Belmont's Revenge is complete. A significant improvement over the first GB entry. This one even has a minor plot element concerning Christopher's son. The Cloud Castle, much like the Crystal Castle, felt more like a Mega Man level than a Castlevania one. In fact, the two Game Boy titles more or less feel more like a Mega Man titles overall. While the castle bosses were pretty manageable, Dracula's castle was another story. The levels were a bit easier despite a few new enemy types I could have lived without, but the bosses in these stages were ridiculous. The first one is a strange Dragon Worm that is digging through a tunnel area and you have limited chances to hit his head which is his only weak spot. He doesn't actually fight you, instead the stage scrolls left and he takes you out through collision damage which is often more painful than attacks. Took a few attempts to get that one beat. In stage two, you have a showdown with Soliel, Christopher's son, who has a mean magic sword move that hovers in the air for a bit before flying down towards you. He hits hard with his whip as well. Funny enough, his most damaging attack is simply colliding with you. This fight took quite a while to get his pattern down. Holy Water for the win.

Finally, you square off with Dracula, and he might be the most difficult version I've faced in the franchise so far. He has one lousy attack. He surrounds himself with orbs that protect him from damage, which is BS to begin with since his head is the only part of his body that takes damage. Anyway, after they float around him for a few second, he sends them flying out in a circular pattern that tries to hit you before he teleports away to another platform. His stage also has spikes, and platforms that are safe spots, but usually leave you in the pathway of his attacks. The real bitch of this fight is that he can kill you with just four hits and his shield gives him generous range. So even trying to just hit him before he erects it fully can often make you take a stray hit. Making this worse, is that he's tanky, just like his NES counterparts. So you have to practically hit him like eighteen times to finally off him and you whip projectile is useless. I imagine this fight would have been easier had I gained the Axe sub-weapon instead of the Holy Water. Anyway, I beat him by being a cheating little bitch and save scummed after every hit just because his attack pattern is a bit too hectic to dodge with consistency. Can't imagine the zen like state you would need to beat him. The ending is standard for the series but I must say that the music for this entry was quite exceptional.

In Dracula's Curse, I finally obtained Sypha's Lighting spell sub-weapon and combined with Trevor's triple cast Holy Water, these two completely decimated the bosses in Dracula's castle. I'm now on the final level and look forward to seeing how much Sypha changes things. Like seriously, Death was a handful in my first playthrough but Sypha crushed him like a bug. Likewise, I'll probably never understand how difficult the Doppelganger fight is because I've always managed to get their with triple Holy Water which just tears through that bosses health like tissue paper. If I've learned anything, the Cross is a great weapon in the Metroidvania entries, but Holy Water followed by the Axe are the real game breakers of the Classicvania series.

I may tackle Kid Dracula next just to finish off the NES entries and also because it's the most different entry.