Unabashedly a bastardization of Rondo of Blood and not even very playable as its own thing - there's an obscene hyperfixation to moving platforms over bottomless pits, the returning enemy roster is super limited, and the final dracula fight is an abomination. And as stunning as the first level's vivid heatwave is, the game's artstyle quickly tapers off into generic halls and caves - well-drawn caves and halls, mind you, but nothing that sells Dracula's castle as an inhabited, lived-in location.

Yet, I still liked it. I have a weird love for B-tier retoolings of games with almost homebrew-esque design philosophies: They're very eye-opening not just as standalone pieces, but as complements to their source material. They're very telling of what is and isn't easily replicable relative to hardware differences, as well as the implementation and design abilities of the rookies involved. Playing one helps you find the vocab to describe the other better. The SNES reinterpretations of the redbook Rondo OST are enough reason to justify its existence imo: Really stellar synthlead work. With exception to a few returning tracks, everything sounds 90% as good and has a ghastly reverb to it that works to the hollow winds and wayward echoes of the world.

Now the world needs a Genesis retooling of Rondo.