Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe’s guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo’s download service. Written by Sam C Gittins

Fans of a certain popular vampire hunting platformer might be pleased to see this latest release even though for the most-part it's entirely passable. Anyway enough from me and on with the game!

Available for download this week we have...     

Castlevania: The Adventure

Price: GB £2.70, EU €3
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Released: 1989
System: GameBoy

While the Castlevania series has had many excellent entries on the NES it initially hasn't fared quite as well on the GameBoy as this first portable title seems to suggest, for those who may be expecting the same level of greatness as the earlier titles you may wish to lower those expectations as Castlevania: The Adventure is nothing more than an unfortunate failed experiment. Taking on the role of Christopher Belmont you are tasked with ridding the world of Dracula's evil army using not much else aside from your wits and your whip; the story doesn't really do much for the series but at least it's an excuse to go vampire hunting.

One of the first major differences is that there are virtually no staircases but instead many ropes which you'll be climbing up at regular intervals, gone are the trademark sub-weapons but you can now upgrade your Vampire Killer whip with a projectile-based attack though it's still a bit of a trade-off as soon after collecting the power-up to gain this ability you can lose it again quite easily if you take a hit from an enemy; quite understandably this can become a frequently frustrating instance since you'll be needing all the extra help you can get to finish the game. Fortunately you can make use of the restore point feature which should alleviate at least part of the frustration when either the aforementioned happens or if you're unfortunate enough to find one of the many pitfalls during the adventure.

Normally this is where I'd be talking about the outstanding attention to detail lavished throughout the level design but sadly this simply just isn't the case as 'lazy' is the only word the springs to mind here as instead of being regularly challenged you will instead find repeated puzzles that can only be beaten by finding the strategically placed invincibility item which will grant you safe passage... it almost feels like cheating and is certainly not what I'd normally expect to find in a Castlevania title. It's pretty clear that this isn't in the same league as the many classics which make up the majority of the series but instead it is something of an experiment which may bring a few interesting elements to the table but forgets the staples that made things great in the first place.

Aesthetically everything is of a reasonable standard when you consider that this was one of the very first GameBoy titles available but it really feels like the developers played things a little too safe as even though there's enough detail in the sprites and the backgrounds, it's the presentation that is sorely lacking which lets things down considerably. Musically things are at least a bit better featuring some accompanying tracks which are at least decent even though not spectacular by any means, the sound effects leave rather a lot to be desired though as they are painfully generic adding nothing to the experience.

Even true fans of the Castlevania series will find it hard to get any enjoyment out of this adventure as there really isn't anything that's representative of what makes most of the games so great, I'd quite honestly only advise getting this if for whatever reason you feel nostalgic from perhaps playing it back in the day. Otherwise simply avoid this and if you really want a truly terrific portable entry in the series then just wait it out for the superior sequel Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge which is sure to be released sometime in the not too distant future and will no doubt be worth the money.         

Verdict : A pathetically poor excuse for a portable Castlevania title.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!