Castlevania Legends

Castlevania Legends is the third and last Castlevania title released for the original Game Boy. It was released in Japan on November 27, 1997 and in Europe and North America on March 11, 1998.

Castlevania Legends

Instead of a step up like the second game have done with Castlevania: The Adventure, this game goes two step backward.

Genre(s):	Platform
Platform(s):	Game Boy
Release Date:	November 27, 1997
Developer(s):	Konami
Publisher(s):	Konami
Predecessor:	Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Plot

The story begins in an unspecified year in the Middle Ages in Transylvania, during the incarnation of the original Count Dracula. Sonia Belmont, the first vampire hunter of her clan, develops mystical powers in her 17th year, and ventures out to challenge Dracula, meeting Alucard who seeks revenge against his father.

Why It's Not A Legend

First off, making a Game Boy game in 1997 is a very bad idea since the Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1, and Sega Saturn got much more popular than the Game Boy as the Game Boy started to die in popularity.
The graphics are much worse than the first two games, as here it is very undetailled and has incredibly bland sprite work, especially for a 1997 Game Boy game, like Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon on Game Boy.
- The background is also poor for the most part, as it is very undetailled and terribly bland. The first and second games have better backgrounds, so there's no excuse for making worse graphics and backgrounds than these two games that were released earlier than this one.
- It's also worth noting that some Game Boy games, such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game trilogy (even the second game), Castlevania: The Adventure, the Mega Man Game Boy games, Kirby's Block Ball, Kirby's Star Stacker (which was released in the same year as this game), and Mortal Kombat II, all look better, and most of them were released earlier than this game.
The worst thing about the game is definitely the enemy placements. The enemy placements are absolutely abysmal and so bad that it's literally ruined the entire game; they are sometimes so badly placed that sometimes it is impossible to dodge them.
- In fact, it's not helped by the atrocious level design; see WINAL #4 to learn more about this problem.
The level design is atrocious; sometimes you will have a hard time doing a jump due to how awful the level design is. In fact, with all of the abysmal enemy placements, the game became much worse than it was supposed to be. The level design is so atrocious that it might be even worse than Castlevania: The Adventure and possibly the second worst level design of the entire franchise.
- Even the first level has an awful level design, filled with already dreadful enemy placements and horrible level design that is all over the place; there's even a jump where it is almost impossible to do without being very careful.
In some places, if you hit the wrong candles, you go into an unnecessary trap room that is absolutely terrible, horrible, and annoying to deal with. At the same time, it's also a run-killer due to how bad it is. The enemies appear right in front of you just to hit you and make you mad at the game.
- The worst part about it is that the candles are so terribly placed that when you want to hit an enemy, it's instead hit the candle and you are trapped in; in fact, it's almost invisible, so you might accidentally bit it, making this even worse.
The soundtrack, except for some songs like Bloody Tear and Vampire Killer, is pretty bland, which is surprising for a Castlevania game considering that most games in the franchise have amazing soundtracks. It's also very annoying and repetitive to listen to sometimes, especially if you have weak ears for the former.
While the story is not bad, the problem is that after the release of Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, the game was said to be non-canon.
The difficulty is absolutely unbalanced due to the horrible level design and extremely abysmal enemy placements for most parts, not to mention that the enemies are extremely annoying in this game (see WINAL #11).
- Not to mention that the game is hard for almost no reason at all, as if the enemies were not that annoying and hard to kill, then the game would possibly be the easiest Castlevania game ever made, even if this game is a bit easier than the first two games.
Terrible collision detection, especially your whip; it's sometimes not even hit an enemy, but the whip clearly touched it; in fact, it's even worse than in the first game.
Laughably easy boss fight for most of them, as some of them are even too easy to dodge and you can beat them without taking a single damage, although not all of them are that easy.
The enemies AL is extremely annoying, such as the bats; this is also even worse with their horrible placements and the atrocious level design; in fact, they are at their absolute worst in terms of how godawful their AL is.
It's also make no sense why they made a Game Boy game in 1997 when they released Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on both the Sega Saturn and PS1, which unsurprisingly caused it to be obscure back then until the cult following on this game.
This game is very short; you can beat it in 50 minutes or 1 hour.

Redeeming Qualities

The Bloody Tear and Vampire Killer renditions are pretty decent, and some of the songs are also decent.
The controls are tight and responsive; unfortunately, they were wasted on such a bad game because most Castlevania games have clunky controls.
Some people might like this game.
The story is really good and one of the best of the Castlevania series, as Sonia Belmont is the very first Belmont of her clamp, and it is the oldest chronological Castlevania game, meaning that the game at least is interesting.
Sonia Belmont is a good character, but unfortunately, she has not appeared in many Castlevania games, and due to it being non-canon, it is unlikely that she will reappear in the next Castlevania game. What makes this worse would also be that Konami doesn't care for Castlevania nowadays.

Reception

Castlevania Legends receives mixed to negative reviews from critics, who criticized the difficulty, the collision detection, and the graphics, but the story and controls were praised. Nintendo Life gave it a 4/10; they criticized the poor graphics, the level design, the soundtrack, and the unbalanced difficulty.

The fans were also disappointed and even considered this game to be one of, if not the worst game of the entire franchise, even more so than Haunted Castle. Some like the game, but a lot of fans dislike it due to it being very flawed for having terrible enemy placements and atrocious level design. It is sometimes considered to be even worse than Castlevania: The Adventure.

The game was also said to be non-canon after the release of Lament of Innocence, possibly due to how badly the game performed. This might also be one of the reasons why this game wasn't in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection and Advance Collection; it wasn't until October 31, 2023, that the game received a re-release on a modern console.

Trivia

This is the first Castlevania game to feature a playable female Belmont.
Sonia Belmont, the heroine of this game, was slated to be the playable character in the cancelled Castlevania: Resurrection for the Sega Dreamcast.
- After the prototype was leaked in 2021, the game appear to be a sequel or a similar game to the Nintendo 64 duology, the game cancellation is because Konami's have lack of faith in the Dreamcast platform.
Alucard, protagonist of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, makes a guest appearance in Castlevania Legends...but not as a friend, rather as the Boss of Stage 4! Apparently he's Sonia's lover, and is testing her will before she confronts Dracula. This also seems to be a (sort-of) nod to Maria's testing of Alucard's will in the Sega Saturn version of Symphony Of the Night.

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