-a rom hack of "Castlevania 2" for the NES-
review by: Dr. Boogie

Ladies and gents, Halloween is upon us once more, and so I bring you a rom hack that is filled to overflowing with the Halloween spirit: The spirit of costumes. After all, what is a rom hack but a well-known game that's been paved over with garbage, just like how a man or woman wanting to dress up as a zombie must don the obligatory ratty clothing and fake blood and puss? This hack, however, is a little different from the standard fair. Different, but still half-assed, like the guy who goes to a costume party dressed in casual clothes, and says that he's dressed like a serial killer. "They look just like everyone else," he says, but everyone knows he just wanted the free food, and was too lazy and self-conscious to cook up a real costume. They hate him, as well they should, for he is a loser.

Anyway, apart from your typical rom hacker, who slathers his subject with curse words and crude likenesses of the penis, there are hackers who try to transform their subjects into something more. Perhaps a hacker will take the original Donkey Kong, rearrange some of the platforms, and call it Donkey Kong's Revenge. Another hacker might take some liberties with the enemies in Super Mario Bros. 2, and call it Super Mario Bros. 4. It's like a slightly higher level of rom hacking, wherein the hacker has graduated from smearing crap all over the original game, to just plain bastardizing it. Take a look at this example of second-tier rom hackery by Jimw entitled Super Castlevania 2.

I'm not sure if the "Super" means that it's an improved version of Castlevania II, or if it means that it's the second prequel to Super Castlevania IV. Then again, Super Castlevania IV was the only Castlevania with "Super" in the title, so it's really just "Super Castlevania," and so this hack must be the sequel to that, perhaps. Whatever the case, this game has all the same great visuals as its SNES counterpart... if you took those visuals, blew them up to twice their size, removed most of the colors, and then rubbed your eyes really hard for a full minute. Oh, but this is only version 0.9. I'm sure they'll have all those bugs worked out in time for version 1.0. Let's take a look inside:

Oh, look at that. The villagers opted to transform their normal sidewalk blocks into some faux wooden ones a la Super Mario Bros. 3. Tres chic! And look, there's Toad. More on him later. First things first, you'll notice that Simon is no longer wearing his stylish black and red ensemble.

I'm afraid that in the midst of fighting off vampires and demons, some sick individual has absconded with our hero's pants and shirt sleeves. It must have happened a while ago, as Simon seems to have gotten a little sun. I wonder if that's an all-over tan... Anyway, he looks vaguely like Super Nintendo Simon, so maybe this is supposed to be a sequel to SCV4. Twice the action, half the graphics! Also, no whip-dangling... if you know what I mean.

Anyway, the question remains as to why Toad is in this game. Well, he's not the only one who slipped in. I'll let him explain the reason for all this:

Yes, many of your favorite Nintendo characters have been sucked into this rom hack like a crappy knockoff of Super Smash Bros. In this case, however, they all realize Simon's obvious superiority and are content to simply wait behind in villages dispensing nonsensical advice. Advice like this:

Alright then. Granted, it's still not as weird as lines like, "Don't look into the death star or you will die," but it's close.

It's a parade of bumper sticker sayings. One of the villagers even gives the old "take me drunk, I'm home" line. Again, the original script in Castlevania II wasn't exactly compelling cinema, but at least you could kind of pretend it was related to what you were doing. On the other hand, it also meant that you had to decipher cryptic remarks like, "Get a Silk Bag from the Graveyard Duck to live longer," and, "Believe in magic and you'll be saved."

Jimw even went so far as to change the text in all the hidden clue books in the game:

Again, it wasn't like the clue books were particularly helpful, but they're still preferable to a bunch of crappy one-liners. With all these tired old clichés, I expected to find the one about beauty being in the eye of the beer-holder. Oh, but my search was in vain. Pity.

Getting back to the characters, our friend Jimw has included quite a few from the NES, and I've grouped them together based on the game they were stolen from:

Ol' Jimw dipped deep into the well of Super Mario Bros. 2. All the heroes are there, with the exception of that pink tart, Peach. She's probably floating somewhere overhead. Mario will swap important items with you, but unfortunately, his brother and Toad just putter about spouting T-shirt slogans. Birdo the egg-spitting dinosaur made it, although he/she had to sacrifice the ability to spit eggs to gain the ability to hop about spastically. Eh, I've heard of worse trades. The shyguy, on the other hand, has picked up lickety speed, probably a byproduct of the shyness. He even makes a little hop every now and then, although that could just be him stumbling over his own stubby feet.

Jimw hit up SMB3 for enemies as well:

From the left, a Boomerang brother, a koopa trooper (or "troopa," if you like), and Larry the koopaling. Sadly, they are all but shadows of their former selves. After getting stomped on the head by Mario one too many times, this Boomerang brother has completely forgotten how to throw his boomerang, and so he has to make due by bludgeoning Simon with his boomerang instead. And Larry, well he's not quite as tough without that magic wand he stole. At least he can still breathe fire. The troopa, though, never really had any powers apart from being able to pop out of his shell to avoid being crushed to death, and that doesn't really come into play when whips are involved. Jimw even took the "chomp" out of the chainchomp.

Jimw has clearly played Zelda II before, and he took away more from that game than just bad memories. Blobs, spiders, and bats help fill out the quota for irritating enemies, and the knights and moblins show that they've got pacing back and forth worked down to a science. Meanwhile, Link appeared every now and then to dispense handy items. He even brought along the local currency of Hyrule.

Ah, sweet payola. And you don't need to snuff any candles to get rich.

The original Metroid gets the treatment as well. Even more surprising is that these two are a lot like they were in Metroid, except that you don't need missiles to kill them. They may seem weaker, but that's because in Metroid, they only had to face down ray guns and explosives, and not the Vampire Killer! And that's saying nothing about the holy water.

Speaking of holy water, look who decided to show up in church:

I didn't know Samus was a Latin name.

Unfortunately, there was no love for Kid Icarus. Eggplant wizard guy can't turn anyone into eggplants, and poor Pit only has one frame of animation, which makes him not animated at all, really. On a side note, there are some pretty wild Greek myths, but I don't remember hearing the one about the eggplant wizard.

And then there's the one-shot cameos. The fighter from the first Final Fantasy (insert "irony" emoticon) takes the place of the ferryman and asks, "Simon, have you seen the other light warriors?" Kirby, perhaps the only other game character with the chutzpah to foil Dracula on a regular basis, just belts out slogans like Toad and Luigi. Alex, on the other hand, will sell you all of the useful items you'll need to combat Drac, which means he'll finally start his game with enough money to buy a pair of Texas Boots and a book on Dragon Feet. You hear that, Slick? Your days are numbered, and once he figures out how to convert rupees to dollars, you're dead!

This character was in one of the Megaman games. I can't remember which, on account of him having an extremely small part, but on the other hand, they say there are no small parts, only small actors. That's the case here, as he used to have several more gilded trashcans stacked above and below his face. On the upshot, he's more mobile, and he can now shoot fairly accurate fireballs.

He's not the only Megaman character to make a special appearance, however. Check out the new Death:

It's Dr. Wily, and this time he demonstrates that he doesn't need a fancy UFO to float around. And he can shoot energy pellets too! He made it out the best of all the guest stars, even securing a spot as a boss character instead of a lowly lackey. The other boss character, and the final boss before Dracula himself, is yet another character from SMB2:

Phanto, the key-seeking mask, was apparently the understudy for the original boss, the Crying Mask. He's just as ineffective as his predecessor, though. It doesn't matter that he drops exploding keys on you, when you hardly have to move at all to hit him. Not that Dracula himself was any tougher.

That said, the least Jimw could do was change the endings, and that he did:

Oh good. Everything is finally back to normal, apart from Simon's skimpy new outfit. I assume that will be fixed by the end of Super Castlevania 3.

Of course, that's just the best ending:

By the way, the line about Dracula flying all over the place was both funny, and the truth.

In all fairness, you really do have to drag ass to get the last ending. Of course, it probably took a lot longer back in the day when everyone was trying to make sense of those villagers and their obscure remarks.

So what have we learned from Super Castlevania 2? Well, this hack was all about sacrifice. All these other were willing to sacrifice their natural abilities, all for the chance to appear alongside the Legendary Belmondo himself, Simon Belmont, and even he was willing to sacrifice his pants in order to stop Dracula yet again. We also learned the dangers of copyright infringement. Believe me, if you thought Nintendo hated people who download roms of their games, you should see their policy regarding those that hack their games. It explains why the next version of Super Castlevania 2 has yet to be released even nine years after version 0.9. You will be missed Jimw. Not by me, or by anyone who ever played Castlevania II – Simon's Quest, but by someone probably. Whoever it is, they will also not be missed by me.