Castlevania Legends

Travel back to where it all began…

JP release: 27th November 1997
NA release: 11th March 1998
EU release: 1998
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Computer and Video Games Magazine Review: 2/5
Platforms: Game Boy
Version Played: Game Boy

The third and final Castlevania, and one that has pretty much been shunned. It never got a colour re-release like the previous two, and it wasn’t even included in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, even though the other Game Boy games were. It was even removed from canon. Part of that was due to the story, which depicts the first Belmont, Sonia, and the first time the Belmonts defeat Dracula.

This wasn’t the first (or last) time that they decided to do a “first encounter with Dracula” story, although this is an odd one, as Dracula is already established and Sonia is already in a relationship with Alucard (with implications that don’t make much sense). It is a shame that this happened to the first female character of the franchise, although Belmont’s Curse reimagines Sonia.

The gameplay is similar to Belmont’s Revenge with the upgraded whip that can shoot fireballs, but we’re back to the game being incredibly slow like The Adventure. What’s annoying is that Sonia has an ability (once per life/level) where she can go invincible and walk faster, so it’s not they they couldn’t program her to walk fast enough, they chose to do so – for something you save for boss fights so don’t need the fast speed anyway.

The level design really lets this down, as even by Game Boy standards there isn’t much variety. You’ll find a few side paths throughout the levels, which usually ends up with an extra life, a healing item (these can be flve or six screens wrong so only exist to waste your time) or collectables, which are all classic sub weapon you don’t use, they’re just needed for the good ending, and they’re not difficult to find.

Instead of the regular sub-weapons, you unlock abilities from defeating bosses that can be used at any point from then on (you swap in the menu), although I mainly accidentally wasted all of these when dealing with enemies on ropes. They’re bland, just like pretty much everything else in this game.

And that’s really the main sin of Castlevania Legends, it’s not really dreadful, it’s just incredibly boring. The only notable stage is the first, as it is set outside and has candles that trigger traps where you need to kill dozens of zombies to return yourself to the level. All in all, quite a snooze fest.

Poor

Unfortunately, even by Game standards this is basic. Some of the first GB titles were better than this in terms of graphics and collision detection. I’ve no doubt that the Game Boy could handle a decent Castlevania game, but this isn’t it.
Hakuna Huhtala, Computer and Video Games #196

Remake or remaster?

This really should have been in the Anniversary Collection. Perhaps a colour version of this could be included in a later collections alongside the colour versions of the other two Game Boy Castlevania games.

Official Ways to get the game

Castlevania Legends is available on Nintendo Switch Online.