exchange for something or other. I haven't watched much of it yet, I admit, but it looks like some kind of cross between Castlevania, Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, and an old PC game. Which isn't so strange when you think about it.
Simon's mission was reimagined for the arcade with Haunted Castle, here played by scissormon. This game seems to have a bad reputation. The sound effects and graphics have that almost-too-detailed-for-their-own-good feel, giving Simon perhaps the goofiest walking animation he's ever suffered through (the music is still good, tho). They also put him in a tux in the intro and superfluously turned it into a damsel rescue---I'm told the woman's name is Serena---but we don't need romantic entanglements to banish this one from canon: Simon abandons his whip as the game progresses and ends up killing Dracula with a sword. Further series developments rendered that whole idea pretty untenable...
His next stop was the Super NES, and indeed Super Castlevania IV is one of the games that made that system so awesome, still considered by some (including Angry Video Game Nerd) to be the best Castlevania game yet made. Simon learned some new and useful tricks, plus of course the game looks great and the music is amazing, from "Theme of Simon" to "Room of Close Associates" (still Death's theme in my mind). Ahh, fond memories. For the playthrough, here's one by ArtificialRaven. There's also its entry at Speed Demos Archive, but you don't get the intro and full ending that way.
Finally, there was a remake for the Sharp X68000 in Japan, later ported to the Playstation and brought to the States as Castlevania Chronicles, which included both a straight port and a newly-arranged version in which, er, Ayami Kojima dressed Simon up as a porn star. Seriously, look at this (again via The Castlevania Dungeon's review). It hardly seems to measure up to the previous game on our list, and Simon got another goofy-looking walk animation or two (to say nothing of the boomerang sound effect), but here it is. This video of the "original mode" opening, courtesy yazarc, might be dark, but it's all I could find; for the original version playthrough itself, here's saucykobold. As for the updated redhead mode, Rodriguezjr has the whole thing, including its CGI version of the intro scene.
But, all of the above represent just one quest, and it was only the beginning of Simon's troubles! For his efforts, he had a curse placed on him, which could only be broken by gathering up Dracula's body parts, bringing him back to life, and killing him again in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1698). For the toll this curse was supposed to be taking, it's a much easier game than, really, any of those listed above (it's the only one in today's group that I have myself played a significant portion of, and in fact I've solved it). Building on Vampire Killer and joining Mario and Zelda in the NES-era "weird experimental sequel" fad, it was a forerunner of the "Metrovania" style that would later be my blissful weakness. However, it also made no flipping sense and was a huge exercise in Guide Dang It; I needed an FAQ to find my way into a shop for godsake. Hated by some, loved by others, it's a classic in its own quirky way, and I come down on the "rather fond of it anyway" side (plus I think goemon047's video is funnier). So, playthroughs! This one by HalDanGhor shows all the items (I couldn't find one that showed all the clues, but they're really just useless nonsense Dracula planted to delay Simon so he'd die), or you could go the Speed Demos Archive route. Either way, here are all the endings to pick from when you're done: Good, Bad, and Oddly Indifferent (technically worst).
Strangely, according to the current timeline, the obvious sequel-fishing of the Good ending was not followed up on in any timely manner; Dracula wouldn't actually be back for about fifty years... But we'll get into that one tomorrow.
Time for the daily installment of Castlevania playthrough links! We now come to the Sixteen-Hundreds and the exploits of a Simon Belmont you may have heard of. He was the first, long the only, and still the archetypal Castlevania hero---we saw the trouble Chris had getting out of his shadow, and I once saw Amazon.com mistake Nathan Graves for him. With such a distinguished career, today's post will be covering a lot more games than previous ones.
First, a footnote. The mobile phone game Castlevania: Order of Shadows is also set in the 1600s, but the only playthrough I could find has no sound, and frankly I don't think the game worth bothering with. So we move on.
And where else to begin but Castlevania (1691), the original classic. For this one I turn again to Speed Demos Archive to marvel at their dirty tricks (you don't get to see the fishmen, sorry). I don't know if anyone understands the oddball credits sequence; I think it's a joke of some kind, but it kind of falls flat. It's a great game, but you maybe get the idea they weren't taking it all nearly as seriously at the very beginning as we crazy people do now. ^_~
As mentioned, Simon's first battle with Dracula has been remade many times, starting with Vampire Killer, a version for the MSX Home Computer in Japan and Europe, played for our enjoyment by VampierMSX. The sprites look very similar to the NES Castlevania, but the backgrounds are at times more elaborate, and the gameplay style is different, with exploration, key-collecting, even weird little characters sitting around who accept hearts as currency in exchange for something or other. I haven't watched much of it yet, I admit, but it looks like some kind of cross between Castlevania, Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, and an old PC game. Which isn't so strange when you think about it.
Simon's mission was reimagined for the arcade with Haunted Castle, here played by scissormon. This game seems to have a bad reputation. The sound effects and graphics have that almost-too-detailed-for-their-own-good feel, giving Simon perhaps the goofiest walking animation he's ever suffered through (the music is still good, tho). They also put him in a tux in the intro and superfluously turned it into a damsel rescue---I'm told the woman's name is Serena---but we don't need romantic entanglements to banish this one from canon: Simon abandons his whip as the game progresses and ends up killing Dracula with a sword. Further series developments rendered that whole idea pretty untenable...
His next stop was the Super NES, and indeed Super Castlevania IV is one of the games that made that system so awesome, still considered by some (including Angry Video Game Nerd) to be the best Castlevania game yet made. Simon learned some new and useful tricks, plus of course the game looks great and the music is amazing, from "Theme of Simon" to "Room of Close Associates" (still Death's theme in my mind). Ahh, fond memories. For the playthrough, here's one by ArtificialRaven. There's also its entry at Speed Demos Archive, but you don't get the intro and full ending that way.
Finally, there was a remake for the Sharp X68000 in Japan, later ported to the Playstation and brought to the States as Castlevania Chronicles, which included both a straight port and a newly-arranged version in which, er, Ayami Kojima dressed Simon up as a porn star. Seriously, look at this (again via The Castlevania Dungeon's review). It hardly seems to measure up to the previous game on our list, and Simon got another goofy-looking walk animation or two (to say nothing of the boomerang sound effect), but here it is. This video of the "original mode" opening, courtesy yazarc, might be dark, but it's all I could find; for the original version playthrough itself, here's saucykobold. As for the updated redhead mode, Rodriguezjr has the whole thing, including its CGI version of the intro scene.
But, all of the above represent just one quest, and it was only the beginning of Simon's troubles! For his efforts, he had a curse placed on him, which could only be broken by gathering up Dracula's body parts, bringing him back to life, and killing him again in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1698). For the toll this curse was supposed to be taking, it's a much easier game than, really, any of those listed above (it's the only one in today's group that I have myself played a significant portion of, and in fact I've solved it). Building on Vampire Killer and joining Mario and Zelda in the NES-era "weird experimental sequel" fad, it was a forerunner of the "Metrovania" style that would later be my blissful weakness. However, it also made no flipping sense and was a huge exercise in Guide Dang It; I needed an FAQ to find my way into a shop for godsake. Hated by some, loved by others, it's a classic in its own quirky way, and I come down on the "rather fond of it anyway" side (plus I think goemon047's video is funnier). So, playthroughs! This one by HalDanGhor shows all the items (I couldn't find one that showed all the clues, but they're really just useless nonsense Dracula planted to delay Simon so he'd die), or you could go the Speed Demos Archive route. Either way, here are all the endings to pick from when you're done: Good, Bad, and Oddly Indifferent (technically worst).
Strangely, according to the current timeline, the obvious sequel-fishing of the Good ending was not followed up on in any timely manner; Dracula wouldn't actually be back for about fifty years... But we'll get into that one tomorrow.
