Castlevania: The Adventure

A challenge you won’t walk away from!

JP release: 27th October 1989
NA release: 15th December 1989
EU release: 1991
AKA: Dracula Densetsu (Japan)
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Total! UK Magazine Review: 89%
Platforms: Game Boy, Game Boy Color
Version Played: Game Boy Color

The first of the handheld Castlevania games. For an experience closer to the original, I am playing the handheld titles on a Steam Deck, with an LCD filter to make the pixels look more like they would to the naked eye. I did try out a bezel to look more like the original screen, but a screen-within-a-screen effect just looked odd on a small display. The Adventure was built for the original Game Boy, but a colourised version was released as part of Konami GB Collection Vol 1 in Japan and Europe, so I opted to paly that version.

The story is very light in the manual, but the story involves Christopher Belmont, the hero that defeated Dracula 100 years before Simon Belmont. This detail was completely left out of the original western releases of the game, so everyone back then just presumed that this was Simon again. It didn’t help that the western manual of the original Castlevania also omitted mentioning Christopher, so his name had not been in anything outside of Japan.

Being an early Game Boy title, The Adventure is pretty much a first go at moving the franchise onto the handheld system. Some things have been removed (no sub weapons) but the core whip gameplay, jumping and the stairs are here. Christopher can also climb ropes, which is new. The major, major problem is that the game is unbelievably slow – and the colour version is sped up slightly, so it would be worse on the original version.

There’s also a greater focus on platforming, which feels really bad. Many jumps have to be made at the last possible moment, with Christopher’s back foot only just being on the platform. This is on top of having to account for input delays and using your whips causes a “recovery period” which prevents jumping for a moment. Add into this platforms that instantly flop and one of the four levels being all about making lots of precise jumps while a spiked wall zooms towards you and it feels unfair and horrible. Without rewind I would have gone crazy.

The enemies also feel annoying, and quite often there’s no way to avoid taking a hit. One in particular, Punaguchi, is a floating head that shoots bouncing balls, is a nightmare to deal with. Enemies also take quite a few hits with the default whip, but this is something you can upgrade – but taking any hit will demote the whip back to the original.

For an early Game Boy game, it’s quite alright, it’s just that most developers were struggling with working out how to take advantage of the hardware for action or platform games, even Nintendo had issues with Super Mario Land. But, as developers got used to it, much better games came out and made the early titles look really bad by comparison.

Poor

Yes indeed, the gameplay is a bloomin’ riot. So when you consider that the atmospheric graphics and spooky sound are also of a very high quality you have to conclude that we’ve got a bit of a corker on our hands. I think it’s great, and if you don’t agree, I’ll come round and make you play Sega games.
Andy, Total! UK Magazine #1

Remake or remaster?

This got a complete remake on WiiWare.

Official Ways to get the game

The original version is available in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. The Colour version and the Wii Remake are unavailable.