Wasn't planning on playing this for the project but I've been super into modding my shit lately so I figured why not give MSX emulation another try. I tried ages ago to play Metal Gear and I could only play the game at 1.5x speed without the game freezing. Fortunately, it isn't 2015 anymore, and I found a pretty solid answer to playing this game I didn't actually have any interest in playing. But it's a cool game! The lack of a scrolling screen is pretty hard to get used to at first, but they've shifted the style of the game around to play around this limitation. Rather than progress through rooms which test your abilities, Vampire Killer splits levels into multiple blocks where you must search through various rooms to find a key to the next section. It's pretty neat for 1986! What's not neat is that literally every level works like this. Also not neat is that the key is always hidden behind breakable scenery, with no indication the scenery is breakable. The game gets really boring and confusing quickly, and the stages looping back into each other, with the Unnaturally Looping Location trope, merely adds to confusion. It's fine to look back on and recognize the growth shown not only in Simon's Quest, but in future games such as Symphony of the Night, but this was evidently not the strongest effort, and it's probably why Konami has made little effort to preserve this piece. 2/6