Rondo of Blood is my favourite classic Castlevania, and the remaining titles I’ve yet to play don’t seem likely to change that. Releasing only two years after Super Castlevania IV, also on a 16-bit console, there is a surprising leap in audiovisual quality. This was due to Rondo of Blood being one of the first games released on CD format. This is fascinating as it meant that Rondo of Blood could feature CD quality music, as well as charming anime style cutscenes with fittingly corny and compressed voice acting all while still being a 2D side-scroller. These cutscenes still look great on the small display of a handheld device despite the limited animation, the best of these is the opening montage which establishes the simple premise of the game and acts as a bit of a hype reel for our new Belmont, Richter. Watching this after booting up the game for testing purposes skyrocketed it to the top of the games, I was interested in playing next and was what got me to consider Castlevania games pre- Symphony of the Night.

The first stage immediately makes an impression on you with a flashy confrontation with Death on top of a moving chariot, a significant step up in sprite work is clear, from the galloping horses pulling you along to the expressive animations of Death himself as he goads Richter, wagging his finger before vanishing from sight. God, I love parallax scrolling, Dracula’s castle just visible in the distance above the trees. The detail in this scene alone is astonishing, pure 16-bit perfection. After a fade to black you make it to the burning village in the opening, another beautiful intertitle slides in, reading “Dinner of Flames” before it dissolves away and the triumphant Blood Relations of Heaven and Earth kicks in, you step forward watching Richter’s Chad walk animation cycle gloriously, you whip the skeletons in front of you and smile, this is Castlevania at it’s peak.

The game ceases to lose this momentum one bit, as each successive stage introduces new locales that are colourful and distinct, alongside new enemies and exhilarating boss battles, which are some of the best designed encounters in any 2D game, certainly the finest in the series. The level design is excellent with lots of verticality and secrets to uncover, enemy placement is challenging but the stages are the perfect length for you to lock in for, without it feeling exhausting, this also mitigates frustration if you get a game over on a boss and have to restart the Stage, as it cuts down on the run back to attempt the battle again. Another improvement Rondo makes is in the removal of frequent insta death pits present in other entries, which can be extremely easy to fall into thanks to knock back and poor enemy placement which often times cannot be reacted to without foresight. Now in Rondo a lot of these ‘would be’ insta death pits lead to alternate paths, adding an element of exploration absent in previous titles, investigating these alternate paths, whipping suspicious blocks, can lead to entirely different alternate stages with hidden maidens to rescue and new bosses that are exclusive to them. I found myself liking the return to the two directional whip as it encourages you to learn effective sub-weapon usage and diagonals aren’t aways consistent on certain D-pads, because of this there is a form of resource management as you collect fuel for these in the form of hearts dropped from candlesticks, conserving hearts is important in giving yourself the upper hand against the concluding boss of each stage as the more your enter the arena with, the more Item Crashes you can unleash. Item Crashes are ultimate moves that you can perform with enough hearts, they launch you into the air where you perform an attack that reflects the current sub-weapon in your possession, these last a long time and deal lots of damage, and depending on the sub weapon can hit the boss when he is out of reach, they can also be used tactically to deal damage while avoiding incoming damage from attacks that cover a large area or are hard to avoid. Some more minor improvements Rondo makes is the ability to jump on stairs and pick up sub-weapons after they’ve been replaced, these changes sound small on paper but they make a huge difference, especially the latter as it allows you to be more tactical in what sub weapon you bring along with you whilst letting you optimise heart collection from candlesticks without worrying about losing you current sub-weapon.

In conclusion Rondo of Blood is a great entry point for the fans of the succeeding non-linear Castlevanias willing to explore the series roots. Rondo of Blood is one of the finest games of its era, sadly overlooked due to it lacking a worldwide release until many years later, with truly incredible stage design, boss battles and a spectacular soundtrack that is one of only two in the series that isn’t constrained by hardware limitations. It’s absolutely an essential play.

If nothing else, the atmosphere is second to none. The intro cutscene spoken entirely in German(?), the chilling choral piece accompanying the main menu, the BADASS opening with Richter fighting Death on horseback, the effects of the turbo-grafx 16, the rockin soundtrack, the cutscenes (dated as they are) as far back as 1993, the almost comic book presentation. Come ON, man! I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that its atmosphere is what's kept classic Castlevania relevant, but I would say that you'd be hard pressed to find another game of this era so atmospherically impressive and immersive.

And the central gimmick (for lack of a better term) of this game, with unlockable alternate stages, putting an emphasis on secrets both in visuals and level design, and generally diverting away from bottomless pits, is SUCH a good direction, and feels ahead of its time. And even cooler is the secret moves and ultimate attacks between Richter and Maria and the subweapons. This game is so fucking COOL!

All of this to say, it's so PAINFUL to see how it's held back by unnecessarily restricted controls. In a post Super Castlevania IV world, why in the world can Richter only whip directly in front of him!? Why can you only sort-of manipulate your direction in mid-air?!?! Why, for the love of Dracula, do you get so few I-frames after being hit?!?!?! These archaic, sloppy choices clash so hard with a game that feels like it's going even further than its contemporaries could ever dream of. This feels like it was supposed to be the magnum opus of the series, and many people do consider it that. It's the perfect difficulty, made arbitrarily frustrating due to Richter's lacking mobility and offensive capability. Maria is a godsend, I exclusively used her once she was unlocked, because sometimes this game just isn't fun with Richter.

I will likely warm up more to this game with time and retrospection. It still captures the elation of victory that Castlevania does so well, and I think this series deserves to be remembered because of that. And the atmosphere, again, can't be praised enough. But until Dracula returns, this game sits at the bottom of my Castlevania totem pole. Wie tragisch.

You wanna talk about a good fucking Castlevania game, look no further than this beast. Rondo of Blood is everything you should be looking for in an old-school traditional 2D Castlevania game. Everything about this game is amazing to me. What I really love about it is that the level design is REALLY GOOD. Like I'm talking no more bullshit Castlevania moments that make me want to pull my hair out. The bosses are also a highlight. Them having actual enemy patterns and it just being a test of skill and no bullshit RNG is why I don't mind replaying these levels after a game over. Speaking of which, another thing is that these levels are SHORT and have multiple pathways and secrets to find. Leading to more replayability, and having a stage select really helps when you want to go back and do everything. Game Overs in this game don't carry the same weight as they do in other Castlevanias, you have unlimited continues and the worse it gets is just replaying the stage from the beginning. But again, may I remind you, these levels are not long to begin with. So that is just a non issue in my opinion. Richter may not be as nimble or capable of shit like Simon in Super Castlevania 4 but he doesn't even fucking need it. The level design is built around his moveset. And the music oh my god the music its all bangers. The main theme kicks so much ass and even the weaker levels have the best tunes to listen to. There's even 2D cutscenes with voice acting! A first for this series! The story is just "kill Dracula" but that was always the case with these games so it doesn't matter. Having an actual save file is also a first for this series up to this point. And little things like that you take for granted start to be more appreciative when you're a maniac like me who's marathoned like 8 games right now. I love that you can also play as someone other than a belmont, maria! Maria is like the easy mode of this game but I welcome it since she's just fun to play as. She reminds me of Grant, Sypher, and Alucard from Castlevania 3 except she clears all of them. Really the only flaw I can think of is that there's barely any invincibility frames when getting hit, leading to you getting juggled by enemies easily. But to be honest, I'll take that over any bullshit death from the previous Castlevanias.

Rondo of Blood is a game I think anyone can enjoy, and its definitely one you should be looking out for should you decide to ever get into the Castlevania series, it's the best of its kind.