Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

Trivia

The 2nd issue of Nintendo Power had a cover based on Castlevania II. It depicted a man in a suit of armor (probably Simon Belmont) holding Dracula's severed head. The cover prompted several phone calls from mothers who claimed it gave their children nightmares.

In the original japanese Famicom Disk System-only version of the game, it was possible to beat the last boss using only a single piece of garlic ! Doing this really took a long while tough. You just have to drop a piece of garlic on the floor, move and wait for the boss to hit the garlic. It will be hit 256 times without having the ability to move, then die. In the western cartridge port of the game, Konami made the supply of garlic vanish for the final battle, probably because this trick was well-known in Japan.

A 1990 novella based on this game was published by Scholastic as part of their "Worlds of Power" series for children at risk of losing their literacy to video gaming -- books based on non-Nintendo-owned NES games, all attributed to the author "F.X. Nine" (though this one is also credited: written by Christopher Howell, a Seth Godin Production.) At the ends of chapters, hints for the completion of the video game appear in spoiler-secured upside-down text.

Along with the differences pointed out previously between the Japanese Famicom Disk System version and the North American version, there are deviations on some names (most notably, Simon's last name in the Japanese version, as is usually the case with the family name, is "Belmondo". Also, Camilla Cemetery is instead called "Carmilla Cemetery").

The game's enemy rate is also slightly higher in the Japanese version than in the U.S. port, and there are some sound differences: The glass-shattering effect of holy water doesn't exist, the sound effect for Simon falling into water is altered, the secret-discovering sound plays only when you initially talk to hidden souls and not after, and there are snazzier sounds for the Ferryman's actions and the Deborah Cliff tornado-soul ride.

You can also continue to purchase garlic and laurels even after you stock is filled. And the mansion music also plays when you're at their outside entrances.

The game features three different endings, which are activated based on the amount of game-time it takes one to finish the game. The first ending is for three days or less, another is for eight days or less and the third is for any time playing over that. The endings which are activated are different between the US and Japanese versions of the game. It's debatable among many which of the three is the "better" ending (the fastest ending isn't considered the best), however it seems that in two of those endings, Simon Belmont does not survive Dracula's Curse placed upon him.

It was the first game to contain a day - night cycle.

Contributed by Andreas Vilén (290) on Jan 31, 2004.

The original Japanese version of the game, named "Dracula II: Noroi no Fuuin", was not released on a cart! The game was available for the Famicom Disk System, an addon that let the Famicom play video games straight from a special floppy disk. The game had two differences in regards to the US version: First, it did not use passwords to record your progress, it saved the data to one of three save files on the disk. Second, the game has different music, because the Famicom Disk System had an extra sound channel that was not available via other means.