GuestLog in

An absolutely perfect hack. Like, seriously PERFECT!

• Map - A change that was needed so much. Thank you!
• Save system. BE GONE stupid passwords! I can finally save AND see my progress on the save screen.
• The menu - BRILLIANT! Seems like a small change but it's more comfortable, and there is a section for CLUES!
• DayNight system - Very welcome improvement. Not that it annoyed me personally but HEY it IS better.

PLAY THIS! An absolute 10/10!

P.S. If you want Vlad's face from Redaction, here is a funny way to get it. Install Redaction and then install Re-translation over it. It will basically be Re-translation with Vlad's face.

Simon's Redaction gets brought up a lot when talking about this game so I'll explain why this patch is better.

The Japanese game has many useful and some misleading tips. It's definitely beatable without guide. The English version is not however because it was poorly translated. Both Redaction and Retranslation successfully solve this issue but in different ways.

Redaction does it by removing some tips (incl. all of the misleading ones) and replacing them with new tips written by the author. They're very direct tips and lack in flavour.

This patch re-translates the game from Japanese so it's more in-line with the intended experience. Vast majority of dialogue is perfect* and fits the game.

Both these patches also add some extra features and Retranslated does them all better plus more (except it doesn't change Vlad's face). Amazing intro animation and in-game map, both from the Japanese manual. Saving/loading, seamless day cycles, clue book collection, being able to speed through text boxes, so on. You can disable these before downloading the patch here. I recommend against "jump down from stairs" because annoying stairs are a cornerstone of these games. And while the seamless day cycles in this patch are incredible, I think I prefer it the unmodified way (call it Stockholm syndrome).

*Author has an excellent page that that documents the translations (spoilers). Imo lines 73 & 87 are contentious, and I think the kneeling mentioned in 36 could've been omitted or have been phrased more mysteriously (like how 93 says "hitting with head" instead). This is just nitpicking though.

If all this hack had done was just retranslate the script to make the cryptic clues worthwhile and added a simple map function to reference where you are, it still would've been a 10/10 for doing both of those things effectively.

This hack goes above and beyond that, adding some fantastic quality of life changes to the game and making it feel more robust and logical. In particular, the seamless transition between day and night cycles is a wonder to behold.

To me, this is the best way to play Castlevania II today; it keeps the base experience intact but corrects a lot of the annoying issues that have aged poorly over the years.

Bravo to the hack author for their restraint and polish.

Many years ago I had this game, although my 12-year-old self was able to pass it when I played it again, I saw the many flaws that the game had, even so I still do not understand how I did it for certain things in the game.

This patch is undoubtedly a love letter to this Castlevania, without a doubt it would be a remake of this game, plus if it is used with the "False Floor & Breakable Block Replacer" patch it gives the game a new ability since you don't have to stop both with the Holy Water.

PD: This is already extra/personal data, if someone uses the game on "unlocked" consoles, they will notice that the save system does not work or does not enter the save screen, this happened to me on the 3DS using the Ninty emulator, it does not let me do this, but the Passwords system is enough

For all its infamy, Castlevania 2 is ironically the first Castlevania game on the original NES that I've actually sat down, finished and thoroughly enjoyed.

It would not be possible without this translation/hack.

The translation itself is as good as it gets (though I have no opinion about the original translation or knowledge of any intend etc.).

But in fact, reading about the technical accomplishments is what got me interested in it. The vending machine is a fascinating tool: I tested MMC3+4 versions on my EverDrive before putting the MMC1 version on a real SKROM board. All working fine.

The extra touches added to the presentation and functionality... Dialog boxes, intro, SRAM, the map. Great stuff if not invaluable! Took advantage of most options excluding stairs (deciding to pair this with the excellent improved controls hack by NaOH).

Biscuit set an impossible standard with this hack. Thanks!

There's almost nothing I dislike more than sloppy translations, so I was pleased to learn about this hack for Castlevania II. A game that is so heavy on hints and exploration needs to have hints that actually make sense! Playing a version with smooth language that is accurate to the original Japanese was definitely a great experience.

Thanks to the work of a few fans, Simon's Quest was not only fixed - it became epic! With this hack, you will no longer feel lost - just press select and you got an awesome map. Also, no more cryptic stuff - this new translation will hint into every mystery, without being too obvious. To save, just press start + select.

I also STRONGLY recommend to use this hack with the awesome patch from Grayfield, "False Floor & Breakable Block Replacer", if you don't want to throw holy water into EVERY damn block you see.

In conclusion, there is only one thing left to turn Simon's Quest into a perfect game. The enemies AI are really poor and pointless easy; the bosses are still dumb. It would be cool to put most skeletons to throw bones, and boost the bosses somehow; or even create new monsters based on the bosses behavior. Doing this, I would have no criticism left to Simon's Quest. I believe it's an underrated game that was done too hasty. Overall, it's the true predecessor to the new Metroidvania Castlevanias - and it can become even better...

If you're going to bother playing this entry in the Castlevania series, do yourself a HUGE favor and pick up this hack. The updated text, seamless day/night cycle, and map go a long ways in making it possible to figure where to go and what to do for anyone unfamiliar with the base game. It's honestly really impressive how true to the original Japanese dialogue the creator was able to get, with the only variations making sense and remaining very professional.

So many little Quality of Life improvements combine in this hack to create a much better version of Simon's Quest. The save function is very handy, the retranslation feels authentic and is easier to understand than the original translation, and the map is great for minor navigation throughout your playthrough. My favorite features were the cinematic prologue and the "seamless transition" between day and night. That seamless transition may seem like a small change, but it makes traveling and gameplay much smoother without any interruptions. With all of these improvements, there is truly no reason to play Castlevania II without this hack ever again.

Castlevania II is a game that seems like a perfect target for ROM hacking. It is an excellent game and highly influential on later installments of the series but held back by many flaws and not-so-great design choices. So I'm very happy to see Bisqwit's efforts on this game. Almost all changes constitute clear improvements.

The most notable one is the addition of a map. The world is not huge but easily large enough to get lost without a map and drawing one while playing is something I'd rather not do. Requiring the player to have pen and paper ready was an acceptable design choice in the 80s but not so much nowadays. The ingame map alone is a huge improvement. Similarly, the clue browser eliminates the need to write down the contents of all books you will find, another much appreciated update.

Besides there are other smaller changes which remove some annoyances, for instance not being able to jump from stairs or the very slow pace at which text is written. The day to night and night to day transitions may remove two iconic lines from the game which is a bit unfortunate but they are beautifully done and don't interrupt the game, so I'm decidedly in favor of them.

The hack also retranslates all of the game's text, and it's not difficult to see why one would want that. Some translations were just wrong or were missing important parts because of space constraints, and fixing them is without a doubt welcome. One of many examples: the clue about Dracula's nail. But I feel that this hack changes the tone a bit too much. The cryptic and strange nature of the writing seems intentional and it has an impact on the game's atmosphere, lending to a feeling of foreignness. While the retranslation improves many things and restores some information that got lost in the English version, I feel some of the changes take from the game.

Another small complaint I have is about the editing of the title screen to include the author's name, a link to their website and the version number. No doubt they deserve credit for their work but I'd really rather see it not on the title screen.

The grievances I have are however easily outweighed by the positive. Overall there can be little doubt that this hack offers great improvements to one of the best titles on the NES.

In the original, there were some freaking hard clues to figure out in order to progress further, but this fixed it, and made navigating the world, and figuring out what to do suddenly realistic. Not easy, for the hard things, but realistic. Absolutely recommended.

map, real clues and helpful people, an impeccable translation from the Japanese original, a wonderful save system, instantaneous yet well made day-night transitions are only part of the good points this wonderful hack, and this is the way they should release it!

I usually play the original ROMs versions in conjunction with their hacks, but this is the case on which you MUST ignore the original an play this instead! Don't waste any time, cause now we can say we have 3 good games on the Castlevania trilogy!

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (AKA Dracula II: The Accursed Seal in Japan) has been the redheaded stepchild of the original NES trilogy and the series as a whole until it at least got some credit 10 years after it's release as being the predecessor to Symphony of the Night's Metroidvania genre spawning. Completely retranslated from Japanese to Finnish (and then to English for us!), this seems closer to the intent of the original Famicom Disk game in keeping the clues obscure and mysterious but without the poor translation that made it worse to the point of being useless.

Much better than Simon's Redaction, which is a very vanilla translation for beginners only. That translation might have removed the seemingly pointless story threads and meaningless or false comments from villagers and scrolls, but that also removes the character and flavor of Simon's Quest completely. This translation is truer to the Japanese (or so it seems, I'm not a native Japanese speaker) and still has some useful yet poetic riddles for you to figure out. If Redaction is the Easy mode, this is Normal. Like Redaction this speeds the day-night transition but actually removes the dialog box completely and makes the transition seamless.

The cinematic intro is a nice touch but has a flaw as others pointed out (screen freezes on black if you watch the whole way through.) I hear, occasionally, a random "woo" sound from Simon as though he's been hit even though I haven't and the map screen refreshes enemies. So if you are standing in the wrong spot, you'll be hit. (If you know what you're doing though, you can farm for hearts much more efficiently using this screen.)

Now that we've got some of the quirks out of the way, let's mention one of the best features: SRAM. That's right, save slots. About 20 of them! The coolest thing about this as they act as a work around with the game over penalty of losing your HP (hearts) and XP (experience points). That's right, even though you do lose that as normal when you continue, if you choose save instead, you can load that game and restart right where you died (not the first town) and have all your HP and XP still. Hooray!

His site has lots of features to customize this hack by patching this and that feature out if you don't like it. It also has some translation comparisons showing you his journey to create this. Personally, I like to remove the map screen personally because not only do I not ever use it, I like having a proper pause screen (not a menu).

The flaws of Castlevania II remain, of course. Uninspired world and mansion layout. Simple and easy bosses. Largely empty and unimaginative mansions with no real threats but occasional enemy respawning spam attack. Almost the entire catalog of sub-weapons are useless. However, if you've come to realize like I have, Simon's Quest is a survival horror game for the minimalist speed-runner in us all. All Simon needs are his whip, holy water, a crystal and a good set of boots. Learn the fastest route and this patch will give you the best experience for this game. Headache, BS free, great dialog that is actually useful and still fun and you can save your progress and not be slowed down by losing HP, XP as long as you choose the save feature over continue.

Unfortunately, other patches such as double hearts and false floors from the Annoyance Fixes hack do not seem to work with this patch. I added them and they caused the game to go glitchy after one game over. A few updates and this could be perfect. I'd give it an 8.5/10.

Generally, I've never been a Simon's Quest fan. I think it's a fundamentally misguided (albeit honorable) attempt at an action/adventure game, but it's so CLOSE to being good that I've never been able to dismiss it entirely. This retranslation alone, even without any of the additional features, seriously improves the experience. I've seen a number of attempts to retranslate this game, but this is the only one that feels like I'm getting what was originally intended.

The clues here are simply that: clues. They don't explicitly tell me what to do and they're human sentences (unlike the bizarre original text) which point me in the correct direction. I'm sure many will appreciate the array of optional patches which remove various annoyances from the game and/or add helpful features, but I VERY much appreciate that every one of them is optional. I like to go for the purest experience possible, so having the option to simply apply the superior translation to the warts-and-all original game allows me to experience what Japanese players did. I think ALL improvement patches which take artistic liberties with the game should follow this one's example.

All of this great work makes it especially frustrating that the title screen is stamped with all three of my biggest pet peeves in a ROM hack: a translation copyright, version info, and a website link. It always kind of perplexes me whenever I see this. If I were creating a ROM hack which was intended to replace the original game, even if I sunk countless hours into it, I'd want it to seem as though my version is the way the game always was. The original game obviously would not have contained my website link or a copyright from over 20 years later. If I put enough work into a translation that I felt it warranted a copyright, I'd simply bundle my hack with a ReadMe which contained both the copyright and any additional information one might need, so as to not break the illusion of authenticity in-game for people.

If this sort of thing doesn't bother you, then you'll likely have no complaints here. Excellent translation, excellent additional features for those who want to go further, and if you're not a CVII fan, excellent reason to give it another shot.

Terrific hack that completely transforms the poorly coded, super-poorly translated Simon's Quest into the NES classic it should've been from the start.

Some serious love has been put into this. The addition of the map is a big-time improvement. The dialog has been re-translated so the townsfolk utter coherent sentences that actually make sense and help the player, rather than further confuse like the original. The night/day transitions are seamlessly magical. Gone are the constant interruptions of the sun's arrival/departure, leaving the player free to focus on the action and not forced to lose concentration in the middle of a battle while the game takes an annoying "commercial break". The save feature is also a god-send. While the password function is still present, it is no longer needed as the game can now be saved on the fly at any time and resumed immediately without having to take the time to enter in a long, ridiculous code.

This wonderful hack combined with tkempkes "False Floors", "Double Hearts", and NaOH's "Penalty Reduction" have created the definitive experience for me. No more unnecessary grinding to build up hearts which in the past would pretty well guarantee you would NOT achieve the best ending in under 7 days. Simon's Quest is now my pick-up-and-play game between the original three on the NES. So much more enjoyable and thank you to all who have contributed.

This hack does a great job at improving the original Simon's Quest and does its best at fixing the bigger flaws which plague the base game. With the addition of the in-game map however, while providing a better sense of direction within the game, the one downside or bug (whatever you'd like to call it), is that after bringing up the map, all previously destroyed enemies on screen re-spawn. Now for many this may not be a big deal, but this feature brings up a couple of issues. One issue is that it makes grinding for hearts in the game cheap and easy, eliminating what's left of the difficulty within the game. While making the game easier in some instances, it can however make the game more tedious. Within the right circumstances through an individuals play-through, you could get hit immediately or even die when closing the map while returning to the game. Though with the issues the map provides, it's still an interesting and smart feature that was added to this hack.

There are a couple more bugs which were minor and haven't diminished the enjoyment of this hack, and parts of the game still have cryptic jumps and cheap deaths, which i'd like to see fixed or re-worked. In the end, counting what this hack does both good and bad, I'd like say that this hack is the best at trying to improve the base game of Simon's Quest and making the game what it should've been when it was first released.

I would argue that this romhack is the single best way to play Simon's Quest, far better than Redacted due to the way it stayed true to the original intent of the game not to mention it's other features. However, there are some negatives worth noting. It may be that I was playing on original hardware, but the save screen would often have visual glitches for me. Also while the prologue cutscene is very well done it always ends on a black screen and can often black screen when trying to get out of it.

The good news is this patch has a whole website built around options, so I for example ended up removing the prologue cutscene all together as it got annoying to have to rush through the opening screen. And if the save screen's glitches bothered me so much I could have switched back to the old password interface (but I didn't). If there's something you don't like in the patch, just switch it out.

Overall, even with it's small flaws, I strongly recommend this patch to both first time players of Simon's Quest as well as old returning vampire slayers.

It's an amazing experience! The way the game should be!! It's 90% perfect!! I say that cause the other 10% can be the jump hack, to move more freely in the air, like the CV1 and CV3 hacks on this page!! :D That would totally be the best update ever!!

Castlevania II is an example of a game that's fun but had its share of annoyances that cut into the overall experience, This hack strives to correct a lot of those flaws, and while the overall finish is a bit rough in a few places, the numerous quality-of-life improvements are a welcome change over the current state of things in the original game.

The improved translations and dialog speeds are a refreshing change over the cryptic and slow-paced dialog in the original, streamlining the day and night transitions to no longer stop everything you're doing makes for a much smoother experience, being able to save your game instead of writing down a password is a huge improvement, and the in-game map is also a welcome addition in lieu of a physical strategy guide or Nintendo Power magazine. The new cinematic opening is also a fun spectacle that really shows how much went into this hack.

The downside is that this hack isn't without its flaws, and some do cause a bit of a problem at times. The new map option has the unfortunate side effect of causing any monsters on your screen to respawn, which means that if you kill a monster and stand in its spawning location when you open the map, you're going to take a hit as soon as you leave it. That and the new opening cinematic, while stunning to watch, also comes with a bug in which the game goes to a black screen if you either watch it all the way through or hit Start at certain points, which can be circumvented via a hard reset but is a problem that should be buffed out.

One minor quirk is a link to the author's website appearing on the title screen, which isn't unacceptable, but is a bit jarring to see, since most consoles games generally don't put web links on their title screens. It's handy but I think I was expecting a simpler "Retranslated by Bisqwik" line.

Despite its quirks, it's a solid 8/10 hack that brings so much to the table. It makes the game a much richer experience than the original without overhauling it in its entirety, but it's hard to ignore the respawn bug that's currently attached to the map, and the post-prologue black screen should be addressed for sake of a clean finish.

This Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest hack has many features that make it better than the original. the text has been changed to make more sense and the text speed has been increased. also is a nice touch. the website of this hack also allows you to custom build your patch with other features like SRAM saving, different memory mappers, cinematic prologue,being able to switch between all the whips you have collected, a map witch for a game like this is a much needed addition and finally fading palettes with day to night transitions that do not interrupt the game yes that's right you can just keep going that does however mean the "WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE" is no longer there but in my opinion that's ok. this patch is also offered in a few different languages English,Finnish,French,Filipino and Japanese. it is also for NTSC or PAL format. in conclusion this patch is a much needed update to an already good game.

I'm truly amazed with this hack, the night and day shift text box is removed, now the games runs more fluid, also, the text and dialogs were reviewed. The map addition was a great touch, it seems that I'm playing a new game, very cool indeed. 5 stars!!

This hack is awesome. The new features like the in-game map and the disabling of the night and day transitions dialog box makes the game flow much more fluently.

The new save feature that enable us to avoid entering the annoyingly long passwords is god send, or should I say Bisqwit send.

I don't know Japanese so I can't talk about the quality of the translation, but it seems to be of the best possible quality. Besides anyone can check his choices of translation on his site which is nice.

Considering the idea behind this project (fix the issues, but stay true to the original) I would say it came out perfect, but I would add two other features to make it even more perfect:

1) Double the heart values to make the progress faster (collecting hearts is not the main attraction of the game and gets annoying).

2) Remove the false floors of the castles leaving empty spaces (this also gets really annoying and just slow things down).

Both these features are in the "Castlevania II Annoyance Fixes" hack by tkempkes.

This is by far the best hack of Castlevania II on regard of translation/fixing problems, but with this two other features it would become the Ultimate Castlevania II.

Never has a NES game been so masterfully manipulated, to be rebuilt, into what it should have always been. Gameplay tweaks, translation fixes and expansions, cinematics, this hack breaths new life into a game that has infuriated generations of gamers. Kudos!

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is pretty famous for being the original innovator to the direction the series has taken in later years. It is a great action/RPG and is still fun to play to this day. The game is also known for its horrible English localization that made the player extremely confused, lost, and discombobulated all around. Most people had to get the guide to figure out what they should be doing next. I remember, I was one of them.

Now this version of Simon's Quest is the way the game should have been released in the states, at least for the most part. The re-translation is fairly clear and you can always tell when a NPC is telling the truth or lying. Dialog also is not vague so the player at least has a clear idea of what they should be doing next, without the use of a guide. As well, there is a lot of humor from some of the NPCs that had me laughing out loud a few times. I also enjoyed being able to access the world map by pressing the select button. Although it didn't help me out when playing through the game for the hundredth time, it was a nifty feature that should have been available in its original release to North America.

The only thing I was hoping for was the difficulty to be slightly higher. I guess specifically for the three boss fights. The Grim Reaper, Carmilla, and Dracula are still pretty pathetic and don't put up much of a fight. But I understand what the author was trying to accomplish in keeping with the same spirit of the game.

Simply put, you like Castlevania II: Simon's Quest when growing up? Then check this patch out.