Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles
Thanks to the generosity of a good friend, I now own Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP. It was technically a Christmas present, but thanks to my own impatience, it’s since become a Now present.
Thinking of buying? The first thing you should know is that Dracula X Chronicles is a fantastic value. For around thirty bones you get a remake of Rondo of Blood, an extremely elusive–and extremely significant–Castlevania game that has been lost to American audiences for years. The UMD also includes the original sprite-based game, as seen on the PC Engine, as well as the greatest Castlevania title of all time: Symphony of the Night.
Simply put, you can’t lose. Between this and The Orange Box, video games are in danger of actually becoming an affordable vice.
The second thing you should know is that Dracula X Chronicles will rape you until you bleed out of every orifice. I grew up with Simon’s Quest and Dracula’s Curse; either I’ve lost my edge, or Rondo of Blood is just insanely unforgiving. Dracula’s Curse had it’s moments of “Oh God, NO,” but it seems to me that there weren’t as many instances of enemies floating around you while you made perilous jumps. Touch a skeleton and it’ll knock you back into the drink with the force of a nuclear blast. The game’s hit detection is slightly off too, which tends to happen with a lot of these polygon-based 2D games.
Admittedly I locked Symphony of the Night as fast as possible and I’m going through that instead of playing Rondo. I feel meek. Still, Konami is getting the last laugh: Symphony of the Night is a lot harder than I remember it being. Medusa Heads take two hits to kill? Since when?
More will follow as I continue to get pummeled. I’ll have to stop crying first.
What I like about the game is how it subtly begs you to replay it. Beaten the game with Richter? Play it again with Maria and see the new level names!
And even after you get 100% completion, it’s still worth replaying just to earn enough “money” to unlock the boss demo videos, which you obviously won’t need by that point since you’ll have memorized each boss long ago.
True! I didn’t realise until very recently that the levels are named according to whether it’s Maria or Richter playing through.
There’s a lot to see and do. I think I need to hone my skills again. Whipcrack.
For some reason, I swear remembering Richter as this hardcore, ass kicking, super-human bad ass mo’. I mean, his spirit is freaking ingrained in the Vampire Killer in Portrait of Ruin and the few moments you play as him in Symphony, he OWNS on Dracula.
T_T Why does he suck so much in his actual game? Oh well, unlockables ahoy!
One thing that really DOES bother me about the game is that the bosses are generally small and uninteresting. Granted, after fighting enough werewolves and minotaurs in SOTN has lessened their impact a bit, but still.
Compared to Castlevania 4, a lot of this stuff is kind of a bummer. I do like the Hydra, though. And to be fair, Castlevania 4 had a terrible final boss. Dracula’s second form is literally him with a different hair color.
“To think I am forced to resort to such hair products!”