Dracula X is a whiff, if I'm being honest. I understand that its status as a compromised pseudo-port of Rondo of Blood meant it wasn't going to be on that game's level, but I didn't expect something so middling. This feels like it was handed over to the GB team (not that I've checked), with the same technical and design sloppiness that permeated those games. There are a few novel ideas which I would have liked to see implemented in better Castlevania games, such as the natural means by which the first alternate level is accessed, but I can't say they were enough to create an overall positive impression.

The fundamentals are there, so its not dreadful, just don't feel too bad using save states to get past some of the bullshit level and enemy design. That final boss can fuck right off.

Of all the Classic Castlevania games that follow the traditional formula of the series, Dracula X is likely the most divisive, disliked of them all, with the fact of it feeling like an inferior version of the highly acclaimed Rondo of Blood, but for the SNES, immediately souring the opinions on the game for many people, especially in retrospect. Further adding to the displeasure that many people felt for the game was how it felt like a step back in a lot of respects, with reduced whip functionality, bringing back the whip controls from the NES titles, but also making the mobility be far more limited than Super Castlevania IV, along with the design of the game in terms of its approach to difficulty also feeling extremely out of whack. Nonetheless, despite me thinking that this game has a fair few shortcomings and that the Genesis got the superior game in the form of Bloodlines, there’s definitely some positives along with the negatives.

The game’s presentation here is far more vibrant than the often washed out look of Super Castlevania IV, with a much brighter colour palette, along with more detailed models across the board, many of them going on to be the signature look of them for games to come. This ultimately makes it that even during the most frustrating moments in the game, there’ll almost always at least be some eye candy on screen to keep you interested, especially with the developers seemingly wanting to push the hardware to the absolute limit with some of the effects in the game, notably the gigantic fire in the background throughout the opening level. The unfortunate downside to this is that I feel that the game ended up making the same mistake as Super Castlevania IV, overextending to the point where there are some significant performance drops in certain areas, most notably during a boss fight that continuously summons enemies as time goes on, creating an insane amount of particle effects to the point where it almost feels as if the boss is using the extreme lag as a weapon of its own. One other issue with the presentation of this game is the fact that by this point the series begins to feel formulaic, perpetuating many of the conventions within this series, but without really adding anything meaningful or interesting to them, with a lot of it, such as the obligatory clock tower stage, simply feeling like retreading old ground, making the excitement of discovery and progression from the games feel lessened here due to its predictability.

Outside of the presentation, the game’s design as a whole also feels considerably weaker than a fair few of the past titles as well, bringing back a lot of the more unfair aspects of the past games such as excessive bottomless pits and enemies placed in extremely awkward, near undodgeable locations that often force the player to either perform an extremely reckless action, or spend a great deal of time tediously inching their way through what the game throws at you. Often it just feels like the original intention of the slow movement of having to constantly think about your each and every move was lost to an extent here, with it often feeling like an unnecessary hindrance rather than anything else.

The worst offender of a lot of these issues is the final stage however, which feels straight up a mess in multiple ways that ultimately makes the game unsatisfying. For one, a lot of the stage feels conventional and unadventurous to the point where I genuinely didn’t realise it was the final stage until I got up to the Dracula fight, since very little outside of the initial stair climb really resembles anything too climactic, the obstacles either being incredibly easy or downright obnoxious to deal with, but nothing really having the spectacle you’d expect from the grand finale of the game. However, while the game being quite anticlimactic is definitely disappointing, where this game truly fails is by having undoubtedly the worst boss in the series, and it’s not even close. A large part of the problem comes down to the fact that the arena is set up on thing pillars of varying heights over a death pit, effectively making most hits taken from the fight an immediate death. While this alone is absolutely awful, the nail in the coffin is really how aggravatingly tedious the fight is, with certain locations making it impossible to get hit by all but one attack, but RNG potentially making the battle last from anywhere between a minute to 5, especially depending on whether or not the player makes effective use of the axe subweapon or not. What this does is make the already underwhelming final stretch of the game end up leaving a bad taste in your mouth after either struggling for an incredibly long period of time against the final encounter, or just giving up on account of it not feeling worth the effort in the slightest, making an already flawed game even less fun by the end.

Honestly, this game just feels really formulaic and mediocre in a lot of ways, despite some good aspects definitely making it feel at least somewhat worth a try. It feels like there was a serious issue with creativity in this game on the whole unfortunately, just going through the motions again but with a really nice looking coat of paint, with some aspects, such as the boss fights feeling greatly improved for the most part, while others just felt like creative bankruptcy. This is highlighted to me in the OST for this game, with all of the tracks being really great, with a more upbeat feel than any previous game, but with 3 of the stages out of 7 being reprises of the main themes from the original trilogy of games, and the final stage feeling like a mishmash of them that didn’t end up sounding quite right. Ultimately, while this game does succeed in some ways, as a whole it often feels more like a botched love letter to the games of the past, but rather than building upon the ideas of these games, it just feels like taking them without much additional thought put into it, which makes the game really feel like a step back form the progression the series was seeing from game to game.

Classic-vania games all function so similarly that it seems pointless to go over their design except as a delta of the template, but that makes it difficult to review this game in particular. Bloodlines has multiple characters, Super Castlevania 4 focuses on setpieces more than challenging action, but Dracula X is essentially the first game all over again. It’s simple, it’s difficult, but it doesn’t have the same stylistic flair as its peers.

Ok, I can’t keep going on with that style, anyone who reads my stuff knows this sudden lurch in tone is the equivalent of me throwing the papers on my desk into the air, but I take issue with the way that Dracula X is discussed, and this is my chance to air some grievances. The phrase you can’t get away from is “botched Rondo of Blood”, and while there is some truth to that, I think it’s way too easy of an evaluation to slap on and call it a day. The truth is that Rondo of Blood has its own flaws, and Dracula X is a response to those criticisms mixed in with the limitations of the Super Nintendo. Namely, the difficulty curve of Rondo of Blood definitely needed a second look. Most of the game is pretty easy, until you reach the sixth stage, which is a massive difficulty spike that I found to be one of the hardest bosses in the series. Then, the difficulty jerks up and down until the final fight, a showdown with Dracula that’s one of the most effortless. Meanwhile, Dracula X’s curve makes much more sense, starting high but increasing steadily, finishing off with an appropriately difficult climax. Whether that makes the total experience for you better or worse is a question unto itself, but the point is that it shouldn’t just be dismissed as a porting mistake. Meanwhile, one aspect that’s an almost indisputable downgrade is the general game feel, where Richter feels less responsive and slower than he does in Rondo of Blood. However, when compared to the rest of the series, the movement in Rondo is the one that’s the outlier. Castlevania Bloodlines also came out after Rondo and feels the same way as X, but it doesn’t receive the same criticism because it fits in line with the rest of series without carrying those stylistic expectations.

That’s really what I wanted to put out there about Dracula X, that I hope people can play it with the perspective of the wider series, not just its most direct predecessor. Imagine how this game would be thought of if it had the exact same content, but was about, I don’t know, Steve Belmont instead of Richter. I think we would end up with more reviews like the one I started with, simply noting that this game felt like a SNES version of the original Castlevania. It’s simple, it’s challenging, and it requires more planning and experimentation with subweapons than either Bloodlines or Super Castlevania 4. As someone who likes that original NES Castlevania more than Rondo of Blood (I can hear people fainting), I’m completely ok with that. I like Dracula X, even if it really isn’t as good. In my view, it’s much worse of a fate to be dismissed and forgotten rather than critiqued, so I hope this review can inspire people to take a second look and be disappointed in a whole new way.