Konami released the first Castlevania game for Game Boy in 1990, The Castlevania Adventure (aka Castlevania: The Adventure during production). This game is considered one of the weakest CV games in the series, and for good reason. It includes only four stages, pits the hero against challenging obstacles and enemies and only gives him a little lifebar to cope with, and limits the hero's speed, forcing him to walk at a snail's pace while the baddies run and leap around the screen. Worse yet is the slowdown that occurs when several enemies inhabit the same screen. One can't complain too terribly much as this is a first-generation Game Boy game, but I still expected more from Konami than this. It's as though Dracula came under the light of the moon and sucked the life out of this game.

This is, at the core, a typical Castlevania game. Our hero, Christopher Belmont, has set out to destroy the evil Dracula in the proud tradition of his family. He's armed with his trusty whip that can be powered up by collecting orbs. However, taking a hit from an enemy downgrades the whip, and since getting hit is near impossible to avoid chances are you'll be fighting with a level 1 whip most of the time. He can also collect coins which are worth points. As mentioned above, Chris slogs through the levels at a ridiculously slow speed. Like in other games in the series, our hero can't change direction in the air resulting in the necessity of making pixel-perfect jumps time and time again, lest he fall into a bottomless pit. The classic staircases have been replaced with vertical ropes at which Chris climbs equally slow. While playing this game I badly wanted to give our hero a dose of caffeine; how can someone so slow hope to defeat the evil vampires of the land?

When all is said and done The Castlevania Adventure suffers from slowdown and a lack of familiar elements that made the Castlevania series so enjoyable. If you're dead-set on playing this game it's bound to be available at used game shops, but players looking for some Game Boy vampire fun should check out sequels Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge and Castlevania Legends.

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