Beaten: The Castlevania Adventure (Game Boy)

 Finishing up yet another classic Game Boy platformer with my modern Analogue Pocket and its save anywhere ability, I did something I’ve only done once before: I beat a Castlevania game! 

This series is special to me and I have lots of Castlevania games unfinished in my collection, but I’ve only beaten Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest before. The rest, I play, I’m in awe, but then I hit a wall that breaks down my resolve to continue.

These games are top level Konami platformers, which were kind of like From Software’s Souls games of the 2010s, just in the NES/ SNES era and mostly 2D hellscapes of painful sidescrolling. Only the most dedicated players would beat them.

I picked up The Castlevania Adventure for my Game Boy on August 9, 1991, which was over a year after it had come out. Hey, I was on a tight budget and supporting a Turbografx 16, an Atari VCS, and a Commodore 64 at the time, so the Game Boy library grew slowly.

I think I made it past the first boss once back then, but quickly used up my remaining lives in the next level and put it away. Over the years I pulled it out and played it many more times, but I never made it much farther than that.

Playing through, I realized that I’ve been getting psyched out by the difficulty of these and discouraged by the repetition, when, in essence they are not insanely hard. Each encounter I had after each save point I made was reasonably difficult to figure out, meaning that the attacks, dodges, and jumps I had to make would only take a few tries to get right.

Even the final boss, Dracula himself, had an easily discernible attack pattern for both of his phases. Once the player knows it, it isn’t too hard finish him off and start the end credits rolling.

I’ve just about finished all of the old Game Boy platformers that are in my meager library at this point. The two remaining - Ren & Stimpy’s Space Cadet Adventures and The Amazing Spider-Man - were pretty bad.

I really need to toughen up and go after the first Castlevania game next. Then like ten of its sequels. They are great games, but I’ve always taken them in small doses and never felt guilty about abandoning them when things got tough. 

For now, though, I’m good with just beating The Castlevania Adventure on the Game Boy.