More second games need to be weird IMO

I think it's a great choice. I always read the fact that there's a sudden dropoff on ALL activity once you reach the castle grounds as the fact that Dracula's curse had such terrible power that nothing could live under its influence.

You’re not alone. My brother and I figured it out as well. Without Nintendo Power. Funny how Legend of Zelda was often just as cryptic and impossible without a guide, but that game gets NO hate whatsoever.

And that’s a life of achievement right there on its own

In Super Metroid you're supposed to use the Power Bomb in the glass tunnel to get into lower Maridia. I missed out on this fact and wound up scouring every part of upper Maridia for at fifteen hours of in game clock time. You use the xray scope on the tube and "This is clearly not a bombable block why would I do that?" this violates everything else I've seen in the game, and yet here we are. Castlevania 2 feels like it's full of "Fuck around and find out" things like this. I know, it's the 80's, there's no focus group testing, really. Devs only test with over devs who are busy plowing through their own deadlines.

WELL DONE to you! Simon's Quest was my major Christmas present for 1990. I progressed well enough past the first mansion (Ribcage), but then became haplessly stuck, like so many others, trying to find Dracula's remaining four mansions. Eventually I got some help from a friend in finding the LAST two mansions (Nail and Ring), using the jump+whip technique to leap over the "impossible" jump at the end of the cemetery where you can find the Silver Knife. But that STILL left me/us unable to prossess Dracula's heart + eyeball. FYI I had already found the clue about kneeling by the lake with the blue crystal. I remember subsequently kneeling down multiple times, but I mustn't have kneeled down for long enough (i.e. five seconds or so) because the technique never worked. And of course why should it have? After all, nowhere in the manual does it say that using the crystals requires more than just selecting them in your inventory? Nowhere. It would have been reeeeeeeally handy to know to kneel down for several seconds. Thanks Nintendo. Eventually, about 3 months later (March) I have the Nintento Hotline in Australia (where I live) a call. They were able to tell me what to do, and I finished the rest of the game with ease, within a day or so, basically - as I already had all the other items and the flame whip, etc. I remember when I fought Dracula for the first time I didn't even realise it was him until afterwards. He was so damn easy to kill, and he didn't really look like Dracula. I just thought he was another boos to defeat. I remember thinking that once he was defeated I should try jumping/sliding down the "pipe" the the centre of the room ala Super Mario Bros, and maybe that would lead me to Dracula. But once the ending sequence kicked in (I got the "bad" black and white ending), I soon realised, WOW I JUST KILLED DRACULA AND COMPLETED THE GAME AT LAST! I remember how excited I was to be able tot ell my friends that I had become the first of them to complete the game (with a little help). The one surprise the game had left, though, came a few moths later when I played it from start to finish, and to my absolute shock, this time the ending was different (I got the daytime ending where Simon beats Dracula but dies of his wounds). Once again, the manual made NO MENTION of different endings based on how fast you complete the game, as you well know. I initially thought that I had gotten this different ending because in this playthrough I used the morning star (rather than the flame whip) to defeat Dracula, and maybe this whip simply wasn't "strong enough" to truly defeat Dracula. I subsequently achieved the third (best?) ending sometime later too (where Dracula is defeated but rises from his grave). Still love the game, overall. though. Played it through again (using RetroArch on my PC) and had a great time.

I read somewhere that any character who couches the information instead of just saying it (like if instead of saying "there's a secret item here" they might say "I heard there's a secret item here") is a guaranteed liar.

_Count_ Duckula.

barf

How did you post on a merely day-old video 2 weeks ago?

@@CarbonRollerCaco You have to hold a blue crystal iPhone and kneel in front of KZfaq for 12 seconds.

@@CarbonRollerCaco Patreon early bird

@@philmason9653 haven't finished reading all the comments, but I'm going to say this is the best one

Playing now for the first time and really liking it

Jeremy did too, until an interview with Igarashi

I still think it is. I think he was lying when he said it was intentional. That was his lie, just like the vilagers. Seriously. Did you not understand him being that way?

Well, the instruction manual states that some of the clues townsfolk give are false, but not many kids read their NES game manuals.

Dragon Quest XI has an optional mode where NPCs lie to you

Rolfe's video (besides being hilarious) basically perfectly encapsulates all the frustrations of CV II. It's not surprising that resonated with people, despite CVII still being a well-above average NES game for the time that was fun to play despite all the cryptic BS and cut corners in the game.

Oh, I forgot I designed and produced that game. Wait, what?

@@JeremyParish thats what im saying! Wait what??? You did a great job; fun short game i had no idea existed until it was on sale on Steam.

@@MiguelPaulettePerez-bj8ml Yeah, that game was way more awesome than a The Mummy game had any right to be

I think it's because ducks tend pace back and forth like guardspeople.

I had never heard of the clock advancing with each game over. Does it happen in the mansions too or just the overworld?

That's not quite right. The clock resumes at its current time when you die and immediately continue. It only resets to a specific time of the current day (I think noon) when you continue from a password. Someone mentioned above that you can game the system by getting a game over right before midnight and restarting from a password-it'll set the clock back to noon, and if you know your route from the starting point, you can gain some extra time that way.

They supposedly got a LOT of complaints about it, so you're not wrong.

I was a kid at the time and a former Fun Clubs News subscriber who got the entire run of Nintendo Power, but it wasn't until the '00s when I started hearing about it being infamous online that I even thought about it. It just seemed like a normal cover to me.

Yeah. "lol it sux" no longer the consenus on this classic?

@@BasementBrothers Seems not. Now it's more "flawed classic that laid the groundwork for future awesomeness" :D

There is. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest Revamped

@@Suprentus sweet, this is why I commented. I'll definitely be checking this out. Is it as good as AM2R as far as being a polished fan game?

@@Packers4Evar12 I played it like 12 years ago, and it was pretty polished for the most part. I remember one oversight that softlocked my game where the red crystal didn't have the function of the blue crystal, meaning if you didn't complete the mansion that requires the blue crystal before getting the red crystal, you're softlocked. I'm sure that's probably fixed by now though. I had fun with it. The boss fights were actually boss fights. I should probably pick it up again.

Maybe he's a lying villager

Rented it when I was 8 and was confused. Very soon after, friends showed me the way through and I loved it.

To a point, as Igarashi was also the one responsible for removing several games (conveniently one he didn’t oversee or make) like Circle of the Moon and the N64 ones circa 2005/2006. While some are better than others (Circle) it did come across as petty, especially as the chief conceit of streamlining the story to connect to the fabled 1999 game with Julius Belmont hasn’t materialized.

@@osurpless Yes, but that exactly proves my point. He did remove these games from the timeline, but put them back for the promotion material for Portrait of Ruin, semmingly having made peace with others' contribution that may not match his vision. He probably originally wanted something else to happen (or not happen) in the 1800's featuring the Belmonts, but maybe gave up on it and just let the existing games be canon. Except Legends.

They messed up the order of the endings. The ending you get for the best time isn't actually all that great!

@@JeremyParish Remarkable- so not only were the requirements for best ending obtuse, the endings being out of order makes the plot even harder to parse!

It's coming. Give it a few weeks.

That’s because it rules

People who weren't there for it don't understand how evocative Castlevania II was back when it first appeared.

@@JeremyParish the change from day to night was genuinely creepy to me

It has it's flaws, but it's still a very good game. It's one of the best examples of a "flawed masterpiece". No matter what you think about the gameplay, level/world design, and the manner in which you are supposed to progress through the game, the graphics and sound are outstanding! There's a reason that so many people remember this game, many, many years later.

No, Symphony of the Night is based on Zelda: A Link to the Past. I have no idea what this "metroidvania" nonsense is all about.

@@JeremyParish I don't like the term/genre as well. The idea goes as this: Metroid for the way the dungeon is structured and to obtain new skills, revisit old areas and such. Zelda is different, because the dungeons are encapsulated, while in Metroid and SotN it's basically a single big dungeon. And the vania from Metroidvania comes from SotN itself. To me these are "just" Non-linear Platform Act/Adventures.

It was. The NBC show

The JP subtitle translates to “The Cursed Seal,” so that was just Konami USA goofin’ around

@@JeremyParish Yep, I think learning that years ago was what made me go "hey, wait a minute..." about the Dracula's Curse title in the first place. It has kept me up at night ever since.