So, this game is definitely the toughest Castlevania I've beaten so far. It wouldn't have been so bad but there were a few bosses and stage screens that had me fuming. It was skill issue mostly though and I got through it and had some good fun. I definitely relied pretty heavily on that one save-state though, I won't lie.

I need to preface this section with the following: I went into this game just expecting it to have eight-way whipping because "SCIV did, so why wouldn't a game that came out after it?" I know that it was, truthfully, a foolish assumption to have and it's really kind of warped my experience with Bloodlines, and probably for the worse.

I originally started as John Morris, but after clearing the first stage I realized that I didn't like the way he played nor the way whip upgrades felt. It was pretty off-putting at first having just come from SCIV. I even contemplated just dropping the game in fact. But I gave Eric a chance and I'm glad I did. His spear was really cool, and since it was a spear and not a whip, the lack of eight direction attacking didn't bug me nearly as much. It may sound odd putting it like that, but in my brain it just made sense. Eric's upgraded spear being able to do multiple hits if you hold the attack button for an extra second when attacking was REALLY damned cool, and so was his ability to do a Final Fantasy Dragoon leap.

Gameplay aside, this game looks AMAZING. The visuals were just chef's kiss and the stage designs & layouts were also pretty cool. The music absolutely fucking rules and appropriately sounds so quintessentially Sega Genesis; I loved it.

Fuck the Palace of Versailles

(Played in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection on Nintendo Switch)