After trying to find different ways to play Castlevania: Rondo of Blood for over a month, I eventually came to the conclusion that my one way to play the game without having to wait a few months to get my PlayStation 4 out of storage was to unlock it (along with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night) through its PSP remake, Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. The whole idea surrounding this was weird to me, because if Konami was going to put two of the most acclaimed games in one of their most beloved franchises on a portable console, then it would've made a lot more sense for them to just release the games as they were instead of tacking them onto a lifeless remake that nobody asked for. Regardless, I sat down one night and begrudgingly played my way through this newer version just to get to play the games that I actually wanted in the first place, but while I thought that my frustration was coming going through this roundabout way just to save $18, playing the original game made me quickly realize that a lot of that came from the game itself. Maybe it's because I got used to how fun and fluid Super Castlevania IV was to play back when I beat it in June, but I felt pretty much nothing but frustration with Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, and I spent every moment of my three-ish hour playthrough wanting to just get it over with.

If there's one positive thing that I can say about Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, it would be that it was easily the best looking and sounding game in the series so far. On top of having some awesome music, the colorful and detailed 16-bit graphics made for a thick and grim atmosphere, especially when you compare it to the drab, lifeless look of the 2007 remake. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood also features some stylish anime-style cutscenes, but the version that I played would have the sound randomly cut out after a certain point (which also happened frequently during the game), so I ended up having to rewatch them on YouTube just to understand what was happening. There were also some interesting ideas at play with the actual levels, as the branching paths made it feel rewarding to explore each stage. Richter Belmont also has a few new moves that I liked in concept, but in practice, I didn't get very much use out of them. The backflip was somewhat useful for very specific boss attacks and was inconsistent everywhere else, and while I did like the idea of Item Crash attacks, I rarely ever used them out of fear of wasting my hearts.

Putting the things that I liked about the game aside, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood made me feel like I was playing the original game on the NES again, and I really don't mean that as a compliment. Rather than the genuinely fun control scheme of Super Castlevania IV, this game decided to retain the clunky, slow, and unreliable controls of the first game, which made the game a thousand times less fun for me. Even when the game isn't throwing NES-era one-hit deaths and infinitely spawning enemies at you during the game's last stretch, playing as Richter is so sluggish and unresponsive that killing even the simplest enemies is an absolute headache, and the game's emphasis on memorizing enemy placement rather than being able to just play the game made playing it feel like a chore. Granted, I did get much more use out of my items here than I did in Super Castlevania IV, but even then, I don't understand the thinking behind deliberately making your game unfun to play when you've clearly proven that you can do the opposite. I've heard that unlocking Maria makes the game much for fun to play, but going to her room would make the game freeze as the cutscene audio played in the background before crashing entirely, so I was essentially locked in a permanent hard mode. Calling Castlevania: Rondo of Blood a bad game would be a bit of a stretch, and it was definitely better than that first NES game, but it certainly wasn't a fun one, and since I've been looking forward to play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night ever since I was a kid, I really hope that it's worth it.