Book Cudgel – Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

Dammit, I knew this would happen. We’ve hit a book about a child being abducted to save a magical world. You know how I feel about those stories. It seems like innocent escapism, but back in that child’s world, their face is adorning the side of milk cartons. Police resources are wasted while a kid is running a political campaign to overthrow the evil Mayor of Candytropolis, learning the value of democracy along the way.

… Hold on a second, I need to put a proposal together.

Anyway, it’s now infected Castlevania II, which, coincidentally, is the Castlevania game that has caused the most misery to children.

For this entry in the Worlds of Power series, Christopher Howell was given the pen. Same as every World of Power book, he’s protected under the identity of F.X. Nine. According to his Wikipedia page, he was a “journalist for the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War.” The article makes him sound magnitudes smarter than I am, so I don’t know how wound up writing for the Worlds of Power series. I also don’t know why he settled on “Captain N but with a less-likeable protagonist” as the method for adapting Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest.

OKAY, BUT HOW HOT IS HIS MOM?

This story of whimsical abduction starts exactly how you’d likely picture it: Timothy Bradley, a normal-ish fourteen-year-old, is playing Castlevania when his mother interrupts him by telling him he’s going to be late for school.

Jeepers H. Crackers, that covers several pages without touching on a single unique idea. I’m in the wrong racket, I should be writing children’s books. I am very skilled at not having ideas.

During this whole pre-amble, the narration, through Timothy’s perspective, makes a point to tell us how hot his mom is. She’s not a particularly important character, largely just existing in this one scene, but just so we’re covering the important information, childbirth did nothing to mar her youthful appearance:

Judy Bradley asked, bending her frown toward the TV set. She was a pretty woman, even with her dark brown hair in curlers. But she didn’t look so hot when she frowned.

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

Freud was right, apparently.

DIABEETUS

We’re also introduced to Tim’s sugar fixation, which is essentially his entire defining identity. This comes up throughout the entire book, he’s addicted to chocolate. I’m not exaggerating, either. It’s his primary character flaw. The novel points out early that he still has a clear complexion and is slim, but “lives without consequence” doesn’t count as a personality. For example, I ate a baffling amount of fast food when I was a teenager, remained mildly-but-concerningly underweight into adulthood, and I didn’t have a personality.

The other thing he has going for him besides a hot mom and fast metabolism is a girl he’s sweet on. And that’s because she’s the cutest girl in Junior High and acknowledges his existence.

And though they shared homeroom, and Carol was nice enough to acknowledge his existence, unlike other more socially conscious teenage females who shunned him, she’d never actually sought him out.

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

I love that acknowledging the existence of Timothy Bradley is social poison. Forget being mistaken as his friend because you were once partnered with him in a lab assignment, you have to pretend he doesn’t even exist. The guy is so far outcast that people are pressured into treating him like he’s invisible. What did he do? Did he break into the school and eat all the fudge that was supposed to be for the bake sale, causing their fundraising to fall short of their field trip to Albany? Incredible.

The book also subtly describes the stiffy that she gives him.

Carol sure smelled nice, too. He realized he’d never been this close to her before, and it was not an unpleasant experience. Tim Bradley didn’t normally notice girls much. There were far more important things to be thinking about in his life. However, with her brunette good looks perking just inches from him, he certainly noticed Carol.

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

“Just inches from him.” Although, I don’t really believe that a 14-year-old doesn’t notice girls much. I was a big gamer in my teen years, wasn’t very sexually active, but I can tell you that I certainly noticed the opposite sex. And the same sex, for that matter, ladies. So he could be gay, but that can’t be possible, because that would be an interesting character trait in a ‘90s children’s novel, and Timothy Bradley is bereft of anything interesting outside of chocolate addiction.

WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO BE LITERATE

Carol’s reason for risking her social status by acknowledging Timothy Bradley’s existence is that she needs his expertise on finding cheap games and wants him to show her where Blockbuster Vi… er, Discount is after school. She says she wants to buy a game for her brother, but I’m calling it now: she’s probably into games, and they’ll fall in love over that one revelation.

Unfortunately, he is immediately threatened by a bully to stay away from her, then subsequently abducted by Simon Belmont who, throughout this story, I imagined as Captain N’s version of Simon Belmont. Except that fantasy didn’t work because Captain N’s version of Simon Belmont has more personality than the one in Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest.

The plot, such as it is, isn’t totally far removed from Castlevania II. In the game, Simon is left with a curse after his fight with Dracula in Castlevania 1, and he’s slowly dying. In the book, Simon has 48 hours to assemble Drac’s body parts, otherwise he’ll be possessed and become the new Dracula. A pretty similar interpretation, aside from Simon’s captive sidekick and his girlfriend, Linda Entwhistle, who was kidnapped by Dracula. Oh, so it’s okay when Simon kidnaps people, but when Dracula does the same, suddenly he’s a villain.

For some reason, Dracula can, I don’t know, temporarily possess Simon without having to wait 48 hours. He does this to threaten Timothy Bradley in this godawful scene where it turns out that Dracula is vulnerable to bad puns. Considering how painful it was for me to read the first exchange between them, I’m starting to suspect that I’m a vampire. Radical.

GOTTA GET THEM HEARTS

Following that, Howell deemed it necessary to incorporate grinding for experience into the story. They go off into the night to kill ghouls. Timothy Bradley has a sword, and when he nets his first kill, it goes into detail about how the experience points energize him.

“Goodness!” he said, blinking as he turned to Simon. “That really packs a wallop!” He felt as though he’d just run a mile and then drunk a quart of Gatorade. Refreshed, vital, alert. “I feel like somebody just changed my batteries!”

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

This is so painful.

Beyond just the threat of possessing Simon Belmont, Dracula is apparently making the land of Castlevania a miserable place. He’s influencing everyone to give into the Seven Deadly Sins, which are, according to Castlevania II, gluttony, lethargy, deceit, jealousy, lust, anger, and blasphemy. So, that’s… close, I guess. For the record, the actual Seven Deadly Sins according to the Catholic Church are: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. So, lethargy could be sloth, anger could be wrath, jealousy would be envy. Not sure what is up with deceit and blasphemy, though. I guess greed and pride are a-ok in Castlevania. You’d think that, in a children’s book, lust would be the one you’d want to replace, but I guess if you did that, Tim would have to stop being attracted to every woman he meets.

Anyway, Simon says he’s getting hungry and starts fantasizing about food, so Tim kicks him in the ass because that’s gluttony. That’ll teach him not to be hungry! Good job Tim!

Simon’s mouth dropped open. “Yes. You’re right. And so you kicked me upon my nether parts.”

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

CAROL WHO?

Speaking of lust, Simon’s girlfriend shows up as a damsel projection and Tim immediately gets hard:

“Precisely. You are a sharp fellow, young Tim!” She sent him a smile. Tim’s pulse quickened. Wow! Forget Carol Jance back home! A guy could really fall hard for a lady like Linda Entwhistle. Tim could feel a stupendous crush squeezing in on him hard already!

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

So, okay, this sounds a lot more like a teenaged boy. I knew he was lying when he said he didn’t notice girls.

Contrary to how Mega Man 2 did it, Castlevania II is written a lot closer to what I’d expect from a children’s novel. That is to say, it seems like it would be amusing to stupid children. It kind of sort of goes through the paces of the game, but not as literally as Mega Man 2. Howell at least read a Simon’s Quest player’s guide, because he sprinkles in the names of places and enemies. I mean, I hope he didn’t actually play it, because it’s a terrible game. But he also writes it like it’s an adventure game instead of the garbage that it is.

“Just a hunch. I mean, this sounds just like something from a video game. You need to find objects, you need to use objects. And sometimes those objects work together. So it follows that the arrow may affect whatever magic we’ve already gotten.”

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

This isn’t a Sierra title, guy. You don’t combine items in Castlevania II. However, shortly after this, Simon makes a wall disappear by spraying it with holy water, which is something you have to do in Castlevania II ad absurdum. If you’re doing it right, you’re washing the floors with the stuff.

And when Simon hoses the wall, there’s this absolutely amazing aside where they find, like, a treasure room behind the wall with an old lady in it, and just listen to this:

“I can’t thank you enough for knocking down that stupid, silly wall! I was just thinking about trying to start chipping away at with one of these sweet little antique sledgehammers over there, and that wouldn’t have been very ladylike, now would it?”

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

Okay, but we’re missing some key information here. How hot is this old lady?

VERY LADYLIKE

The whole of Castlevania II is pretty funny, both intentionally and unintentionally. I can’t help but get a kick from how horny Tim is for Linda:

“It was enough to make Tim Bradley for get all about chocolate. She was so beautiful his heart leapt up and he could think of nothing else but pleasing her.”

Yeah, I’ll bet that’s all you can think about, you engorged sack of hormones.

At one point, he loses his satchel of chocolate in a pool of quicksand, causing him to succumb to his addiction. At one point, he literally exits a conversation to wander a dark alley looking for chocolate. I find that so funny. Like, he’s hoping he’ll find a chocolate pusher lurking there. And he does, but it’s Dracula trying to tempt him. But I can just imagine a child reading this saying, “I love chocolate, too! I relate to this horny sugar-fiend so hard.”

A lot of the adventure is yadda-yadda’d, so it will start a new chapter saying “not long ago, they went to a mansion and got another chunk of Dracula,” just so it can focus instead on slightly amusing dialogue. All filler, no killer. Still, it’s a lot better than Mega Man 2’s method of following everything literally but crappily. It instead just proceeds through these amusing but asinine encounters:

“We have every right to defend ourselves!” said Tim. “After all, we don’t particularly want to be eaten!”

“You don’t?”

“No, of course not! Don’t be silly!” said Simon.

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

See? Not outright painful most of the time, just kind of dumb.

“You need not have feared me! I see you have laurels. Merely wear them beneath your undergarments and no other creature of these woods can harm you!”

“Sounds kinda itchy to me. But maybe it’s worth it.”

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

Fucking what?

SOUNDS KINDA ITCHY

Anyway, yadda yadda, more stuff happens. Yadda yadda, Thanatos shows up and is apparently Dracula’s boss but gets chased off pretty easily. Yadda yadda, Dracula possesses Simon and gets chased off, because apparently that wasn’t the threat it was made out to be. Yadda yadda. This is the most “and then” plot I’ve read since Mega Man 2. There’s apparently character growth, but it all happens during the yadda yaddas. Bases Loaded II had better plotting than this, but I think Howell is more interested in providing amusing dialogue, which is fair. That probably interests children more.

Oh my garsh, it mentions the hit VHS, How to Score More Points in Nintendo Games. I could write an article entirely on that waste of magnetism:

“Ah, but did I not see a few How To Score More Points video tapes on your shelf?” Tim blushed. “Well, uhn, er…”

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

Aw, it’s like bad video game Inception. Maybe. I’ve never seen that movie, so I’m just basing that comparison on a vague understanding I overheard. Although, Howell did screw up the dialogue formatting by including two characters’ dialogue in one paragraph. Maybe that’s also like Inception, I don’t know.

It’s maybe worth mentioning that I’m adding these quotes from the book verbatim. So, the “for get” we got earlier was actually in the print. But I didn’t pick quotes for the typos. To be honest, I didn’t spot that many errors this time around, so Howell clearly knew how to proofread.

Anyway, yadda yadda, they get to “Death Castle” with all the parts and prepare to face their greatest fear (which is, conveniently, Dracula for both of them), and Simon Belmont chants the spell:

“By all that is good, and all that is bad
Bring back Dracula to this place of the sad.
Conjure up his spirit from the air.
And fill up his body… right there!”

Worlds of Power: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

I thought Howell was a poet, but that’s just terrible. He missed mysterious, and forewent funny, and this is just “the sad.” It reads like he wrote that as a placeholder, planning to revise it later, and it just got published like that. That would actually explain a lot of the glaring errors in these books. They sometimes read like the authors sent a first draft to their editor, expecting to get feedback, and they just printed them instead.

THE MORNING LIGHT HAS VANQUISHED THE HORRIBLE POEM

Yadda Yadda, they defeat Dracula and… Oh, this sucks. This whole book I’ve wondered how his mom would react to him returning home with ripped up clothes and what would happen with Carol, his high school crush. It doesn’t tell us.

Simon and Tim say their good-byes, Linda gives him a platonic hug, and they talk about the things they’ve learned. Tim has learned to just say no to chocolate (despite his clear complexion and perfect figure), and that there are scarier things than high school bullies. Simon tells him that it was okay to be violent in the fantasy world of Castlevania, but that doesn’t mean he should cut his bully open for a handful of experience points. Tim’s then sent back into his own world and it ends.

Why even bring up Carol in the introduction? When he thought “Forget Carol Jance,” I didn’t think he actually would. I trudged through bad puns and sledgehammer grannies for half an ending. Instead of showing how Tim grew as a character from his adventure by having him ask out Carol or confront his bully, the author had Simon Belmont tell Tim how he grew. I know I mentioned that Howell loves dialogue, but that sucks.

I never thought I’d be this angry that a Worlds of Power novel ended abruptly.