Konami Franchises In Your Pocket

The Game Boy has a fascinatingly varied library of titles that, unsurprisingly contains a lot of games connected to popular franchises. In this article, I take a look at a couple of Konami’s popular series that ultimately ended up with more representation than you’d perhaps expect.

Castlevania

The Castlevania series leaves a long legacy, from its linear action game roots through to the popularity of the so-called metroidvania genre. Dracula made his appearance three times on the handheld, so let’s take a quick look at each of them.

Castlevania: The Adventure, originally released in 1989, is set 100 years prior to the original NES Castlevania and sees you controlling Christopher Belmont, one of Simon’s ancestors, as he attempts to thwart Dracula. The Adventure is heavily simplified compared to its console relatives, having no sub-weapons and only four long and difficult levels. Despite the simplifications, it does feel like Castlevania but something has definitely been lost in translation. It does, however, feature some rather nice versions of classic series tunes like Vampire Killer.

Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge, which takes place 15 years after The Adventure, was released in 1991 and sees the return of Christopher Belmont as he tries to save his son, whom Dracula has turned into a demon to allow him to take on human form. It improves on the prior game visually but keeps to pretty much the same formula. Belmont’s Revenge does bring back the series’ iconic sub-weapons and allows you to select the order in which you take on stages, a la Mega Man.

Neither game has levels as interesting as the NES titles they are inspired by, lacking staircases and other similar elements. Taken on their own terms though they are fun little games but aren’t really representative of the console iterations in the series.

Castlevania Legends gave players control of Sonia Belmont who wields magic to confront Dracula this time around. Set in 1450, it placed the game at the start of the timeline, although that was later retconned. Originally released in 1997, it again stayed pretty true to the established Game Boy Castlevania formula but did move to a more traditional level setup akin to the main games, this time with a map between stages.

Castlevania Legends is, unsurprisingly perhaps, the most polished of the three Game Boy entries, with a little more flourish in the visuals. It’s still not really like its console brethren but, again, it can be a fun game in its own right.

Contra

Like Castlevania, the Contra series was one of Konami’s staple franchises, making an appearance on almost every system. The Game Boy was no exception, featuring two entries in the run and gun franchise. 

Operation C (Just called Contra in Japan) was, like the Game Boy Castlevania games, a wholly original entry in the series. Released in 1991, it was however a lot more faithful to its console and arcade inspiration, featuring gameplay that was very familiar to fans of both the original Contra and its sequel Super C. The game features power-ups you’d expect like the infamous Spread Gun and introduces the Homing Gun for the first time as you shoot your way through five stages of side and top view action. 

Contra III: The Alien Wars (known in Japan as Contra Spirits) was released in 1994 and is a port of the Super Nintendo game of the same name. Developed by Factor 5 (known for the awesome Rogue Squadron series on later Nintendo systems) it’s an astoundingly good port. Some elements have had to be stripped away like some bosses, and many levels have been truncated or rejigged to work in the new form factor but it’s an incredible feat that works surprisingly well.

Both Contra titles fared better on Nintendo’s fondly remembered brick than the Castlevania series when compared to their console siblings, both Contra games giving you a proper dose of frenetic run and gun action in your pocket. The Castlevania titles may not have been as faithful, however, but they still allowed you to pull out your whip no matter where you were!