5/10 is generous, I'd probably give this game less. It was a huge disappointment after the excellent first Castlevania.

Why is it so bad? For starters, you often have no idea about where to go and what you have to do, thanks both to the horrible english translation and to the stupid idea of having villagers regularly give you utterly false clues. It is at times pretty much impossible to figure out what you must do unless you are using a walkthrough (or have nothing else to do than play all day and try a bunch of random things for hours on end).

The gameplay itself sucks as well. You will constantly find yourself short of money (hearts) and will often have to spend time walking around aimlessly to kill enemies and collect hearts: boring. The overworld is composed mainly of uninspiring straight lines one after another, and going through the dungeons (mansions) is a chore because of the innumerable invisible pits: pits that look like normal ground you can walk on, yet when you walk on them you fall. As a result you constantly have to watch your step and throw holy water on every block to check whether it is a real block or an invisible pit that will cause you to die or to have to backtrack. How on earth did the makers of this game think this would be enjoyable?

The mansions are also usually not protected by enemy bosses, you only have to show up at the right place to collect the treasure, which is very anti-climactic. And on the few occasions where there ARE enemy bosses you can actually ignore them! How lame is that?

The only good thing about this game is the soundtrack, and the infamous line "What a horrible night to have a curse".

It is the worst Castlevania in the whole series. Give this one a miss.