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Before Mig (of "Wallachia: Reign of Dracula" fame) cobbled up the "Castlevania: The Lecarde Chronicles" duology, this early ROM hack of Simon's Quest had writing that was proof that a fan-made Castlevania game didn't need Dracula to tell an interesting story, even if said fan game is actually a mod for an existing installment. After all, a demon HAVING VIOLATED THE PLAYER CHARACTER'S DAUGHTER?! No doubt, ANY loving father would be pissed about that. Maybe to the point of wanting... VENGEANCE ON HELL?

Anyway, while I'm writing this review, I wish to share a discovery I recently made regarding the notorious hack-specific "staircase bug".

Sometimes, staircases would reset the game, and sometimes, they wouldn't. And the reason for that is as follows:

The game doesn't reset because you're going up and down the stairs. It resets because you've been PRESSING LEFT ON THE D-PAD ON THE STAIRS.

In other words, stick to Up and Down when traveling through stairs, and you should never come upon the bug.

... Instead it is horrible! The enemies are cool, the level design on the contrary I hate it because it's all blue, the new dialogue box is very cool, and the new story is interesting, but the game is ruined by a huge bug. When you try to climb the stairs the game returns to the home screen every time, making the game unplayable, in addition to this I do not understand why it's all blue and white ... What's a test for colorblind !?

To begin with, this is one of the most impressive overhaul hacks I've ever seen. Everything about this hack makes me want to play it. The graphics are excellent and the overall theme is awesome and makes me want to play it, not just to see the changes, but because it feels like a real complete new game. At this point I would most definitely had recommended this hack.

Then reality sets in unfortunately. For unknown reasons, whenever walking up and down on some staircases the game resets to the title screen which makes it unplayable. I've tried patching several variations of the Simon Quest rom with the same results - reset to title screen while walking on stairs.

This occurred to me while playing on the Everdrive N8. I have not had a chance to try it on an emulator, but I prefer playing games and roms on the real Nintendo hardware over an emulator. This review is based on version 1.0d. Hopefully Ballzysoft can fix this bug because I'm dieing to play this hack! The only reason I can't recommend it is because of the reset bug. Once it's fixed, I will then highly recommend it.