11-1-1988		8-28-1987
	4-27-1990		-

It has been seven years, since the fall of Count Dracula. Simon now visits his family's plot, while nursing a injury to his back. It was then out of nowhere that a woman appeared behind him. She speaks to him almost from within his mind.
  "Be warned that a curse was laid upon you, durring your last battle with the Lord of Darkness. You are not long for this world. You must find and bring together the remains of Dracula, which were scattered across the countryside. When this is done, bring them to Castle vania, and resurect the Count. Once you defeat him, the curse will be lifted from your blood."
After teh warning, she vanishes as quickly as she appeared. And Simon sets out to free himself from Dracula's evil curse.

Simon's Quest ws the second installment to the Castlevania series. Released in 1988, it broke away from the previous titles in many ways.
There no longer was the liniar action from Castlevania. You rather are able to explore the world at will, and visit locations as many times as you want. This was more of an RPG/ Action game, similar to the Symphony of the Night title, released almost 10 years later. The aspect of the RPG genre does not end there. You are able to visit folks in towns, purchase items, as well as weapons. There is also a church within each town, to restore lost HP.
In addition Simon's Quest has an EXP gaining system. After gaining so many points, all of Simon's Stats will increase. As he gains the new levels, the amount of EXP needed for the next level will go up. There are six levels to gain in all, and is a definite help within the game itself.
Simon's Quest is also one of the very first games ever that had the enviroment change from ngiht to day. Durring the daylight hours, townsfolk are out in the towns, and enemies outside of town are a bit easier to defeat. When night falls, the enemies get a strength/HP boost, and the towns are filled with Ravens and Zombies. Also the shops and other rooms are not accessible.
There were some elements from the earlier titles that were kept for Simon's Quest. Things such as his whip being the main weapon, and the use of Sub-Weapons. Also a lot of the enemy sprites were taken from the first Castlevania.
The music found within the game is pretty good, and very eerie. But it does not hold to the original. It seems like there was no new ground taken with this release from Castlevania, as far as the scoring of the game. That is not to say it is in any way bad, it is surely great to listen to while playing. Just that it really was not any different than playing the first one.
Graphically, the color pallette, though limited, was pretty well done. The contrasts of color between the day and night was done quite well. It was a shame that the enemies were not treated with the same changes as the background was in these different times.
Overall, Simon's Quest is still looked at favorably by fans of the series. The only real complaints on the game, stemed from the poor Japanese-English translation. And at the time, almost all games were suffereing from that. Still, it is a pretty solid game, though I just do not like it as much as I did Castlevania, or Dracula's Curse for the NES.