I wanted to sleep, but I noticed this game still has no review with a positive score. Overall has a two-star rating sooooooo it's not entirely hateable. In fact I found it mostly entertaining and, despite not having played a lot of the Game Boy library yet, I'd say this one, Kid Dracula, and even with its flaws, Belmont's Revenge (CV Legends DOES NOT exist), all Castlevania Games, could be the highlights of the system.
This Belmont may be the slowest in the family, yeah, but thanks to that you don't even have to worry to go backwards. It's a slow but safe journey. With precise platforming here and there, so watch your feet, literally.

Best Castlevania artwork cover of the series too.

Wow. What a disaster of a video-game.

The Adventure lulled me into a false sense of security. For a few screens, it presents itself as a passable, if bland, GB translation of the traditional Castlevania formula. Many early GB versions of popular franchises made significant mechanical sacrifices, so the lack of sub-weapons was unsurprising. Taking damage causing a whip downgrade seemed an odd choice, but the basic whip is fine enough I suppose...

By the end of the first level, I had given up on any pretence of playing the game legit, and was happily abusing save-states. The level design and enemy placement is so poor, the platforms so brutally placed, and the punishment for death so severe, there was no way. There is one instance where I'm certain damage is simply unavoidable, another where the best solution was to turn around before getting hit so the knockback would send me past the enemies, and the bosses... fuck the bosses, man.

This is a dreadful game, and one of the worst I've ever played in a major, renowned series. Thankfully it was short, and now I can get back to Dracula's Curse, a game I'm loving and one where I don't feel the need to abuse save states, challenging though it may be.

It’s very rare that I outright regret persisting with a game even after I dislike it, since I expect to at least gain some insight into possible shortcomings and potential of the game, kinda theory crafting ways it could be a more engaging, fun experience. This mindset ends up being thrown out the window when being put up against a game this bad though, because while one could attribute some of the more limited aspects of the game to the hardware this was on, I have trouble really defending much of this game at all, yet also don’t have a whole lot to say about it due to the pitifully small amount of content this game actually has.

The biggest problem with this game by an enormous margin is the fact that the somewhat slow, rigid mobility of the player from previous Castlevania games was epitomised here, but rather than tying in really nicely to the core game and level design, it instead works as an unbearable hindrance as your character moves at an obscenely slow pace that’s stiff enough to make even the slightest platforming section feel near impossible to get past. This problem manages to be further exacerbated by the fact that the game’s attempts on making something somewhat graphically impressive for the Game Boy ended up causing the game to run in a constant state of lag, furthermore causing the backgrounds to be in a constant state of tearing, putting eye strain and headaches on top of the sheer frustration of trying to do anything. I also found that this lag cause the game to sometimes just not register my inputs, often causing me to completely miss a jump or something equally as punishing, which really sealed the game as being one of the least pleasant gaming experiences I remember having.

As for the level design itself, this is really what I think makes the game as terrible as it is, because at least with having some of the worst mobility I’ve experienced in gaming, there’s at least probably something that could be done in an attempt to compensate for this through at least displaying some potential. Issue is that these levels all utterly suck in their own ways, and there are only 4. The first level is some of the most generic stuff I’ve seen, with cookie cutter enemy placement and lame scenery making this only recognisable as a Castlevania game at all due to the fact that your weapon is a whip once again. Level 2 sharply ramps up in difficulty by exploiting the fact that you have almost no way of hitting anything that’s not a stationery target directly in front of you by filling a cave full of unpredictably moving bats that will almost certainly end up killing you due to the sheer number of them throughout. Level 3 boils down to an incredibly precise autoscrolling section with instakill spikes that lasts for over 6 solid minutes, full of platforming that is close enough to pixel perfect to be obnoxious to say the least. The final level is basically a culmination of everything bad about the game and then extended to twice the length, nothing really to say about it, just that it’s the worst level by far.

This is just one of those games where I don’t even really see a hint of potential beneath the mountains of flaws this has, and while I stand by my decision to play through this just to get some general perspective, my god was it difficult for reasons beyond the terrible difficulty this had. Would not recommend this at all unless it’s out of morbid curiosity.

Scattershot statements:

The music in this game is forgettable at best and mind numbing at worst, doesn’t help that the sound font of the game boy just sounded terrible in practically all cases as is.

The bosses just all utter jokes, some of them acting even more simple than those in Simon’s Quest.

The idea of downgrading the player’s whip upon taking damage is asinine at the very least, especially in a game as janky as this.

Collision is utter trash in this game, enemy projectiles have such a large hitbox that makes being able to accurately judge the right time to jump nearly impossible.

The game’s lack of subweapons makes approaches to obstacles incredibly limited, especially when combined with the shoddy way the player moves.

It's pretty sad when the box art is the best part of a game. And in this case, it absolutely is. Seriously that is some of the sickest box art Castlevania has gotten, in a series that has a lot of really good box art. Shame the name's positioning makes it look like it says "The Castlevania Adventure".

This game is noooot good and it only takes playing through the first level a little to get through. First, Christopher Belmont walks as if he did not have legs. He is UNBEARABLY slow and it is probably the worst thing about this game. Not only does it make trudging through every level feel like walking through molasses, it means that fighting literally anything that can move is ridiculously frustrating. You simply do not have the movement speed to deal with stuff in a way that actually feels fun even when you see it coming. Not only is this not enjoyable, it also means enemies by and large have very simple attacks / patterns. Most of the difficulty in this game comes from fighting the terrible controls.

This is not helped by the jumping, which is bad. Castlevania jump physics are stiff, that's fine, the games often gear themselves to that, but this is TOO stiff. You WILL initially find yourself having difficulty doing a single jump onto a platform because ol' Christopher doesn't want to move. It IS something you can get used to, but it never feels truly consistent, and combined with your non-existant horizontal movement means the way to take every single jump is to get as cloooose to the edge as possible and leap. I will say right now I heavily save stated playing this game unlike NES Castlevania, because extra lives are very hard to come by and it is way too easy to die to the controls. Bosses are largely extremely easy though, with the exception of the second stage boss...which is still easy if you do it right, but if you do it wrong and a single one of whatever the hell they are gets out it becomes very hard because they move fast and you can't really dodge move fast consistently.

There's no sub-weapons in this game, but given this is a near-launch title on a crunchy lime-green original Game Boy I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is your whip upgrades going DOWN when you get hit. Castlevania games and Mario games have pretty different designs, and Castlevania's doesn't work well with it I feel...but especially not in a game as stiff as this. There's also the fact that it isn't like the whip attack "eats" damage like a mushroom in Super Mario, you just also lose it and your health. Maybe it's because the Flame Whip is OP here? At least the bosses give you a free whip upgrade before they start.

This game does have a little bit to it that is innovative, such as an extended section involving running away from a spiked floor and then spiked wall. It's pretty common but a bit novel for an original Game Boy or old Castlevania game, I feel like the segment would have been kinda fun if the movement speed wasn't so bad. The spike platforms are a bit neat I guess? Okay yeah there isn't much, just a tiny sliver, but ay. Soundtrack is a fairly poor early GB soundtrack, it largely gets repetitive in a bad way when you are dying so often. The graphics aren't that good, but I submit the fact that it is on the original ass green Game Boy and only like 3 months after release means it isn't bad for the time it was made, and honestly I'd take how it looks over something like Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle.

So, yeah, Castlevania: The Adventure isn't good! It is slow, sounds bad, unnecessarily difficult in a way more unfair than challenging, and I would essentially only recommend it to people very interested in Castlevania's full history (like me), the original Game Boy's history or if you got it via Castlevania Anniversary Collection and figured "eh, why not". An unworthy game.

Imagine you’re chatting with friends about your favorite restaurants. One person mentions the fish market, another talks about a tucked-away little Thai place, and then someone says Olive Garden. The first impulse might be to laugh, but at that moment, my number one wish would be to go with them and see what’s good. I mean, how many people have the integrity to go against the grain like that, to be unembarrassed and unapologetic with their taste, and not lie or make excuses like I probably would. Even if I ended up not enjoying it, I would at least get to hang out with someone who has a unique take on things and expand my perspective.

That’s how I ended up playing this game. On my recommendations list, user Lot0 mentioned that they were in the minority for appreciating it, which piqued my interest. Even as a huge Castlevania fan, I rarely heard people talk about it, and the few times they did were decisively negative. But a lot of people think even Castlevania on NES is bad, so why should I trust them on their assessment of The Adventure? After all, these platformers are simple games, there’s not much you could do to ruin the formula, as long as it all functions properly it should still be a pretty enjoyable game.

However, the operative phrase there is “as long as it all functions properly”. The movement is pitifully slow, jumping from a standing position seems to not work sometimes, inputs randomly drop, it just has an inexcusably bad game-feel. A couple stages have some neat concepts, but mixed in with the fun parts are challenges that border on unfair. That’s certainly not a unique problem within the series, but since this game has no subweapons, there’s no room to strategize your way around it. In the original game, bosses were designed to be weak to certain weapons, so by removing them, bosses in The Adventure are all about finding a spot where you just can’t be hit. It’s like playing a Castlevania title as explained by people who don’t like the series, who would tell you it’s just clunky controls and unfair difficulty set to a decent soundtrack. That’s why I'm so curious about the people who enjoy it, I want to see what they love in something I found to be a comedic exaggeration of the series’ problems. There doesn’t have to be a formal reason for loving it of course, everyone’s entitled to what they enjoy and don’t need to justify themselves, but I would love to give the game a second look from the perspective of a fan. Maybe after that we could go get some nasty breadsticks.

Eu acho ele a definição de decente.
Não adiciona nada na franquia ao todo, mas não é necessariamente ruim.

Dessa vez você não tem itens para usar, mas seu último upgrade de chicote deixa você atirar bolas de fogo quando ataca... pena que você perde upgrades quando recebe um hit... e algumas salas são literalmente garantidas de te acertar.
Não é um jogo muito bem pensado, mas eu realmente não esperava muito então não posso dizer estar desapontado.