Let's just get something out of the way right now. This is Simon Belmont:
This is not:
And never, ever, let me see this again:
The last image, from Castlevania: Judgment, is the very exemplar of bad design, and light years away from the original intentions of the mythos. But, then, that game was the culmination of nearly a decade of poor decisions and lackluster heroes. Simon Belmont is different. One need look no further than the development of Lords of Shadow to understand the importance of his story. Konami's original intention was to remake the story of Castlevania. That's right, the tale of Simon Belmont scaling the heights of a dark castle to battle the scions of evil is so compelling that the bosses at Konami wanted to make it again, for the eighth time. Spanish developer MercurySteam was on board with the idea. In fact, the model that became Gabriel Belmont was based off of the design for the sprite in Simon's Quest. Observe:
Some imagination is necessary, but notice the similarities in color palette and posture. That isn't a coincidence. However, this is digression. Konami backpedalled, MercurySteam had to make some changes, Hideo Kojima was called in from his secret Mt. Fuji fortress for guidance, and the rest is history. But the fact remains that the original intention for Lords of Shadow was to remake the same story that was told in 1987, and no one batted an eye. It was a no-brainer, a done deal, a guaranteed hit. The question is, of course, why?
To reiterate, the Simon Belmont saga has been told and retold seven times.
Castlevania:
Castlevania for Commodore 64:
Castlevania for Commodore Amiga:
Vampire Killer:
Haunted Castle:
Super Castlevania IV:
Castlevania Chronicles:
Granted, the Commodore ports contained largely cosmetic differences and diverged very little as far as the progression of the game is concerned, but the others represent serious changes to the story told in the original game. In Vampire Killer, Simon traverses a lot of the same areas of the castle, but he's forced to find keys and certain items in order to progress. In Haunted Castle, he's out to save his lady love from a giant grayed out Dracula head:
Seriously.
The point I'm trying to make is that unlike any other video game hero, Simon Belmont is epic. I don't mean that in a "weekday afternoon in a comic book store" way. When I say epic, I mean epic in the literal sense. The way that Simon Belmont's quest has been told and re-told directly mimics the the oral history tradition of the epic poem. Sound a bit over the top? I know, it's crazy, but look at the precedent. In each iteration of the story, something is added, altered, or modified. Even Koji Igarashi admits that the two versions of the story considered canon (Castlevania and Castlevania Chronicles) are interchangeable even though they contain considerable deviations. Chronicles even contains two versions of the game: an extended version of the original and a remix version featuring an Igarashified pink-haired Simon who's really into leather. Every iteration of the story contains a slight twist, a re-imagining of the tale. Like the epic poems that are passed down through oral tradition, the assault on Dracula's castle by Simon Belmont changes with each telling.
The important thing to remember is that there exists no hero in the video games of the time that approaches the profile of Simon. In the late 80s, video game heroes, with some notable exceptions, almost always quested against evil to rescue a girl. This is not limited to Ghosts 'N' Goblins and other quasi-medieval fare. Both Mario and Link were ostensibly out to save a princess, though Mario is more about wacky fun, and Zelda has an air of grand antiquity with its rich Hyrule mythology. Castlevania has a different theme altogether: a lone warrior must defeat the ultimate evil because he's the only one who can. True, Haunted Castle featured a Simon Belmont who was out to save his fiancée from the clutches of a tuxedo clad Dracula, but that game is so far out of canon that it's remembered by series fans the way Star Wars fans think of the Christmas Special.
What I'm getting at is that there is something visceral about this story. It keeps getting re-told. Like the best stories, the journey changes, but the end is the same. Simon always defeats Dracula and the castle always crumbles to the ground, but sometimes Simon travels through the catacombs and encounters Frankenstein's monster. In some tellings he leaps from giant chandeliers above the entrance hall. Sometimes he must battle a Slogra and Gaibon before facing Death, and other times he traps the Reaper with holy water after fighting through a hallway patrolled by axe knights (though, God help you if you miss just once; those fucking scythes are diabolical). The story is not just a series of levels in a video game. It's legend, pure and simple.
Simon Belmont differs from other heroes of the time because his quest is a dark and uncertain one. He is the heir to a great power, but cursed to have to face the darkness alone. It's telling that the first story is about the rebirth of Dracula after his first defeat, and that this is at least the third time that he's risen from the grave to wage war on mankind. What makes Simon special is that his odds are the longest. He has no help, no aid from the outside. He has no allies. Trevor and Richter Belmont both had help from friends. Simon is alone, and to add insult to injury, he's the only Belmont unlucky enough to have to face Dracula's evil twice.
It would have been enough if Simon's story ended with the slaying of Dracula at the end of the first game, but Konami decided, even if it was likely an unwitting act of brilliance, to bring him back for more. Unlike other video games of the era, which tend to suffer from amnesia, Simon's Quest picks up seven years after the end of Castlevania. Simon's victory was not complete. In his battle with Dracula, he was wounded and cursed, rendering him unable to father an heir. Don't even ask what part of Simon was injured because I'm not going to comment on such things and shame on your juvenile, dirty minds.
But I'm guessing it was probably his junk.
Anyway.
Simon's destiny is to travel the blighted countryside and reassemble Dracula's corpse, complete the rite to revive him, and slay him again. After barely surviving the first time. Epic? Epic.
Compare that to, say, the events of Mega Man 2, in which Mega Man must fight Dr. Wily and a cast of elementally specific robots in the year 20XX.
Again.
Or the events of The Legend of Zelda II: Links Awakening, wherein another Link (not the same from the first game) must save another Zelda (who's cursed to sleep until Link finds a cure; also not the same Zelda) in a Hyrule in the future and unite the Triforce (somehow broken up again) and prevent the return of Ganon (who is the same from the first game).
My. Head. Hurts.
Despite the rampant and well documented flaws of Simon's Quest, the concept is fantastic. In the previous post, I waxed quite philosophic on the notion of expanding the quest outside of the castle. Here I want to focus on the quest itself. True, the game is artificially lengthened by heart farming, is needlessly obtuse when it comes to progression, and lacks the level design expected from a Castlevania entry, but it completes the story of Simon Belmont in a much more pleasing way than to simply close with a Happily Ever After following the death of Dracula.
Even considering all that, Simon's Quest is something of a melancholy experience. Simon is the only person capable of extinguishing the curse that's rotting both the land and his body. If you don't finish the game fast enough, you're treated to a grayscale image of a headstone and some music that manages to sound mournful and triumphant at once. If you haven't seen it, it looks like this:
The good ending looks like this:
There's a middle ending, too, that tells you that Simon dies due to his cursed wounds. That's pretty brutal. Even the good ending is circumspect as to Simon's fate, though it's clear through later games that later married, produced an heir, etc. Otherwise we wouldn't have Juste or Richter Belmont.
No other Belmont really matches up to Simon, though great pains are taken in the Igarashi era to crown Richter as the greatest of all the vampire killers. There's also a suspicious dearth of mentions about Simon in the rest of the games. Curse of Darkness and Symphony of the Night both expand upon the events surrounding Trevor Belmont in Dracula's Curse, and other games mention Richter and even Christopher Belmont, but outside of the original Castlevania and Simon's Quest, Simon's memory remains something akin to sacrosanct, as though the developers of new games are afraid to trample on his heritage. Not that I blame them. Trevor's game might be the best of the lot, Richter's and Alucard's the ones with the most depth and replay value, but Simon was first, and it was his example and courage that led the way from the gates of the castle to the highest keep, to the very heart of darkness.
Tune in next time, when I dissect the rest of the Belmont clan, and the other miscellaneous heroes that have donned the mantle of vampire killer.
