Castlevania II: Simon's Quest Cheat Codes & Secrets
Complete collection of cheat codes, passwords, unlockables, and hidden secrets for Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1987).
Password System
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest does not use battery-backed saves. Instead, the game issues a 20-character password whenever you receive a Game Over, which you enter on the password screen at startup. Passwords are arranged in a 4×5 grid of uppercase letters and digits (A–Z, 0–9).
Each password encodes the following game state:
- Current heart count (in-game currency)
- Whip upgrade level (Leather → Thorn → Chain → Morning Star)
- Which of the five Dracula body parts you hold (Rib, Heart, Eyeball, Nail, Ring)
- Which mansion orbs you have collected
- Time of day and current day count
- Lives remaining
Because the algorithm has been fully reverse-engineered by the community, password generators exist that let you construct any starting configuration. Always test passwords on an emulator before entering on original hardware to avoid losing time.
Useful Passwords
| Password | Effect | Notes |
|---|---|---|
GDAAC AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA | Start with Leather Whip, 50 hearts | Approximate early-game baseline |
GTAAC AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA | Start with Chain Whip, 50 hearts | Skips two whip upgrades |
HYIEZ ZDIGU ALCZZ ZIDGC | Morning Star, high hearts, several Dracula parts collected | Mid-to-late game starting point; verify on emulator |
DBOAH YDMML KAOAH YDMML | All five Dracula body parts, Morning Star | Near-endgame position; verify on emulator |
Note: Password encoding in the North American release differs from the Japanese Famicom Disk System version. Passwords from Japanese guides will not work on the NES cartridge, and vice versa.
The Three Endings and Day-Count Manipulation
The game tracks elapsed in-game days, and your final day count at Dracula’s defeat determines which of three endings you receive.
| Days Elapsed | Ending |
|---|---|
| 7 or fewer | Best ending — Simon is fully cured |
| 8–14 | Middle ending — partial recovery |
| 15 or more | Worst ending — Simon succumbs to the curse |
Kneeling Day/Night Trick
During the screen-flash transition between day and night, hold Down to kneel. If you remain kneeling through the full transition animation, the transition consumes less real-time without advancing the day counter at the same rate. Experienced players use this to stretch daytime and compress the in-game calendar, targeting the best ending on tighter routes.
Beneficial Glitches and Exploits
Walk-on-Water via White Crystal
Equip the White Crystal, then enter a body of water. Under specific screen-scroll conditions near certain river edges, Simon can stand on the water surface without the Blue Crystal ferry. This skips waiting for nightfall to summon the ferryman, saving multiple in-game days on optimized runs.
Kneeling Whip Height Advantage
When Simon kneels and whips, the hitbox sits lower than a standing attack. This lets you reliably hit enemies that move along the ground — such as skeletons — while their projectiles pass over Simon’s crouched hitbox. Skilled players alternate crouch-whip and stand-whip to control enemy engagement height precisely.
Enemy Respawn Grinding
Enemies respawn every time you scroll them off-screen and return. Use this at any exterior area near a town merchant to farm hearts (the game’s currency) for whip or item upgrades without backtracking.
Laurel Invincibility Stacking
Laurels grant temporary invincibility. If you activate a second Laurel while the first is still running, the timer resets. In areas with unavoidable damage (spike corridors, certain boss rooms), keep a Laurel active by reapplying before the animation ends. This effectively makes you invincible indefinitely as long as your supply holds.
Garlic Hidden Vendor Reveal
Placing Garlic on the ground in specific locations causes hidden NPCs to appear and offer items or information that is otherwise inaccessible. Several crucial game items — including whip upgrades and key story hints — are sold only by these hidden merchants. The exact tile locations are:
- Outside Berkeley Mansion entrance (south side)
- The graveyard area between Jova and Veros
- A lakeside location west of Aljiba
Deborah Cliff Drop
At Deborah Cliff, Simon must use the White Crystal and kneel in the water to reveal a path to the basement. If you enter the water without the crystal, you take damage and are repositioned. Some emulator runs manipulate the death-respawn point to skip crystal acquisition — the repositioning after water death can place Simon slightly past certain gate triggers.
Death Warp Position Reset
Dying resets Simon to the entrance of the current outdoor zone, not to the last building or town entered. On specific map segments, intentionally dying is faster than walking back through zones, since outdoor areas are longer than the respawn walk. This is used in some community routing to skip backtracking.
Hidden Messages and Easter Eggs
”WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE”
When the sun sets and the game transitions to night, a text box appears reading:
“What a horrible night to have a curse.”
This line has no gameplay function — it is pure atmospheric flavor text from the localization team. It became one of the most famous pieces of text in NES history and is widely quoted in the retro gaming and internet communities.
NPC Dialogue Variations
A handful of NPC villagers give contradictory or outright false directions — a consequence of the notoriously troubled North American localization. The original Japanese text contained functional clues; these were mistranslated or fabricated in English, creating some of the game’s most notorious puzzle dead-ends (such as directions to throw the flame whip into a lake, which are misleading). The “correct” Japanese clues are considered a form of hidden content since following them reveals puzzle solutions absent from the English version.
The “Go to the town of Aljiba” Chain
Several NPCs provide a chain of directions that loops between towns. In the Japanese original this is a coherent bread-crumb trail. In the English release, the chain contains enough corrupted steps that following it literally sends Simon in circles — an unintentional Easter egg of localization failure that players have documented exhaustively.
Combat and Movement Techniques
| Technique | Input | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Crouch whip | Down + B | Lowers whip hitbox to hit ground enemies |
| Stair-edge attack | Stand at top of staircase + B | Hits enemies on stairs below without descending |
| Jump whip cancel | A then B immediately | Releases whip at peak of jump arc for maximum range |
| Block with Laurel | A (item) at contact | Makes contact damage zero for Laurel duration |
| Crystal kneel pass | Down (hold) in trigger zone | Activates crystal-linked doors without standing |
Speedrun Reference
The Castlevania II speedrun community targets Any% (beat Dracula) and All Orbs categories. Key routing decisions:
- Purchase Morning Star before entering the second mansion — the damage increase versus the heart cost is net positive by mansion three.
- Skip the Thorn Whip purchase entirely if routing Morning Star directly; the heart savings fund the jump to Chain and then Morning Star in fewer merchant stops.
- Use the Blue Crystal ferry at night only when necessary; the White Crystal walk-on-water exploit eliminates two of the five ferry crossings in optimal routing.
- Trigger the Laurel glitch before Dracula’s room to absorb the opening hit while repositioning.
The current community records and full routing notes are maintained on the Castlevania II category pages at Speedrun.com, where password-based category starts (using pre-configured passwords to skip early content) are tracked separately from fresh-start runs.