A group of enthusiasts First Serve Gaming decided to port one of the most controversial parts of Castlevania — Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest — to Unreal Engine 5. The developers recently held an hour-long broadcast showing the gameplay.
Image source: DSOGaming
During the broadcast, the authors showed gameplay in the Berkeley Mansion location, where you can find Dracula’s rib.
The original Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest was released in Japan in August 1987 for the NES. It reached North America in December 1988 and Europe in April 1990. Unlike the first game, the sequel features RPG and open-world elements inspired by the 1987 adventure platformer The Maze of Galious, as well as a day/night cycle that affects the strength of enemies and the number of hearts dropped. The creators of the remake, titled Castlevania – Symphony Of Horrors, decided to keep all the features, including the latter, for which the game was often criticized (along with the need to return to visited locations and weak bosses).
The developers have recreated the original’s 8-bit style, complemented it with modern graphics, and added the same sounds and music. Other gameplay mechanics and systems have also been recreated, including whip-based combat, item use, climbing ladders, talking to NPCs, secondary weapons, and stat progression.
The remake is in development, but an early version is already available for download (at the time of writing this article link didn’t work, but the creators promised to update it).
Players highly appreciated the work of fans – they were especially impressed by the implementation of the change of time of day, battles with bosses, as well as new graphic details and “pseudo-3D” effects (for example, the dynamic shadow of Simon Belmont). The creators were separately thanked for the decision to preserve the original music.
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Stills from the video
“This is the best remake of Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest,” wrote in the comments to the broadcast recording joeharm8141.
“As someone who played the original when it came out, my jaw dropped at the smooth transition between day and night,” confessed Kranzio: “Simon’s Quest is a fantastic game with very dated mechanics that you have updated beautifully while still retaining the spirit of the original. Amazing work.”
“I really like the graphics,” noted Just-Fauna. – This is what 8-bit remakes should look like.”
“I like the modernized 8-bit aesthetic with voxels, new lighting, and parallax scrolling,” praised by betterinsodapop. — Looks incredible. Keep it up!
In March of this year, enthusiast Lv.4 Games released Castlevania ReVamped, an expanded version of the 1986 game with new features and improvements.
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