Castlevania: The Adventure (1989)

This is the first Castlevania released on a handheld system and while I think it's neat the series got such an entry at all, that's about the best thing I can say for Castlevania: The Adventure. The already rather clunky slow-paced gameplay of the first few games in the series is ground down to something even slower and somehow more punishing on the GameBoy. There's overall not much content as, assuming you don't die (which is a pretty big assumption), the game is about 30 minutes long. I can at least say the content that's there is pretty varied across the 4 stages, with each featuring a distinct aesthetic and boss. But it's clear that the game's longevity at best stems from dying over and over.

While the earlier linear games in this series are often very challenging, this one struggles further in that it's also simply not all that fun. I definitely abused save states just to get through and see what the game was like, but even when I took the time to learn patterns and overcome some areas without save states, the very slow and clunky gameplay took much of the satisfaction out of it. Accordingly, while I don't think this game was a terrible idea and I appreciate that it at least has some diversity in its level and boss design, I can't really recommend it as a gaming experience overall.

Preliminary: One of my favorite series so far in the chronology project on handheld?! What could go wrong :-p After all I enjoyed Super Mario Land despite its faults...

... But wow. Why am I moving so slow lol but the platforms can drop fast? And why, if you knew the collision masks and platforming are iffy, would you make a long stretch of tacky jumps already in the first level? I got through the first level, enjoying the music and the upgrading-my-whip-then-learning-its-exact-distance which has been my all-time favorite aspect of the Castlevanias so far in the series I just love that so much and any action platformer that has that Feel to the weapon, but it was quite begrudging that I got through it. The boss was... a joke lol, presumably only because my whip was upgraded. One positive is, I didn't have to cheat or savestate at all so far. The negative is, it wasn't that fun... we shall see if I continue this after online class.

Yeaaaa nah, the collision masks are so bad for this 2nd level

The first Game Boy game I've played through all the way... thanks to save states. (I played this via the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, a nice compilation of classics you can enjoy on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.) Suffice to say though, Castlevania the Adventure... this ain't it, chief. This game is Lag City. The game slows down just about whenever anything at all happens, making it extra tricky to do all the precise platforming you're asked to pull off (sometimes swiftly and 100% perfectly, in the case of the hellish moving spiked walls / floor / ceiling level). Frustrating level design, boring enemies, chump bosses, and no sub-weapons doesn't help matters either. Oh, and screw you, falling Tetris block platforms!!!

One positive: the fully-upgraded whip can shoot fireballs, which is nice.

I hear the sequel to this is much better, so I'll look forward to that.

1/5

Castlevania: The Adventure was the series' first foray into mobile gaming. Unfortunately this game moves at a snails pace, literally. You see, a problem with the original GameBoy was a tendency for the screen to flicker if sprites on the screen moved too fast. So the developers of "Adventure" tried to remedy this by slowing down the player character. As you can imagine this created a new problem. While the player character moves like a geriatric sloth, the enemies do not.

Additional problems include but are not limited to:

*Whip upgrades disappear when player is hit

*No Sub Weapons

*Unremarkable enemies and Bosses

*Long Levels with few lives

The one genuine compliment I can give this game is that it has really great Box Art

But even though this game has no meaningful redeeming features for whatever reason I can't bring myself to hate it.

P.S. If you want to play a good version of this game check out its sequel Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge or its remake Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth.

The game falls short of everything, it is too punishing without a real reward at the end, just annoying. The most memorable thing is that the stages are mostly different and they really explore their mechanics. Such as the level where there are floor/ceiling/wall spikes. That said the game relies too much on pixel perfect jumping (in such a cumbersome game) that just punishes desperation.

NOTE: I always recommend that people try games themselves, nobody likes like YOU like. ;-)