Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

I've started to read the review of Castlevania II and it's great ! Hope you'll continue ! Keep up the good work !

I am focusing on writing a Castlevania III review but well... real life responsibilities are a thing so that's still taking its sweet time.

Thanks for reading!

You're welcome ! And I can understand about the lack of time : it's the same for me here ! Much of the time...

Interesting and very in-depth review of Castlevania II. I enjoyed the game, both as a kid and more recently when I revisited it, but it's hard to argue against the criticism of tediousness and design issues. It does have incredible music, which is definitely in line with the better parts of the series, and partially as a result of this I do think it has notable atmosphere.

It is a practically impossible game without outside help, which as you pointed out is a serious design flaw for its era, but I tend to be forgiving of the issues the game has because it was such a bold step for the series and for gaming in general at that point. Definitely didn't turn out as well as it could, but maybe just because of the incredible music and ambience I've always enjoyed the game. And I do think it's an interesting predecessor to Symphony of the Night, which would not have had much of a basis without this game.

What kills CV2 for me is the low-effort quality to the mansions and the environments and art gets very copy/paste.

Sound is a big component to Castlevania, but for me, so is art! Castlevania 3 has what is in my opinion, the best art ever in an NES game (seriously those backgrounds are gorgeous), and CV2's art looks lackluster compared to the first game. Its just so... low-effort? I'm trying to think of a nice way to articulate what I mean without sounding nasty - CV2's art just comes off as a hack job to me.

There's also no reward for exploration, so even though you could potentially explore, if you know where to go there's no reason to not play the game in an extremely linear fashion. Hell, you basically buy most of your upgrades, which defeats the point of exploration. Subweapons are non-existent, you only use the Holy Water for picking out floors and the Golden Knife late in the game because its the only one that's better off than you using the whip.

This isn't a thing that's brought up a lot, but man Castlevania 2 would be the perfect game for the axe to shine as a subweapon and of course they don't include it. Talk about a missed opportunity.

In short, I don't hate Castlevania 2. Its just incredibly really boring, and its nature makes it an easy target to hate for other people.