JoeTheDestroyer's Akumajou Dracula X: Chi no Rondo review

Nicely written, but I do have one catch with the ending. Rondo of Blood was actually released in 2008 as a part of the Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles compilation on the PSP. I guess you could say it was a double release, since said disc includes a visually remade version of Rondo, as well as the original game.

True--and that package was freaking awesome.

Aside from the fix in your final note... I've now read the review, and it's amazingly well written--this might be your best review (that I've read, and I think I've read most of them).

Kudos!

Everything I read anything about Rondo, I remember back to when I bought Dracula X for my Super Nintendo. And then I feel sad.

Yeah cuz that game... isn't great.

Indeed. If I made a list of my TOP TEN MOST DISAPPOINTING PURCHASES, it would rank somewhere reasonably high.

Thank you, folks. In the final note, I said, 'in its original format', which basically doesn't include the remake. I could offer a small side note in there on the remake, though.

The remake IS awesome though. AND it includes SotN? How crazy is that. It's the best package since The Orange Box.

Am I the only one that actually think the SNES revision was a solid game? :|

But have you played the Turbo one? Cuz it's the comparison that makes the SNES one seem especially lame.

I have, actually. Rondo of Blood is an awesome game, but I still think its SNES remix is a fine effort.

I haven't played Rondo, so I can't judge too harshly, but I definitely enjoyed what I played of Dracula X on the SNES. It does really seem to be a case where people don't like a good game because the better one they wanted was never localized. See also: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Fun game... but people wanted Final Fantasy V.

I played the SNES one and wound up rage-quitting it. I may pick it back up in the future because I've gotten much better at games in general since playing it.

I actually played the SNES one first. So without Rondo for reference, I already thought it was pretty weak. It has that crappy invincibility window which allows you to get bounced around--very annoying. SCIV is like, a million times better.

I'll admit it: I just really like the graphics on Dracula X a lot and the graphics on SCIV don't do anything for me. I've never played SCIV, mind you... but I've seen so many screenshots and they have always repulsed me, even during the SNES launch window. Tragic, I'm sure.

I like SCIV. Maybe not as much as other Castlevanias, but it's still a worthy contribution.

I believe that SCIV is probably a great game. I realize that I haven't gotten around to playing it for a really stupid reason (though obviously there's a lot more to it than that one reason; it just happened to be one of the things that kept the game low enough on my list of titles to try that I never actually did). But whatever. Dracula X had a pleasing visual style and that one I've actually tried. I was only a casual Castlevania fan, anyway, until Symphony of the Night. I played Castlevania on the NES a lot, and Castlevania III a fair bit, but then I forgot about the series until Alucard won me over and made me a permanent fan.

The visual style repulsed you? Are you nuts?

Visual 'style' aside, SCIV crushes Dracula X in every way. It's universally regarded as one of the big three, 2D non-Metroidvania titles: Dracula X (the real one), Castlevania III, and SCIV.

I never had even heard of Rondo before starting up at GFaqs, but had experienced Dracula X beforehand.

To me, X had fewer levels than either SCIV or C III and didn't have the whip versatility that IV possessed. It just came off to me as a graphically impressive game that was a step back from the previous installments I'd played in every other way.

And there was the final time I played it when in the stage where the boss is the werewolf (I remember loving the background graphics for that fight). In the part where you're climbing from bottom to top up a cavern, I got stuck because the bats (or bird) that flew around got into a pattern where I couldn't progress to save my life. Every time I moved, WHAM! Think there might have those spear knights (part #28 in a series of tough arcade-vania foes that became patsies in metroid-vanias) complicating things.

SC4 is freakin' ugly -- it's like the graphic "artists" took orange and brown and splattered it all over some failed Castlevania clone. SNES Drac X looked decent, as far as SNES games go.

Rondo and Bloodlines (in that order) are by far the best-looking pre-SOTN Castlevania games.

//Zig

Hilarious that a Genesis fan has stuff to say about a game being poorly coloured.

Take your weird bias and unpopular opinions back to Unlimitedzigworks!

Someone (MASTERS) needs to check his SNES-versus-Genesis facts!

//Zig