So I was playing Simon’s Quest (again) earlier and you guys might know by now that I’m incredibly normal (extremely deranged) about that game, but it’s got me thinking about something: what exactly are the hearts and why are they the money in this game?

Hearts in the first game and almost every game after Simon’s Quest are the thing that you need to collect to be able to use subweapons and they primarily come from candles, but enemies can drop them too. But in Simon’s Quest, while they do still power a couple subweapons, it’s only the ones we’ve never seen before like the Sacred Flame and Golden Knife while not being used for the Holy Water, something that does in every other game. And they only come from enemies because there’s no candles. And there’s different sizes of them. And collecting enough of them levels Simon up. And their primary function is completely shifted to currency!!! Odd, isn’t it?

And the whole way that you buy anything in this game is really framed like some black market sketchy deal. These sellers (or crooked traders with bum deals lol) are primarily holed away in their houses under one or two layers of walls and floors only breakable by magical infinite Holy Water, something only the local badass vampire hunter guy would have after having bought some with said hearts in the first town, or they’re way tucked away in the thick of these Dracula’s army overtaken mansions, some of them even standing directly where skeletons walk past them or in between relatively large pits of spikes. Whatever the reason, these guys obviously want this fairly secret. (Aside from the first town white crystal guy, he’s fine being out in the open lol.)

So what gives??? What is Simon grinding monsters for and trading with the locals for weapons and herbs???

Now this is where things get really ✨speculative✨. I’m gonna put the cut here for suspense and intrigue I guess lol XD. This is gonna be a lot of me thinking out loud and throwing down ideas, not really like a confirmed answer to anything, just havin fun thinkin about a part of a game d(•w• )

I think there’s a few possibilities. They could be the same thing that they are other games or they could be something different just used similarly as a power source.

But first we gotta break down what hearts could be in Cv1. In a lot of the games they seem to be some kind of a general mana, a magic energy possibly not unlike how metaphysical/magical things are depicted in other media. Perhaps the subweapons themselves are magic objects and not really a physical thing that require “hearts” to be conjured. Maybe they could be physical objects that need to be enchanted with “hearts” to be anywhere comparable to Vampire Killer level usefulness. Just a few possibilities.

If the hearts in Simon’s Quest are the same thing, then this kinda makes some sense. Simon trading monster soul energy or whatever with presumably magic users for things he needs on his Quest, especially since things like Laurels (also can be called bay laurels or bay leaves) are commonly used in spells and who better to be selling a spell component than someone who does spells! Also, it makes sense that these people would be fairly out of sight as magic use was still a touchy subject at the time.

Now I don’t know how accurate this is, and if I do find a source somewhere in my way too many bookmarks I will reblog this and link it to it, but I remember reading somewhere in an interview about either SotN or one of the games made close before it that the candles are like the souls of Dracula and his army’s victims that you free when you hit them and they leave you a little parting gift for it. Yes, these games were made way after, so it’s not certain if that was the original intent of these, but I figured it adds something to this.

But what if the hearts in Simon’s Quest are not the same thing? After all, the Holy Water doesn’t use them and we can’t say if they would or not work for other subweapons that appear in CV1 since they aren’t in this one. Well there’s something else that could be dropping from killing monsters that could also fit into the above probability that these traders are magic users and it’s a little darker!

Hearts! Bones! General viscera! And this also kinda makes sense! I mean the whole plot of the game revolves around Simon already carrying pieces of Dracula’s corpse around to burn all together on an altar to cure his and the surrounding area’s curse, it’s not that far of a stretch to say that he’d be fine with carrying around pieces of other monsters and that magic users might be willing to trade things for them so they can use them in their own spells, potions, and so on. And that might also explain why Holy Water isn’t powered by hearts and is incredibly weak in comparison in this game. And why these weird, new subweapons seem to be Simon exclusive! They could be powered by things like monster blood instead of the usual magic energy-ish stuff we’re used to hearts symbolizing.

Regardless of if I’m right or not with either of these, Simon is probably taking advantage of some underground monster essence/organs trade the whole game and this is just such an interesting batshit detail for him as a character.

Anyway, I love this game so much, I’m gonna be spreading propaganda for it like this a lot hopefully lol. Okie that’s it hope that was fun, do with this information what you will :)