Castlevania II: Simon's Quest


- Time Period: 1698
- Main Hero: Simon Belmont
- Antagonist: Count Dracula

The second NES installment follows closely in line; it through its unique gameplay style continues telling the tale of the previously documented Simon Belmont a few years after his Castlevania exploits end and his new troubles begin.

After defeating Count Dracula at the heights of Castlevania and destroying his haunted abode, Simon Belmont continued fueling the family's legend by earning even the respect of kings. Through his heroic efforts, he had indeed proven himself to be the culmination of a noble bloodline. That fame, however, came with a price: Over the following seven years, Simon slowly started to grow more and more ill--he began to feel pain all over his body because the wounds inflicted upon him during his battle with Dracula would not heal, and the anguish therein began to gnaw at even his soul; in time, he would surely succumb to the pain. More troubling to him was the fact that Dracula's dark forces continued to roam free even though their master had been defeated; as a result of their continued rampage, the Transylvanians were forced to hide in their homes at nighttime as swarms of zombies marched through the streets and monsters of all kind threatened to breach the largely defenseless residential areas. None of the village habitants could understand why evil remained steadfast in its destructive storm despite the defeat of its leader, and the resulting fear and paranoia slowly started affecting them, too, as normal citizens began taking on a deviant nature, be it a cynical attitude or the playing of mean-spirited pranks.

With no answers apparent to him, Simon fell into depression. One night, a beautiful maiden appeared to him in a dream and revealed that his "pain" was none other than the effect of Dracula's curse! She explained to him that in order to lift the troubling curse, he'd have to scour the countryside to collect the five body parts of Dracula--his rib bone, his heart, his eyeball, his nail and his ring--and burn them away in the heart of his tattered castle. She said in closing, "If you have the courage to risk your life, then you will find the strength to win again." As most beautiful visions do, she disappeared as though never having been. Simon quickly absorbed the meaning of her words; come morning, he grabbed a hold of the Vampire Killer and set out to complete a new quest.

Though, Dracula was more clever than anyone had suspected, as the maiden foretold: He knew very well his propensity to infect a Belmont hero with a curse and the means necessary to void it, so he before his defeat seven years prior ordered that his strongest guardians keep him safe until his next re-rising by dividing up his remains and hiding them in five local mansions. The mansions chosen were Berkeley, Rover, Laruba, Bodley and Brahm's, which his followers were ready to guard, protecting the remains at all cost. Despite their earnest efforts, Simon dredged through monster-filled towns, graveyards and marsh pits; he gathered, traded for, and mastered in the use of new magical items and weapons; and he infiltrated the mansions, solved their respective mysteries and puzzles, and collected the five body parts of Dracula.

As he traveled into the town of Fetra, which lay not far from Castlevania, he noticed that the town habitants were anything but welcoming. Instead, they were decidedly prepared to blame him for all of the trouble, as if the presence of the Belmont's justice-presiding power was necessitating all of the incurring evil. All of the accolades in the world couldn't didn't prevent a certain level of opposition, a problem his family had dealt with in the past and would ultimately have to deal with again and again. In this case, the elders knew that Dracula's forces were living on as a residual effect of the curse inflicted upon Simon, and they wanted no part of him. Regardless of their advice and their belittling words, he entered into the ruins of Castlevania and proceeded to its basement, where he burned the remains of the Count in a fiery blaze. Having taken the proper measures, Simon watched on as Dracula, zombified, somehow arose from his slumber to mount a lightning-quick assault. The cagey Count, in what was surely a weakened state, was no match for the power of Simon's flame-enhanced whip. The curse was finally gone--Simon would live on to continue his family's bloodline, and the monsters would be unceremoniously banished from this world. With this experience documented, the Belmonts would in the future be ready for any similar curse-inducing antics.

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