In playing Simon's Quest and really thinking back on the franchise as a whole, it is really interesting to note the eerie similarities between Castlevania and The Legend of Zelda series.

  • Both games have a linear timeline, but the titles are released in anachronistic order.
  • Both titles involve a forever war between parties who are magically linked to fight forever (or until their franchises stop making money in Castlevania's case)
  • Both of the second entries in the series drop the original gameplay format for a heavy RPG flavor to the ire of the fans.
  • Said sequels were both marred with atrocious translations that make the games practically unplayable without a guide.
  • Both franchises have Key titles and side game titles, with one following the main series formula, while the side titles tend to be more experimental and break series traditions.
  • Both franchises play heavy lip service to the third installments of their series in both lore and design.
  • Both franchises had a stupidely popular entry released in the fifth console generation (Symphony of the Night and Ocarina of Time)
  • Both of these entries ended up expanding the franchises lore in ways that every entry after now follows religiously.
  • Both franchises ended up being taken over by a new producer in the fifth generation who steered the franchises in the new lore direction.
  • Both franchises involve a legacy weapon (Vampire Killer/Master Sword) that was introduced in later installments.
  • Both of these legacy weapons are also said to be sentient, and possess the life force of a woman.
  • Both franchises have an entry that serves as an origin story for the series in which both games showcase the origin of said legacy weapon, but also the beginning of the feud between the parties (Lament of Innocence and Skyward Sword)


I know this all sounds conspiracy theory like, but honestly, I feel like Konami's Castlevania team almost deliberately lifted the design from Zelda II for Simon's Quest. The games are eerily similar. The biggest difference is that Simon's Quest is significantly easier barring the steep requirements for the Golden Ending. The RPG elements are bit different as well with Castlevania's elements working surprisingly better with it. SQ is also pretty easy to follow once the translation issues are cleared up, whereas Zelda II has more "how the smurf was I suppose to figure that out?!" nonsense. Not that SQ doesn't have those as well, but they're usually reserved for finding sub-weapons as opposed to important game progress stuff.