Castlevania II Belmont’s Revenge isn’t actually the second Castlevania game, but rather part of the strange tradition of keeping a separate number count for handheld entries during the Game Boy era – in reality, it’s approximately the 7th in the series. The first Castlevania game on the Game Boy, Castlevania The Adventure, is known for being a slow, unenjoyable, and generally horrendous entry in the saga, so Castlevania II’s general competence is shocking. This is 100% a real Castlevania game with all the satisfying whip cracking and unforgiving difficulty that comes with that lineage, though, to better accommodate the handheld format, some changes were made to the original format – the first 4 stages can be played through in any order, there’s only two subweapons, and there’s passwords for saving. With these changes, the Castlevania format translates to the Game Boy very effectively, and the game is now often considered one of the best on the console. Is it worth playing now? I don’t really think so – I think it’s the worst of what I consider to be the “good” classic Castlevania games (1,3,4,Bloodlines, Rondo of Blood, II), largely due to the limitations of the hardware it’s on. Plus, some of the BS of past titles returns – there’s one part in Dracula’s Castle that can just trap you in an infinite loop if you go the wrong way, which is deeply frustrating and just wastes time. But if you still hunger for more Castlevania after playing through the other classics, Belmont’s Revenge definitely scratches that itch, especially with the music composed by Hidehiro Funauchi that’s on par with the excellent standard the series has always strived for. Overall, it’s a fun enough time, though not really fun enough to warrant coming back to nowadays.