The game's default controls are shown above.

HUD

During gameplay, the HUD consists of the following four things:

P: The player's life gauge. It will decrease with each hit Christopher takes, once it is depleted Christopher will collapse and lose a life. The life gauge can be filled back up by finding meat, and it will also be refilled when a level is completed.

E: The life gauge for the enemy boss. This will be on-screen throughout the entire level, but it will only come into use once you get into a fight with a boss.

Hearts: The current amount of hearts you have, you start with five per life. These are used with the subweapons (see below). Whenever a level is beaten, these will go down to nothing.

Time: The amount of time you have left to finish the current level. If this reaches zero, you'll lose a life.


If you pause the game, the HUD will move over, pushing the P and E off and revealing the following:

Score: Your current score, increase it by defeating enemies, beating levels and finding coins.

Rest: The current amount of lives you have.

Gameplay

Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge is a platform game. You play as Christopher Belmont, a vampire hunter who has defeated Dracula in the past. Dracula has returned, and has taken Christopher's son, Soleiyu. Christopher sets out to save his son, via conquering the magical castles which have appeared. Battle through each castle, getting past various obstacles and traps along the way. Fight and defeat numerous enemies who confront you and be ready to confront a powerful boss at the end of each stage.

If Christopher takes damage, the life gauge will decrease. If the life gauge is low, trying searching through a stage for these items:

Meat will restore some life points back, but these items are always hidden. Try whipping walls to find them.

Game Over & Continue

When you run out of lives, the game will end and the above menu will appear. You have three options:

Continue: Continue from the previous checkpoint.

Stage select: Continue from the start of the stage.

Password: Displays the password for the level you are on. Passwords can be entered at the password screen, click here to view a full list of stage passwords.

Christopher's moves

JUMPING

Press the A button to jump. This is Christopher's main method of getting past obstacles and evading enemy attacks.

CROUCHING

Press and hold down to make Christopher duck, which is very useful to avoid enemy attacks. And if you're thinking "that sprite still looks the same as the jumping sprite"...that's because it still is.

WHIPPING

Press the B button to attack with the whip. You can attack whilst standing, jumping, crouching or even when hanging from a rope. When you start the game, the rope will be at its weakest power. However...

...by collecting the above crystals, you can increase the power of the whip. You can do this twice, the first time will extend the whip's reach and power, the second time will let you cast fireballs with the whip.

Subweapons

There are three different subweapons on the game, however only two of them will be available to you -it depends on which version of the game you are playing, see this page for more details. Sub weapons require hearts to use, hearts can be found throughout each stage by whipping the numerous candles you'll find. To use a subweapon, hold up and press the B button.

HOLY WATER

Christopher will throw a bottle of this stuff in front of him, which will shatter and produce a small flame that lasts for a few seconds. Any enemy who touches the flame will be harmed, but this sub weapon has another use: it can light up the dark caves of the Rock Castle.

BATTLE AXE

Christopher will throw the axe above him, which rises and then falls in an arc motion. This is very useful for hitting things directly above you. He also throws it quite some distance, so you can attack things that are far away easily.

CROSS

Christopher will throw this out in front of him. The cross will travel a decent distance, then return the way it came -meaning it can strike the same enemy more than once.

Items

Throughout the game you'll come across candles, which contain items. Whip the candles to release the items. Some items can only be found in breakable walls. In addition to the already mentioned meat and whip crystal items, there are also these:

SMALL HEARTS

These will give you a single heart for each one collected.

LARGE HEARTS

These larger hearts will give you five hearts for each one collected.

COINS

Collect coins to increase your score, they are worth 700 points each.

1 UP

Collecting this will give you an extra life, these items are usually always well hidden.

BOSS CRYSTAL

These will always be found in a candle placed in the boss arena for each stage. Collect the crystal to make the boss appear.