I ended up here on a pure whim, you know. I was thinking of covering Symphony Of The Night for this spot. I even bought it on the PS4 and was playing a bit of it. Then some stuff happened. New games. Anxiety attacks. You know. Normal life for me. I fell behind on Symphony, but I really don't know what I was going to say about it. I acknowledge its influence and reputation, but it's actually not a big tentpole Castlevania for me. No, far more interesting is this. A redemption effort of sorts. An attempt to understand the draw of something that garners a lot of ire. A positive read of a somewhat janky 30 year-old Game Boy game. Castlevania The Adventure, you see, is (probably) thought of as the worst Castlevania game. The only things I can think of coming closer to its derision are like... Haunted Castle? That's the ultra-hard quarter muncher arcade one. Maybe Simon's Quest, but that's its own negative connotation with "black sheep syndrome" and taking a certain popular exaggerated parody as gospel. Adventure, though? There's just about some legitimate critique to it that's hard to argue against, and who better to play the prosecution than me? Specifically the me of 10 years ago, the me who wrote up all the Game Boy Castlevania games and gave this a 1/5 ranking.(Yes there's no ranking on what I just linked; I had the number scores removed from my work on here for reasons which I won't get into. Let's go over what I had to say, my three main objections.
Point 1, there being almost nothing established from Castlevania in the game, is just not fucking fair and I would slap myself in the back of the head for it. Honestly, if you wouldn't slap yourself in the back of the head over some dumb shit you said ten years ago, you lead a far more perfect life than most. I said that? The person who defends Simon's Quest and Zelda 2 to the death from the aforementioned black sheep syndrome? Past me, you dumbass. I actually want to jump past point 2 for a moment, because I'll make a thing about that. Point 3, the whip downgrading, is actually still a bugbear for me. Yeah, it doesn't feel good at all and I still do not like it. We'll give you that one. Point 2, though, the walking speed of the character being a slow turtle gait... now we get to something far more interesting. It is, on paper, a valid complaint. You do walk slow as shit and it makes platforming/enemy dodging that much worse than it needs to be. The opening of Stage 2, wherein bats come at you from odd angles and are all but guaranteed to drain your whip power, does not feel good at all. Certain platforming challenges require near-perfect timing. It's a strange thing, these flaws. On paper, they should (and do for many!) wreck the game completely and make it terrible. But then, if you manage to endure long enough to get there... you hit Stage 3 of 4, and everything changes.
Stage 3 is a duplicitous dichotomy of design. It is at once a white-knuckle challenging chase of an autoscroller with instant death spikes pursuing at every turn, and a piece of design that feels like total bullshit thanks to the slow walk speed and the whip downgrade system. It will murder you unless you have memorized the where and how of jumping and whipping, and have it all planned out. Perfect execution is required, or you die. It's been the sticking point where plenty of people tap out, my past self suggests it as a form of torture for Simon's Quest haters, and I kind of admire it? This is not a broken stage with flaws that require fixing. There is purpose to its design, and it is the watch in the desert that proves these people knew what they were doing. It was meant to be like this, and I am at once frustrated by its ask of perfection and in awe of how good it feels to pull off that perfection. There is a famous ROM hack which dares to "improve" the game by increasing the walk speed, giving you more freedom of movement. It doesn't work. Stage 3's tension is completely eliminated if you're not required to be optimally running for your life at every second. Walking fast doesn't make the stage bearable. It makes it boring. I've laser focused on Stage 3 since it's the best setpiece the game has, in my opinion: Stage 1 is a decent beginner, Stage 2's cave has some fun gimmicks but also some maze game nonsense for no reason, and Stage 4 is challenging but lacks the high-speed tension of the previous level. Am I saying this is a perfect game? No. Its flaws are... difficult to pin down, though. Sure, I don't like the whip downgrading, but it is deliberate. So is the slow walk speed. As we see, the game was designed to be played like this, and when actually played like this? Good elements shine through. I hesitate to call it great, but you know what? I like it. It sure as shit deserves more than a 1/5, and that's good enough for me.
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