Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is a very different beast than its predecessor, featuring a big, non-linear world to explore as opposed to straightfoward platforming levels, inspired by Konami's earlier MSX title Maze of Galious. While infamously cryptic and frustrating at times, it laid the groundwork for a much more beloved game.

It's also infamous for its hilariously inept translation, though the original Japanese version doesn't make much sense either, thanks to Konami's brilliant decision to give many of the villagers intentionally misleading dialogue.

Hit Deborah Cliff with your head to make a hole, and don't forget to visit the graveyard duck to live longer.

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Notes Regional DifferencesA surprising amount for a NES game.

Unused Enemy#

An unused enemy. Judging from the tileset it's stored in, it was probably supposed to appear in a mansion. These graphics replace the normal zombie graphics from outside of mansions, with concept art suggesting that these mansion enemies were to be called "Franken" due to being based on Frankenstein's Monster. The concept art describes his behaviors as "only walks towards the player" and "makes the ground shaking [sic] then [sic] collapsing".

Dracula's Fangs#

Stored with the rest of Dracula's remains are a pair of vampire fangs, which suggests that Simon was meant to collect six parts of Dracula instead of five. Oddly enough, one guidebook makes mention of Dracula's fangs, being how the Count is able to attack in the Last Battle. The Tooth of Vlad also appears in the plot of Harmony of Dissonance and in Symphony of the Night as part of the method to engaging in the true final boss fight of both games.

Title Logo#

Mistakenly, two tiles in the title logo went unused, meant for the "S" in "Simon's" and the "Q" in "Quest".

Title	Mockup

Unused Sounds#

An unused sound effect, similar to a menu selection noise.

An unused loud rumbling or explosion sound effect.

Unused Text#

These messages can be viewed in-game by accessing any dialogue with Pro Action Replay (PAR) code 00007F?? enabled, where "??" is the given text ID.

Ferryman#

Starting at line 0xCF50 in the ROM data:

This is similar to the Ferryman's dialogue when you have the Heart equipped ("Let me show you the way"), but he never says "I'll show you the way." Nor does any other character in the game, for that matter.

Level-Up#

Starting at line 0xCCE0 in the ROM data:

It's obvious that these were meant to be displayed when Simon gains an experience level, but they're not. Furthermore, it's not possible to go above Level 6 in the final game.

Filler#

At lines 0xCCD0, 0xCF90, 0xD1F0, and 0xDC60 in the ROM data:

All four of these memory addresses contain an instance of "Nothing.", which is never displayed anywhere in the game. They're probably placeholders or memory fillers, but may also have been intended for empty rooms.