Castlevania: The Adventure

Castlevania: The Adventure

Game Boy - Germany - 1st edition.

Developer Konami Industry Publisher Konami Published 1989-10-27 Platforms Game Boy Genres Beat 'em up, Platformer Themes Action, Horror, Vampires Series Castlevania Distribution Commercial

Castlevania: The Adventure is an action platform video game developed and published by Konami and released on 1989-10-27 for the Game Boy. It is part of the Castlevania series.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	No.

I tried playing this game several times, but became so frustrated by the poor controls, I gave up by the second stage.

Review

2	1	4	3	2

Best Version: Game Boy

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The graphics are quite good for a Game Boy game.

Bad

• The game runs too slowly. It feels like it's lagging all the time.
• Most of the music is derivative of previous games in the series, except they sound worse, and not just because of the weaker audio hardware. The music that is new to this game isn't very good.
• With only four levels, the game is especially short, even for a Game Boy game. The designers tried to give it a bit more life by making each replay harder by having enemies deal double damage, but that's no replacement for a game play.
• The sprites seem to be drawn slightly after the background making them look out of sync.

Ugly

• The controls are particularly bad. Like with previous Castlevania titles, you can't change direction mid-jump, and enemy knock-back obnoxiously sends you flying in the opposite direction. All too frequently you wind up falling to your death in a pit. The jumps are also painfully short and slow, making it difficult to clear enemies or short gaps. There is also a problem with jumping at an angle, many times, even when you're pressing left of right on the D-pad, you will jump straight up instead.

Media

Box Art

• 

  Original Japanese box. The art is fantastic (although Dracula is a bit odd-looking). I love the jagged shape of the lettering and the dripping blood, but I don't know why they chose a yellowish-orange backdrop.

• 

  The US and European boxes used the Japanese art. The lettering works great too, but, again, an odd choice for the secondary color, yellow?

Documentation

• 

  Manual - USA.

• 

  Nintendo Player's Guide - Game Boy.

• 

  Hot Tips for the Coolest Nintendo Games.

Maps

• 

  Stage 1.

• 

  Stage 2.

• 

  Stage 3.

• 

  Stage 4.

Videos

Review - Game Boy Works.

Review - Game Boy World.

Longplay.

Play Online

Game Boy (Europe), Game Boy (Japan), Game Boy (USA)

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no women.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no women.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Everyone appears to be white.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Castlevania: The Adventure
Japanese	ドラキュラ伝説	Dracula Densetsu	Dracula Legend

Links