The recent Castlevania collections allowed me to finally play a lot of Castlevania games I never had access to previously, the most recent being Castlevania: Dracula X or Vampire Kiss on the advance collection. With these collections I have established something in particular, I simply do not like the classicvania style games and Dracula X is no different, perhaps worse than some of the others in fact.
This is a remake of another Castlevania title, Rondo of Blood, made 2 years prior. Although I haven't played that yet I gather its far superior to Dracula X. The story follows Richter Belmont invading Dracula's Castle to defeat him but this time must also save his girlfriend Annet and her kid sister Maria who Dracula has kidnapped to lure Richter there. (As if a Belmont wouldn't go to Dracula's Castle to kill him?)
The game plays over 7 stages with only a few alternate paths and secrets to find that I'm aware of. From what I can see it's pretty barebones seemingly relying on its difficulty to make it repayable. And there lies my big issue is I find this game frustrating or cheap in places. Dracula X has several locations where enemy placement is intentionally awful, being stuck on platforms with medusa heads coming at angles you can't attack whilst an armored enemy throws objects on a platform you can't jump to without killing him first, it's just not fun.
Interestingly I played Super Castlevania IV at the end of last year and though it was released four years prior to this also on the Snes it just felt like a much better game. It plays better with more options and I found the sprites, backgrounds and bosses just much better.
Overall though I'm glad I played Dracula X, it's a piece of gaming history from a series I later found and loved but without the ability to rewind time from the Advance Collection I would never have been able to finish it due to its artificial difficulty with terrible enemy placements and mediocre level design.
+ A piece of gaming history...
- Frustrating enemy placement.
- Poor level design.
- Inferior to Super Castlevania IV, an older title on the same system.
This is a remake of another Castlevania title, Rondo of Blood, made 2 years prior. Although I haven't played that yet I gather its far superior to Dracula X. The story follows Richter Belmont invading Dracula's Castle to defeat him but this time must also save his girlfriend Annet and her kid sister Maria who Dracula has kidnapped to lure Richter there. (As if a Belmont wouldn't go to Dracula's Castle to kill him?)
The game plays over 7 stages with only a few alternate paths and secrets to find that I'm aware of. From what I can see it's pretty barebones seemingly relying on its difficulty to make it repayable. And there lies my big issue is I find this game frustrating or cheap in places. Dracula X has several locations where enemy placement is intentionally awful, being stuck on platforms with medusa heads coming at angles you can't attack whilst an armored enemy throws objects on a platform you can't jump to without killing him first, it's just not fun.
Interestingly I played Super Castlevania IV at the end of last year and though it was released four years prior to this also on the Snes it just felt like a much better game. It plays better with more options and I found the sprites, backgrounds and bosses just much better.
Overall though I'm glad I played Dracula X, it's a piece of gaming history from a series I later found and loved but without the ability to rewind time from the Advance Collection I would never have been able to finish it due to its artificial difficulty with terrible enemy placements and mediocre level design.
+ A piece of gaming history...
- Frustrating enemy placement.
- Poor level design.
- Inferior to Super Castlevania IV, an older title on the same system.